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to deceive, either for practice or as a joke, or even by chance. Rather, we are concerned with any Claimant who claims that Oa is identical to Ob or can be substituted for itthough of course the Claimant may coincide with B. |
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However, not even Claimant's dolus malus is indispensable, since he or she may honestly believe in the identity he or she asserts. |
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Thus a forgery is always such only for an external observerthe Judgewho, knowing that Oa and Ob are two different objects, understands that the Claimant, whether viciously or in good faith, has made a false identification. |
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According to some scholars, the Constitutum Constantini (perhaps the most famous forgery in Western history) was initially produced, not as a false charter, but as a rhetorical exercise. As in the course of the following centuries it was mixed with other types of documents, it was step by step taken seriously by naive or fraudulent supporters of the Roman Church (De Leo 1974). While it was not a forgery for the former, it was such for the latter, as it was for those who later started challenging its authenticity. |
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Something is not a fake because of its internal properties, but by virtue of a claim of identity. Thus forgeries are first of all a pragmatic problem. |
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Naturally, the Judge, the Claimant, and both Authors are abstract roles, or actants, and it can happen that the same individual can play all of them at different times. For example, the painter X produces as Author A an Object A, then copies his first work by producing a second Object B, and claims that Object B is Object A. Later, X confesses his fraud and, acting as the Judge of the forgery, demonstrates that Object A was the original painting. |
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4. A Pragmatics of False Identification |
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We should exclude from a topology of False Identification the following cases: |
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(i) Pseudonymity. To use a pen name means to lie (verbally) about the author of a given work, not to suggest identity between two works. Pseudonymity is different from pseudepigraphical identification (see section 4.3), where the Claimant ascribes a given work Ob to a well-known or legendary author. |
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(ii) Plagiarism. In producing an Ob which fully or partially copies an |
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