Slightly alarmingly, as part of Princeton’s 100 Years of ExcellenceH.G. Frankfurt is interviewed about his book “On Bullshit”. (There’s a video of it which is worth watching, though the interviewer seems to need the bathroom)

“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, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.

In consequence, 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, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis. I shall not consider the rhetorical uses and misuses of bullshit. My aim is simply to give a rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not–or (putting it somewhat differently) to articulate, more or less sketchily, the structure of its concept.”

I like the idea that truth, while it may be difficult or even impossible to pin down, should not just be ignored and ridden roughshod over willy-nilly.