Recommended readingPosted by Usman Valiante at 01:51 PM
Policy debates on the environment are often hotly contested as the outcomes very often involve economic "winners" and "losers". Invariably when one party or another doesn't have a leg to stand on in support of its position it resorts to bullshit.
But what is bullshit really? And before you start chuckling let me say that any of you who think this question is a trivial one better think again. We live in a world where armies mobilize and people die as a result of wars predicated on bullshit. The decisions we make that affect our planet's future are influenced by bullshit. The ability to cut through bullshit is critical to the workings of a democratic society. So, it isn't a trival question at all.
And so I am pleased that Professor Harry G. Frankfurt, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University has come along with a piece entitled On bullshit which tries to address the fact that, "...we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves.".
Just as a teaser is this favoured quote of mine, "What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affaris. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false. Since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not decieve us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensibly distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to."
The book is a must read. It is a sobering reminder that the only way ahead for us is to seek knowledge and question and test everything that is put before us.
The full cite:
FrankFurt, Harry G., 2005. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey, USA. ISBN 0-691-12294-6
Also check out: http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/video/frankfurt/
Comments
Our mission: To teach the world the academics on bullshit! As you can see from the references in the article below, there is a plentiful literature on bullshit:
Following an all-candidates' meeting during the recent Ontario provincial
election I had the privilege to briefly discuss with some journalism
students the fact that "bullshit" has now become a respectable academic
field of study.
If one uses google scholar with the search string "on bullshit" one is
rewarded 5,590 hits of what should be mainly the academic, scholarly, peer
reviewed literature on the subject.
While the revival of studies on bullshit is generally credited to the
phenomenal success of Princeton University emeritus philosophy professor
Harry Frankfurt's 2005 book simply entitled "On Bullshit", this author is of
the opinion that Neil Postman's paper delivered at the National Convention
for the Teachers of English on November 28, 1969 in Washington, D.C.
entitled "Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection" should be the first
reference any student should read. Postman made the following point: "As I
see it, the best things schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to
distinguish useful talk from bullshit."
A little later he continues: "every day in almost every way people are
exposed to more bullshit than it is healthy for them to endure". It was left
to Frankfurt to proclaim that "one of the most salient features of our
culture is that there is so much bullshit"; however, the purpose of this
short submission is to draw to the attention of students that the rapidly
expanding academic literature on bullshit has something of interest to most
students. Let me close by simply providing three examples:
1. Students of journalism and political science should be interested in -
Brandenburg, Heinz, Short of Lying - The prevalence of bullshit in political
communication, presented at the Annual Conference of the Political Studies
Association, Reading, 4-6 April, 2006.
2. Accounting, business and science students might enjoy Queen's University
Norman B. Macintosh's Accounting - Truth, Lies, or bullshit. A Philosophical
Investigation.
3. For anyone wanting to go deeper into bullshit the book by Gary L.
Hardcastle and George A. Reisch, 2006, Bullshit and Philosophy - guaranteed
to get perfect results every time, Open Court, Chicago is a must library
addition.
While the entire book is worth reading, although some chapters are heavy
slugging, the following chapters are highly recommended:
Chapter 6 by University of British Columbia Professor Alan Richardson -
Performing Bullshit and the Post-Sincere Condition, should be read by every
student thinking of post graduate studies.
Chapter 14 by Heather Douglas - Bullshit at the Interface of Science and
Policy: Global Warming, Toxic Substances, and Other Pesky Problems, page
215, is must reading for policy wonks, politicians and bureaucrats.
Canadians have made excellent contributions to the literature on bullshit as
can be seen by visiting http://bullshitcitynorth.blogspot.com. Perhaps
University of Manitoba professor John S. McCallum said it best in his 2005
Viewpoint - On Bullshit is not bullshit, Ivey Business Journal, Sept/Oct,
page 1-3.
Posted by: Bill Riedel | November 28, 2007 09:08 PM