Let us say a person grew up “knowing” a “fact” that turned out not to be true, like for instance about they were born on such a day, but their birth certificate (checked later) showed different. Or they were taught something in school- that was wrong at the time it was taught.
So, said person confidently states that wrong fact. Are they lying ? or what? Misinformed?
Misinformed. Lying denotes a deliberate attempt to deceive.
They are misinformed (wrong). If they continue with the misinformation once they know what the facts actually are, they are lying.
There’s something adjacent I would also characterize as “callous indifference to the truth”. They know they don’t know the facts of the matter, whatever it is. But they confidently state “the facts are X, Y, and Z” And will defend their position if pressed.
The other word for that is bullshit.
Gosh, it seems like you might be saying that with some public figure in mind, but I can’t think of who it might be… 
Likewise if they refuse to accept the real facts given typical quality refutation of their original mistaken information.
IOW, they don’t want to accept they need to change their knowledge. So they don’t. And continue to spew the wrong info as if real. At that point they’re lying.
cognitive dissonance
Lying has to have an intent to deceive, knowing the truth and stating a falsehood. So, if you inform them and they don’t believe you, they’re still not lying.
Don’t believe, or refuse to believe? Big difference ontologically. And of course the culpability depends on the strength of the evidence offered to change their mind.
I’d question whether the OP is trying to develop an extremely scalpel-precise definition of the magic word “lying”, or is trying to develop a taxonomy of all the ways a statement can be factually inaccurate and all the possible states of mind behind someone uttering such a statement.
Even if we here nail down some super-precise absolute definition of the word, the entire rest of the world will refuse to use our definition. So we’re still left guessing what they mean.
Is someone lying if they don’t know the truth and don’t care to find out? That’s more bullshitting to me, but I suppose it’s how they say it:
“We’ve never been more respected as a country” is bullshit if the person didn’t bother tracking down approval and respect ratings for that country over time.
“I looked into it and we’ve never been more respected as a country” or “I’ve been told that we’ve never been more respected as a country” are lies (assuming they weren’t told, or didn’t look into it, or looked into it and found that the country lost respect recently)
They’re all misstatements of fact, but lying, in my view, must involve knowingly making a misstatement of fact.
Yeah it’s just misinformed unless they continue to repeat the fact after they learn the truth. Then it becomes a lie.
This is pretty common in conspiracy theory and pseudoscience. A “researcher” will admit the more ridiculous claims are in fact unreliable when pressed (but only to contrast that with the more reliable “evidence”). But then as soon as their next book or TV show comes along there they’ll be, repeating that same same claim even they just admitted was bs.
One example I just heard (in the History of Being Wrong podcast), in the world of “Noah’s ark is on mount Ararat but there is a conspiracy to keep it secret” is the claim that Tsarist air force pilots saw the ark from an airplane just before the Russian revolution. Which makes no sense even from a point of view of basic chronology, and even the Ark “researchers” will admit that. But that doesn’t stop them mentioning it in every book or TV show.
Okay, here is a real life example. When I applied for my first passport, I discovered that my name on my birth certificate is not the name I had always used. So I was I misinformed. However I have continued to use the name I had always used. Am I lying? I certainly don’t feel like I am.
One distinction is that I am not trying to gain anything by the deception.
The reason for this is that my father was trying to get a job during the depression and trying to conceal that he was Jewish. So he started using the new name, but put the old one on my birth certificate. And my brother’s five years later. But when my sister was born 6 years after that he realized he could put any name he liked on hers.
I’d argue that the name everyone always called you is your name whatever your birth certificate says (or in fact the name you want to be called even if thats not the name everyone always called you). Not using your government name is not a lie (unless it’s on a legal document that explicitly says it needs to be that)
If it was your birth year on the other hand that would be a lie (once you realized the mistake)
“Willful ignorance”?
~Max
Especially if that name is “Ernest.”
There seems to be third option here?
There’s ‘knowing’ something that ain’t so (misinformation) and intentionally telling an untruth (lying).
But there are some people (Like my brother in law, who I have mentioned before) who, if you ask them a question about a topic, will give you a long, detailed and almost completely wrong ‘explanation’ of it.
It’s almost like a chatbot hallucinating: they seem programmed to not admit that they don’t know?
I guess it boils down to whether those kind of people actually know they are bullshiting or not? My feeling is they don’t actually consciously know. But that’s a just a hunch, I’ve known people like that but I’ve never quized them on it, just rolled my eyes and changed the subject
Are you returning to this debate?
The answers are informative and interesting. I think the answer is NO, they are not lying,
We seem to have fallen into a pattern where false claims are described as “misinformation” (a fairly neutral term) and “disinformation” (suggesting a deliberate attempt to mislead).
The latter is simply lying and should be called out as such
“Misinformation” spreaders who ignore factual refutations of their memes are also liars.
Those who attack science with falsehoods, knowing that they’re false, are not “skeptics” as mainstream news would have it. They’re anti-whatever it is, and liars.
Call it what it is.