On Bullshit

One of the more interesting reads over the Easter,

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html

Frankfurt is brilliant to read in lots of areas. His account of the person written in the early 1970's is still very widely cited and is relevant to a lot of the modern literature on capacity for self-control though i havent seen it mentioned much in this literature.

"Frankfurt, H.G., (1971). ‘Freedom of the Will and the concept of a person’, Journal of Philosophy, lxvii, 1, 5 –20. "

Brief Description of the Bullshit book below from the Princeton University Press Website

"Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

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 their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."