On Bullshit Rhetorical Analysis

Everywhere we look there is some form of bullshit going around and according to Professor Frankhurt, bullshitting is a more serious threat than lying. In his essay he talks about the many concepts of bullshit from his own perspective and compares bullshit to other related topics such as “Humbug” and “Lying”, and then breaks the words down to a basic understanding to help find a true meaning of . His use of definitions and in depth analysis, makes his essay very effective in describing buullshit. It seems that his main concerns pertain to what bullshit is. In On Bullshit, to further convey his argument, he includes definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary itself to further prove that they are “pertinent to clarifying the nature of bullshit.”

In this reference Black gives the definition of Humbug as being “deceptive misinterpretation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of someone’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes” (Footnote) What I think he is doing here is saying that bullshit is much like the term humbug, therefore when Frankfurt uses this term, he is creating a claim based off of resemblance. A little later in his essay he compares bullshit with lying. He describes that the bullshitter will make a claim or statement “[...] without bothering to take into account at all the question of its accuracy,” whereas the liar knows of the truth, but tries to manipulate it so the other person cannot tell what the truth really is. In other words they are both trying to make the other person believe something else. The difference that Frankfurt is trying for is to make it seem that bullshitting is easier than lying I can say that these definitions are key to his argument for they provide insight to the contrast between the two ways bullshit is categorized. I find Frankfurt’s incorporation of resemblance is very effective because he is able to convey the meaning of bullshit by resembling it to unrelated