False Truth In Harry Frankfurt's Book 'On Truth'

Emerson writes, “But this function of opening and feeding the human mind is not to be fulfilled by any mechanical or military method” (Emerson, 191). This quote explains how immediately providing students with the correct answers is almost unnatural and the least suitable way of retaining information.

I agree with Leonard Pitts Jr.'s viewpoint in his editorial titled, "Some Of Us Can't Handle the Truth" Pitts Jr. discusses how he believes that Americans prefer to be told a lie about something, rather than the actual truth. While his writing is very subjective, he does make some logical points in a composed manner. A perfect example of this is when Pitts Jr. brings up the statistic that 61% of Americans believe that crime is on the rise throughout the last 10 years. However, crime rates (per 100,000 people) hasn't been lower since 1970. The reason I think that it feels as if crime is rising every year is because of the high amounts of publicity that crime receives. Every night when I watch the 10 o'clock news with my parents or even if I

“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.”(Frankfurt). This statement truly defines the current situation of our life. I have developed a decent interest in this topic because we are surrounded by it and the majority of people don’t recognize it. There have been a lot of difficulties in understanding this topic as there are no particular theory has been given to this topic. According to Frankfurt bullshit is unavoidable at conditions in which we expect somebody to talk without recognizing what he is discussing. Therefore, the production of bullshit is based on the opportunities that an individual have to express more on a particular topic than his knowledge on the particular topic. We are going to talk about the similarities and differences between lying and bullshit. We will also discuss that which one is more harmful to the society and why, we are also going to discuss about some of the questions that are related to bullshitting in our life and discuss why we are not doing anything about it or it is just a human tendency.

Deception is most successful when there is a grain of truth blended into the lie. The liar’s perversion of the truth is blinding to many people. Science writer Maria Konnikova notes “We con ourselves as much as [con artists] con us, because we supply the

In the excerpt Chris Hedges says, “... to create a sense of faux intimacy with citizens, no longer need to be content or sincere, or honest.” For example when selling a product, you can lie to your viewers about the product as long as the lie isn’t obvious and the product still appears to be true and relative. In other words, this means when you sell a product and tell the audience the complete and honest truth, no matter how bad it is, this will scare your audience away, but when you sell a product and tell more lies than truth, you can somewhat curve the narrative and appeal to your audience. All this is important in a consumer because the best use of artifice will survive in the competition of marketing, though this is true there is another way to attract an audience willing to invest money into your product or

Everything is a lie. Every spoken word is false, every written text is fallacious, and every form of media is erroneous. The speed and ease of information sharing has allowed people to submit anything they want into the mass jumble of online data called the Web. In his article, “Truth Lies Here,” Michael Hirschorn argues that the Web has become a place of fabricated facts and because of the massive amount of false information on the internet, nobody believes anything. “[D]isturbances in politics and media feel like symptoms of a larger epistemological, even civilizational, rot” (Hirschorn 64). Though this article may support Hirschorn’s argument, it is not strong, to say the least. This article lacks originality nor is it informative, it does little in addressing the opposition, and it contains numerous logical fallacies. All in all, this article is not persuasive.

somewhere if we are to distinguish the lies that tell truths form the just plain

While poking fun at himself in his essay “On Bullshit”, Henry Frankfurt subtly presents a clever comparison of truth, lies, and bullshit. Truth-telling acts as a default. Generally, if a person walks into a gas station and asks an attendant for directions, the worker will intentionally guide them towards the right location. An individual, such as the attendant, may accidentally provide false information, but it is the aim to correctly convey reality which is of utmost importance to truth-telling. To be honest is to have no intention other than speaking one’s mind.

I would agree with McEntyre’s belief that our world is full of lies. Almost everything anymore has some sort of lie or twisted truth wrapped in itself. McEntyre made mention that we don’t seek the truth from false information because we don’t want to find the truth but because we cannot form “solid evidence to hold public servants accountable” (58). To often people think that all the news does

Dweck states that when she was in sixth grade she had a teacher who was so sure that people’s IQ scores told just how smart and trustworthy they were. She said they had one consuming goal- “look smart, don’t look dumb. Who cared about or enjoyed learning when our whole being was at stake every time she gave us a test or called on us in class?” (6). When my

In this way, students acquire tons of facts and maybe enhance their memorization ability, but fail to understand how these facts are connected to the daily life. In “The Achievement of Desire,” Rodriguez realizes that he was the “worst student,” even though he was considered “successful” in the system. “He becomes in every obvious way the worst student, a dummy mouthing the opinions of others. But he would not be so bad—nor would he become so successful, a scholarship boy—if he did not accurately perceive that the best synonym for primary ‘education’ is ‘imitation’” (203). The scholarship boy noticed that the best way to succeed in this system is to borrow and copy the ideas of others. Clearly we know that this is not the way to learn, as learning requires original processes. Therefore, it can be concluded that being successful in the educational system is not the same as being successful in learning. My experience supports this. Some teachers in my high school ask students to memorize all the model answers to every possible question that might be asked on the standardized test, but do not give explanations or have activities which could actually help students understand. The aim of teaching would then become merely the test scores. My physics teacher kept reminding us how many students got an A in a standardized test under his training,

Today’s political climate is a polarizing topic. Every form of media has an opinion on it from major news outlets to adult animated sitcoms. Harry Frankfurt’s book “On Truth” is relevant to the political storm that is brewing in American society due to the manipulation of the truth by political figures and mainstream media. Frankfurt approaches the importance of truth in a unique fashion and vilifies lies and those who spread them. This directly relates to the election year and how the truth is shrouded in mystery. The Daodejing and Socrates’ writings, while both important in literature are not as pertinent to the charged political climate that is taking place in the United States right now.

The truth is the hardest medicine to swallow, yet it is also the most effective medicine to take to heal. But the truth often is covered up by lies and ideas created by people that are afraid. Their efforts to cover up the truth usually fail horribly, causing more problems to arise. The bitter taste of the truth worsens as the lie is seen through, but the lies still try to hide the terrible secrets. Some lie to prevent others from getting hurt, others lie so that they have another reality to believe, and some lie so they never have to be faced with the truth.

“To what extent were your ideas and or beliefs confirmed and/or challenged and extended by Justine Larbalestier’s novel Liar?”

Highlight: “Denial of reality is a capacity inseparable from the human will as we know it and it has its greatest power when it operates without being recognized as such…Therefore, it must deny and evade and delude itself.” (Willard 52).