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Literary notes about falsity (AI summary)

The term “falsity” is employed in literature to capture a spectrum of meanings—from a defect in form and logic to an inherent misalignment with reality. In philosophical contexts, authors such as Spinoza and Kant use it to denote a privation of knowledge or a flaw in argumentative structure ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]), while in literary works, it often highlights the contrast between appearance and truth, as seen in the reflective murmurs of Tolstoy and Chekhov ([6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). Moreover, thinkers like Nietzsche and James further explore its role in critiquing art and cultural pretense, suggesting that falsity sometimes functions as an essential counterpoint to truth or as a tool for revealing deeper, unsettling realities ([13], [14], [15], [16], [17]). Thus, across diverse genres and eras, “falsity” emerges as a multifaceted concept used to interrogate the integrity of ideas, appearances, and human endeavors.
  1. The causes of falsity I have set forth very clearly in II. xix. and II.
    — from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza
  2. Proof.—Falsity consists solely in the privation of knowledge which inadequate ideas involve (II.
    — from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza
  3. For we have shown above, that falsity consists solely in the privation of knowledge involved in ideas which are fragmentary and confused.
    — from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza
  4. The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of an argument in respect of its form, be the content what it may.
    — from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
  5. Even as light displays both itself and darkness, so is truth a standard both of itself and of falsity.
    — from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza
  6. Is it possible that the truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent my life in falsity?
    — from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
  7. I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master.
    — from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy
  8. Everything you may say to me will be falsity and affectation.
    — from The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  9. In each one of them she saw nothing but falsity.
    — from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  10. From the first he struck me by his exceptional falsity, which simply made me sick.
    — from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  11. The rush of false feeling had already passed off without proving anything to her, only irritating and exasperating her by its falsity.
    — from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  12. In old days, when Laevsky loved her, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna’s illness had excited his pity and terror; now he saw falsity even in her illness.
    — from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  13. —The falsity of art, its immorality, must be brought into the light of day.
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche
  14. To what extent can falsity and indifference towards truth and utility be a sign of youth, of childishness, in the artist?
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche
  15. They now honoured and idealised things with as much falsity as they had previously slandered them.
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche
  16. I unearthed the instinct of the theologian everywhere: it is the most universal, and actually the most subterranean form of falsity on earth.
    — from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche
  17. Thoughts partake of it directly, as they partake of falsity or of irrelevancy.
    — from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James

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