Harry G. Frankfurt





Harry G. Frankfurt

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born
May 29, 1929

gender
male

genre


About this author

Harry G. Frankfurt is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University.


Average rating: 3.45 · 4,123 ratings · 449 reviews · 12 distinct works · Similar authors
On Bullshit
3.42 of 5 stars 3.42 avg rating — 3,541 ratings — published 2005 — 16 editions
On Truth
3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 avg rating — 368 ratings — published 2006 — 8 editions
The Reasons of Love
3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 avg rating — 108 ratings — published 2004 — 5 editions
The Importance of What We C...
4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 69 ratings — published 1988 — 4 editions
Taking Ourselves Seriously ...
by
3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2006 — 2 editions
Necessity, Volition, and Love
4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1998 — 2 editions
Demons, Dreamers, and Madme...
4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1969 — 7 editions
Leibniz: A Collection of Cr...
2.0 of 5 stars 2.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1972 — 2 editions
Gerçek Üzerine
0.0 of 5 stars 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2006 — 3 editions
Las razones del amor/ The R...
0.0 of 5 stars 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2004
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“The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These "anti-realist" doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry. One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward 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. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.

But it is preposterous to imagine that we ourselves are determinate, and hence susceptible both to correct and to incorrect descriptions, while supposing that the ascription of determinacy to anything else has been exposed as a mistake. As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them. Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial -- notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.”
Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit

“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.”
Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit

“Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstance require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.”
Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit

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