Seems we all, including Frankfurt, were taken aback by the notion of 'short of lying'... I think Frankfurt is working that bit out, while attempting to grant it, with the twenty dollar example.

As you note...

Does this matter in regard to the overall project? The orator example is clearer, I think. The orator, according to Frankfurt does not care what his audience believes with regard to god and history; only that they draw a certain conclusion about what he, the orator, believes about such things. A prime example of humbug.

But that's not right. The orator's aim is the endorsement by their audience. If the audience does not admire those who are patriotic and god-fearing, the oration fails. Indeed it is those who do not accept these values who are most likely to recognise the humbug. — Banno

Yes. If they also think that the orator does not believe the same way as their audience.

This last bit I think may be the important aspect. The intent to have people believe something that the orator believes to be false. It's not there in the oration. Rather, the oration is all about making the audience believe that the orator believes these things, or holds them in high regard...

Frankfurt then attempts to draw a distinction between Black's formal definition of humbug and bullshit...

Nonetheless, I do not believe that it(the oration) adequately or accurately grasps the essential character of bullshit. It is correct to say of bullshit, as he says of humbug, both that it is short of lying and that chose who perpetrate it misrepresent themselves in a certain way. But Black’s account of these two features is significantly off the mark...

Here is where I think the book gets rather interesting...

To be clear. You and I are in much agreement, including thinking that there is an error regarding 'short of lying'. Frankfurt holds that a lie must be a false statement. Neither humbug nor bullshit must. Towards the end, he draws this distinction between bullshit and lying more clearly...

It seems that Frankfurt wants lying about one's own belief to consist of false statements about one's own belief. As you've asked... does it matter to the overall? I don't think it lessens it's worth in the end...

Wonderful article thanks for sharing it!

The conclusion comes close to offering something more substantial, it would be interesting to investigate more.

Are we in control of ourselves? Do we think of the words we say before they come out of our mouths? Or are we at disparate times in harmony with our purpose and then driven by inputs instead? Is a stream of consciousness conversation fully composed of fancy and extrapolation - what you might call bullshit - and that freedom of abstraction leads us to realizations? And what is the worth of a conversation that isn’t? Not much I would say. The best politic is the exploration of an idea, the removal of bounds and suppositions - to create in other words. To make a story and a meaning that fits reality. At best it is the use of the scientific method. And at worse it is not worth anyone’s time. Perhaps bullshit is the method not the substance.... and we are talking about a form of communication - which really cannot be pinned down with a value judgement at all. Perhaps.... worth some more thought for sure!

Interesting how folk want to jump to the end. — Banno

Actually, I unintentionally overlooked Black's article entirely. It's interesting that every case involves some type of misrepresentation. I see what you mean about skipping to the end, now that I've read it.

I thought the account of Russell's use of tactical bullshitting was brilliant. The difference in proper lying and the degrees of humbug seem to rely on the knowledge of the state of affairs. Barnum for example would have been shocked to find he owned a mermaid; where as humbugger #2 would be pleased to discover his misguided understanding had lead to a true statement.

He's trying to make sense of how one could be said to be deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief but somehow fall short of lying... — creativesoul

By misrepresenting one's certainty regarding a belief versus the belief itself produces a type of misrepresentation that falls short of lying, unless certainty is implied by the context.

Bah, Humbug!

It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth this indifference to how things really are — that I regard as of the essence of bullshit.

This is the part that seems to me to be the crux of Frankfurt's analysis.

Come on Banno. From page 10 through 20 is interesting... and there's so much that you and I agree with...

Certainly we can yield something worthwhile here...

Agreed. As I summarized earlier, the liar is intentionally trying to make people believe something false, whereas the bullshitter doesn’t care if the claim is true or false, only that it is believed. If it happens to be true, all the better for the bullshitter, but the liar would be disturbed to learn that what he himself believed was false and what he thought a falsehood was true.

Yes. That is the part about the analysis that I find quite compelling, and it offers a hand in glove fit to so many of the things in American culture. I do think it's a bit more complicated than it seems at first blush...

Yes, yes, of course - but does the text support this?

Carefully.

Barnum for example would have been shocked to find he owned a mermaid; — Cheshire

Yes! The point raised is that his audience was a willing accomplice, not a patsy. Humbug as entertainment.

Yes... I think I see what you're saying. We could perhaps make a good case that Frankfurt waffles on the "short of lying" part. He certainly works from more than one notion of lying.

It’s been a long time since I read it but that was my takeaway from it and where I first got that idea of bullshit being different from lies.

The argument Frankfurt presents is that Humbug involves a continuum... the lie direct, the virtual lie, and falsidical humbug - this from Black.

But Bullshit he thinks is different in kind.

Now, does his argument support this contention?

I admit to finding Black's prose quite enjoyable - ironically purple.

So, can one be sick as a dog?

It's an image, Mr Wittgenstein. Of course she does not know what a dog that has bee run over feels like. But you yourself supposed that one can be certain when someone is in pain, upon seeing them writhing before you. You must have some idea of what it might be like to be a sick dog.

Humbug: deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes. — Banno

Bullshit he thinks is different in kind.

Now, does his argument support this contention? — Banno

Good question. I agree with his contention. I'm not convinced that Frankfurt made his case.

I think in an attempt to make his case that bullshit is different than humbug he guides our attention towards two 'distinct' types of misrepresentation both of which would need to count as short of lying; the misrepresentation to others about what happened and/or is happening, and the misrepresentation to others regarding the speakers' own attitude and/or state of mind.

He develops different criteria for what counts as each... or at least he needs to.





