Minimal contents, lying, and conventions of language

One recurrent objection against minimalism is that minimal contents have no theo- retical role. It has recently been argued that minimal contents serve to draw the dis- tinction between lying and misleading. In Sect. 1 and Sect. 2 I summarise the main argument in support of that claim and contend that it is inconclusive. In Sect. 3 I discuss some cases of lying and some of misleading that raise difficulties for mini- malism. In Sect. 4 I make a diagnosis of the failure of minimalism with those cases. In Sect. 5 I strengthen the case against minimal contents by addressing two received says-based definitions of lying. My analysis of the failure of minimalism suggests that the distinction between lying and misleading, at least in some important cases, calls for a kind of utterance content that is grounded on conventions of language.