Pages 169 - 170 of the Princeton edition of Concluding Unscientific Postscript, this just was neat to read just now as it treats of an interesting thing, to tell whether someone is lying or not, couched within a larger discourse Kierkegaard's pseudonymn Johannes Climacus is making in the chapter called Becoming Subjective. I can't help also having a mental image of actor Tim Roth in that show Lie to Me, that character would know what Climacus is talking about so well i bet! *_*
[quote]Yet there is a more subtle way to find out whether he is lying. Just let him talk. If he is a deciever, he will contradict himself precisely when he is giving the most solemn assurances. The contradiction will not be direct; no, it will be that the statement itself does not contain in itself the consciousness of that which the statement directly declares. Objectively understood, the statement itself can be direct; the man has merely the defect that he recites by rote.* That he also perspires and pounds the table does not demonstrate that he is not reciting by rote but merely demonstrates either that he is very obtuse or that he himself is also secretly conscious of reciting by rote. In other words, it is very obtuse to think that reciting by rote would excite someone, since excitement is internal and reciting by rote is something external, equivalent to making water, and wanting to hide one's lack of inwardness by pounding the table is at best a mediocre deception.
* Just pay attention to the reduplicated presence of the stated thought in every word, in every intermediate clause, in the digression, in the unguarded moment of simile and comparison, if one wants to take the trouble of checking whether a person is lying -- if one then scrupulously keeps watch over oneself. The ability to keep watch in this way is gained by restraining oneself; then one gains it purely gratis and ordinarily does not care to make particular use of it. [/quote]
