While browsing the philosophy section in a quaint and generally inaccessible bookshop, we came across a miniature tome we might have missed in conning the long shelves of a megastore. Noting the title on the spine and considering its offbeat nature with curiosity, we reached to indulge it with a cursory examination.
A closer view confirmed the title is indeed On Bullshit and informed us that the author is one Harry G. Frankfurt. We opened the book to inspect it further and were surprised to discover its credentials. The publisher is The Princeton University Press, and the author is a “renowned moral philosopher” who “is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University.” We are also told that the “essay was originally published in the Raritan Review.”
Since we also noted the book has a copyright date of 2005, we thought we might be a bit late in taking note of it but decided our readers may, like us, have missed the wide proliferation of its original notices. We saw that it was dedicated as follows: “To Joan, truly.” We are unaware of what exactly is implied as the appropriate word to follow “truly.”
We will now, for purposes of this notice, quote briefly from the beginning:
"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, nor attracted much sustained inquiry."
Having established his topic, he continues, in time-honored Aristotelian fashion, to review past work in the area before he makes his major contribution. He turns to an essay, called The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black, wherein the author suggests a number of synonyms for “humbug,” including “balderdash, claptrap, hokum, drivel, buncombe, imposture, and quackery.”
The author does not find this list helpful, but Black defines humbug as follows: “deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.”
Frankfurt finds merit in the description and opts to “comment on the various elements of Black’s definition.”
In the course of his recapitulation and analysis, he also considers related thoughts by folks from St. Augustine to Pascal and Wittgenstein.
We finally arrive at such sweeping insights as: “Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about.” And that "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.”
We conclude with, “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.”
Since “sincerity” is actually one of the most fundamental esthetic principals of emotive art, as stated by storytelling heavies like Tolstoy to inviting versifiers like Hammerstein, we will decline to go along with the author’s final statement.
But if this sort of offbeat investigative reasoning is your kind of cow pie, then you might enjoy a perusal of its examination of the subject at hand.
Tom Attea, humorist and creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing "delightfully funny," "witty," with "great humor and ebullience" and "good, genuine laughs." |
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