Loads of BS
Muse #184 - more philosophy
I have been continuing my readings in philosophy with my next two books from Harry Frankfurt. I just completed his “On BullShit” and continuing on his next work “On Truth”. Both books are short succinct reads that I immensely enjoyed and helped me fine-tune my model for some words that I use every day. Like “Bull shit” and “Truth" and “Fact” and tie it to how we use “Knowledge”.
I like the distinction he creates between “truth” that can be substantiated with “facts” based on our understanding. Of course, our understanding and facts evolve. And the truth is provisionally based on what we know so far.
If someone is deliberately after knowing something is providing misinformation then that could be classified as a “lie”. But we humans in most cases with limited information and with lack of fact make up “Bullshit” most of the time. Our brain is wired to come up with opinions on everything and the kitchen sink. And most of such opinions are not based on facts or limited understanding is “BS”. Sometimes BS is deliberate and sometimes it is unconscious in its construct.
Harry makes a couple of key points on BS, that BS is more a problem than lies. And it is preferable to BS rather than lie, so one could not get caught with a lie if the lie is engineered more as a BS instead.
References:
On Bullshit - https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/320339001/On-Bullshit
On Truth - https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/349273010/On-Truth
On Bullshit - PDF download http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf