| In ''On Bullshit'' -- in which Princeton Univeristy philosophy professor Harry G. Frankfurt provides a (serious) philosophical analysis of the notion of ''bullshit'' -- the author makes a distinction between the ''liar'' and the ''bullshitter''. According to Frankfurt, "the fact that 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 somthing he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the ''bullshitter'' hides, on the other hand, is that the truth value of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are." (pp.54-5, italics added) Dowlen thus is a bullshitter and his paper is bullshit. It isn't a serious study. If Dowlen revealed the content of his paper over dinner I'd find his conversation interesting and engaging and the degree of rigour would have been appropriate. As a published investigation of NLP vis-a-vis management learning it cannot be taken seriously. Bullshit can't be fruitfully critiqued whereas a lie can. More from Frankfurt, '[t]elling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point in a set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth. This requires a degree of craftmanship, in which the teller of the lie submits to objective constraints imposed by what he takes to be the truth...On the other hand, a person who undertakes to bullshit his way through has much more freedom. His focus is panoramic rather than particular...it is more expansive and independent, with more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the "bullshit artist" (pp.51-53) Dowlen is then a "bullshit artist"'. Dowlen is a management consultant -- a role bullshit artists gravitate towards -- and he is employed at the UK Social Services Department, which like all large bureaucracies, is a bullshitter's stronghold. A perfect match. Bullshitting is the management consultants stock-in-trade. [[User:Flavius vanillus|flavius]] 10:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC) [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming&diff=prev&oldid=34605047] | | In ''On Bullshit'' -- in which Princeton Univeristy philosophy professor Harry G. Frankfurt provides a (serious) philosophical analysis of the notion of ''bullshit'' -- the author makes a distinction between the ''liar'' and the ''bullshitter''. According to Frankfurt, "the fact that 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 somthing he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the ''bullshitter'' hides, on the other hand, is that the truth value of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are." (pp.54-5, italics added) Dowlen thus is a bullshitter and his paper is bullshit. It isn't a serious study. If Dowlen revealed the content of his paper over dinner I'd find his conversation interesting and engaging and the degree of rigour would have been appropriate. As a published investigation of NLP vis-a-vis management learning it cannot be taken seriously. Bullshit can't be fruitfully critiqued whereas a lie can. More from Frankfurt, '[t]elling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point in a set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth. This requires a degree of craftmanship, in which the teller of the lie submits to objective constraints imposed by what he takes to be the truth...On the other hand, a person who undertakes to bullshit his way through has much more freedom. His focus is panoramic rather than particular...it is more expansive and independent, with more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the "bullshit artist" (pp.51-53) Dowlen is then a "bullshit artist"'. Dowlen is a management consultant -- a role bullshit artists gravitate towards -- and he is employed at the UK Social Services Department, which like all large bureaucracies, is a bullshitter's stronghold. A perfect match. Bullshitting is the management consultants stock-in-trade. [[User:Flavius vanillus|flavius]] 10:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC) [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming&diff=prev&oldid=34605047] |