Jun 2026· Synthese· Vol 208· 1 citation· 92 references
Abstract
The philosophical debate about bullshit has focused exclusively on what bullshitters say. In this paper, I suggest we should also pay attention to how they say what they say. In particular, we should look for what I propose to call highfalutin bullshit: the needless use of “big words” with manipulative intent, whether deceptive or otherwise—that is, an intent to influence the audience’s beliefs through means that bypass rational agency. First, I seek to explain its nature using Grice’s conversational maxims. As I show, all forms of bullshit philosophers have hitherto focused on can be analysed in terms of non-observance of Grice’s maxims under the categories of Quality, Quantity, and Relation. In contrast, highfalutin bullshit involves a manipulative non-observance, whether deceptive or otherwise, of Grice’s category of Manner and, specifically, the first maxim of Manner: “Avoid obscurity of expression.” After that, I respond to two arguments against my proposal. According to the first, “highfalutin bullshit” is just a new name for phenomena already described in the literature (e.g. obscurantism). According to the second, it is unclear why we should care about it. In response, I argue that highfalutin bullshit should be viewed as a form of bullshit in its own right, widespread and problematic. Finally, I contend that it is instructive to view highfalutin bullshit through the lens of argumentation theory, namely, as a means for masking or diverting attention away from argumentative bullshit.
My essay draws attention to several little-known texts by Wittgenstein in which he addresses the processes which may precede a genocide. I seek to demonstrate that Wittgenstein’s thought contains resources that may be drawn on in confronting such ethical and political problems, and more specifically, in addressing issues that arise in relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The resources I locate in Wittgenstein’s work include techniques for shifting attitudes and for redirecting attention, for unsettling interlocutors from their complacency and for leading them to transform their ways of seeing the problems they confront. In this connection, I reflect on the ethical and political efficacy of experiences of the uncanny. I also find in Wittgenstein the suggestion that moral philosophy calls for a mode of engagement which is essentially first-personal, and refuses to separate the biographical from the philosophical. In order to put this suggestion to the test, the essay is written in the idiom of autotheory.
The high concentration of zoonyms in the Kumyk paroemias about cattle theft is not an accident, but a direct reflection of the key role of cattle in the economy and social relations. The language has fixed this reality by using animals as natural ethical markers: through them, the people understood and evaluated their actions, making moral lessons clear and accessible. The objects of theft are classified according to their symbolic value into those representing: a) minimal prosperity and b) material well-being. In the Kumyk worldview a person becomes a thief once and for all, regardless of the severity of the offense, as a tendency to steal is considered an incurable vice. Paradoxically, small thefts are more severely condemned than larger ones, and the negligence of the owner who allowed the family's property to be stolen is condemned more severely than the thief's actions. Ultimately, stealing eliminates the possibility of good fortune for a person.
N. E. Gadzhiakhmedov, Z. S. Salmanova· Herald of Dagestan State Uni...· 0 citations
This article argues that Jean Baudrillard’s theory of qualities in Les Stratégies fatales can be clarified through a Schellingian interpretative key. Reconsidering Graham Harman’s object-oriented reading of Baudrillard, the paper addresses three related problems: the meaning of seduction as a “passage to a higher level,” the status of absence in Baudrillard’s anti-dialectical logic, and the nature of his theory of qualities. These issues converge in a single theoretical problem structured by intensification, redoubling, and qualified identity. First, Baudrillard’s use of Steigerung is reconstructed as an anti-Hegelian logic of potentiation or elevation to a higher potency, paralleling Schelling’s account in the 1813 draft of Die Weltalter. Second, Baudrillard’s treatment of absence, hyper-determination, and antagonism is interpreted through reduplicative identity (reduplicatio), which in Schelling grounds Steigerung. Third, Baudrillard’s “fatal qualities” are shown to concern not intrinsic and relational properties, but a theory of qualified identity in which a term becomes absolute by absorbing the energy of its contrary. On this basis, the article suggests that Baudrillard’s own strategy for thinking the passage from identity to non-identity without sublation takes shape through a reading of Schelling.
Enrico Schirò· Revista Portuguesa de Filoso...· 0 citations
The contribution of this essay to two rather distinct academic literatures is two-fold. First, it reconceives the significance of Wittgenstein’s remarks on aspect–seeing, which are generally taken to be revelatory of language narrowly conceived, and instead explores the connection between aspect–seeing—what Wittgenstein identifies as one “among the concepts of experience”—and the nature of experience itself. It does so by noting the importance to Wittgenstein of inventing “fictitious natural history” to reveal the connection between what we say and the kind of creature we are. It then examines other fictitious natural histories involving aspect–seeing (or its absence) that illustrate some “very general facts of nature”—facts that, the essay contends, help form the fundamental conditions for our finding one another intelligible. Second, the essay reconceives what constitutes the significance of jazz improvisation (and possibly other forms of spontaneous activity, though those are not explored here) by grounding this significance in these same very general facts of nature. It develops this thought by considering the implications of a different fictitious natural history involving musical performance, and through a remarkable if complex instance of an exemplary improvised jazz solo by Charlie Parker.
This paper addresses complexity of Pram’s identity (as an exile) and Bumi Manusia (as a product of exile), which relates to cosmopolitan subjects. It will be firstly focused on examining Pramoedya as the writer experiencing a life in exile. The discussion will, furthermore, connect to Minke, the central character in Bumi Manusia, which performs as if a cosmopolitan. This will draw a connection between these two subjects as they presumably reflect the opposites. Secondly, this paper intends to explore the term exile in order to extend the understanding on how ‘exile’ offers different realities to be construed through Pramoedya and Bumi Manusia; contrastively enough with the Indonesian’s political situation, the book earned a worldwide readership. All the juxtapositions above will be approached with Cheah’s concept temporalities which gives a clear understanding that literature “cannot be destroyed by normative forces”, along with Beecroft’s concept related with literature from the ‘center’ and ‘periphery’. Based on the analysis, it is indicated that both Pramoedya and Minke in Bumi Manusia, although being confined, reflect what is understood as temporalities. With this potential of, in Cheah’s concept, ‘opening a new world’, stories like Bumi Manusia, even though being regarded ‘coming from periphery’ does not have to be ‘reactive’, but instead it is able to offer an extension what in the actual world was.
S. Utami, M. Kadafi· MONOGATARI: Journal of Liter...· 0 citations
What, if anything, can be morally objectionable about the practice of epistemic partiality commonly associated with personal friendship? Recently, Jack Warman has argued that it may lead us to insult non-friends and perpetuate testimonial injustice against them by refusing their relevant testimony about our friends. In this article, we challenge Warman’s view on three grounds. First, we show that it underspecifies the conditions under which refusal of non-friends’ testimony counts as insulting. Second, we argue that epistemic partiality, as discussed in the literature, does not in fact require or lead individuals to refuse non-friends’ testimony in an insulting way. Third, we show that Warman’s two arguments concerning the moral wrongness of epistemic partiality assign such wrongness in two competing ways and thus turn out to be incompatible with each other. Finally, we go beyond Warman’s proposal to consider whether epistemic partiality may generate epistemic injustice in another way, by bestowing friends with credibility excesses.
Sanjar Akayev, Robin Waldenburg· Philosophia· 0 citations