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This review has been accessed times since May 14, 2006
Frankfurt, Henry. (2005). On Bullshit. Princeton University Press.
80 Pp.
$9.95 ISBN 0-691-12294-6Reviewed by Rocco J. Perla & James Carifio
University of Massachusetts, LowellMay 14, 2006
Harry Frankfurt’s (2005) recent book “On Bullshit” is a succinct commentary on a very important and pervasive phenomenon in all human discourse: i.e., "bullshit." Originally published as a journal article 20 years ago in Raritan, the book form published in 2005 by Princeton University Press has received favorable reviews and has been on the bestseller list in several different markets. Frankfurt, an American moral philosopher, attempts to provide a theoretical basis for the study of bullshit, which, in his words, is produced “whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic” (Frankfurt, 2005, p. 63, italics added).
Similar in many ways to Max Black’s concept of humbug (quackery, nonsense or pretentious and deceptive misrepresentations that fall short of a lie), Frankfurt clearly takes a negative and pejorative view of what he calls bullshit. Unlike the liar who knows the truth yet chooses to deceive, the bullshitter ignores the truth and is, therefore, “a greater enemy of the truth than the liar” (Frankfurt, 2005, p. 61).
Frankfurt’s book has struck a chord in our culture and with many people currently because there is, without doubt, a lot of Frankfurtian bullshit wherever one cares to look, read or listen. And we all do need to be far more reflective, cautious and circumspect when we express ourselves and our views in our fast-paced and fast-changing society, as well as professionally and in high stake situations, because of a pervasive “talking heads” environment and climate created by our own recent inventions. This aspect and dimension of the phenomenon, however, is not where we disagree with Frankfurt’s views or analysis. No, our disagreement is far deeper, and more fundamental and important in the long as opposed to the short run in our current instantaneous culture.
Although Frankfurt’s attempt to shed some light on this ubiquitous phenomenon is laudable, and his definition of bullshit reasonable and philosophically sound, his developing theoretical and conceptual view of bullshit has oppressive undertones and consequences, and is severely limited and outdated from a linguistic, cognitive science, and learning theory perspective—fields that have grown tremendously in the twenty years since Frankfurt’s article was first published. These fields have addressed many of the key features associated with what Frankfurt is calling bullshit. Because Frankfurt’s book has received positive attention and praise by some scholars and science educators (e.g., Good, 2005), many of whom are likely to embrace and operationalize these concepts, the gross limitations of this book (and the BS construct specifically) need to be identified and critically examined from a more contemporary perspective.
The purpose of this article, therefore, is to briefly address some of these shortcomings and to present a more informed and balanced treatment of Frankfurt’s interpretation of Bullshit (hereafter referred to as FIBS). Our aim here is to call attention to the severe limitations and implications of this popular academic book and to encourage all educational professionals to consider their own views of what Frankfurt defines as BS in relation to their own views of pedagogy, educational theory, and learning research. It is our opinion that many of the problems in education and educational research today are the result of weak and theoretically groundless attempts to address fundamental questions through outdated views and models of cognition versus more contemporary and main stream cognitive views (see Author, 2005). Frankfurt’s BS construct is a recent example of this “cognitive crisis” and problem in a philosophical guise.
Simply put, our discontent with Frankfurt’s BS construct is that it is too naïve and simplistic to account for the complexities of human thought, language, memory structures, learning, and representational systems that have been empirically documented by the cognitive sciences over the past few decades (see Ashcraft, 2002). We certainly recognize that some, and in certain instances many, people appear to flatly ignore the truth and are often compelled to discuss issues they are not knowledgeable about (including ourselves), and that these are key diagnostic features of BS according to Frankfurt. However, to just superficially and pejoratively dismiss (as Frankfurt does) all of these behaviors and instances as BS, without addressing the enormous weight of evidence in the cognitive sciences and related fields (including philosophy itself) that has led to a deeper understanding of human behavior, decision-making, thinking and learning, is, in our opinion, somewhat irresponsible intellectually. There are certainly different degrees and types of bullshit that are context mediated, but this finer grained analysis (or perhaps taxonomy) of BS is not suggested or developed in Frankfurt’s book, but it suggested in this article.
The primary objections raised here relative to FIBS are not trivial, but are actually “theory-cracking” if not “theory-busting,” as they require a diametrically opposite interpretation of bullshit as defined by Frankfurt, and one that demonstrates far more parsimony relative to important experimental and theory-based findings in the cognitive sciences and related fields. Our revised (cognitive) interpretation of BS can be succinctly expressed in the following terms:
Bullshit is not always bad or subversive to the truth; rather it is often a highly dynamic and necessary matrix for the development of expressive, creative, critical and higher order thinking and representation that gives birth to the truth or/and new truths.
