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On Bullshit

by Harry G. Frankfurt

3.32 · rating details · 2,192 ratings · 296 reviews

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 underst

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Hardcover, 68 pages

Published January 10th 2005 by Princeton University Press (first published January 1st 2005)

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May 08, 2011

Manny rated it

Recommends it for: Philosophers, bullshit artists

Shelves: linguistics-and-philosophy, well-i-think-its-funny, blame-jordan-if-you-like

This slim, elegant little book looks at first like an elaborate joke, but I think it is actually quite serious. What is "bullshit"? asks the author, a distinguished moral philosopher. He examines and discards various plausible hypotheses, for example that bullshit is merely lying or careless use of language. As he points out, the bullshit artist often lies, but need not do so: some bullshit is, more or less by accident, perfectly true. And similarly, although much bullshit is hasty or ...more

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Aug 17, 2007

John Wiswell rated it

Recommends it for: People interested in semantics, philosophy readers

Yes, the subject is a funny word. But the text is dry, and the substance is suspect. Frankfurt spends most of his (admirably few) pages examining causes for bullshitting, in very dry and highly speculative fashion. While it is interesting to read exactly how "bullshit" is different from "nonsense," "lies," and "deception," the term can be used to mean just those things. Like other popular swears, it's a broad word. Frankfurt is more interested in a phenome...more

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May 22, 2011

Marvin rated it

This very short book is a philosophical essay on the nature of bullshit. The main question that Frankfurt appears to be answering is, "Is lying always bullshit and is bullshit always lying?". The answer appears to be no and no. Frankfurt's distinction between the two is essentially this: The liar is conscious of the difference between the lie and the truth. In order to deceive you must have a grasp on where the truth lies. The bullshitter is not interested in the truth. He loses all co...more

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May 02, 2007

Nat rated it

On first reading, this book/essay is enormously compelling and entertaining. But subsequent readings raise serious worries about Frankfurt's account. For example:

On Frankfurt's account, there are two necessary conditions for something to count as bullshit:

(1) The speaker must be indifferent to the truth of what he says.
(2) He must intend to deceive his audience about his indifference to the truth of what he says.

Who would count as such a producer of bu...more

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Feb 25, 2007

Nicholas rated it

Shelves: non-fiction-philosphy

Frankfurt capitalizes on the potential for absurdity inherant in 'philosophical' texts. What philosophy sometimes comes down to, or rather, what critiqing it comes down to, is how well you can dissect what someone is actually saying, moving past all of the bullshit of language. The language used in this book is so dense at times that you might find it to be bullshit. The funny thing is, that's the point. He uses the language against itself. He describes how something can be bullshit if it s...more

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Oct 19, 2011

Bettie rated it

Shelves: fraudio, philosophy, published-1986

On Bullshit is an essay by philosopher Harry Frankfurt. Originally published in the journal Raritan in 1986, the essay was republished as a separate volume in 2005 and became a nonfiction bestseller, spending twenty-seven weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Wiki blurbs - In the essay, Frankfurt sketches a theory of bullshit, defining the concept and analyzing its applications. In particular, Frankfurt distinguishes bullshitting from lying; while the liar delibera...more

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Jun 07, 2008

Paul rated it

Shelves: introduction-to-philosophy, b-s, philosophical-analysis

Sometimes a great way to learn how to philosophize is just to see it done. In this short monograph, talented philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, analyzes the concept of "bullshit" (B.S.). What do we mean, precisely, when we say of something that it is B.S.? Or that someone is a B.S.er? Frankfurt takes on this task and produces a fine piece of philosophy, with some helpful points along the way.

Frankfurt claims that the essence of B.S. is a lack of connection with truth, an indiffe...moreSometimes a great way to learn how to philosophize is just to see it done. In this short monograph, talented philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, analyzes the concept of "bullshit" (B.S.). What do we mean, precisely, when we say of something that it is B.S.? Or that someone is a B.S.er? Frankfurt takes on this task and produces a fine piece of philosophy, with some helpful points along the way.

Frankfurt claims that the essence of B.S. is a lack of connection with truth, an indifference to how things really are. It's not so much as presenting falsehoods as it is presenting something phony. The B.S.er is faking things. There's a difference between B.S.ing and lying. A liar at least is concerned with the truth enough to know that he needs or wants to misrepresent it. The B.S.er just says a bunch of "shit." And "shit" is matter which everything nutritious as been removed. The death of health and nutrients.

Lies misrepresent a state of affairs or the beliefs of the speaker concerning the state of affairs. The liar cares about the facts. The B.S.er doesn't. He just means to deceive us as to what he is up to. He misrepresents what he is up to - someone concerned with the way things are. The liar hides the fact that he is lying, the B.S.er that he cares about truth. Thus the B.S.er is neither on the side of truth or error. His eyes are not on the facts, at all.

By virtue of this, says Frankfurt, the B.S.er is a greater enemy of the truth than the liar. Thus B.S.ing, which is popular and prevalent in our society, involves a retreat from correctness (which the liar cares enough about to hid, and the honest man cares enough about to get right and promulgate) to a different sort of discipline - sincerity. Rather than trying to represent the world correctly, he turns toward himself. But why think we can know ourselves all that well? Facts about ourselves are not often resistant to skeptical dissolution. I could only think of God's words in Jeremiah: "The heart is wicked and deceitful above all else, who can know it?" Thus Frankfurt finds that sincerity, as espoused in an anti-realist, post-modern context, is itself bullshit.

Frankfurt's book makes for spring boarding into some interesting debate and discussion - something Frankfurt is known for doing (e.g., Frankfurt-style counterexamples to ought implies can do otherwise). Indeed, his little book spawned "Bullshit and Philosophy," a book with many articles on the concept and nature of B.S. by professional philosophers (which I have yet to read all the way through).

Some people (even reviewers here) have called Frankfurt's book a book of B.S. on B.S. But I don't think so. At least not as Frankfurt defines it. Frankfurt is obviously concerned with the truth. And it is doubtful that a B.S.er would give away his trade secrets. Artists don't give away their tricks, so why think that a B.S. artist would?

But the book isn’t without its problems. For example, Frankfurt relays a story about when one of Wittgenstein's friends was in the hospital. Wittgenstein called her to see how she was doing and she told Ludwig that she felt "just like a dog that has been run over." Wittgenstein "was disgusted" and replied, "You don't know what a dog that has been run over feels like." After some analysis, Frankfurt says that Wittgenstein is calling bullshit on his friend, Fania Pascal. But later, Frankfurt describes B.S. as "hot air." Of course he explains what he means by this, but if he wasn't B.S.ing us here, it's hard to see how Pascal was without some special pleading or ad hocery. Frankfurt used a metaphor. Hot air is vaporous and empty just like B.S. speech is. But Pascal's statement was metaphorical as well. And Wittgenstein's obsession with not allowing "language to go on holiday" (and his a-holeish demeanor in general), is what prompted his "caring" remark to his hospitalized friend. (Of course she should have told him that he was not playing in her language game and was trying to impose his rules on to incommensurable systems of speech.)No doubt Frankfurt's use of "hot air" would merit Wittgenstein's disrepute.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent little book. It's small in size and comes in at 67 pages. So its easily read in less than an hour. I recommend it for those who want to see how philosophers go about doing (part of) their job - analyzing claims and making them clear so that we can properly debate and discuss them, if we need to at all after the vagueness and ambiguities have been removed. Frankfurt takes a good first step towards analyzing the concept of B.S. No doubt more work could be done.(less)

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Jun 19, 2008

Tim rated it

So I picked up On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt at the thrift store on Friday and it is real philosophical reflection from a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton (printed by Princeton University Press). It is a brief and rambling little book and it would not rate higher than a three except for the conclusion to the book which I quote extensively from below.
Frankfurt asserts, quite reasonably, that bullshit is widespread in our society. He then goes on to differentiate bet...more So I picked up On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt at the thrift store on Friday and it is real philosophical reflection from a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton (printed by Princeton University Press). It is a brief and rambling little book and it would not rate higher than a three except for the conclusion to the book which I quote extensively from below.
Frankfurt asserts, quite reasonably, that bullshit is widespread in our society. He then goes on to differentiate between lying and bullshit. For Frankfurt, the former retains a distinction between truth and falsehood, but chooses to be false. The latter blurs that distinction, with a certain willful carelessness. He relates a story where Wittgenstein chides a friend for making a thoughtless figure of speech, "You don't know what a dog that has been run over feels like." (24) For Wittgenstein, his friend's fault "is not that she fails to get things right, but that she is not even trying." (32) This is the heart of the distinction between lying and bullshit for Frankfurt, "That is why she cannot be regarded as lying: for she does not presume that she knows the truth, and therefore she cannot be deliberately promulgating a propostion that she presumes to be false: Her statement is grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." (33-34)
For Frankfurt liars need the truth. "Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus." (51) "It "requires a degree of craftsmanship, in which the teller of the lie submits to objective constraints imposed by what he takes to be the truth. The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values. In order to invent a lie at all, he must think he knows what is true." (52) The bullshiter has much more freedom because he is not constrained by any definitions of the truth. While both represent falsity to us, the liar does so deliberately, while the one passing bullshit has never cared for truth or falsity in the first place.
He ends with these words:
"Why is there so much bullshit? Of course it is impossible to be sure that there is relatively more of it nowadays than at other times. There is more communication of all kinds in our time than ever before, but the proportion that is bullshit may not have increased. Without assuming the incidence of bullshit is actually greater now, I will mention a few considerations that help to acount for the fact that it is currently so great.
Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a persons's obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled - whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others - to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant. Closely related instances arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything, or at least everything that pertains to the conduct of his country's affairs. The lack of any significant connection between a person's opinions and his apprehensions of reality will be even more severe, needless to say, for someone who believes it is his responsibility, as a conscientious moral agent, to evaluate events and conditions in all parts of the world.
The contemporary proliferation of bullshit has deeper sources, in various forms of scepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality, and which therefore reject the possiblility of knowing how things truly are. These "antirealist" doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligility 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 thought 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 incorrect descriptions, while supposing that the ascription of determinancy 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. Morever, 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." (62-67) (less)

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Feb 04, 2009

Joshua Nomen-Mutatio rated it

Shelves: philosophy

A very quick read. The book is a mere 67 pages and the pages are very small. It's a pocket book.

Well, I have to say it was a fun read but hardly worth buying. I would have rather bought another of the many books I have lined up and would like to own. Worth reading, but don't pay for it. You could read it in the bookstore in about 20-30 minutes. I read it while waiting for the bus tonight. I now know the difference between lying and bullshitting and really don't care all that...more

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Oct 17, 2011

Christopher rated it

Despite the stifled giggles this book's subject and title are sure to produce, Frankfurt gives the reader, in a very short work, a working definition of bulls&*t and why there is so much of it. Frankfurt defines it as a "lack of connection to a concern with truth- [an] indifference to how things really are..." and that the bulls*&ter's "indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to." In fact, Frankfurt contends that the bu...more

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Jul 25, 2011

Wyliena Guan rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 19, 2011

Nick Klagge rated it

Borrowed from my dad, read on a subway ride and a lunch break. Cute, but not so compelling. Really, it should have been a paper, not a book.

Although Frankfurt brings up a number of real and hypothetical examples, it's interesting to me that he neglected to mention the form in which I've most commonly heard it, namely, the card game "B.S." (Perhaps he's not aware of it?) It seems not really to conform to Frankfurt's description of bullshit, in that the titular act is to plac...more

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May 16, 2011

David Milford added it

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Nov 17, 2010

Austin Ratner rated it

Shelves: nonfiction, philosophy

“Why is there so much bullshit?” asks Princeton philosophy professor Harry G. Frankfurt. He doesn't ask plaintively, but rather in the formal manner of a rigorous philosophical inquiry. He defines bullshit, more or less, not as lying, but as talking about something without knowing about it and without caring whether you know. You could be right, you could be wrong, but you don't know it. All you know is your agenda. That's propaganda in a nutshell. A reckless disregard for truth, and subor...more“Why is there so much bullshit?” asks Princeton philosophy professor Harry G. Frankfurt. He doesn't ask plaintively, but rather in the formal manner of a rigorous philosophical inquiry. He defines bullshit, more or less, not as lying, but as talking about something without knowing about it and without caring whether you know. You could be right, you could be wrong, but you don't know it. All you know is your agenda. That's propaganda in a nutshell. A reckless disregard for truth, and subordination of truth to an agenda that is more important than the truth. Commentary on cable news channels is complete bullshit. The commentators don't care about facts, they care about ratings, or perhaps about some political goal, like taxes or terrorism or defeating their ideological enemies at the polls, and they're content to say anything to get the desired end-result. It's a serpentine Machiavellianism in regard to fact.

On the other hand, as Frankfurt is well aware, the academy is full of bullshit (according to him Yale, where he used to teach, is the bullshit capital of the world--probably because of Paul de Man), precisely because over the last half-century the academy has succumbed to an entrenched skepticism of truth and reality as "constructions."

"Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about," Frankfurt says. Because so many academics have profound doubts about the existence of truth and fact (yes, it makes no sense...), they are obligated to bullshit or to shut up, and unfortunately they have chosen the former.

