Monday, July 5, 2010

On bullshit

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false . . . . He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purposes.

Harry G. Franfurt , On Bullshit

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