It鈥檚 a seductive hypothesis that falsehood is 鈥渢he lubricant that makes society run, while truth can be harsh, dangerous, and destructive鈥� as Jeremy Campbell says it is in The Liar鈥檚 Tale (W. W. Norton, 拢11.95). His intriguing and readable account of falsehood, its causes and its consequences, takes the reader from philosophy to animal behaviour. Platonic notions of falsehood as richer than truth and the huge advantages of looking poisonous if you鈥檙e a harmless moth are framed by his analysis of the language in which we describe our world and ourselves.
The clash between originality and common sense, the problem of making something new if language is merely 鈥渢he correspondence of words to facts鈥� all are discussed with wit and thought, a most pleasing correspondence.