Joseph Raz presents a penetrating exploration of the interdependence of value, reason, and the will. These essays illuminate a wide range of questions concerning fundamental aspects of human thought and action. Engaging Reason is a summation of many years of original, compelling, and influential work by a major contemporary philosopher.

We have good reason to condemn lying more strongly than misleading and to condemn bullshit assertion less harshly than lying but more harshly than misleading. We each have good reason to mislead rather than make bullshit assertions, but to make bullshit assertions rather than lie. This is because these forms of deception damage credibility in different ways. We can trust the misleader to assert only what they believe to be true. We can trust the bullshitter not to assert what they (...) believe to be false. We cannot trust the liar at all. (shrink)

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions (...) it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory." Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all. 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 their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. (shrink)

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.

In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief--that...

This book is about normativity and reasons.

Playing the mystery card -- "But it fits!" -- Going nuclear -- Moving the semantic goalposts -- "But I just know!" -- Pseudo-profundity -- Piling up the anecdotes -- Pressing your buttons -- Conclusion -- The Tapescrew letters.

When it was published in France, this book shocked the philosophers of the Left Bank with its plain-speaking attack on some of France's greatest minds.

Presents a theory of bullshit, how it differs from lying, how those who engage in it change the rules of conversation, and how indulgence in bullshit can alter a person's ability to tell the truth.

To understand one another as individuals and to fulfill the moral duties that require such understanding, we must communicate with each other. We must also maintain protected channels that render reliable communication possible, a demand that, Seana Shiffrin argues, yields a prohibition against lying and requires protection for free speech. This book makes a distinctive philosophical argument for the wrong of the lie and provides an original account of its difference from the wrong of deception. Drawing on legal as well (...) as philosophical arguments, the book defends a series of notable claims—that you may not lie about everything to the "murderer at the door," that you have reasons to keep promises offered under duress, that lies are not protected by free speech, that police subvert their mission when they lie to suspects, and that scholars undermine their goals when they lie to research subjects. Many philosophers start to craft moral exceptions to demands for sincerity and fidelity when they confront wrongdoers, the pressures of non-ideal circumstances, or the achievement of morally substantial ends. But Shiffrin consistently resists this sort of exceptionalism, arguing that maintaining a strong basis for trust and reliable communication through practices of sincerity, fidelity, and respecting free speech is an essential aspect of ensuring the conditions for moral progress, including our rehabilitation of and moral reconciliation with wrongdoers. (shrink)

The paper points to gaps in the conceptualization of bullshit as offered by Harry Frankfurt and Jerry Cohen. I argue that one type of bullshit, obscurantism, the deliberate exercise of making one’s text opaque for the purposes of deceiving the readership in various ways, escapes Frankfurt’s radar in tracking those judgments that are unconcerned with truth, and is not given distinct status in Cohen’s framework, which pays more attention to the product of bullshit than its producers and their techniques. First, (...) I offer on overview of the expanding literature on bullshit, with special attention given to accounts by Frankfurt and Cohen. I claim that Frankfurt’s essentialism and Cohen’s product-oriented account are not successful in exhausting our common understanding of what bullshit entails, neither separately, nor in conjunction. In particular, I claim that obscurantist bullshit pushes the envelope of the current conceptual frameworks. Second, following Boudry’s and Buekens’s work on obscurantism, I discuss the usual mechanisms utilized by obscurantists. Third, I reflect on an objection to my argument based on tweaking the permissibility for producing obscurantism by placing the production of obscurities into different contexts of writing style. I argue that there is an important normative difference between being an obscurantist and someone who merely writes obscurely, and that the distinction should bear weight regardless of constraining our capacities to tell between the two. I finish by discussing whether our understanding of obscurantist bullshit aids us in following a principle of clarity. (shrink)