On bullshit, quacks and charlatans

I became aware of "bullshit" as an academically "respectable" term with the 2005 publication of the philosophical mini-book On Bullshit by Prof. Harry Frankfurt. It was surprisingly successful and triggered widespread media and public interest. Prof. Ben Kotzee of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Cape Town pointed out the reason for this success here:

"What people enjoy about Frankfurt’s book, it seems, is that having a theory of bullshit available makes it possible now to do with a straight face what you previously had to hide in a cough: say that someone is talking bullshit. (We might say that, after Frankfurt, “bullshit” is a technical term.)"

The South African press also took notice, especially in 2006 after a public lecture entitled Our vision and our mission: Bullshit, assertion and belief by Prof. Kotzee.



South African readers can get On Bullshit here from Kalahari.net.

What then is "bullshit" when it is not the excrement of a male bovine? It is clear that it is human communication of some kind, whether verbal or written, and that its purpose is to deceive. Animals also deceive, but do they bullshit?

Kotzee distinguishes between "Frankfurt-bullshit" and "Cohen-bullshit" (See Cohen reference in Kotzee's article).

According to Kotzee:

"... Frankfurt holds that bullshit involves a “deliberate misrepresentation”; like lying, bullshitting amounts to someone trying to deceive another. Bullshitting involves deceptive intent, making whether an utterance is bullshit dependent on the state of mind of the bullshitter rather than on features of the utterance itself. (p. 3)"

while,

"Cohen-bullshit is bullshit with a life of its own and is bullshit independently of the bullshitters (sic) intent to deceive. (Cohen-bullshit) ... is a species of nonsense: specifically, it is 'unclarifiable nonsense'. (pp. 7-8)"

Kotzee points out that for both Frankfurt's bullshit (deception) and Cohen's bullshit(nonsense), the question whether someone can believe their own bullshit, holds a problem. In Frankfurt's case, it would require self-deception, which Kotzee believes is unlikely to be conscious. With Cohen-bullshit, being nonsense, the bullshitter according to Kotzee, also cannot believe his/her own bullshit.

How can these ideas be applied to quacks and charlatans? These two terms are often used interchangeably, but as the definitions below show, charlatan has a stronger connotation with fraud.

Dr. Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch defines quackery as the promotion of unsubstantiated methods that lack a scientifically plausible rationale. Wictionary defines a charlatan as a malicious trickster; a fake person, especially one who deceives for personal profit.

In reality, it must be said that it will often be practically impossible to distinguish quacks from charlatans. Let us do so for present purposes, however. Then it would seem that quacks would be more inclined to Cohen-bullshit and charlatans more to Frankfurt-bullshit. With the charlatan the line between bullshit and outright lies and fraud may be a thin one.

Read these links to Quackometer and Neurologica
to see good examples of the application of the theory of bullshit to quackery.

Also see Neil Postman's Bullshit and the art of crap-detection