Abstract

Communication of all sorts is passed off as "truth," when in fact it is a collection of varying degrees of truth, half-truth, and untruth. This article seeks to put the semantic spaciousness of the word truth into a more comprehensive context. It does so through construction of a continuum of terms, divided into four practical categories - (a) intent to be open and fully honest, (b) intent to be honest but with selective use of information, (c) use of untruths but with no intent to deceive, and (d) conscious intent to deceive. Analysis of the categories relates each to degrees of ethical behavior of the communicator.