Recognizing Truth Requires Selflessness. You Have To

Bullshit Is Unavoidable When Circumstances Require Someone To Talk Without Knowing What He Is Talking About. Thus, The Production Of Bullshit Is Stimulated Whenever A Person's Obligations Or Opportunities To Speak About Some Topic Exceed His Knowledge Of The Facts That Are Relevant To That Topic. This Discrepancy Is Common In Public Life, Where People Are Frequently Impelled-whether By Their Own Propensities Or By The Demands Of Others - To Speak Extensively About Matters Of Which They Are To Some Degree Ignorant.

The Fact About Himself That The Liar Hides Is That He Is Attempting To Lead Us Away From A Correct Apprehension Of Reality; We Are Not To Know That He Wants Us To Believe Something He Supposes To Be False. The Fact About Himself That The Bullshitter Hides, On The Other Hand, Is That The Truth-values Of His Statements Are Of No Central Interest To Him . . . He Does Not Care Whether The Things He Says Describe Reality Correctly. He Just Picks Them Out, Or Makes Them Up, To Suit His Purpose.

There Are Significant Relationships, Of Course, Between Wanting Things And Caring About Them..the Notion Of Caring Is In Large Part Constructed Out Of The Notion Of Desire. Caring About Something May Be, In The End, Nothing More Than A Certain Complex Mode Of Wanting It. However, Simply Attributing Desire To A Person Does Not In Itself Convey That The Person Cares About The Object He Desires.

Recognizing Truth Requires Selflessness. You Have To Leave Yourself Out Of It So You Can Find Out The Way Things Are In Themselves, Not The Way They Look To You Or How You Feel About Them Or How You Would Like Them To Be.

I Used To Teach At Yale, Which Was At One Time A Center Of Postmodernist Literary Theory. Derrida Was There. Paul De Man Was There.