On Bullshit - Harry Frankfurt

I saw this a while ago, and was amused by it, and it's pretty cheap, so I bought it in the end. It's a neat little hardback book - very pretty and great for leaving around the office. In its way the contents are surprisingly irrelevant. The contents are a short and rather fun little essay from a fairly distinguished philosopher. The basic idea is that the bullshitter differs from the liar in that a liar respects and understands the truth, and deliberately subverts it. For the bullshitter, truth or falsity is irrelevant and uninteresting. Amusingly, the contents of this book could itself be bullshit by this standard, since it's pretty irrelevant to the book as a cool little object. So, the fact it's pretty good is a neat bonus.

Posted 2006-12-21.