All Bullshit and Lies? - Insincerity, Irresponsibility, and the Judgment of Untruthfulness

Drawing on linguistic pragmatics, philosophy, psychology and law, All Bullshit and Lies? develops a comprehensive framework for analyzing not just the deliberate insincerity of lying, misleading, and withholding, but also pathological forms of untruthfulness such as dogma, distortion, and bullshit, deriving from an irresponsible approach to knowledge.

List of contents

• Acknowledgments


• Preface: On Epistemic Partisanship and Trust


• INTRODUCTION


• PART 1: THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS


• 1 Trust, Co-operation and Insincerity


• 2 Bullshit, Inquiry and Irresponsibility


• PART 2: THE TRUST FRAMEWORK


• 3 Claims of and Evidence for Untruthfulness


• 4 Justified Untruthfulness


• 5 Insincere Discourse Strategies


• 6 Epistemically Irresponsible Discourse


• 7 Culpability and Breach of Trust


• PART 3: CASE STUDIES


• 8 Discourse and Democracy: The TRUST Heuristic and Sample Analyses


• 9 Poisoning and Partisanship: An Analysis of the Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack


• CONCLUSION


• References.

About the author

Chris Heffer is Reader in Linguistics in the School of English, Communication, and Philosophy at Cardiff University. He is the author of The Language of Jury Trial (2005) and editor of Legal-Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law (OUP 2013).

Summary

Drawing on linguistic pragmatics, philosophy, psychology and law, All Bullshit and Lies? develops a comprehensive framework for analyzing not just the deliberate insincerity of lying, misleading, and withholding, but also pathological forms of untruthfulness such as dogma, distortion, and bullshit, deriving from an irresponsible approach to knowledge.

Additional text

In this path-breaking volume, combining analyses of discursive strategies and pathologies with philosophical reflections on responsibility, Chris Heffer shines a light onto the heterogeneous nature of untruthfulness. The result is a compelling exploration of the space located between simple lies and unadulterated truths-a space occupied by bullshit, claptrap, and other forms of insincere or irresponsible speech."-Alessandra Tanesini, author of Philosophy of Language A-Z

Product details

• Authors: Chris Heffer, Chris (Reader in Linguistics in the School Heffer, Chris (Reader in Linguistics in the School of English Heffer, Heffer Chris
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.10.2020
• EAN: 9780190923297
• ISBN: 978-0-19-092329-7
• No. of pages: 352
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Miscellaneous; SOCIAL SCIENCE / General, Philosophy of Language, PHILOSOPHY / Language, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Semantics, Social issues & processes, Communication Studies, Social and ethical issues, Semantics, discourse analysis, stylistics, Semantics, discourse analysis, etc