On Bullshit Part 1

we're here with Princeton University professor of philosophy emeritus Harry Frankfort whose most recent book on professor Frankfurt thanks for popping in today to tell us about I'll confess I haven't read all of it it's a little on the longest side but so I'm hoping that you can just sort of take us to the root of the matter I understand that this has its inception in an essay you wrote several years ago and it's become something of a cult classic what what first brought you a professional philosopher to it was largely because I think that respect for the truth and a concern for the truth these are among the foundations of civilization and I was for a long time kind of disturbed by the lack of respect and concern for the truth that I seemed to observe and much of the speech and writing that was being produced and is one of the deformities of these values so I thought trying to find out more about it trying to find out what it is you know I was trained as an analytic philosopher and Alawis philosophy is characterized by a special concern for clarification of concepts and this was a concept that seemed to me to be an important one it it referred to a significant feature of our culture and not only a significant feature but a feature that in my view post certain dangers to the foundations of civilization so I was interested in analyzing the concept and trying to find out what exactly we're talking about when we talk about this what is your theory of what is well it consists in a lack of concern for the difference between truth and falsity the motivation of the bullshitter is not to say things that are true or even to say things that are false but serving some other purpose and the question of whether what he says is true or false is really irrelevant to his pursuit of that ambition the bullshitter is not necessarily a liar what he says may very well be true and he may not think that it's false I was careful to try to make a distinction between make clear the difference is as I understand it between bullshitters and Liars and you actually find both bullshitters and some some way more reprehensible than liars I don't know if they're more reprehensible exactly but is a somehow a more insidious threat to the values that I'm concerned with then lying is because the liar knows what the truth is and he's concerned with trying to keep people away from the truth this in itself shows a certain respect for the value of truth and the importance of truth whereas a bullshitter doesn't care at all so his his stance is a greater threat to respect and concern for the truth and the liars is the liar wants to substitute for the truth something that he knows what believes to be false so the difference between truth and falsity is very important to him where a bullshitter is not important at all that's why I think that there's more a more insidious threat to concern and respect with truth and than in lying right now is it difficult as a philosopher normally concerned with truth and falsehood or ethical behavior and unethical behavior to treat a kind of behavior that's completely indifferent to those categories at all is that a particular challenge it is a challenge I do think that there is a question that I didn't deal with in my essay that I think is worth pursuing which is our attitude towards why we are so tolerant of it because I think we are very tolerant of it much more tolerant of it than of lying line strikes us as somehow a violation we feel that the liar is is injuring us in some way or at least threatening danger us they don't feel that way so much about the bullshitter thing and I don't know I don't really understand exactly why our attitudes towards these two deformities of respect for the truth why our attitudes are so different in in the two cases I think I raised this question the SI and said I was leaving the problem as an exercise for the reader and so far I haven't haven't received any reports of results of these exercises now does require a kind of creativity or an imagination that just a simple insertion of a falsehood doesn't well I suggested that it does and that's where the the notion of the artist comes in that the liar is limited by his commitment to saying something that conflicts with the truth so there's a constraint upon him that he has to respect whereas the bullshitter who doesn't care about truth you know anywhere he likes and there's a kind of a panoramic view that he can take that the liar can't take because the liar is limited to inserting in the specific place in the system of beliefs a false belief or a true one where's the bullshitter because I say can go anywhere he likes and draw any kind of picture any kind of any kind of panorama of beliefs that serves his purpose you

Channel: Princeton University Press

Views: 79,870

Rating: 4.8932495 out of 5

Keywords: philosophy, truth, untruth, lying

Id: W1RO93OS0Sk

Length: 6min 12sec (372 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 18 2007

Reddit Comments

[u/ThisRedditorIsDrunk]

Part 2

[u/degco44]

I'm reading this book in my Philosophy 100 class right now. An excellent analysis of the manipulation of words for persuasion.

[u/[deleted]]

I just read his article "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person", and I can confirm that this man does know a lot about Bullshit.

[u/dreamshoes]

I saw him speak on this book in Richmond, VA! I was a teenager at the time, and it was very eye-opening. I love that he wrote "On Truth" first, and then sort of subverted himself. Really drives the point home...

[u/KabelGuy]

I can't figure out if this is for realsies or not.

It's interesting, either way, though.

[u/JMarcott]

Thanks for the post...think I'm going to have to check this book out.