the un cover

Coleman and Kay (1981) dissect the concept of "lie" for the sake of prototypicality; what I am really trying to do is compare their treatment with that of St. Augustine in his De Mendacio 

Quis ergo mentitur; ille qui elegit falsum dicere ne fallat, an ille qui elegit uerum dicere ut fallat?

[Then who is the liar, he who chooses to speak a falsehood so as not to deceive, or he who chooses to speak the truth so as to deceive?]

Coleman and Kay indirectly pose the same question, what differs are their examples:

St. Augustine's example is of a man who speaks knowing that he will not be believed.  He will, for example, meet an untrusting traveler at a fork in the road.  He knows it to be true that there are thieves on path A, but no thieves on path B.  In one case, he would speak truthfully, telling the traveller that there are thieves on path A. (Then the traveller would take path A because he does not trust what the man says)  In the other, he would speak a falsehood, telling the traveller that there are thieves on path B.  (The traveler then takes path A because he does not trust what the man says.)

Coleman and Kay's two examples are these:

1. A guy complements a host on a party that he really didn't enjoy, not expecting that anyone would take his comment at face value.

2. A woman is confronted by her boyfriend who asks if she has been seeing her ex-boyfriend.  She says that the ex-boyfriend is sick, which is true, but does not say that she has still been visiting him.

Do these stories really have the same pattern?  i think there is one factor that augustine takes as granted and which coleman and kay purposefully ignore (they say so themselves).  the factor should be ...

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