Frankfurtian reality

Jamie's report yesterday was on bullshit.

More precisely, on "On Bullshit," Harry Frankfurt's infamous essay-cum-mini-book bestseller. And, on Bullshit and Philosophy. Plenty to draw on there.

What did Wittgenstein say? Show, don't tell?

But it was not a bullshit report. Not at all. Jamie's regard for the truth was one of its most salient features.



The example I raised in class-- the "birthers" etc.-- poses the question: can you be a liar and a bullshitter both, simultaneously? Frankfurt suggests that the statements of bullshitters are typically

unconnected to a concern with the truth.. not germane to the enterprise of describing reality. [They] do not even think they know, except in the vaguest way... concoct it out of whole cloth...repeating it quite mindlessly and without any regard for how things really are.

But if "it" is a matter of the documented public record, and "they" choose to ignore it, they're exactly what Al Franken called Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, et al. "Lying liars." And I say they're bullshitters too.

What if they believe their own bullshit lies? They're delusional as well. Really scary. Happy Halloween.