Over one million copies sold worldwide
The international and #1 New York Times bestseller
The anniversary edition of the acclaimed book that reveals why bullshit is more dangerous than lying

One of the most prominent features of our world is that there is so much bullshit. Yet we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, how it’s different from lying, what purposes it serves, and what it means. In his acclaimed bestseller On Bullshit, which was featured on The Daily Show and 60 Minutes, Harry Frankfurt, who was one of the world’s most influential moral philosophers, explores one of the most serious problems of our politics and our world. This twentieth anniversary edition features a postscript in which Frankfurt emphasizes that “indifference to the truth is extremely dangerous.”

With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do—that is, by deliberately making false claims about what’s true. 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 the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Although bullshit can take innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the bullshitter’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying doesn’t. Liars at least acknowledge that the truth matters. Because of this, Frankfurt says, “bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”

Remarkably prescient and insightful, On Bullshit is a small book that explains a great deal about our time.

"A slim treatise on the pervasive, willful and devilish art of avoiding the truth." - Washington Post

"[Frankfurt] attracted public attention on a scale unimaginable to most academic philosophers. The reason for his appearances on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, CBS’s 60 Minutes and other US network TV programmes was On Bullshit, his brief but bestselling disquisition on what he described as ‘one of the most salient features of our culture.'" - Financial Times

"it came to me as welcome news indeed that Princeton University Press is publishing a twentieth anniversary edition...On Bullshit, copies of which I dearly hope will find their ways into the hands of those still keeping their heads above the steaming piles rising all around us in order to provide them an eloquent, concise, and effective explanation of what bullshit is and how it works." - Well Read Naturalist

"It seemed to me that it was such a great thing that Princeton University Press is putting it [On Bullshit] out again. . . . Everyone should get a copy." - The Two Matts