On Bullshit

A short essay, first published in 1986 in the Raritan Quarterly Review and issued alone as a small book in 2005. Frankfurt sets out to give a rough theoretical account of a concept everyone uses but nobody had analysed. He begins with Max Black's account of humbug and an anecdote about Wittgenstein objecting to a friend's casual remark that she felt 'like a dog that has been run over'. His central claim is that bullshit differs from lying. The liar knows the truth and tries to hide it, and so remains oriented to it. The bullshitter is indifferent to whether what he says is true or false; his aim is to create an impression, of himself or his subject, and the facts serve that aim only by chance. For this reason Frankfurt thinks bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies are. He ends by suggesting that the modern demand for sincerity is itself a kind of bullshit.

It is a clear, short piece of philosophy on a problem that matters in public life, and its distinction between lying and indifference to truth is widely used.