Preview

Summary Of Harry Frankfort's On Bullshit

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
315 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of Harry Frankfort's On Bullshit
In Harry Frankfort’s book On Bullshit, he discusses what he deems is bullshit and what is not bullshit. He concludes that bullshit is just a way to accomplish someone’s personal goals. In addition, when a person is bullshitting he or she has no consideration for whether what he or she is saying is actually the truth. Essentially, indifference is the essence of bullshit. That being said, Frankfort proposes that sincerity is bullshit because it does not rely on the truth. Yet, I disagree. Sincerity is the quality of being free from pretense, deceit, or hypocrisy. Therefore, sincerity evaluates the phrase being said for truthfulness and also deceit. When a person is being sincere he or she believes what is being said to be honest. Who can determine

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Through Tony Hoagland’s poem, “The Truth,” the speaker reaches the conclusion and becomes satisfied with the idea that he is “in the land of the unfinished,” despite his many efforts “to get inside.” In the initial three stanzas, he describes the image of the wasps “shrunken to death” and “perishing” is reoccuring. In the fourth stanza, he analyzes the role of the wasps in a macro perspective. In the last four stanza, he draws a parallel with his actions of “trying again and again/ to get inside” to the wasp’s actions of “making the same effort again and again. However, by the last stanza, the speaker has come to terms with the idea that he will remain in the “land of the unfinished.”…

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A paranormal investigator claimed that a beaten inmate’s spirit talked to him after he was put in a “trance”.…

    • 56 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the short essay On Bullshit, written by Harry Frankfurt a Princeton University professor, we follow the process that is used to create a “rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not”(1) to create a working thesis for “bullshit”, which is presented in the latter stages of the essay. Frankfurt takes a broad view on items to be applied to bullshit and then shifts his gaze to more specific details of bullshit. The first broad item is the title essay The Prevalence of Humbug in which the parts of the definition of “humbug” are heavily analyzed. The second broad view he takes is a look into the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein to discuss his view on how a woman portrays her feelings. After this Frankfurt takes a specific look into items, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, a novel Dirty Story, and St. Agustine. These all have the common theme of discussing lying and how it relates to bullshit. By this point Frankfurt has a working concept of what “bullshit” is, that being it is a form of miscommunication, like lying, in which the perpetrator is indifferent to the truth. Now with a thesis Frankfurt ends his essay by relating this thesis to real world and the implications that come with it. However, Frankfurt does successfully define…

    • 1344 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Taking from another paper Frankfurt deduces that bullshit has four main goals in its use, those being; an intention to deceive, lying, a category of speech and the misrepresentation…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, it was almost seen as a felony if one was caught with books in their possessions. The mentality was that books were seen to indoctrinate people to believe in unpopular ideas and also that it can cause people to become antisocial. The ironic part of the book was that Montag, a fireman who burned books for a living, ended having an open mind and started to read books. This is what books are all about. They open up peoples’ mind and educate them to ideas that they have not heard of. They give us some valuable lessons in life and it also rejuvenates our minds to think and ask questions. This is why book are so crucial in today’s world where they are so many ideas out there and people will belittle you…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Virtue seven is Sincerity; it means “Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak; speak accordingly” (Franklin301). I am not really a big fan of lying, but I had a good reason to do it just this one time. Thursday and Friday, I was a good little cucumber, but on Saturday I had too. I went to Dothan Mall and I saw the cutest little baby onesies ever, I just had to get.…

    • 1641 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nicholas Carr believes a person often becomes distracted due to the amount of time that they have consumed on the Internet. In Carr’s article, he’s not necessarily saying that Google is making us “stupid,” but the fact that there is so much that can be going on Carr then formed a hypothesis on why he thinks people are easily distracted, the Internet. The Internet contains numerous of information, which caused individuals to change the way they process their thoughts, in another word, the way they think. He tried to argue that technology is taking part of forming in his thoughts. He makes suggestions that the Internet is changing the way our mind works and that it has negative consequences on the mind.…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Loewen, takes a look at twelve popular American history textbooks and concludes that the information is false, viewed primarily from an European perspective, and made up to credit national myths. In addition, James Loewen presents many key historical events that he feels are missing from many of these textbooks and should be included. Published in 1995 by The New Press, Lies My Teacher Told Me rapidly became a multi-award winning novel. In roughly 400 pages, Loewen unfolds an engrossing critique that is bound to hook any reader interested in history or education.…

    • 1251 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    By not striving to become knowledgeable Mildred in Fahrenheit 451 became complacent, today we want quick progress with minimal input of knowledge and the Bible offers the conclusion that if people do not strive for wisdom they cannot reach their full potential Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How Did Rome Fall?

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Romans existed as an important power for over 1000 years. They brought stability, prosperity, and order to the civilized West.…

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is honesty? To everyone honesty is different to some it is speaking nothing but the truth and to others honesty is telling part of the truth and possibly keeping other parts out of the equation. People can view themselves as honest meanwhile other people may call that very person a liar. We were taught that in first person stories there is never really truth you have opinions no matter what first person story your read the character will always put their opinion in or even possible even make themselves look better then they actually are.…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The market may be the reason for the expenses being higher than we forecasted. For example, the theatre may not be able to pay a lower wage to the actors.…

    • 498 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the article titled, “On Bullshit”, Harry G Frankfurt concludes that bullshitting is in numerous ways worse than lying. Frankfurt goes on to say that he believes that bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. Frankfurt states that both in lying and telling the truth people are guided by their beliefs concerning the way things are. Frankfurt states that the bullshitter, on the other hand, makes assertions without paying attention to anything except what it suits them to say. Frankfurt states that the liar pays respects to the truth by knowing exactly what it is and telling the opposite but that the bullshitter ignores the truth altogether. This, Frankfurt states, is why bullshit is even worse than lies are.…

    • 1251 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lies are told around the world multiple times during the day. Everyone sitting in this room has probably once today, said a lie. Sometimes lying is understandable for someone’s protection but sometimes the truth is essential to the person. There are multiple things people say in a day that are seen as lies such as “That outfit looks really good on you!,” “It wasn’t me!” and “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.” Honestly is not always the best policy because in the end it does not make everything better. People tell little lies so that they protect someone they care about and not hurt the feelings of another person. Honesty not always being the best policy is showed in The Scarlet Letter, “Tell All The Truth” poem, the “He Lies” video,…

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Honesty is being able to tell someone what I really think and believe and getting the same thing in return. A person can maintain being honest by not thinking about the consequences of telling the truth. This can be evaluated by making sure the record is set straight when an error is made.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics