Bullshit and Philosophy Part 11

49.

The two disorders are thought to lie on a continuum, known as schizotypy, with schizophrenia. There is some evidence for genetic links among the three. Schizotypals are thought to be closer to schizophrenics.

50.

Thanks to Tom Oltmanns for this point.

51.

The sub-types I refer to in the foregoing are not officially recognized by the American Psychiatric a.s.sociation in the DSM-IV. I lean heavily here on Personality Disorders in Modern Life, where they are recognized.

52.

Indeed, insofar as the "fanatic paranoid" is just paranoid, he is not a bulls.h.i.+tter; it is really his narcissist streak that contributes the bulls.h.i.+t.

53.

This story does not, I'm sorry to say, cover the apparent near absence of bulls.h.i.+t from paranoid personality disorder.

54.

Thanks to Philip Robbins for helping me distinguish these two.

55.

Many thanks to Tasmin Astor-Jack, Gary Hardcastle, Tom Oltmanns, and especially Philip Robbins for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this paper.

56.

Even false humility or self-abnegation is bulls.h.i.+t precisely to the extent that we are meant to value the speaker as humble via the act of uttering something falsely humble or self-abnegating. But more on performative bulls.h.i.+t below.

57.

That is, if you did accuse me of lying, I would rebut the charge by reminding you of what you already know, namely, my intention. As George Reisch has stressed in Chapter 3 of this volume, there's more to bulls.h.i.+t than semantics.

58.

The most curious cases within the letter of reference genre are cases in which the sort of bulls.h.i.+t offered is outside what is acceptable, not by being over the top but by violating the genre conventions. If one reads in a letter of reference that "Mortimer is like a cool breeze on a warm summer evening," one's reaction is "What sort of bulls.h.i.+t is this?," suggesting that at the minimum it is the wrong sort of bulls.h.i.+t.

59.

For that their own bulls.h.i.+t must suffice.

60.

If we are tempted to go for evolutionary explanations, we might a.n.a.logize bulls.h.i.+t to altruism and try to copy evolutionary explanations of altruism. Bulls.h.i.+t as biological adaptation, however, seems extraordinarily unlikely. I do not doubt that somewhere someone is writing up "The Function of Bulls.h.i.+t in a Hunter-Gatherer Society," however; such is the way of bulls.h.i.+t.

61.

The name of the store is altered to preserve anonymity; the pledge was still up on 19th April, 2006.

62.

This is from http://www.ubc.ca/about/mission.html.

63.

But suppose all universities are equally good, says one of my undergraduate philosophy students who has taken logic. Well, then, there is no particular reason to sort them into the very best and the also-rans.

64.

My remarks on performative bulls.h.i.+t owe much to John Austin's cla.s.sic, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1962).

65.

Examples can be multiplied: Canada, as a nation, seems to engage in performative courtesy-bulls.h.i.+t, according to which the universal belief (or claim) among Canadians that they are courteous is taken as evidence that they have been courteous in any given case: "No, sir, I cannot have been rude to you; I am Canadian."

66.

I do not know whether Bush is utterly insincere, although the smirk would indicate that he is. Leaving Bush aside, the insincerity of the American media, both right and left, is palpable. Could anyone maintain sincere outrage, night in and night out, for years the way our friends on Fox News and its rivals do? It's not possible.

67.

Thanks to Judy Segal for comments on the earlier draft. Thanks to the editors for relevant inspiration and detailed comments on earlier, s.h.i.+ttier drafts.

68.

Richard Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 86.