It's my understanding that any statement can be classified as a fact or an opinion. But what about lies? Is there a category that they belong in? For instance, the sentence "The sun is blue." It's presented in the form of a fact but it isn't true, so what category similar to the categories 'facts' and 'opinions' would lies belong? Are they just called untrue statements?

This question might sound dumb but its just hard to word it.

ex mere negativis nihil sequitur

The "fact or opinion" classification depends on how it is said or worded.

"The sun is blue" would be classified as a fact because of its wording. Just because it is classified as a fact doesn't mean it has to be true.

Hopefully that clears it up for you.

Wait a minute. A fact is something that IS true, something that actually exists, or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation.

An opinion is a person's ideas and thoughts towards something. So if he says "The sun is blue", he thinks the sun is blue, but of course this isn't true.

If suddenly the sun turns blue, then it isn't an opinion anymore but a fact. Fact's can't be wrong.

I guess there's a distinction between fact, and opinion or deliberate falsehood expressed as fact..

^ and misconception... If I think the sun is blue, that's not my opinion, it's what I believe to be fact, even though it is false.

Therefore, "the sun is blue" isn't a fact, opinion but a falsehood (be it deliberate or accidental.

So basicly we can conclude that a sentence in the form of a fact that is not true is not a fact or an opinion, but a falsehood, right?

no ..

We say that a declaration is a lie when the person who declares it believes it to be false, and declares it with the intention of using it to hide the truth from someone. A lie is thereby itself a classification, a division within the notion of intentionality, and hence you are looking in the wrong place when you try to subsume it under fact or opinion. For the concept of lying is not concerned with the factuality of the content of declarative sentences, but with what lies behind them being declared in the first place.

the sentence "the sun is blue" is without any other context nothing but a declaration. anything else implies more information ..

What if you cannot confirm a fact? Is it a fact then? For example, the pirahá have concept of numbers. They have the words one, two, and many. Researchers for years have been trying to teach them to count but the strange nature of their language just doesn't allow it(they are not retarded, they just speak a very restrictive language that alters the way your brain thinks) so if you show them 5 balls in your hand, and state that you have 5 balls, is it a fact? To them you just have more than "one" ball. 5, 8, 12, 67, it's all irrelevant.

A lie can be a false opinion or a false fact.

Fact Example: The holocaust didn't happen.

Opinion Example: Gandhi and Mother Teresa were assholes.

As long as it's not true, it's a lie.

a fact is defined as something that is true, something that actually exists, or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

An opinion is a person's ideas and thoughts towards something. It is an assessment, judgment or evaluation of something. An opinion is not a fact, because opinions are either not falsifiable, or the opinion has not been proven or verified. If it later becomes proven or verified, it is no longer an opinion, but a fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

I assume that a lie falls into the opinion category.

i guess that it could depend on whether you know the lie to be untrue or not. to use your example, if you say the sky is blue, believing it to be true, i guess that it is merely a false fact, but if you are trying to fool someone (i.e. knowing the sun isn't blue but trying to make someone believe that it is) then it could be seen as more of an opinion because your trying to subjectively say that the blueness of the sun outweighs its yellowness or whatever color. or maybe its all in how you word it (as someone pointed out), either way good topic/question...

blanko can we please leave out suggestions which add other facts not mentioned? look at the sentence without any other information and then decide what it is.

back to the topic at hand:

a lie is simply the intention of misdirecting your attention from the truth. But there are rules involved:

to lie you need to know the truth, since lies are opposites of truth

bullshit on the other hand considers neither truth or lie, just a way to get by. It ignores the rules of the game completely.

read "on bullshit" by frank herbert, its like a 15 min read. really tiny book

God doesn't exist.
God exists.

Both are facts, regardless of whether they are true or not.

It's a 'False fact' if you would like, No such thing exists to my knowledge, But that is the way i would describe it.

Why a lie is a lie has to do with iuntent, and a lie may relate to fact or opinion.

A cop may say did you do this, and you say no when in fact you did. That is a lie regarding a fact.

If you want to suck up to your boss, who is a Bushite, you may state an opinion favorable to Bush to curry favor, when in truth you despise the vapid war criminal, thus making a stated opinion a lie.