Eureka! Frankfurt's definition is one of those not-at-all-obvious insights that become blindingly obvious the moment they are expressed."-Timothy Noah, Slate is that bullshit is defined not so much by the end product as by the process by which it is created. "The scholar who answers the question, 'What is bullshit?' bids boldly to define the spirit of the present age. Those who produce it certainly aren't honest, but neither are they liars, given that the liar and the honest man are linked in their common, if not identical, regard for the truth."-Peter Edidin, New York Times Frankfurt points out it is neither fish nor fowl. Augustine and the spy novelist Eric Ambler, among others, to ask some of the preliminary questions-to define the nature of a thing recognized by all but understood by none.
" tries, with the help of Wittgenstein, Pound, St. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying.
In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, “we have no theory.”įrankfurt, one of the world’s most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. But we tend to take the situation for granted. One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.
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