Confession and Slander in Action: Crime and Punishment

There is something fundamental about the inability of language to tell the whole truth. Commenting on a study demonstrating that chimpanzees who learn sign language immediately try to trick their trainers, Walter Burkert suggests that “at the very beginnings of civilization, lying and language were there together.”¹ In Latin, “to give words” (verba dare) means “to deceive,” and “sense” (sensus) means the opposite of “words” (verba).² Different discourses are false in different ways. Scientific language, mathematical formulas, and the professional jargons of commerce and the law perform diminished tasks: to get a job done, to measure or delineate a state