He wants an outright lie about what's happened and/or is happening(facts or states of affair, if you prefer) to consist of statements made but believed to be false by the speaker. The account of misrepresentation of one's own state of mind and/or attitude would be rendered similarly. An outright lie about one's own state of mind and/or attitude would need to consist of statements about the speaker's own state of mind and/or attitude. This is shown by his explanations throughout for disqualifying different examples, such as the lie about the money in the pocket. There he confirmed/granted the lie about the facts, but denied that that counted as being a lie about the speaker's own state of mind, and/or attitude because there was no statement made about such... thus, Frankfurt claims that this fell short of lying about one's own state of mind, attitude, or belief.

We both balked here...

You balked - quite rightly - at Frankfurt's sheer neglect to also consider that the statement carries with it the dispositional or propositional attitude of the speaker towards it... belief!

Assuming sincerity, people believe what they say/write. So, to say something other than what one believes, is to misrepresent one's own belief.

There is no need to talk directly about one's own belief if one intends upon hiding and/or misrepresenting it.

I think lying and bullshitting are on two separate spectra entirely (except maybe on the spectrum of self-deception vs intentional deception of others, if such a spectrum exists).

Lying has to do with misrepresenting belief (rather than truth), but bullshitting has to do with inward and outward irrational or baseless persuasion (un-truthy reasoning/lack of evidence).

I don't think we understand that we are bullshitting or spewing humbug when we are actually doing it, but we do understand when we are outright lying. So there's one plausible demarcation point: awareness.

Here's the core:

What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false. Since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.

Taking states of affairs to include mental states, a lie has the intent to misrepresents a state of affairs, and hence the lier's consequent belief about that state of affairs. Bullshit may well misrepresent a state of affairs, but that would be incidental. Bullshit lacks any intent towards the truth or falsehood of its propositional content, the intent being something distinct from the erstwhile assertions being made.

And did you reach this conclusion after a read of the texts at hand? Do you suport them, or reject them?

Here's the core:
What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false. Since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.

Taking states of affairs to include mental states, a lie has the intent to misrepresents a state of affairs, and hence the lier's consequent belief about that state of affairs. Bullshit may well misrepresent a state of affairs, but that would be incidental. Bullshit lacks any intent towards the truth or falsehood of its propositional content, the intent being something distinct from the erstwhile assertions being made. — Banno

Yes.

And did you reach this conclusion after a read of the texts at hand? Do you suport them, or reject them? — Banno

After a read of your original post and a few responses.

I just skimmed the Humbug article, which does make some interesting points: humbug as a violation of a communicative framework (a framework that is established by the context/initiation of the interaction). With this kind of distinction, we can say it is possible to lie or engage in humbuggery even when telling the truth (it is an outward deception based distinction).

I don't really take issue with the humbug/lying definitions, but "bull shit as misrepresenting one's enterprise" doesn't ring true; misrepresentation in my view belongs in an "outward deception" category. I prefer the connotation of self-delusion or inward/self-deception as a primary attribute of "bull shit", because it seems better delineated from lying or humbuggery, and because the ability to believe our own bull shit seems to be its organic progenitor.

Self-deception is brushed aside in the Humbug article as an impossibility, and yet I think we would all agree that such a thing (or something approximately similar to such a thing) does occur. I vaguely recall a thread about it in the past. My own formulation of self-deception is something like "rationalization"; if we want to believe something we can come to believe it through any number of unreasonable ways. Self-deception by repetition, conformation bias, and fallacious appeals (the undetected use of fallacy in one's own reasoning) are several ways I think it occurs.

The impossibility argument is underpinned by the following conceptions: "Either you know that you believe what you say or else you don't. And in either case you can't be mistaken. — Humbug article

Unless people either lack confidence in their beliefs (implying they are half or malformed), or are figuring it out as they go along, driven by their own irrational confidence.

Taking states of affairs to include mental states — Banno

You realize that Frankfurt doesn't do this, right?

What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false.

My personal issue with this, which I think that Banno agrees with, is that lies need not be false. The only thing that a lie requires is a statement by a speaker that does not believe what they are saying. One can believe that a true statement is false. Thus, when this situation is at hand, we have a liar who deliberately misrepresents their own belief by virtue of making true statements.

So, Frankfurt has it all fundamentally wrong here.

The difference between outright lying and bullshitting is that the former is an outspoken linguistic endeavor(language use) based upon the liar's actual belief, whereas the latter is an endeavor that is guided not by what the speaker believes, but rather by adherence to what the speaker is attempting to achieve via bullshitting, which may have nothing at all obviously to do with what the bullshitter is actually talking about. The bullshitter will say whatever they think it takes to accomplish the unspoken and undisclosed ends, whereas the liar always states something other than what they believe.

Does that sound agreeable to you ?

Taking states of affairs to include mental states, a lie has the intent to misrepresents a state of affairs, and hence the lier's consequent belief about that state of affairs. — Banno

On a second reading, it seems that you too are compelled to deny true lies.

The only way to misrepresent a state of affairs is to make false statements about those affairs. If this misrepresents the liar's subsequent belief about those affairs, then every liar has true belief.

:brow:

That is undeniably wrong.

On a third reading, perhaps a liar can intend upon misrepresenting a state of affairs but fail in doing so. In this situation, we would also have a true lie.

:razz:

Ooopsie!

It's an image, Mr Wittgenstein. Of course she does not know what a dog that has bee run over feels like. But you yourself supposed that one can be certain when someone is in pain, upon seeing them writhing before you. You must have some idea of what it might be like to be a sick dog. — Banno

Yeah... I wasn't impressed much regarding his anecdotal account of Pascal's thought and belief about Witt's attitude.