Lying vs. misleading: The adverbial account

We intuitively make a distinction between lying and misleading . As several philosophers have pointed out, on the account of this distinction favored here – the adverbial account, as I’ll call it – it provides evidence on the theoretical notion of what is said and the related theoretical distinction between semantics and pragmatics. For, on that account, the distinction tracks whether or not the content and the assertoric force with which it is presented are semantically conveyed. On an alternative (assertoric) commitment account, the difference between lying and misleading is predicated instead on the strength of assertoric commitment. One lies when one presents with full assertoric commitment what one believes to be false; one merely misleads when one presents it with short-of-full assertoric commitment, by merely hinting or otherwise implying it. Here I’ll present the debate confronting the two accounts, and I’ll provide support for the adverbial account and its methodological application.