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The scholar who answers the question, 'What is bullshit?' bids boldly to define the spirit of the present age. . . . Frankfurt's conclusion . . . is that bullshit is defined not so much by the end product as by the process by which it is created. 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
Immediately, I must say: read it. Beautifully written, lucid, ironic and profound, it is a model of what philosophy can and should do. It is a small and highly provocative masterpiece, and I really don't think I am bullshitting you here. -- Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times
This is what the world has long needed. . . . Bullshit is now such a dominant feature of our culture that most of us are confident we can recognize and rebuff it. But Frankfurt shows the reader just how insidious (and destructive) it can be. . . . This book will change your life. -- Leopold Froehlich, Playboy
Frankfurt's book should be required reading for anyone whose speech or writing are intended for public consumption. Despite his subject, he is definitely not full of it. -- Kevin Wood, The Daily Yomiuri
On Bullshit offers a tightly focused, telling critique of a political and cultural climate that seems positively humid with mendacity, obfuscation, evasion and illusion. -- Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle
There is an interesting problem sketched at the end of the book, wherein sincerity is described as an ideal for those who do not believe that there is any (objective) truth, thus departing from the ideal correctness. . . . Needless to say, there are numerous problems which may be expanded, looked into and analyzed concerning bullshit. And I dare say that Frankfurt's little book is a nice starting point. -- Petter A. Naessan, Philosophy Now
[On Bullshit's] calm, clearheaded deconstruction of everyday deceit is without parallel. -- Gordon Phinn, Books in Canada
With its relevance to contemporary issues and culture, On Bullshit is well worth the read. . . . The analysis is strict and philosophical with the clear intention of seeking the truth. -- Karen Boore, The Michigan Review
Harry Frankfurt, a Princeton philosophy professor, presents a scholarly and formal essay on inflated truth, purposeful obfuscation, and pretentious duplicity. . . . I'm sure he had a blast writing it, and the droll prose is a tasty treat. -- Richard Pachter, The Boston Globe
Professor Frankfurt concludes that bullshit is a process rather than an end product. . . . If you are fed up with hype, spin and bullshit this book will provide insight - and therapy. -- "Australian Doctor
Terrific. . . . Has anything truer ever been written? -- William Watson, Montreal Gazette
If you want to read a succinct, stylish piece of argument that will make you think far beyond the points it makes, you could do no better than invest ten dollars on Professor Frankfurt's handsomely bound essay. -- Christopher Jary, British Army Review
Product Description
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. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."
Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. 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. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.
Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. 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. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
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First, BS is not lying. A liar knows the truth and carefully crafts an alternative to it to further some agenda. The BSer operates without regard for--perhaps even knowledge of--the truth. The BS is created to achieve an effect, to please the ego or ear, or perhaps just to fill some conversational space the speaker feels unable to neglect with silence. To the BSer, the offered BS even has some non-zero chance of being true--if it were only worth the bother to check.
The second insight is that certain organizational roles create pressure to engage in BS more than others. The author points to leaders who have frequent opportunities or demands to speak about their organizations' accomplishments without being very involved in the planning, production or evaluation of said accomplishments. Much of what these leaders say will be BS, to the sorrow and pain of those who must live with the consequences.
I'll close with a recommendation and a plea. I recommend that you buy a copy of this book for your own intellectual and moral development. It is brief, readable and encourages us to think seriously about both the truth and consequences of what we claim to know. Satisfied readers will also value an encounter with the author's related book, On Truth.
I then plead with you to purchase a second copy and mail it anonymously to the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia where Senior Executives for the Federal government are trained. Only good can come from some of them reading it. Members of the Senior Executive Service are selected based on general leadership ability and assigned jobs under the theory that specific technical program knowledge is far less important than this general ability. These conditions make them particularly likely to become chronic BSers. Let's try to help them--and ourselves.
Frankfurt claims that the issue has not attracted sustained inquiry (he obviously has not been part of the committee meetings I've attended in the past few decades). This book, or rather booklet, is more of a brief essay or primer on the subject, looking at the issue from a linguistic standpoint as well as conceptual framework. There are many synonyms that come close; words such as humbug and balderdash (already used in this review) approximate the title term. Quoting Max Black's essay, 'The Prevalence of Humbug', Frankfurt suggests other closely related words such as claptrap, hokum, drivel, and such. Drawing from the OED definitions, he analyses the key elements of humbug, including misrepresentation just short of lying, elements of pomposity and pretentiousness (loosely applicable), and a possibility of embodiment in feeling or in thought.
