Abstract

This article aims to highlight the productivity of falsehood in the context of its asymmetrical position with truth. The core of the discussion can be summarized in the following statement: if only truths can be drawn from truths, it cannot be said that truth cannot be drawn from falsehood. The central thesis of the text is that the asymmetrical behavior of falsehood promotes the dissociation between the criterion (based on the conservation of truth) and the field of validity so that the latter, broader than the former, incorporates the movement not only from truth to truth, but also from falsehood to falsehood and, above all, from falsehood to truth. The distinction between the symmetrical and asymmetrical fields allows understanding, for example, the emergence of certain logical fallacies, the separation between demonstration and deduction, the thesis of Popperian fallibilism, and the use of the hypothetical-deductive method. Truth does not have functions analogous to those of falsehood.