The word bullshit, when applied to a fitting object, is pleasurable to say and to read. It is a highly specific word--it names a species of dishonesty that differs from lying, as Frankfurt clearly shows--and therefore it's highly descriptive, honest, truthful, useful. In short it's the opposite of what it names with fitting scorn. It is honorable. It is the shibboleth of all those who care about what is true and what is ...
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Oct 06, 2010

Brad Lyerla rated it

Harry Frankfurt's work on free will and determinism is widely read and respected. In this short essay, which is not at all a tongue-in-cheek exercise, he tackles the problem of parsing the differences between bullsh-t and lies and concludes rather brilliantly that the former is a greater enemy of the truth:

"Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on the opposite sides . . . of the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the re...more

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Aug 28, 2010

David rated it

Brief (67 small pages) analysis by a professor of philosophy regarding what is meant by the title term. It was funny (to me) to consider the range of terms (e.g., hot air, hogwash, balderdash, drivel, and one I hadn't come across before, "imposture") resembling "bullshit", but most of the discussion is given over to differentiating BS (indifference to the truth of what you are saying, phoniness) from lying (intentional misrepresentation, which is necessarily false). Wraps i...more

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Jul 02, 2010

John rated it

I read this (very) little book some years ago, when it first came out, and confess I gained little from it. Its subject matter does, however, have relevance to the book of my own I'm currently working on, so I decided to reread it. I enjoyed it far more this time around, although, with the exception of one or two vivid insights (the analysis of the motives and nature of the bull session I found especially valuable, while the dismissal of the fundamentals of poststructuralism in just a few paragr...more

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Apr 04, 2010

Mike rated it

It's about fifty (very small) pages with large type. It takes twenty minutes to read, I suppose. But it is it's own brand of fabulous. His argument is that bullshit is different and some ways worse than lying, which is purposeful deception of claims. Bullshit, in contrast, is closer to bluffing, where the misrepresentation isn't that of facts but of one's disposition toward truth--which, in bullshit, is one of indifference. So one bullshits when one makes claims that may or may not be true,...more

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Jan 05, 2010

Stafford Davis rated it

It’s a funny title and subject for sure, but this book is a serious philosophical inquiry into the nature of bullshit and its applications. I might also say that Frankfurt is a Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton – just to appease anyone that thinks this is all a bunch of bullshit.

Opening argument:
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit... In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so muc...moreIt’s a funny title and subject for sure, but this book is a serious philosophical inquiry into the nature of bullshit and its applications. I might also say that Frankfurt is a Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton – just to appease anyone that thinks this is all a bunch of bullshit.

Opening argument:
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit... In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, and what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis.
One of the main subjects of the book is the distinction between a liar and a bullshitter. Frankfurt contends that a liar is more vile than a mere bullshitter.
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. This requires a degree of craftsmanship, in which the teller of the lie submits to objective constraints imposed by what he takes to be the truth… In order to invent an effective lie, he must design his falsehood under the guidance of truth. On the other hand, a person who undertakes to bullshit his way through has much more freedom. His focus is panoramic rather than particular. He does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a specific point, and thus he is not constrained by the truths surrounding that point or intersecting it. He is prepared, so far as required, to fake context as well. This freedom from the constraints to which the liar must submit does not necessarily mean, of course, that his task is easier than the task of the liar. But the mode of creativity upon which it relies is less analytical and less deliberative than that which is mobilized in lying. It is more expansive and independent, with more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. Hence the familiar notion of the “bullshit artist.”
Frankfurt’s descriptions of bullshit are so succinct and poignant, that I can’t elaborate or bullshit my way through any analysis of his theoretical study. The only thing I can add here, on a personal note, is that I get a giddy chuckle every time I read the word ‘bullshit’ and ‘bullshitter’ in this insightful book!(less)

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Sep 10, 2009

Billie Pritchett rated it

This is a perceptive little book by Harry Frankfurt about the phenomenon of BS. BS is an assertion or series of assertions about some state of affairs, but the person asserting the BS doesn't care whether what he or she is saying is true or false. Lying and BS are distinguished on the grounds that the person who is lying knows what he says is false. A BS artist, however, could actually say something true, but only accidentally and contrary to his real motives, which mainly involve trying to make...more

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Aug 16, 2009

Derek Peffer rated it

On Bullshit. Like me, you might have walked by the philosophy section at the book store and saw its queer title, and immediately started to peruses. Its slim size, and its red with silver lettering title shimming at you. It's hard to simply walk away by curiosity standards. Its great marketing.

