Frankfurts Distinction between Bullshitting and Lying Essay

Frankfurts Distinction between Bullshitting and Lying - Essay Example Bullshit is one of the most salient features in our culture. Everyone knows and contributes to it but takes the situation for granted. The majority of people are confident in their ability to recognize bullshit and avoid being caught up in it (Frankfurt, 2005, p. 21). This phenomenon has not raised much inquiry so people fail to understand what it is, why it there or what functions it serves. We lack a conscious appreciation of its relevance to us. Frankfurt analyses three categories of dishonesty which are weaker from plain lies but not less harmful in distorting knowledge in a common setting. A lie is the utterance of statement from a speaker which he clearly knows not to be true. In our social life, it very common for people to make statement or talk of things they have no proper knowledge of. It usually out of curiosity or to appear knowledgeable even when one is not. This is termed as bullshit since one has no knowledge of correct information. With lies there is a negative relat ion to the truth whereas bullshit there is no connection of what the speaker says with the truth ... everyone is expected to be abreast with the current social and political issues even when one lacks time to be correctly informed on all important aspects. Most people make a living in professionals that target at generating, processing and providing data. Examples of this are lawyers, financial analysts, business consultant, journalists and scientist (Frankfurt, 2005, p. 22). In these professionals one is expected to be knowledgeable even in situations when he or she is not. When one simply fails to admit lack of knowledge, bullshit is generated. The third form of bullshit is dishonesty. The hearer is provided with correct information which one can use to make an incorrect inference. For example one can wish to persuade a friend to come for the weekend by claiming the newspaper predicts fine weather even though one knows weather forecast is reputably unreliable. The newspaper predicts good weather but telling a friend this information one makes an inference to what is untrue that th e weekend weather will most likely be fine. Deception is a form of dishonesty that one applies while talking the truth. Deception depends on monotonic reasoning where one provides information while withholding some to lead someone into the wrong conclusion. For example if someone says tweety is a bird not including it a penguin we inference it can fly while it cannot (Frankfurt, 2005, p. 22). Withholding information in a classical formalism leads to missing inferences whereas non-monotonic formalism results to wrong inferences. With deception, one uses the non-monotonic inference capabilities of another individual to implant wrong ideas without lying to him. In knowledge and argumentation, the possession of knowledge is a double fact. One has either information about a preposition or not