Bullshit and Philosophy Read online

  Table of Contents

  Popular Culture and Philosophy®

  Title Page

  On Bullshitmania

  I - To Shoot the Bull?

  Chapter 1 - On Letting It Slide

  Tolerable Bullshit

  Intolerable Bullshit

  Bullshit and Self-Deception

  Blameless Bullshit

  Bullshit and Truth

  Chapter 2 - A Defense of Common Sense

  The Truth Matters

  “What Exactly Do You Mean?”

  Let’s Stop Bullshitting Ourselves

  Chapter 3 - The Pragmatics of Bullshit, Intelligently Designed

  The Example of Intelligent Design

  A Definition of Bullshit—New and Improved!

  The Truth in Bullshit

  The Truth about Semantics

  Solving Frankfurt’s Puzzle, or, Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Bullshit

  The Case for Purism about Bullshit

  Chapter 4 - Bullshit and the Foibles of the Human Mind, or: What the Masters of ...

  Some Cognitive Foibles of the Human Mind

  Reclaiming the Public Square

  Chapter 5 - Bullshit and Personality

  Does the Bullshitter Pay Attention to the Truth?

  Two Modes of Bullshit

  Bullshit and Personality Disorders

  Some Examples of Bullshit in Personality Disorders

  Perfect Partners: Bullshit and Distorted Social Perceptions

  The Threat Posed by Bullshit

  Chapter 6 - Performing Bullshit and the Post-Sincere Condition

  Mission Statement

  Shitty Attitudes: On the Use and Misuse of Bullshit in Life

  Bullshit as a Condition of Life

  The World as Will to Bullshit

  Overcoming Overwhelming Bullshit

  Chapter 7 - The Importance of Being Earnest: A Pragmatic Approach to Bullshitting

  Two Tauroscatological Schools

  The Epistemic Imperative

  The Problem with Bullshitting

  So Why Bullshit?

  II - The Bull by the Horns

  Chapter 8 - Deeper into Bullshit

  1 Without the Shit of the Bull

  2 Two Species of Bullshit

  3 Bullshit and Lying

  4 Bullshit as Unclarifiable Unclarity

  5 Bullshit as Product and Bullshit as Process

  Chapter 9 - The Unity of Bullshit

  No Bullshit, Please, We’re Austrian

  A Little Carnap in Everyone

  The Unity of Bullshit

  Chapter 10 - Raising the Tone: Definition, Bullshit, and the Definition of Bullshit

  Semantic Negligence

  A Caricature History of Semantics

  Persuasive Definition

  Broadening the Analysis

  Backfire

  Good Definitions

  Is Frankfurt’s Definition of ‘Bullshit’ Itself PD?

  Chapter 11 - Different Kinds and Aspects of Bullshit

  Harry Frankfurt on Bullshit

  A Different Take on Bullshit

  A Different Kind of Bullshit

  III - It’s All Around Us

  Chapter 12 - The Republic of Bullshit: On the Dumbing-Up of Democracy

  Bullshitting and Lying in Politics

  The Myth of the ‘Well-Informed’ Citizen

  ‘Dumbing-Up’: Some Distortions of Democratic Equality

  Philosophy versus Bullshit

  Chapter 13 - Political Bullshit and the Stoic Story of Self

  How to Analyze Bullshit

  Stories Shape Our Feelings

  Bullshit Around the Globe

  Chapter 14 - Bullshit at the Interface of Science and Policy: Global Warming, ...

  Bullshit of the Isolated Fact

  Bullshit of Universal Standards

  Combatting the Two Kinds of Bullshit

  Chapter 15 - Rhetoric Is Not Bullshit

  The Problem (and Politics) of Rhetoric

  The Truth about Postmodernism

  Rhetoric and Bullshit

  Chapter 16 - Just Bullshit

  Bullshit as a Call to Open-Mindedness

  Wittgenstein: Ultimate Bullshit Detector—or Bullshitter?

  Bullshit as Deferred Epistemic Gratification

  The Scientific Method as a Search for the Justice in Bullshit

  Our Distinguished Panel of Incomparable Geniuses

  Our Index, Exquisitely Crafted for Your Illumination

  ALSO FROM OPEN COURT

  Copyright Page

  Popular Culture and Philosophy®

  Series Editor: George A. Reisch

  VOLUME 1

  Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing (2000)

  Edited by William Irwin

  VOLUME 2

  The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer (2001) Edited by William Irwin, Mark T. Conard, and Aeon J. Skoble

  VOLUME 3

  The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002) Edited by William Irwin

  VOLUME 4

  Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale (2003) Edited by James B. South

  VOLUME 5

  The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All (2003) Edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson

  VOLUME 6

  Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter’s Box (2004) Edited by Eric Bronson

  VOLUME 7

  The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am (2004) Edited by Richard Greene and Peter Vernezze

  VOLUME 8

  Woody Allen and Philosophy: You Mean My Whole Fallacy Is Wrong? (2004) Edited by Mark T. Conard and Aeon J. Skoble

  VOLUME 9

  Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts (2004) Edited by David Baggett and Shawn E. Klein