This revised interpretation of bullshit (referred to here as RIBS, a more creative and discovery oriented acronym) provides a contrasting view from which to critically compare, contrast, and analyze FIBS (a more context of justification and policing oriented acronym).
In the RIBS, emphasis is placed on the highly dynamic nature of bullshit, whereas FIBS suggests that bullshit is a fixed, static and inert linguistic and conceptual entity (similar to the early behaviorist and positivists views of knowledge and experience). Surely, someone can go from “talking bullshit” and from “bullshitting” to talking authoritatively and knowledgeably in a particular subject or domain. This transition, moreover, is often referred to and taken as demonstrative of learning, which is a concept and simple observational fact completely ignored if not completely missing from Frankfurt’s views. However, this type of change, transition (and transformation) is not addressed in FIBS, which runs counter to decades of empirical research in the “novice to expert” continuum and developmental transformation, and basic research in the cognitive sciences (Ashcraft, 2002). Similarly, FIBS fails to address Chomsky’s (see Ashcraft, 2002) competence/performance distinction and Vygotsky’s (1976) zone of proximal development, both of which require transitions and qualitative transformations in an individual’s ability to knowledgeably express her or himself through language, social interaction and enculturation. Furthermore, basic research in language acquisition and development has shown (and continues to show) convincingly that the use of words, concepts and conceptual relations is a highly emotive process that is extremely difficult to develop, and that imitation, modeling and “talking above oneself” or “beyond one’s comfort zone” or experiences is necessary to develop increasing knowledge and skill in a particular area (see Bruning, Schraw, & Ronning 2001, and Schunk, 2004). This later point is especially true for highly complex instructional areas such as mathematics, science, philosophy, and other highly abstract and technical fields of study.
In expressing the inert, useless and meaningless nature of bullshit, Frankfurt draws an analogy between excrement and bullshit, and in doing so he provides an excellent example of bullshit by his own definition. Frankfurt (2005) states:
Excrement may be regarded as the corpse of nourishment, what remains when the vital elements in food have been exhausted. In this respect, excrement is a representation of death that we ourselves and that, indeed, we cannot help producing in the very process of maintaining our lives. Perhaps it is for making death so intimate that we find excrement so repulsive. In any event, it cannot serve the purposes of sustenance, any more than hot air can serve those of communication (pp. 43-44).The problem with this statement is that it is a shallow, uninformed and simply incorrect biological (i.e., scientific) view of excrement. Excrement is vital for life and contains material that will decompose and unlock the chemical prerequisites for life. In this passage, Frankfurt is taking the opportunity, or feels the compulsion, to speak about some topic (biology) that exceeds his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. In other words, Frankfurt is, by his own definition, talking bullshit. Further, he is not only talking bullshit, but he is missing the key and critical point about this phenomenon because of his (outdated and inaccurate) schemas about the phenomenon as well as the hidden flaws in the similes and metaphors he uses to explore and investigate it.
More than simply pointing out an instance of Frankfurtian bullshit and why it has occurred, the above point demonstrates Frankfurt’s fixed and rigid view of BS that is untenable from a contemporary cognitive science and learning theory perspective. Just as excrement provides the raw materials for sustaining life, conceptual and linguistical bullshit (which Frankfurt associates with “hot air”) provides the opportunity to exercise one’s developing rhetorical style, imagination, storytelling ability, humor and creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Perhaps more importantly, bullshit provides a vehicle for cognitive and social engagement and the opportunity to develop more “accurate,” cogent and informed ideas and views via discussions with more knowledge people (Schunk, 2004), however “more knowledgeable” people are defined. This last point is where Frankfurt’s interpretation of bullshit has both oppressive and intimidating undertones and consequences.
Perhaps without even realizing it, FIBS sends a message that suggests that one should avoid talking bullshit (almost all of the time and because of the “risks and potential consequences”), or of expressing a developing and “non-expert” view, concern or opinion. In other words, leave the thinking, discourse and decision-making to people who don’t “talk bullshit” (with no definitive or even rough-gauge Turing test of this “non-bullshit talk” provided by Frankfurt), which is a view that seems to be particularly attractive to many educators and politicians of all persuasions today. The difficulties with any view that even suggests this type of restriction of intellectual and social engagement are manifest, and should be easily identified by most people (and especially by a moral philosopher!). In a world where knowledge (particularly scientific and technical knowledge) is growing exponentially, and, at the same time becoming so specialized, it’s reasonable to wonder how many people actually exist who don’t talk bullshit (or at least a good deal of the time), as well as who is the final arbiter of such decisions.