Frankfurt also explores the issue of the title term in relation to an incident between Ludwig Wittgenstein (whose philosophical work reaches great heights in clarity and precision, particularly with regard to language and locution) and Fania Pascal. Wittgenstein's substitute term for the title term might have been 'nonsense', and he was diligent at working against such forms of language that might fall into disarray. When is a joke not a joke? Perhaps when it is uttered by Wittgenstein. Or perhaps when it is misinterpreted by Pascal.
Frankfurt looks at the title term in pieces. He looks at the term 'bull' and the later half separately, seeing what difference they make to each other. A 'bull' session is generally unstructured, personal, emotion-dominated. The other term is similarly unstructured for the most part, indicative of waste and odour, and generally not useful, save in very particular circumstances. There is a general lack of importance about it. But is this really true?
Frankfurt quotes the OED's use of the title term as verb (previously he had been looking at it from the standpoint of a noun), drawing Ezra Pound's Cantos into the mix, and the Bible as well. There is a sense of bluffing - one could easily use the title term in regard to something someone says that probably is not going to be true, or not going to be done.
Frankfurt even draws St. Augustine into the mix, attaching the title term to the rarest form of lying among Augustine's construct of the eight types of lying. It isn't necessarily lying to attain a goal, but rather for its own sake. But then, what becomes of the definition of humbug, offered earlier, that claims to stop just short of lying.
Frankfurt claims that the title term, perhaps as a thing or an act, 'is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.' This comes close to being a universal truth. Frankfurt proceeds to talk about anti-realist doctrines, sincerity versus correctness, and finally, to making a declaration that makes the reader wonder, was this entire thing an exercise in seeing just how much of the title term he could get away with as an author? If so, he is brilliantly tapping into the postmodern ethos.
Or perhaps that is all hokum, too.
The early part of the essay explores links with words such as "humbug" and "quackery", and to questions of truth and falsity. We all think we know what lying is - telling an untruth - but "a person may be lying even if the statement he makes is true, as long as he himself believes that the statement is false and intends by making it to deceive." Intention matters. "Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point in a set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth... The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values." What if this concern is absent? What about someone who couldn't care less about "how things really are"? Frankfurt sees this indifference to the truth as "the essence of bullshit." Someone who is not even trying "to provide an accurate representation of reality" is bullshitting. "The notion of carefully wrought bullshit involves," Frankfurt deadpans, "a certain inner strain."
We've all done it - in the pub or at dinner parties - in the hope of making an impression rather than reaching a well-argued conclusion. At work, however, it's our job to know what we're doing. The success of even the darkest arts of advertising - professionally geared to creating impressions - ultimately depends on objective facts: sales figures and profits. Someone who relies too much on bullshit will be found out in the end, if only by resentful underlings with no powers of dismissal. (Unfortunately, as Ben Goldacre documents elsewhere, bullshitters who peddle quack remedies can still make a fortune - a case of bullshit feeding off itself?)
What if our work demands that we have opinions on a diverse range of subjects, from local educational policies to global warming? Pity then our poor politicians, not always the sharpest tools in the box, whom - it often seems - we expect to bullshit for a living. The current global financial crisis is a marvellous opportunity for bullshitters, who can't resist calling for confidence in something they don't understand. Such calls are really pleas for us to leave bullshit alone - but sometimes we just need to bully bullshit that little bit harder.
The one area where we are (supposedly) undisputed experts is of course self-knowledge. We may not know much about particle accelerators but we know about ourselves. Our supremacy is unchallenged. We are masters in our own universe (however tiny). What matters is not being true to the facts but being true to ourselves. Frankfurt is sceptical. The surprising conclusion of the essay is that, insofar as such confidence is unwarranted, "sincerity itself is bullshit".
Harry Frankfurt was once a guest on the Daily Show. His appearance was incongruous in that he broke the golden rule of fast-talking television by thinking too much before he answered a question. But in the greater project of exposing bullshit in public life, he fitted right in. One of the Daily Show's trademark bullshit-detecting strategies is to juxtapose two speeches in which the same politician says opposite things. Separated by several months, each may well be plausible. Put together and they collapse into you know what.
Plus, it's not that heavy and thick, so you can bring it anywhere easily.
I found it frustrating and by half way through was convinced I had been conned. Read more
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