Grice and the Invention of Lying

Kramer concludes his commentary in previous post with:

"the question that prompts "I told the truth" almost always implicates "Did you tell the truth against your/my/our interest?" which is why the answer always implicates "against my/your/our interest," i.e., that the context was one in which lying might make sense."

Excellent.

Yes. I agree. I can think of MOTHER-CHILD exchanges or the story of the "Wolf! Wolf!". Mothers, or parents generally ('the people who are least qualified to have children', Oxford dict. of hum. quotations) seem to be obsessed with 'true' and so I CAN THINK of an 'ethical' survey on a child by a mother:

A: What did you tell them? (+> I hope you did not lie yet again).
B: What happened (+> as I saw it happen -- cfr. "What the butler saw").


A: What did you tell them?
B: The truth (+> as I saw it).

This in connection with Kramer's point betweein 'speak the truth' which can be inadvertent, and 'TELL the truth'.

Enough to want to coin truthiness.