EBOOK
About
Over one million copies sold worldwide
The international and #1 New York Times bestseller
The anniversary edition of the acclaimed book that reveals why bullshit is more dangerous than lying
One of the most prominent features of our world is that there is so much bullshit. Yet we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, how it's different from lying, what purposes it serves, and what it means. In his acclaimed bestseller On Bullshit, which was featured on The Daily Show and 60 Minutes, Harry Frankfurt, who was one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, explores one of the most serious problems of our politics and our world. This twentieth anniversary edition features a postscript in which Frankfurt emphasizes that "indifference to the truth is extremely dangerous."
With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do-that is, by deliberately making false claims about what's true. Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Although bullshit can take innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the bullshitter's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying doesn't. Liars at least acknowledge that the truth matters. Because of this, Frankfurt says, "bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
Remarkably prescient and insightful, On Bullshit is a small book that explains a great deal about our time. Harry G. Frankfurt (1929–2023) was one of the world's most influential moral philosophers and a professor of philosophy emeritus at Princeton University. His books included On Inequality, The Reasons of Love, and Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen (all Princeton). "A gem of psychological insight, social commentary, philosophical analysis, and good humor. This is the work of an extraordinarily acute, attentive, and versatile philosopher who has succeeded in addressing an audience comprised of both other philosophers and the general public on a topic of considerable human interest in a characteristically wry and engaging way. It is one of the most enjoyable and humanly illuminating short pieces of philosophy produced in the past fifty years."-Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge
"The most audacious of the ancient alchemists desired to transmute lead into gold. They never succeeded. Who would have known that they should have started not with a base metal, but with bullshit? Harry Frankfurt offers a philosophical analysis of bullshit that is golden. The prose by turns employs irony, broad humor, and tongue-in-cheek high seriousness while at the same time manages to have a rigorous logical coherence that is always impressive. One leaves the essay not merely thinking it was a delight. One leaves it realizing that one has engaged the accomplishment of a great analyst and thinker."-William Chester Jordan, Princeton University "Harry G. Frankfurt [was] the world's foremost authority on bullshit...In our current political climate, [his] words sound prescient to the point of redundancy."---Ron Charles, Washington Post "Brilliant."---Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post "Seminal."---Roger Cohen, New York Times "Immediately, I must say: read it. Beautifully written, lucid, ironic and profound, it is a model of what philosophy can and should do. It is a small and highly provocative masterpiece, and I really don't think I am bullshitting you here."---Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times "Frankfurt's account of bullshit is doubly remarkable. Not only does he define it in a novel way that distinguishes it from lying; he also uses this definition to establish a powerful claim: 'Bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies
The international and #1 New York Times bestseller
The anniversary edition of the acclaimed book that reveals why bullshit is more dangerous than lying
One of the most prominent features of our world is that there is so much bullshit. Yet we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, how it's different from lying, what purposes it serves, and what it means. In his acclaimed bestseller On Bullshit, which was featured on The Daily Show and 60 Minutes, Harry Frankfurt, who was one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, explores one of the most serious problems of our politics and our world. This twentieth anniversary edition features a postscript in which Frankfurt emphasizes that "indifference to the truth is extremely dangerous."
With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do-that is, by deliberately making false claims about what's true. Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Although bullshit can take innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the bullshitter's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying doesn't. Liars at least acknowledge that the truth matters. Because of this, Frankfurt says, "bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
Remarkably prescient and insightful, On Bullshit is a small book that explains a great deal about our time. Harry G. Frankfurt (1929–2023) was one of the world's most influential moral philosophers and a professor of philosophy emeritus at Princeton University. His books included On Inequality, The Reasons of Love, and Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen (all Princeton). "A gem of psychological insight, social commentary, philosophical analysis, and good humor. This is the work of an extraordinarily acute, attentive, and versatile philosopher who has succeeded in addressing an audience comprised of both other philosophers and the general public on a topic of considerable human interest in a characteristically wry and engaging way. It is one of the most enjoyable and humanly illuminating short pieces of philosophy produced in the past fifty years."-Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge
"The most audacious of the ancient alchemists desired to transmute lead into gold. They never succeeded. Who would have known that they should have started not with a base metal, but with bullshit? Harry Frankfurt offers a philosophical analysis of bullshit that is golden. The prose by turns employs irony, broad humor, and tongue-in-cheek high seriousness while at the same time manages to have a rigorous logical coherence that is always impressive. One leaves the essay not merely thinking it was a delight. One leaves it realizing that one has engaged the accomplishment of a great analyst and thinker."-William Chester Jordan, Princeton University "Harry G. Frankfurt [was] the world's foremost authority on bullshit...In our current political climate, [his] words sound prescient to the point of redundancy."---Ron Charles, Washington Post "Brilliant."---Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post "Seminal."---Roger Cohen, New York Times "Immediately, I must say: read it. Beautifully written, lucid, ironic and profound, it is a model of what philosophy can and should do. It is a small and highly provocative masterpiece, and I really don't think I am bullshitting you here."---Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times "Frankfurt's account of bullshit is doubly remarkable. Not only does he define it in a novel way that distinguishes it from lying; he also uses this definition to establish a powerful claim: 'Bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies