Peter Edidin of the New York Times trips over his own shoes as he covers a philosophical work by Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit:
Harry G. Frankfurt, 76, is a moral philosopher of international reputation and a professor emeritus at Princeton. He is also the author of a book recently published by the Princeton University Press that is the first in the publishing house's distinguished history to carry a title most newspapers, including this one, would find unfit to print. The work is called "On Bull - - - - ."The opening paragraph of the 67-page essay is a model of reason and composition, repeatedly disrupted by that single obscenity:
"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much [bull]. 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 [bull] and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry."
Frankfurt usefully distinguishes between the simple liar and the bullshitter. Because the simple liar is aware of the truth and wants to skirt it, he has a respect for truth that the bullshit artist lacks. The bullshit artist, caught in his own web of unfounded rhetoric, simply disregards truth as a criterion of sound reasoning, instead relying on persuasive ability as the measure of an argument's strength. In this the bullshitter is trapped in a closed loop of which I've written recently.
The gem in this article comes when Edidin quotes Frankfurt on the origin of his title:
"I used the title I did," he added, "because I wanted to talk about [bull] without any [bull], so I didn't use 'humbug' or 'bunkum.' "
Now that's some straight shootin'. Rather than "disrupting" his chain of reasoning, the use of the barnyard colloquialism allows Frankfurt to slice directly to the heart of his chosen topic. No bullshit.
Posted by Chris at February 14, 2005 11:53 AM | TrackBack