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.
- The causes of falsity I have set forth very clearly in II. xix. and II.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza - Proof.—Falsity consists solely in the privation of knowledge which inadequate ideas involve (II.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - I have been set free from falsity, I have found the Master.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - Everything you may say to me will be falsity and affectation.
— from The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - In each one of them she saw nothing but falsity.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - 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 - 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 - 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 - —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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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