Frankfurt is correct, however, in assuming bullshit is ubiquitous, pervasive, and growing at an accelerating rate. But one must stop and ask why, and ask why in a fairly sophisticated and differentiated way. Not all BS may be bad and something to be radically reduced if not eliminated in all contexts and situations, which is one of our central points here. Yes, a lot of BS should be scrutinized, and, as we have said, we all need to be far more reflective and circumspect when we express ourselves and our views professionally or in high stake situations without doubt. But something as ubiquitous as BS may exist for a reason and perhaps an important and “good” reason. In the RIBS view, it was stated that bullshit is a matrix for the development of higher-order thinking. The assumption here is that one can go from this (bullshit) matrix that is highly generative (and allows for the thinking and expression of ideas in a less inhibited manner that may not consider the truth or falsity of the expression) to more precise ideas and conceptions that may (or may not be) weeded out by some form of reason, experience, formal testing procedure or logic. Without the development component of bullshit, it would be difficult to understand how scientific ideas, facts, theories and concepts developed from their metaphysical origins to “authoritatively accepted and blessed realities,” which is an idea (and process) that has been the basis of the work and contributions of some of the most important “post-positivist” philosophers of science such as Bachelard (1938), Koyre (1957), Fleck (1935/1976) and Kuhn (1962).
What FIBS fails to recognize is the dynamic nature of the bullshit construct and that bullshit is very often (if not always) an important developmental phenomenon that can be refined over time in a way that leads to more complex (valid) knowledge structures and greater (valid) knowledge capacities. What is missing in FIBS—and also in many psychological, philosophical and epistemological models and theories of knowing—is a balanced treatment of the irrational, silly, fanciful, deceptive and emotive nature of thought and behavior, as well as the more logical, formal and scientific ways of thinking and behaving.
What is more disconcerting than the limitations and shortcomings of FIBS is that so many educated people and teachers view this book as some sort of moral victory to be immediately implemented in the classroom. They fail to identify the problems of FIBS and to recognize its outdated, naïve, simplistic, oppressive, and non-developmental thesis, relative to a concept that is so pervasive and actually very developmentally important in the classroom; namely BS, and BS that reflects a striving to think and speak beyond one’s immediate grasp in order to learn, develop, and qualitatively change and improve one’s views. Attempting to reduce the occurrence of BS to zero in our daily lives and discourse only to the obedient parroting of the views of authorities and catechisms currently in fashion, particularly in classrooms, will prevent the events that will lead to the birth (slowly and over time) of the next Tessler, Edison, Kekule, Semmelweis, Darwin, Pauling, or Gell-Mann from occurring, never mind the even more important events of the daily intellectual growth and development of self-regulating and higher-order learners and students. One must really ask why people seek to speak beyond their grasp and ask if the reasons are always the same and the same in all contexts. And one must ask what is the price and the consequences of just simplistically and unilaterally severely reducing and choking off bullshit in daily discourse, particularly educationally. Maybe a completely bullshit free society (if at all possible) would not be such a complete moral or desirable victory after all. And maybe “deception” is a far more interesting and important phenomenon than most of us think or realize.
References
Ashcraft, M.H. (2002). Cognition (3rd edition). Prentice Hall.
Carifio, J. (2005, July). Toward a standard integrated information processing/cognitive model of learning. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group, Leeds, England.
Bachelard, G. (1938). La formation de l’esprit scientifique. Paris: Vrin.
Bruning, R., Schraw, G., Norby, M., & Ronning, R., (2001). Cognitive Psychology and Instruction. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity, Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper-Collins.
Fleck, L. (1935/1979). Genesis and development of a scientific fact. (F. Bradley & T. Trenn, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Good, R. (2005, October). Science, pseudo-science, and just plain bullshit. Paper presented at the Science Education at the Crossroads Conference, University of Connecticut.
Koyre, A. (1968). From the closed world to the infinite universe. The John Hopkins University Press.
Kuhn, T.S. (1962/1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schunk, D. (2004). Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective (4th Edition). New York: Prentice-Hall.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman, (Eds.), Harvard University Press.
About the Reviewers
Rocco J. Perla
Graduate School of Education
Dept. Mathematics and Science Education University of Massachusetts Lowell
35 Academy Road
Leominster, MA 01453 USA
Email: perla98@medscape.comRocco J. Perla recently completed an Ed.D. in Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Perla’s interests include nature of science studies and instruction, philosophy of science and cognition. His current research projects focus on developing inter-disciplinary models of nature of science instruction for undergraduate students.
James Carifio
Graduate School of Education
Dept. Leadership in Schooling
University of Massachusetts Lowell
61 Wilder Street
Lowell, MA 01854 USA
Email: James_Carifio@uml.eduJames Carifio is a Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His interests include measurement, cognition, mathematics and science education and complex problem solving. Dr. Carifio teaches courses in research design and data analysis, cognitive psychology and learning theories. His current research projects focus on developing and validating an integrated standard information processing model (and theory) of learning.
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Editors: Gene V Glass, Kate Corby, Gustavo Fischman
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