  VOLUME 10

  Mel Gibson’s Passion and Philosophy: The Cross, the Questions, the Controversy (2004) Edited by Jorge J.E. Gracia

  VOLUME 11

  More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded (2005) Edited by William Irwin

  VOLUME 12

  Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful than You Can Possibly Imagine (2005) Edited by Jason T. Eberl and Kevin S. Decker

  VOLUME 13

  Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way (2005) Edited by Tom Morris and Matt Morris

  VOLUME 14

  The Atkins Diet and Philosophy: Chewing the Fat with Kant and Nietzsche (2005) Edited by Lisa Heldke, Kerri Mommer, and Cynthia Pineo

  VOLUME 15

  The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy: The Lion, the Witch, and the Worldview (2005) Edited by Gregory Bassham and Jerry L. Walls

  VOLUME 16

  Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (2005) Edited by Derrick Darby and Tommie Shelby

  VOLUME 17

  Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Thinking) (2006) Edited by Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter

  VOLUME 18

  Harley-Davidson and Philosophy: Full-Throttle Aristotle (2006) Edited by Bernard E. Rollin, Carolyn M. Gray, Kerri Mommer, and Cynthia Pineo

  VOLUME 19

  Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think! (2006) Edited by Gary L. Hardcastle and George A Reisch

  VOLUME 20

  Poker and Philosophy: Pocket Rockets and Philosopher Kings (2006) Edited by Eric Bronson

  VOLUME 21

  U2 and Philosophy: How to Decipher an Atomic Band (2006) Edited by Mark A. Wrathall

  VOLUME 22

  The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless (2006) Edited by Richard Greene and K. Silem Mo
hammad

  VOLUME 23

  James Bond and Philosophy: Questions Are Forever (2006) Edited by Jacob M. Held and James B. South

  VOLUME 24

  Bullshit and Philosophy: Guaranteed to Get Perfect Results Every Time (2006) Edited by Gary L. Hardcastle and George A. Reisch

  VOLUME 25

  The Beatles and Philosophy: Nothing You Can Think that Can’t Be Thunk (2006) Edited by Michael Baur and Steven Baur

  IN PREPARATION:

  South Park and Philosophy (2007) Edited by Richard Hanley

  Hitchcock and Philosophy (2007) Edited by David Baggett and William Drumin

  The Grateful Dead and Philosophy (2007) Edited by Steven Gimbel

  On Bullshitmania

  GEORGE A. REISCH and GARY L. HARDCASTLE

  It was just a book, after all—a book written by an Ivy League philosopher, Princeton’s Harry G. Frankfurt, attempting to clarify a particular concept. That clarification would be achieved, moreover, in an ordinary way, at least for Ivy League philosophers. Philosophical authorities from the past would be cited, quoted, and interpreted; the flaws in their analyses pointed out; and suddenly a concept or term we thought we had understood would be revealed as in fact confused, vague, and murky. Then, at the work’s intellectual crescendo, a new and clearer interpretation of the concept would emerge for other philosophers to consider and, eventually, tear apart once again. A day in the life of professional philosophy.

  But this book was unusual. It was very small, even cute. Sitting on bookstore shelves and display tables, it could easily have been mistaken for a children’s book, or a pocket-size collection of affirmations. The austere, classical style of its cover and its title might rather have suggested an ancient oration or a collection of lyric poems. But the words elegantly printed on the cover did not say “On Love,” “On Poetics,” or even, “On Truth (and its General Scarcity).” They said “On Bullshit,” and the public loved it.1

  No other work by a living academic philosopher has been so well received. After twenty-six weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, On Bullshit is poised to sell more copies than any commercial philosophy book, ever. Yes, philosophically themed books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Gödel, Escher, Bach were hugely successful. But they were written for wide, popular audiences. On Bullshit, in contrast, circulated for two decades exclusively among professional academic philosophers. Such experts in logic, conceptual analysis and (Frankfurt’s specialty) moral theory usually have little interest in popular philosophical writings. All the more surprising, then, that on leaving the ivory tower for main street, On Bullshit became such a hit.

  Apropos for Today

  Why did it happen? One answer, easy and obvious, was suggested by comedian Jon Stewart, host of television’s The Daily Show. Stewart interviewed Frankfurt after the book had become a bestseller. When Frankfurt explained his idea that, unlike the liar, “the bullshitter doesn’t really care whether what he says is true,” the audience erupted in laughter and giggles. “I should warn you,” Stewart said, leaning in to reassure his startled guest. “When they hear that word, it tickles them.” “Especially coming from an Ivy League Professor,” Frankfurt added.

  True, that word does not often (or, really, ever) appear in the title of academic treatises. But this book’s appeal cannot be fully explained by its cover. Like a sweet little old lady giving someone the finger, the novelty of a minor obscenity quickly gets old. On Bullshit is different. Even for those who may see the book as merely a joke, or a most appropriate gift for an annoying boss or co-worker, it is a joke that seems to have hit a cultural nerve.

