Harry G. Frankfurt (1929–2023)

In this, the Darkest Timeline, you're probably familiar with the essence of Frankfurt's argument about bullshit. Truth-tellers and liars share a common foundation that the truth exists, and that it matters. Liars sincerely want the something other than the truth to be believed, at least long enough for them to make use of the advantage. By contrast, bullshit has no concern with external reality. Instead bullshit is a kind of performative game, allowing the bullshitter to enhance his social show more status, without concern for the truth or falsity of his statements.

There's a bit at the end that I think captures the essence of Frankfurt's arguments, which move smoothly from Augustine to Wittgenstein. "Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns towards trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature." Sound like a certain very orange POTUS?

More narrowly, I think it'd be an interesting experiment to assign On Bullshit to writing-intensive college course. So much of academic writing is bullshit, in the sense that it is about performing "I am a knowledgeable expert" rather than about making real claims. Professors are just much better at it than students. I'd be fascinating in a class that allowed a student to be wrong, but hit them with the banhammer if they used bullshit. Any takers? show less

A delightful little treatise on the semantics of the word and how it differs from other words used to describe mendacity. The author, a Princeton Professor, argues that there are key differences between a lie and bullshit. A liar and a truth-teller play on different sides of the same game. A liar must acknowledge that truth exists in order to defy it. A bullshitter, on the other hand, has no interest in the truth and is only interested in furthering his own agenda. He could just as likely show more tell a truth without knowing it as a lie. If and unnamed American president were to swear to the Canadian prime minister that something is true that he doesn't know for sure just to win an argument, then that president would be a bullshitter. That's a pretty poor example, though, as no American president would ever do such a thing. show less

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it....

With this opening statement, Harry Frankfurt, professor of philosophy emeritus at Princeton U., begins his inquiry into "what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves...My show more aim is simply to give a rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not…."

Originally published in 1986 in the journal Raritan Quarterly Review, this essay was published in book form in 2005, making it easily available to lay readers. It's just an itty bitty thing, slightly smaller than a mass-market paperback, and running only to 67 pages. But it spent nearly a half-year on the New York Times Best Seller List. Philosophers, it seems, are not alone in their interest in bullshit. And given the character of the current U. S. president and the Republican Party in general, now is the time to poke around in it.

It is surreal: A serious, academic analysis of the term "bullshit," defining it, differentiating it from possible synonyms, and focusing on applications and intent. Frankfurt concludes that neither truth nor falsity are the focus of bullshit. Rather, persuasion is the focus. A liar typically knows the truth and endeavors to misrepresent it convincingly. But a bullshitter is indifferent to truth, casually mixing fact and fiction to achieve his or her goal. Truth is beside the point. show less

Just about as good, as illuminating, and as dryly humorous as a philosophical treatise called "On Bullshit" should be. An exercise in ironic description, Frankfurt takes pains to distinguish bullshitting from ordinary lying, though his book is often as good as the sources he picks. Longfellow and St. Augustine and telling anecdotes about Wittgenstein seem like good sources, but he leans on the OED much more than is advisable. c'mon Harry, you're a professor! You should know that that's a show more freshman blunder!

But the book itself, whose most important argument might be that liars, despised though they are, have more respect for truth than mere bullshit artists, who tend to disregard the distinction between truth and falsehood more-or-less entirely, is both interesting and thought provoking. This one was written back in 2005, but you could say that it's really more relevant than ever now that you-know-who is leading the free world. A fun, recommendable read, but it might make you feel a bit nauseous for reasons that the author couldn't have foreseen. show less