Intended Meaning
Falsehood here is not understood as lying alone, but as disabling reason and accepting what is not coherent. This disabling is reflected in the psyche, producing in people a guilt complex and a sense of guilt.
The Atom’s Structure in the Atlas
- Type of argument: Critical
- Argument movement: It links falsehood to the disabling of reason and the construction of guilt.
- Central terms: falsehood, reason, guilt, acceptance, disabling.
- Degree of centrality: Pivotal.
This atom connects intellectual dysfunction with psychological effect, making falsehood not merely a verbal violation, but a cause of disabling understanding and generating an internal burden on the human being.
Links that help with reading
- Muhammad Shahrur: The State and Society
- Critique of authoritarianism and monism
- guilt
- Falsehood and despotism corrupt morality, while morality remains fixed above politics
Grounding
- Supporting text: «In this context, falsehood is interpreted as a form of disabling reason and accepting what is not coherent, which produces a guilt complex among people».
Place of grounding in the book
- Book: The State and Society.
- Location: Early in the book, within the word of thanks and the discussion of collective reason.
- Type of grounding: Close witness.
- Marker that helps verification: He absolves himself of responsibility for change
- Reading note: This passage is suitable as support because the witness criticizes the collective reason’s exoneration of itself and holds it responsible for backwardness, which is close to the meaning of disabling reason and the guilt that follows.
Degree of Documentation
- Level: Directly documented
- Meaning of the level: The atom relies on an explicit witness close to the wording of the claim.
- Limits of reading: The formulation above is an analytical summary and should not be treated as a verbatim quotation unless the witness is transmitted word for word.
Its Function in the Book
Its function here is definitional; it fixes a meaning or conceptual distinction that Shahrur relies on in building the idea.
Related to
Editorial Note
The atom approaches the moral effect of cognitive error.