The
classic essay is now available as a
cheap book, and the
all-Target New Yorker is on the scene with a
review.
The essence of bullshit, Frankfurt decides, is that it is produced without any concern for the truth. Bullshit needn't be false: “The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong.” The bullshitter's fakery consists not in misrepresenting a state of affairs but in concealing his own indifference to the truth of what he says. The liar, by contrast, is concerned with the truth, in a perverse sort of fashion: he wants to lead us away from it.
The reviewer goes on to demolish Frankfurt's fine distinction with an apt example about a used-car salesman, but nonetheless: This is important philosophical work. Seriously.
# posted by
Gerry Canavan @ 3:22 PM
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