Reading over many of the Amazon.com reviews I can see that people saw this book as mix bag of good and bad. Many were drawn in by the title and had a large misconception what it entailed. A jo...moreOn Bullshit. Like me, you might have walked by the philosophy section at the book store and saw its queer title, and immediately started to peruses. Its slim size, and its red with silver lettering title shimming at you. It's hard to simply walk away by curiosity standards. Its great marketing.

Reading over many of the Amazon.com reviews I can see that people saw this book as mix bag of good and bad. Many were drawn in by the title and had a large misconception what it entailed. A joke book, or Satire. Far from it! Its written as a academic, and philosophical paper. Thats the style, no humor, just analyst. For many including I, that's a bore. Lucky, its quaint size of 67 pages, and large spacing and lettering make it less of a sludge to read. By the time you notice its drudgery your already ¾ done.

Harry Frankfurt, Our studious author starts off asking a simple and humoring question (The only humor allowed), why so much bullshit? The world is just bursting on the scene from bullshit! This required a TV show to be created to expose the tsunami of bullshit, e.g., “The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart” (Love you Jon). And in fact a second was needed, “The Colbert Report”!

You might feel I'm making more out of this book then is needed; Witting tangents. But thats because if I continued, I'd bore myself. But some people actually care; Sodomy quicker and less painful. Lets continue.

Frankfurt, Our Stogy hero asks yet another question but less humoring, has anyone else noticed the bullshit and has also written a book. He laments, I imagine sighing to himself that very little has been done on the subject. HF does though find a essay called, “The Prevalence of Humbug” by Max Black. He, that is our stogy hero, begins to cross-examine between the rules and examples and activities we use to understand both bullshit and humbug and continues in this philosophical fashion for ¾ of the book.

I might have written a bit harsh, and indeed this is for humor sake and my own OCD problems. But its conclusion is really quite interesting and perhaps this is the spoiler of the book. If you dare to consult the evil communist regime that is, Wikipedia, you'll find it also hasn't much to say except its conclusion after the ¾ mind slogging. As HF finally sees it, "bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

In summary of this statement. HF find that while lies try to lead you away from the truth, It also presupposes some knowledgeable account of what the truth actually is to draw you from. In the case of bullshit, its indifferent to both. It's not a necessary condition within BS to care about truth or falsity of a claim. BS primarily looks to impress and gain the adherence of an audience unannounced to them for the purpose of advancing their own agendas. After reading this book a quote came to mind.

“When it comes to BULLSHIT...BIG-TIME, MAJOR LEAGUE BULLSHIT... you have to stand IN AWE, IN AWE of the all time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it, religion has actually convinced people that there's an INVISIBLE MAN...LIVING IN THE SKY...who watches every thing you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever 'til the end of time...but he loves you. ...And he needs money! He's all powerful, all perfect, all knowing, just can't handle money!”

k thx,
Preliminary Absurdist (less)

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Jul 01, 2010

Dan Porter rated it

Recommended to Dan by: "Stolen" from Jamie's Currently Reading shelf.

Shelves: philosophy

A short but somewhat interesting look at, primarily, what constitutes the difference between lies and bullshit. Based on my understanding of Frankfurt's arguments, I came up with a couple of comparative examples of the difference.

1. Politicians, regardless of political stripe, lie. Talk show hosts, regardless of political stripe, bullshit.

2. A liar is the guy who tells his blind date at the end of the evening that he'll call her. A bullshitter is the guy sitting behi...more

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Dec 31, 2011

Kristina rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

This was an intriguing little book about the word "bullshit." Considering the topic, it's not as amusing nor as easy to read as you may think. On Bullshit was written in dry academic style. This is the author outlining his purpose of the book:

I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis. I shall not consider the rhetorical uses and misuses of bullshit. My aim is simply to give a

...more

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Jan 05, 2011

Ryn Shane-Armstrong rated it

Shelves: academia, philosophy

When I first retrieved On Bullshit from the reserve shelf at my local library, I thought someone was surely playing a joke on me. This 67-page essay, written by renowned Princeton professor and analytic philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, is comically contained in a diminutive hardback roughly the size of a passport and no thicker than a slice of bread. It's an unexpected form, to say the least, for a piece of writing with such a grand endeavor: to defend truth through deliberation on bullshit.
...moreWhen I first retrieved On Bullshit from the reserve shelf at my local library, I thought someone was surely playing a joke on me. This 67-page essay, written by renowned Princeton professor and analytic philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, is comically contained in a diminutive hardback roughly the size of a passport and no thicker than a slice of bread. It's an unexpected form, to say the least, for a piece of writing with such a grand endeavor: to defend truth through deliberation on bullshit.

