On Bullsh*t by Harry G. Frankfurt
Fat Tony’s One Off Book Klub Vol.1
We will be reading On Bullshit and Frankfurt’s On Truth for the next Fat Tony’s One Off Book Klub Discussion March 25 , 1:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.
Special guests: Mic Mars and Matios Berhe
Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit is the first thesis on trying to form a central thesis on what constitutes Bullshit and how it fits on the spectrum of truth and lies.
Frankfurt looks first at the idea of Humbug, Bull, and Bull Sessions. Frankfurt has some sympathy for the Bull session, which is free form open discussion where ideas are tested and felt out and where none of the speakers are held to a high standard, but then this is the purpose of such sessions.
He compares the Bullshitter to honest brokers and liars. They seem to be on a spectrum with respect to truth where the honest broker has the truth as a high value and consistently tries to represent truth to the best of his or her knowledge. The liar understands the truth and knows that they are misrepresenting the truth, he respects the idea of truth even if he counters it with his lies. The Bullshitter has no regard for the truth and has no value of it. His goal is to make people believe that he believes his own bullshit. Bullshit is self serving and not in service of the truth. It is a persona that the bullshitter wants to be perceived by.
Since Bullshitters do not value truth they are more dangerous than liars as the truth never comes into their general calculus. They are willing to say anything to prop up their persona.
Bullshit often arises from the idea that in civilized and informed society that an intelligent educated person must be able to have discourse on any topic and that to not be able to makes one ignorant in a pejorative sense and willfully uninformed. This forms the pseudo-necessity to BS ones way out of this unenviable position. Frankfurt believes a society decays as it loses respect for the truth and as the truth’s value decays the society will no longer to progress.
Frankfurt also discusses that all lies while willfully neglecting the truth often are done in service of protection of self or others. He discusses the value of of lies vs truth in great detail.
Finally Frankfurt looks at valuing the speaker correctness (i.e. dedication to the truth or lack of knowledge and acknowledgement of ignorance) over the speakers perceived drive for sincerity. He see sincerity as often just a ruse, a claim of personal sincerity as an indication of truth but Frankfurt sees it often of valuing a false sincerity over truth and just another form of bullshit.
For a 57 page essay (rather small pages and large borders ) this is packed with a wealth of ideas and has started the scholarly discussion of what is Bullshit. He continues with theses ideas in his essay On Truth.
We will be reading On Bullshit and Frankfurt’s On Truth for the next Fat Tony’s One Off Book Klub March 25 , 1:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.
Special guests: Mic Mars and Matios Berhe…
