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| On Bullshit | 
| Author: Harry G. Frankfurt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $4.95
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New (54) from $4.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  174 reviews
Sales Rank: 4312
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 80
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.1 x 4.1 x 0.5
ISBN: 0691122946
Dewey Decimal Number: 177.3
UPC: 218681122946
EAN: 9780691122946
ASIN: 0691122946
Publication Date: January 10, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 He's missed an aspect of BS October 31, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
People seem to think that Frankfurt is either (1) putting us all on, or (2) forging a serious discussion about BS. Let me propose that the two possiblities are not mutually exclusive. By analogy, modern art is serious, overall, but anyone who misses the comedy in a lot of it is missing something essential.
Whatever the intent, Frankfurt misses a key element of BS. To me at least, BS is emphatically *not* simply talking about something you know nothing about. This requires a certain skill, but there is a subtler and more noteworthy aspect to BS. It is the art or act of discoursing on something you know *something* about, but not as much as you would like your audience to think you do. This aspect of BS is everywhere--politics, business, education. Relationships. You name it. Expanding on a theme. BSing in this sense can be a good thing in that it will draw out more information from those who have it; or it can be a bad thing when the fakery stands.
Years ago my son called home from his Ivy League location to say, "Pop, I can't figure this out. There are kids here who come up with great things in class, and I can never think of anything to say. But when it comes time for a test or a paper, I do much better than them."
I recounted this conversation to one of my old professors, and he said, "This is common. We even have a name for it: small school syndrome." My son hadn't had as many bright kids around him in class in high school, and he hadn't quite learned the art of BS-ing, I would say. The kind of BS-ing that Frankfurt doesn't pay enough attention to.
 What WERE they thinking? October 27, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's a fine little essay - for those who actually understand what an essay is and is not. It is most likely meant to amuse as much as enlighten, which it does do, and not a whole lot else. For those who purchased this in the belief that it is a self-help book, a de-bunker, a business guide, or anything else of that sort; well, maybe you should have researched your choice a little beyond just what you interpreted the title to mean. And for those who are downright offended by the title and your perception of the subject matter, all that I can say is thank God not everyone in the world is like you. Perhaps you shouldn't go around looking for obvious targets and passing judgment on them without heving read them. I pity your sort.
 And This review would be a prime example October 22, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I may not know how to describe it but I thought I could identify it when I heard it.
If Professor Frankfurt injected as much humor in his classes as is evident in this extended essay, I am certain that I would have enjoyed spending an hour or so in his presence three times a week. However, to make such an affirmative claim is nearly as sophistic as this book which has less to do with academic investigation of the subject matter than to compel the reader to examine self-conceptualization.
For such a short work, it is filled with multi-leveled pearls of wisdom that make writing this review and in many respects any review, a clear indicator of the writer's self absorption. The books opens with the declaration "Each of us contributes his share" and much later points out "... is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about...whether by their own propensities or by the demand of others -to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant."
For those who have read it and hopefully "get it," I sincerely believe the old professor is a proponent of David Hume and knows the time is right to find a dependable sheepdog. Since I felt the need to have the subject matter explained to me, it's pretty clear like so many others, I am highly susceptible to it.
 The Man Behind Frankfurt Is the True Joker, or Else There Is None October 20, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
People have suggested that this book is a joke, that the audience is being had. The book is small, printed as though for children, contains nothing of any meaning yet fulfills the requirements of academic philosophical theorizing: limitless abstraction, complex sentence structure and advanced theoretical vocabulary. It is a clear demonstration of how academic theoretical prose allows one to generate text without saying anything. Obviously a critique of modern academic philosophy is implicit the moment one realizes that this passed muster and got published.
The self-irony is complete in that the word BS is spelled out on the cover: the joke couldn't be any more obvious. What really makes it apparent that someone masterminded this as a joke however is the marketing strategy: this book was actually mass-marketed with an appearance on the Daily Show that sealed it's entry to the bestseller lists. That, more than anything else, was the joke behind this work. It is the same as Sokal, for whom the deciding moment was the acceptance of his essay into an academic journal. But who is the joker here?
Some have suggested this is Frankfurt's joke on the reader. I disagree. Frankfurt has spent his entire life philosophizing about the meaning of words like Love, Care, and Duty. Here is an excerpt from The Reasons of Love, said to be one of the most insightful passages:
"I am willing to admit that most of our actions are in accordance with duty; but, if we look closer at our thoughts and aspirations, we everywhere come upon the dear self, which is always salient, and it is this instead of the stern command of duty (which would often require self-denial) which supports our plans. "
For Frankfurt, chasing the bleary meanings of ill-defined words through conceptual mazes in his head; adding, subtracting and multiplying entities which from the outset evade definition, have been this man's single marketable skill and the foundation for his career. This man literally believes that profitable insight can be gained by defining the relationship between "caring" and "love". So those who make Frankfurt the mastermind, I feel, are mistaken.
Someone behind him, who suggested this book be mass-marketed, and got him a book-deal and a spot on the daily-show, someone there is the Mastermind. Unless, of course, there is no mastermind, and no one is silently chuckling at this joke. For those of you who think this is a joke, listen to Frankfurt's interviews and read his other works its all equally worthless as this. IHNT.
Whoever was behind him, whoever suggested this idea for a book, and whoever arranged his book-deal and
 One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much October 7, 2007
6 out of 22 found this review helpful
... of the substance that HGF writes a whole book, within limits, about, but that we poor Amazon reviewers are not allowed to use.
Within limits, because the book is so short, that a full quotation (minus the word, of course) could count as a rather long review. That is so, because the book is entirely self-reflective, it writes about itself. It moves in perfect circles and ignores all limits of seriousness and keeps this righteous attitude throughout. I love it.
The most remarkable achievement is that it manages to charge 10 bucks for itself, plus transportation charges, the latter amounting, in case of a single book parcel to China, to a quite unproportional amount of money and weight/volume of packing material. One could say, the book duplicates its contents via viral infections in Amazon charges and packing material.
Does this count as non-sexual replication? Or am I talking something that must remain unnamed?
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