Bøger af Harry G. Frankfurt

A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne 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, "e;we have no theory."e; 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.

Filosoffen Harry G. Frankfurt er nok bedst kendt for sin samfundskritiske bestseller Om bullshit fra 2005. Men det er hans originale bidrag til debatten om fri vilje, der stadig diskuteres – nu 50 år senere. “Viljens frihed og personbegrebet” er et forsvar for vores intuitive fornemmelse af at være viljesfrie, ansvarlige personer – et ikke ukompliceret forehavende. Ved at bruge stofafhængighed som eksempel viser Frankfurt forskellene mellem en fri og en ufri vilje. Som stofafhængig kan man på én gang have et ønske om at tage et stof men samtidig ønske, at man ikke havde lyst til at tage det. Mennesket har evnen til ikke bare at ville dette og hint, men også at overveje motiverne bag og konsekvenserne af vores handlinger. Det er kun, hvis man identificerer sig med det, man vil, at man handler frit – det er kun sådan, man bliver en person. Viljens frihed og personbegrebet er en del af bogserien AFTRYK, der samler korte og vedkommende filosofiske tekster med en væsentlig virkningshistorie. Rasmus Bysted Møller har skrevet introduktion til teksten, der gør den relevant for studerende såvel som læsere, som ønsker at få indblik i fri vilje-debatten.

Ist eine Person nur dann verantwortlich für das, was sie getan hat, wenn sie auch etwas anderes hätte tun können, wenn sie andere Handlungsmöglichkeiten, wenn sie Alternativen gehabt hätte? Harry Frankfurts berühmtes Paper von 1969 argumentiert gegen diese uns eigentlich einleuchtende Annahme - und seitdem wird über Frankfurt Cases und Frankfurt Counterexamples gestritten.Die Reihe »Great Papers Philosophie« bietet bahnbrechende Aufsätze der Philosophie:- Eine zeichengenaue, zitierfähige Wiedergabe des Textes (links das fremdsprachige Original, rechts eine neue Übersetzung).- Eine philosophiegeschichtliche Einordnung: Wie dachte man früher über das Problem? Welche Veränderung bewirkte der Aufsatz? Wie denkt man heute darüber?- Eine Analyse des Textes bzw. eine Rekonstruktion seiner Argumentationsstruktur, gefolgt von einem Abschnitt über den Autor sowie ein kommentiertes Literaturverzeichnis.

This beautifully written book by one of the world's leading moral philosophers argues that the key to a fulfilled life is to pursue wholeheartedly what one cares about, that love is the most authoritative form of caring, and that the purest form of love is, in a complicated way, self-love. Harry Frankfurt writes that it is through caring that we infuse the world with meaning. Caring provides us with stable ambitions and concerns; it shapes the framework of aims and interests within which we lead our lives. The most basic and essential question for a person to raise about the conduct of his or her life is not what he or she should care about but what, in fact, he or she cannot help caring about. The most important form of caring, Frankfurt writes, is love, a nonvoluntary, disinterested concern for the flourishing of what is loved. Love is so important because meaningful practical reasoning must be grounded in ends that we do not seek only to attain other ends, and because it is in loving that we become bound to final ends desired for their own sakes. Frankfurt argues that the purest form of love is self-love. This sounds perverse, but self-love--as distinct from self-indulgence--is at heart a disinterested concern for whatever it is that the person loves. The most elementary form of self-love is nothing more than the desire of a person to love. Insofar as this is true, self-love is simply a commitment to finding meaning in our lives.

En af de mest iøjnefaldende træk ved vor kultur er, at der er så meget bullshit. Alle ved det. Vi leverer alle sammen vores bidrag. Men vi har ikke nogen klar forståelse af, hvad bullshit er, hvorfor der er så meget af det, eller hvilke formål det tjener. Harry G. Frankfurts klassiske essay om, hvad bullshit er, og hvorfor bullshit ikke er det samme som løgn.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Bullshit, the case for worrying less about the rich and more about the poorEconomic inequality is one of the most divisive issues of our time. Yet few would argue that inequality is a greater evil than poverty. The poor suffer because they don't have enough, not because others have more, and some have far too much. So why do many people appear to be more distressed by the rich than by the poor?In this provocative book, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Bullshit presents a compelling and unsettling response to those who believe that the goal of social justice should be economic equality or less inequality. Harry Frankfurt, one of the most influential moral philosophers in the world, argues that we are morally obligated to eliminate poverty-not achieve equality or reduce inequality. Our focus should be on making sure everyone has a sufficient amount to live a decent life. To focus instead on inequality is distracting and alienating.At the same time, Frankfurt argues that the conjunction of vast wealth and poverty is offensive. If we dedicate ourselves to making sure everyone has enough, we may reduce inequality as a side effect. But it's essential to see that the ultimate goal of justice is to end poverty, not inequality.A serious challenge to cherished beliefs on both the political left and right, On Inequality promises to have a profound impact on one of the great debates of our time.

Harry G. Frankfurt begins his inquiry by asking, "e;What is it about human beings that makes it possible for us to take ourselves seriously?"e; Based on The Tanner Lectures in Moral Philosophy, Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right delves into this provocative and original question. The author maintains that taking ourselves seriously presupposes an inward-directed, reflexive oversight that enables us to focus our attention directly upon ourselves, and "e;[it] means that we are not prepared to accept ourselves just as we come. We want our thoughts, our feelings, our choices, and our behavior to make sense. We are not satisfied to think that our ideas are formed haphazardly, or that our actions are driven by transient and opaque impulses or by mindless decisions. We need to direct ourselves-or at any rate to believe that we are directing ourselves-in thoughtful conformity to stable and appropriate norms. We want to get things right."e; The essays delineate two features that have a critical role to play in this: our rationality, and our ability to love. Frankfurt incisively explores the roles of reason and of love in our active lives, and considers the relation between these two motivating forces of our actions. The argument is that the authority of practical reason is less fundamental than the authority of love. Love, as the author defines it, is a volitional matter, that is, it consists in what we are actually committed to caring about. Frankfurt adds that "e;The object of love can be almost anything-a life, a quality of experience, a person, a group, a moral ideal, a nonmoral ideal, a tradition, whatever."e; However, these objects and ideals are difficult to comprehend and often in conflict with each other. Moral principles play an important supporting role in this process as they help us develop and elucidate a vision that inspires our love.The first section of the book consists of the two lectures, which are entitled "e;Taking Ourselves Seriously"e; and "e;Getting It Right."e; The second section consists of comments in response by Christine M. Korsgaard, Michael E. Bratman, and Meir Dan-Cohen. The book includes a preface by Debra Satz.

This 1988 volume is a collection of thirteen seminal essays on ethics, free will, and the philosophy of mind. The essays deal with such central topics as freedom of the will, moral responsibility, the concept of a person, the structure of the will, the nature of action, the constitution of the self, and the theory of personal ideals. By focusing on the distinctive nature of human freedom, Professor Frankfurt is able to explore fundamental problems of what it is to be a person and of what one should care about in life.

In this classic work, best-selling author Harry Frankfurt provides a compelling analysis of the question that not only lies at the heart of Descartes's Meditations, but also constitutes the central preoccupation of modern philosophy: on what basis can reason claim to provide any justification for the truth of our beliefs? Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen provides an ingenious account of Descartes's defense of reason against his own famously skeptical doubts that he might be a madman, dreaming, or, worse yet, deceived by an evil demon into believing falsely. Frankfurt's masterful and imaginative reading of Descartes's seminal work not only stands the test of time; one imagines Descartes himself nodding in agreement.