Dear Mitch (and David),
David’s comment quoting Eco on "everything which can be used in order to lie” gave me a few further thoughts. So did yesterday’s edition of the philosophy newsletter, Daily Nous.
http://dailynous.com <http://dailynous.com/>
Daily Nous mentions an empirical study of bullshitters — a study based, in part, on the concept of bullshit that Harry Frankfurt discusses in the famous book, On Bullshit. For those who do not know it, On Bullshit is a short yet serious philosophical work published by Princeton University Press. Those who do not know the book will find a digitised copy at this URL. It will be available through Sunday, April 28.
https://we.tl/t-5fQb8RBEuf <https://we.tl/t-5fQb8RBEuf>
To quote the notes from Princeton University Press: “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. 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, as Harry Frankfurt writes, ‘we have no theory.’
“Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.
“Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
The New York Times gave the book interesting consideration:
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/books/review/McCulloch <https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/books/review/McCulloch.t.html?searchResultPosition=1>
If you Google the title, you’ll find lots of commentary.
The interesting aspect of this book is the discussion of information for which the concepts of disinformation and misinformation are simply irrelevant. Information in this category is produced for any number of reasons, and none of them may have to do with the concept of truth, reason, or accuracy. Despite the importance of this issue and the massive interest it generated, there has been little empirical study of the phenomenon — until now.
The Daily Nous report is worth a quick read:
http://dailynous.com/2019/04/25/empirical-study-bullshitters/ <http://dailynous.com/2019/04/25/empirical-study-bullshitters/>
You can find the full study here:
http://ftp.iza.org/dp12282.pdf <http://ftp.iza.org/dp12282.pdf>
The concept of bullshit is often linked to the Dunning-Kruger effect in which incompetent people rate their own knowledge and competence at a high level:
https://thedecisionlab.com/bias/dunning-kruger-effect/?gclid=CjwKCAjwtYXmBRAOEiwAYsyl3JUul1H13Q5bmt8Czsk4__u0zQWHzWvN2XgwPzWtPRT8EHRe1zEOvhoCdocQAvD_BwE <https://thedecisionlab.com/bias/dunning-kruger-effect/?gclid=CjwKCAjwtYXmBRAOEiwAYsyl3JUul1H13Q5bmt8Czsk4__u0zQWHzWvN2XgwPzWtPRT8EHRe1zEOvhoCdocQAvD_BwE>
You can download the original article on the Dunning-Kruger effect at ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12688660_Unskilled_and_Unaware_of_It_How_Difficulties_in_Recognizing_One%27s_Own_Incompetence_Lead_to_Inflated_Self-Assessments <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12688660_Unskilled_and_Unaware_of_It_How_Difficulties_in_Recognizing_One's_Own_Incompetence_Lead_to_Inflated_Self-Assessments>
There is a large literature on “everything which can be used in order to lie” that is worth considering with respect to different varieties of disinformation and misinformation. This includes famous books such as Daryl Huff’s _How to Lie with Statistics_ and Mark Monmonier’s _How to Lie with Maps_.
There is also a rich literature on how to detect lies, and how to clear through disinformation and misinformation. The literature of clear thinking and reasoning is a specific subset of this genre. Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and psychologist, has written several such books, as have intelligence agents and philosophers. The issue of how to sort things out so that we can separate likely possibilities from disinformation and misinformation, especially in the circumstances that as we consider new issues, it is not always possible to determine whether some concepts and ideas are true or false, and therefore, it is impossible to state that they may or may not be labeled as disinformation, misinformation, or anything else.
John Ziman’s 1978 book from Cambridge University Press addresses many of these issues. The title is _Reliable Knowledge. An Exploration of the Grounds for Belief in Science_ (reprinted in 1996 as a Canto paperback from Cambridge). While Ziman focuses on the natural sciences, much of the discussion also applies to the social sciences and humanities. The contents offer an overview of ideas worth considering:
1. Grounds for an enquiry
1. 1 The challenge
1.2 The theory
1.3 The model
1.4 Consensibility and consensuality
2. Unambiguous communication
2.1 The language medium
2.2 Mathematics as the ideal language
2.3 Logical necessity
2.4 The mathematical machine
2.5 Metaphors and models
2.6 The logic of experience
2.7 Physics and physicalism
2.8 Prediction
2.9 The fit between theory and experiment
2.10 Validating physics
3. Common observation
3.1 Equivalent observers
3.2 Pattern recognition
3.3 Experiment
3.4 Instrumentation
3.5 Signal or noise?
3.6 Discovery
4. World maps and pictures
4.1 Material maps
4.2 The map metaphor
4.3 Pictures
4.4 Paradigms
4.5 Fallibility
5. The stuff of reality
5.1 Perception 95
5.2 ‘Artificial intelligence'
5.3 Extra-logicality
5.4 Intuition
5.5 Action and belief
5.6 Objectivity and doubt
5.7 The universality of science
5.8 Natural language
5.9 Cultural variations in cognition
5.10 How much is real?
6. The world of science
6.1 Specialization and authority
6.2 Learning science
6.3 Dissent and selection
6.4 Keeping in touch with reality
6.5 How much can be believed?
6.6 Parascientism
6.7 The limits of thought
7. Social knowledge
7.1 A science of behaviour?
7.2 Categorial imprecision
7.3 The algebra of social experience
7.4 Experimental simplification
7.5 Hidden variables
7.6 Models, toys and games
7.7 Simulations
7.8 Humanistic intersubjectivity
7.9 Origins of empathy
7.10 The limitations of a science of society
Questions of designing for accurate information and designing to prevent or overcome disinformation and misinformation — as well as purposely designing disinformation ways to spread disinformation and misinformation — are worth asking.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/ <http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/>
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman <http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman> | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn <http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn/>
--
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
