Harry Frankfurt

Over one million copies sold worldwideThe international and #1 New York Times bestsellerThe anniversary edition of the acclaimed book that reveals why bullshit is more dangerous than lyingOne of the most prominent features of our world is that there is so much bullshit. Yet we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, how it’s different from lying, what purposes it serves, and what it means. In his acclaimed bestseller On Bullshit, which was featured on The Daily Show and 60 Minutes, Harry Frankfurt, who was one of the world’s most influential moral philosophers, explores one of the most serious problems of our politics and our world. This twentieth anniversary edition features a postscript in which Frankfurt emphasizes that “indifference to the truth is extremely dangerous.”With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do—that is, by deliberately making false claims about what’s true. Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Although bullshit can take innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the bullshitter’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying doesn’t. Liars at least acknowledge that the truth matters. Because of this, Frankfurt says, “bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”Remarkably prescient and insightful, On Bullshit is a small book that explains a great deal about our time.

#1 bestseller podľa New York Times Harry G. Frankfurt, profesor filozofie na Princeton University, známy svojimi prácami o pravde, morálke a filozofii jazyka, tvrdí, že tí, čo produkujú sračky, neuvádzajú publikum do omylu tak, ako klamári—teda zámerným vyslovovaním nepravdivých tvrdení o realite. Namiesto toho sa snažia sprostredkovať určitý obraz o sebe samých bez ohľadu na to, či je čokoľvek z toho pravdivé. Nápadne menia pravidlá komunikácie tak, aby otázky pravdy a nepravdy stratili význam. Hoci sračky môžu mať rôzne neškodné podoby, ich nadmerné používanie môže postupne oslabiť schopnosť človeka rozlišovať pravdu - čo sa pri klamstve nedeje. Klamári aspoň uznávajú, že na pravde záleží. Práve preto sú sračky väčším nepriateľom pravdy než lož.