Open Court sent a couple of volumes from their Popular Culture and Philosophy series a few weeks back, but I’ve only now had time to read the intro to Bullshit and Philosophy. It’s about bullshit, in particular, about Frankfurt’s On Bullshit, and it’s edited by Gary Hardcastle and George Reisch. Like I said, I’ve only read the intro so far, but it promises to be really interesting. I’m particularly looking forward to Gary’s chapter on the Vienna Circle as an anti-bullshit movement, “The Unity of Bullshit.”
Yes, Ken Taylor has a paper in that volume, too.
Last week’s episode of Philosophy Talk was on truth and bullshit, with guest Harry Frankfurt. John Perry put up an interesting post on their blog on the topic.
The German magazine Der Spiegel wrote an interesting article on Frankfurt’s On Bullshit 12 June 2006/24. Frankfurt apparently was 77 at the time he published the book – in other words by the time he dared to talk truth he was too old to die young anymore. I think it is significant that we spend our working lives on our knees swallowin bullshit and kissing butt …. What is perhaps more tragic that there is soooo much bullshit in science – particularly public health science and I have therefore coined the phrase: “Science-based bullshit and scientist-spouted bullshit is still bullshit!” As Scott Berkun says in his post: “#53 – How to detect bullshit” – EXPECT BULLSHIT!