Between li(n)es : a philosophical study on the transformation of the meaning of lie in post-truth condition

Through Western philosophical history, the concept of truth has been transformed from Plato, Nietzsche and Hannah Arendt. Truth and lies have been regarded as a clear opposite pair, where lies are defined as false statements for the purpose of deceiving.

The term "post-truth" denotes a different kind of experience when the line between truth and falsehood is blurred. In our digital and virtual age, reality and fiction, truthfulness and falsehood, are woven together from the very beginning. What is true and what is a lie is determined by how phenomena and statements appear and are displayed, how they are performed and predicted.

This shift challenges the historical philosophical opposite pair of philosophy and calls for further investigation. Lies are no longer statements but media spectacles that follow the logic of performativity, rather than a discursive logic.

The purpose of this study is to develop a philosophical study of how the meaning of lies is transformed in an era of "post-truth". Overall, the project wants to test how the new meaning of lies reveals a crisis of meaning where new forms of fascism and anti-democratic authoritarianism flourish. The goal of these nascent forms of fascism does not seem to be to dupe the truth but rather to use new strategies of "organized lies".

The present study presents philosophical reflections on the changing meaning of lies as a spectacle of meaning from which new forms of fascism emerge in a global technological-capitalist world.