  As it turns out, Stewart also suggested a deeper, and better, answer. The book, he noted, is “very apropos for today.” He did not elaborate; he just asked Frankfurt about its origin and joked about whether Frankfurt had his facts right or was just . . . never mind. Truth is, Stewart didn’t need to explain why the book is apropos. There was, as the saying goes, an elephant in the room during that interview. It was the same elephant that haunted Frankfurt’s other appearances on television and radio. On each occasion it lounged next to Frankfurt and his interviewer, waiting to be named, discussed, or at least acknowledged. Yet not even Stewart, who makes his living with clever, incisive parody of politics and its news coverage, mentioned explicitly why it is that On Bullshit is “very apropos for today.”

  The elephant was, of course, a war. Like most others in United States’ history, it sharply divided popular opinion. But this war was highly unusual, too. Its supporters as well as its critics came to agree that the official reasons for waging it, the ones put to the public, to Congress, and to the United States’ allies, turned out to be . . . well, put it this way: the claims that once seemed to make the invasion of Iraq necessary and urgent—that Iraq possessed and planned to use nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction, that it had high-technology devices (such as remote controlled airplanes) for deploying those weapons, and that it was complicit in the attacks of September 11th, 2001—are now understood to be best described by that word.

  That’s why Stewart’s audience seemed to shift uncomfortably in their seats as he and Frankfurt discussed bullshit’s indifference to truth and falsity, its hidden interest in manipulating belief and behavior, and the way one senses, as Frankfurt put it in his book, that the “bullshitter is trying to get away with something.” The audience had come to see Stewart and his writers skewer current political events, after all, so few would have missed the obvious referents—the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the admission that sources for these claims were, in retrospect, not credible—that made the book so apropos. There is and will likely remain little agreement about who, exactly, got away with what, exactly, in the run-up to the war. But there is a widespread sense that United States citizens, soldiers, and allies have been taken in.2

  These are troubling suspicions. They are unmentionable, if not unthinkable, for some, because they threaten cherished ideals about the political and moral integrity of the United States. That’s why this elephant is difficult to acknowledge. One way to acknowledge it, though, is through the cushion of humor. Everyone in Stewart’s audience had surely heard the joke that WMDs had finally been located: they were weapons of mass distraction, and they were stockpiled in Washington D.C. Others no doubt found a cushion in the small and inviting form of the book. It had just the right author—an Ivy League philosopher, expert in the kind of critical, balanced, and objective thinking that, as the invasion of Iraq drew near, seemed eclipsed by frightening memories of 9/11 and frightening talk of WMDs. And it struck a comforting tone—its classical title and book jacket portray bullshit not as something alien, massive, and menacing but rather as just one of the many human foibles that have puzzled thinkers and artists for centuries. Indeed, Frankfurt’s philosophical detachment from contemporary events, necessitated in one respect by the essay’s history, makes On Bullshit apropos in an altogether different way. Call it bullshit without tears. It allows readers to approach that elephant abstractly, generically, and as it recurs throughout the ages—without having to take up those disturbing questions that make the book so relevant in the first place.

  The Year in Bullshit

  When Stewart asked Frankfurt whether our culture occasionally cleans house by “truth-telling,” or whether “it just keeps piling,” Frankfurt thought carefully for a moment and scored another laugh with his audience—“I think it just keeps piling.” Again, they knew what he meant. For in the wake of the missing WMDs, On Bullshit appeared amidst an explosion of various kinds of fraud and deception. Some, such as identity theft and eBay swindles, were enabled by new technologies of commerce, the Internet, and the demise of the photograph as a trustworthy document (see the neologism ‘to photoshop’). Yet other kinds seem inexplicable without positing something like a cultural attitude or climate in which truth has become—much as Frankfurt feared—less important than the demands of political, commercial, artistic, an
d even scientific success.

  Evidence for this abounds in Laura Penny’s Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth about Bullshit, which appeared on bookstore shelves shortly after On Bullshit. Reflecting on years of headline scandals involving the Catholic Church, the mutual fund industry, and fallen corporate titans such as Enron and MCI, Penny observed that we live in an “era of unprecedented bullshit production” (p. 1). What’s especially striking is the sudden prominence of fraud within institutions that have heretofore been very careful about what’s fiction and what’s not.

  Like publishing. One of the more dramatic scandals surrounding truth and authenticity belonged to Oprah Winfrey and author James Frey, whose A Million Little Pieces Oprah recommended to her enormous, book-hungry audience as a true, inspirational story. After the book was exposed as largely fiction, Ms. Winfrey first defended the book (as nonetheless inspirational) but then dramatically retracted her support and scolded a remorseful, tearful Frey on national television for his betrayal of trust and truth. Within weeks, another celebrated novelist, J.T. Leroy, whose autobiographical writings detailed his rise from teen-age poverty and truck-stop prostitution to New York-style literary success, took his whacks—once again—for peddling fictional stories as nonfiction memoirs. Unlike Frey, however, J.T. Leroy felt little remorse, or pain. In fact, he didn’t exist. This fiction included the author himself, who turned out to be constructed by an aspiring female writer who for years posed successfully as the celebrated author’s friend, confidant, and business agent. (When cameras were present, J.T. Leroy himself was impersonated by a boyish female friend wearing men’s clothes and dark glasses.)