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Bullshit as a Problem of Social Epistemology

Mon, August 24, 8:30 to 9:30am, TBA

Abstract

Bullshit is a widely recognized and loathed feature of our lives, yet philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit remains the only serious academic work on the topic. After recounting Frankfurt’s initial analysis of the term, this paper reframes bullshit as a problem of social epistemology. Attempting to capture the array of uses of bullshit as a folk category, this paper suggests three ideal types of bullshit: self-described bullshit, contextualized bullshit, and bullshit as criticism. The paper then examines how bullshit relates to the fundamental problem of epistemic complexity and sociality. The paper offers an initial analysis of the institutional, structural, and culture features of social life that contribute to the proliferation of bullshit, making it a normal and inevitable feature of social life. The paper concludes with a call to take the idea of bullshit, as a kind of category of practice, more seriously, as it is connected to broader social theoretical considerations of knowledge, cognition, and epistemology.

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