Frankfurt is a keen thinker, and his writing reflects the depth and enthusiasm with which he engages the work. On Bullshit should not, therefore, be perceived as some sort of playful exercise in intellectual hedonism; it is an honest exploration into the nature of bullshit, particularly as it relates to lying. And there is most definitely a difference between the two! Where one seeks to deny truth through overt falsity (thus acknowledging the existence of truth the way shadow proves the presence of things), the other, bullshit, is completely indifferent. Bullshit simply doesn't have a horse in the race. It serves only itself, and for Frankfurt this is the truly insidious aspect of bullshit: it's a practice of utter carelessness. Bullshit just doesn't give a damn about anything.

Ultimately, On Bullshit is a call for greater concern with how we understand and represent human knowledge. Frankfurt wants us to continue to believe in the possibility of establishing truth. In a nod to the ideals of the Enlightenment, Frankfurt dismisses the contemporary (perhaps postmodern?) skeptics of "objective inquiry" and reminds the reader that should we fail to honor truth over bullshit we risk losing touch with what it is that makes us human. Or, as Frankfurt explains, "As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we can not know ourselves at all without knowing them... Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial -- notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things."

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Dec 31, 2009

Dionisia rated it

Recommended to Dionisia by: "Bozo Sapiens," Papa

Shelves: borrowed, essays, nonfiction

I first came across this book while reading Bozo Sapiens Why to Err is Human. The title intrigued me, and my dad already had it on his bookshelf, so I picked it up. It was relatively short, more like an essay, and also pretty dry. In it, Harry Frankfurt develops a theory of what BS is and how it can be distinguished from such things as lying or bluffing. Essentially he drives home the point that bullshitters are not in the least concerned with truth. Whether false or true, their statements...more

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Dec 22, 2010

Brixton rated it

Recommended to Brixton by: bookswap

Shelves: non-fiction, prokievs-project

Living with the biggest bullshitter I've ever known distracted me somewhat from reading this impersonally. However, I've now a handy-dandy little argument in my pocket which supports my experience that bullshit is in its insidiousness far more unwieldy and destructive than lies. Liars, at least, respect that there is a truth which they withhold or obscure, and their lies are vulnerable to confession or exposure and therefore defeat; bullshitters are careless shape-shifters, to communicate with t...more

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Dec 04, 2011

Smith Q. Johns rated it

This book was, not surprisingly, written by a Professor of Philosophy. Not surprisingly in that, despite the content, there is a very serious tone throughout the entire book. It's written like a manual by someone without an ounce of humor, that is if you miss the subtlety of it. The truth is you can't talk about a subject like "bullshit," and have it be completely serious. And actually, the more serious, the more entertaining. So the best part is that the author was serious, thus makin...more

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Sep 16, 2011

Lumpenprole rated it

Shelves: 2011, philosophy, politics

Most of what I have to say about this book is identical to what I said regarding its successor, On Truth. I only need to add that the distinction he drew between lying and bullshit had never occurred to me before, and I found those parts of the particularly interesting. Though Frankfurt doesn't use terms like immoral and amoral, I don't think it is too far a stretch to call lying immoral, and bullshitting (as Frankfurt defines the term) as amoral. I'm not quite so sure I agree with his conclusio...more

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Aug 07, 2011

Kenny Tang added it

This book is BULLSHIT!! The title was the best part of this book. Seriously. There is no humor at all within the book with such an awesome title. This is a poor attempt to define and philosophize bullshit. It takes word definitions into way too much detail with no meaningful result and skirts around with a substitute word "humbug" which was a complete waste of time. Boring examples that are not memorable nor worth remembering. Quoting other bullshit philosophers that gave no better ins...more

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Aug 09, 2010

Alan rated it

A really inspiring little book that helped me understand the dynamics in some institutional situations.
I wrote an article, part of which was about the questions raised by this book:
From clockwork to webs of relationships. The relation between policy and practice
http://www.connected.org/learn/policy-to...
Here's a short extract:
... A number of administrations have chosen an alternative strategy, however. Recognising implicitly that they cannot force practice to comply ...more

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About Harry G. Frankfurt

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

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The Importance of What We Care about: Philosophical Essays

Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right

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Quotes from On Bullshit

“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.” — 84 people liked it

“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.” — 12 people liked it

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