On Bullshit Part 2

A conversation with Harry G. Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit, published by Princeton University Press

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• philosophy
• truth
• untruth
• lying

[heartattack0vine]

@tmtyler He's actually talking about that around 4:10

[152jon]

I enjoyed the random edit cuts, i wonder what he said during those cuts?

[midgetman2142]

@tmtyler entertainment?

[ClothingOptionalInc]

@tmtyler agreed

[tmtyler]

This all seems rather negative. What about the positive aspects of bullshit?

[lexo30]

@ayethereztherub I'm sorry, your comment made no sense. Please explain.

[ayethereztherub]

@lexo30 What''s surprising, as always with new atheists, is they are always ex-fundies themselves, and as such, often borrow from the very worst tropes of religion when explaining their concept either science or religion: "a pale and pathetic and sinful man-made imitation."  Thus sayeth the lord!

[lexo30]

@ayethereztherub I have noticed that religious people tend to think that non-religious people feel the same way about science (or whatever) as religious people feel about God, and therefore believe (rightly, from their own point of view) that non-religious people are kidding themselves with a pale and pathetic and sinful man-made imitation. I have been religious, but am so no longer, and believe me, there's a strong difference between having religious faith and not having it.

[lexo30]

@ayethereztherub Newton isn't the "God of western metaphysics". God is, inasmuch as people seem to be more focused on 'There's a God' or 'There's no God' than on working out the implications of science being true. Newtonian mechanics work fine for most large-scale engineering purposes, not because Newton is God but because his physics work. Science isn't the 'new bourgeois religion of self' - most people I know who don't believe in God don't have any religious faith at all.

[lexo30]

@ayethereztherub I begin to see what you mean by 'truth is conservative', but I would disagree thus: conservatism is not conservative, inasmuch as it does not 'base [its] truth on what has gone before'. If it did that, it would have to accept a long tradition of radical thought. Also, as new ideas (e.g. Darwin's) become time-honoured, conservatism would have to base its truth on them, and it tends not to. Conservatism rejects tradition whenever tradition is inconvenient for its purpose.