Humbug & Bullshit
“HUMBUG: deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.”
The Prevalence of Humbug
I haven’t been writing much recently because the things I read and regurgitate would be unintelligible (“Hegel”)1. That is, until I stumbled on this particular topic.
The two essays are similar in topic and short reads so I will link both of them: humbug and bullshit. Humbug and Bullshit are provocative titles, which is likely how they got popular in the first place. The definition each author settled on, minus the minutiae, found what seems a fundamental aspect of bullshitting someone. People who spout humbug has no care for the truth. Whatever they say has no connection to truth. Which is different than lying.
It made me start reflecting for the 12th time about the nature of truth in relation to language, science, math, design, morality, and wherever else it may show up.
Truth
I’ve written about what truth as a “linguistic” property and social property. And I’ve written about “correct” design while covering the difference between a “realist” and “anti-realist” in approaching design work. And lastly, I’ve written about the definition of words, i.e., “extensional” and “intensional” in relation to math and language.
What Frankfurt or Black adds to my personal reflection is pointing out the functional distinction between lying and humbugging. Lying is an activity done with the truth in mind. A person still needs to take truth seriously in order to lie effectively. On the other hand, when people take up bullshitting someone, the two authors would say that person has no actual care for the truth.
Subjecthood
I realized my post on design isn’t great at discussing realist vs anti-realist positions. The goal was to discuss different philosophies people in those positions would have towards truth in design.
Personally, any theory of truth worth its “grain of salt” needs to deal with the subject without falling into a “relativism”. I aim to affirm a position which allows people to be wrong and maintain the realness of truth. I don’t see naive realism or extreme relativism to fulfill my aims, which leaves me with idealism or constructive empiricism.
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The main source of confusion for Hegel is because the topics he writes about is 2nd order to claims about the world. Anything meta tends to carry on a property of being confusing. It’s interesting how far “subjecthood” goes back. ↩