Ken Gemes, “Nietzsche’s Critique of Truth,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52, pp. 47–65.
183
Kenneth Burke, The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961).
184
There are some important exceptions. At both the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota, for example, students are required to take Rhetoric (offered by a Rhetoric, not English, department) in lieu of the usual required Composition courses. It would be interesting to document the contribution to an education through a comparison of these different models.
185
Plato’s unflattering portrayal of poets and Sophists mark the opening salvo in the philosophical war against bullshit, even though Plato availed himself of bullshit in promoting the “myth of the metals” as a principle of social stratification in his Republic. This doublethink has not been lost on today’s neo-conservative followers of Leo Strauss.
186
An updated defense of Franklin’s position (“the civilizing force of hypocrisy”) is Jon Elster, “Deliberation and Constitution Making,” in Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 97–122.
187
Nevertheless, the emerging literature in “virtue epistemology” courts just such uninhibited judgments. See Linda Zagzebski and Abrol Fairweather, eds., Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
188
Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Philosophers’ Abuse of Science (London: Profile, 1998).
189
“Let the believer beware!”
190
On this reading of Galileo, see Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (London: Verso, 1975).
191
Ernest Gellner, Words and Things: A Critical Account of Linguistic Philosophy and a Study in Ideology (London: Gollancz, 1959). An academically sublimated form of such language-driven class anxiety remains in the discipline of sociolinguistics, whose seminal researcher was Basil Bernstein. His work is compiled in Class, Codes, and Control: Theoretical Studies towards a Sociology of Language, three volumes (London: Routledge, 1971–77).
192
A good collection of recent work on the epistemology of testimony is the following special issue: Martin Kusch and Peter Lipton, eds., Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 33: 2 (June 2002), Part A, pp. 209–423.
193
Among those touched by Kierkegaard were not only the Existentialists but also the young Karl Popper. See Malachi Hacohen, Karl Popper: The Formative Years, 1902–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 83–84. I read Popper sympathetically as a “scientific existentialist” in Steve Fuller, Kuhn versus Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science (Cambridge: Icon, 2003), pp. 100–110.
194
One way to look at the inter-temporal comparison of the evidentiary basis of knowledge claims in the present and the imagined future is in terms of sacrificing a short-term adherence to “only the truth” in favor of “the whole truth” in the long term. I discuss this as a trade-off between correspondence and coherence theories of truth in Steve Fuller, The Intellectual (Cambridge: Icon, 2005), pp. 51–60.
195
On the influence of inquisitorial legal systems on Bacon, see James Franklin, The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 217–18.
196
For an account of the Lomborg Affair, focusing on the legal issues, see Steve Fuller, “The Future of Scientific Justice: The Case of the Skeptical Environmentalist.” Futures 36 (2004), pp. 631–36.
197
On the early problematic institutionalization of Baconian ideal, see William Lynch, Solomon’s Child: Baconian Method in the Early Royal Society of London (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2001).
198
See Tal Golan, Laws of Men and Laws of Nature: The History of Scientific Expert Testimony in England and America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004).
199
“Naturalism” is normally regarded as a metaphysical doctrine, a species of monism opposed to supernaturalism. The doctrine has been historically hostile to monotheistic world-views for their postulation of a transcendent deity, resulting in an unforgivable dualism. This point joins, say, Spinoza and Dewey in common cause as naturalists, regardless of their many other differences. However, the prefix “methodological” softens the blow by suggesting that only the conduct of science—not all aspects of human existence—presupposes naturalism. Even this is false, as any honest appraisal of the metaphysical realist (a.k.a. supernaturalist) strand in the history of science should make apparent. I participated in Kitzmiller as a “rebuttal witness,” specifically to this bit of bullshit that the judge ended up accepting without question. Philosophers have questioned both why adherence to scientific methodology requires naturalism and why adherence to naturalism must remain merely methodological. These two points are made, respectively, in Theodore Schick, “Methodological Naturalism versus Methodological Realism,” Philosophy 3: 2 (2000), pp. 30–37; Massimo Pigliucci, “Methodological versus Philosophical Naturalism,” Free Inquiry 23 (2003), pp. 53–55.
Volume 24 in the series, Popular Culture and Philosophy™
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bullshit and philosophy : guaranteed to get perfect results every time / edited by Gary L. Hardcastle and George A. Reisch.
p. cm.—(Popular culture and philosophy)
Summary: “Sixteen essays offer discussions, interpretations, and criticisms related to Harry G. Frankfort’s essay “On Bullshit” and other philosophical work on bullshit. Topics addressed include: the definition of bullshit; the ethics and epistemology of bullshit; and the role of bullshit in contemporary culture”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-812-69784-1
1. Truthfullness and falsehood. I. Hardcastle, Gary L. II. Reisch,
George A., 1962-
BJ1421.B85 2006
177’.3—dc22
2006025918
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
Bullshit and Philosophy Page 35