Abstract EN:

The main aim of this thesis is to arrive at an understanding of the relationship between politics and the phenomenenon of the lie, although from the point of view of society and not from that of the liar. The ethical definition of the lie cannot serve as a satisfactory instrument with which to approach the issue under consideration. Political ethics and theological morality are not always compatible. Moreover, the lie is a form of human communication, and as such always relative to the context in which it is used. The political problem of the lie deals with the establishment of facts. The concept of the lie must be reformulated to take into account various semantic conventions and political aims, the context, and the relationship between speaker and audience. It is then possible to establish three political paradigms of the lie (sophism, the modern state of totalitarianism) with respect to the nature of the political sphere involved. The visibility of facts depends, on the one hand on the formal or structural aspects of the political sphere, on the other hand on the diversity of modes of thinking and acting in a given society. Under conditions of unobstructed visibility (the example of the Greek city-state), the lie is relative to the ambiguity of the human world and to the necessary discursivity of opinion formation. Under conditions of limited visibility (the modern sate), the lie is relative to contradictions inherent in the separation of state from society. The political lie is a function of the practice of administering the society, of bureaucratical secrecy and the fragmentation of the social sphere. The total absence of visibility (as in the case of totalitarian regimes) leads to the totalitarianization of the lie such that it becomes impossible to stabilize facts. The totalitarianization of the lie also signals the eclipse of politics while the latter is what gives society its form to signification.