Philosophia

DOI 10.1007/s11406-016-9709-8

Steering Clear of Bullshit? The Problem of Obscurantism

Viktor Ivankovi 1,2

Received: 7 March 2016 / Revised: 14 March 2016 / Accepted: 28 March 2016

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract The paper points to gaps in the conceptualization of bullshit as offered by

Harry Frankfurt and Jerry Cohen. I argue that one type of bullshit, obscurantism, the
deliberate exercise of making ones text opaque for the purposes of deceiving the
readership in various ways, escapes Frankfurts radar in tracking those judgments that
are unconcerned with truth, and is not given distinct status in Cohens framework,
which pays more attention to the product of bullshit than its producers and their
techniques. First, I offer on overview of the expanding literature on bullshit, with
special attention given to accounts by Frankfurt and Cohen. I claim that Frankfurts
essentialism and Cohens product-oriented account are not successful in exhausting our
common understanding of what bullshit entails, neither separately, nor in conjunction.
In particular, I claim that obscurantist bullshit pushes the envelope of the current
conceptual frameworks. Second, following Boudrys and Buekenss work on obscurantism, I discuss the usual mechanisms utilized by obscurantists. Third, I reflect on an
objection to my argument based on tweaking the permissibility for producing obscurantism by placing the production of obscurities into different contexts of writing style.
I argue that there is an important normative difference between being an obscurantist
and someone who merely writes obscurely, and that the distinction should bear weight
regardless of constraining our capacities to tell between the two. I finish by discussing
whether our understanding of obscurantist bullshit aids us in following a principle of
clarity.
Keywords Bullshit . Essentialism . Obscurantism . The merely obscure . Obscuria .
Clarity

* Viktor Ivankovi
viktor.ivankovic@gmail.com

Doctoral School of Political Science, International Relations, and Public Policy, Political Theory
track, 3rd year, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

Ivane Brli Maurani 6, 44000, Sisak, Croatia

Philosophia

Introduction
Nearly all philosophers, at one point or another in their academic careers, have faced subtle
suspicion, and sometimes even outright accusation from non-philosophers, that they are
bullshitters traders of hot air and nonsense. Conversely, non-philosopher producers of
bullshit have, especially in certain linguistic cultures such as my own, been proclaimed
philosophers merely for being caught in the act of bullshitting. In Croatian specifically, a
colloquial usage of the verb to philosophize (cro. filozofirati) denotes an opaque and
wordy evasion of clear-cut responses, especially when the respondents do not know what
the appropriate response might be. This closely overlaps with one meaning of to bullshit
(cro. srati, kenjati).
For most philosophers, the unfortunate fact of being deemed bullshitters is
something they learn to live with. The users of the word bullshitter attach to
it all sorts of meanings that damage the reputation of the philosopher. One
suggested meaning is that to merely engage in all these open-ended questions
and speculative contemplation, which a philosopher supposedly does, is in itself
bullshit. These harsh critics find it lacking in value to explore any question
which cannot eventually be met with an exact answer. Another kind of nonphilosopher critic might try to appeal to philosophys lack of some rough and
preferably measurable notion of social utility. Philosophers can hardly justify
themselves to such critics. Their attempts to prove otherwise to nonphilosophers that is, their response to a social demand for justification is
regularly abandoned, even though the philosophers inability to justify themselves to such criticism has often resulted in threats to their financial
livelihoods.
Another consideration, which will be the focus of this paper, is that of the
philosophers demand for justification coming from other philosophers. Bullshit
is certainly a prevalent aspect of our daily lives, both inside and outside the
academy, and philosophy is by no means free of it. Many of us coming from
the analytic tradition have been indoctrinated to steer clear of bullshit, even if
that particular word has not been used in our education. The problem of
bullshit has been a silent, but a particularly disturbing one for analytic philosophers, and the pursuit to identify and eliminate bullshit has been a principal
part of their demand for clarity. For instance, Jerry Cohens main interest is on
the kind of philosophical bullshit which is not only unclear and obscure, but
cannot be rendered unobscure, or is such that if we are able to break the
obscurity down, the resulting product is trivial or unrecognizable compared to
the original (2002). The historical context of Cohens problem primarily lies in
the distinction between continental and analytic philosophers. The latter, adhering to methodological principles of clarity, simple language and clear-cut
definitions, often object to the formers extravagant expression, alleged ambiguities, and hazy terminology. My position here will be that there certainly are
grounds for some such claims, but also that the domain of bullshitters might
easily run across the boundaries of philosophical tradition. Analytic philosophers, while raised to avoid bullshit, are by no means immunized against it.
Note, however, that my normative indignation about bullshit in this paper falls
within the scope of philosophy. There are some areas of life where the production of

Philosophia

bullshit is harmless, and even deservedly appreciated.1 One such area is that of humor.
Other high-bullshit areas have also been identified, like the formal and Bofficial^
language of academic projects (Richardson 2006), but lie outside the scope of this
paper. The negative impact of bullshit that I will aim to substantiate is, therefore, limited,
though for the purpose of displaying why philosophical bullshit is in some way special, I
will initially approach the subject from a wider point of view, as taken by the philosophers who initially stirred up the fuss about bullshit: Max Black and Harry Frankfurt.
First, I will provide an overview of the expanding literature on bullshit, with special
attention given to accounts of Harry Frankfurt and Jerry Cohen. I will assess the
adequacy of their accounts and their criticisms, as well as try to point out what is
lacking. My claim here will be that while Frankfurts essentialist account of bullshit is
insufficiently inclusive, as are attempts to amend it, Cohens focus on the product of
bullshit, and not the bullshitter, is too narrow. I will also claim that while an
essentialist account of bullshit might not be available to us due to counterexamples that are difficult to deal with, bullshit might still be useful as an
umbrella term for certain methods detrimental to good philosophy. Second, I
look into whether bullshit and obscurantism are neatly overlapping concepts,
and claim that obscurantism does indeed fall within bullshits scope, after which
I provide a thorough account of mechanisms of obscurantism in philosophical argumentation that philosophers have previously exposed. Thirdly, I deal with an objection
to my argument against bullshit/obscurantism. In the conclusion, I consider whether an
account of this particular variety of bullshit helps us in devising a principle of
clarity. As my initial hope was to offer some principle of clarity that is not
overly simplistic, I end the article on a rather pessimistic note, claiming that
while exposing and avoiding philosophical bullshit is important for philosophy,
the mere avoidance of bullshit is not conducive to an exhaustive principle of clarity. The
conception of bullshit with reference to obscurantism that I eventually offer is also
imperfect for our attempts to identify bullshitters, as it will often be unclear whether we
are dealing with obscurantism (a deliberate exercise), or merely obscure philosophy
(inadvertent production).

The Bullshit, the Bullshitter, and the Bullshittee

The reason for bullshit appearing on such a large scale seems to be our general
susceptibility to many of its forms, whether as producers of bullshit, who find it helpful
in attaining certain ends and avoiding the effort of conceptual rigor and clarity, or as
recipients, who can be drawn in by its aesthetic qualities. I will elaborate on these roles
more thoroughly throughout this paper, but so far it should be noted that an exhaustive
account of the social phenomenon of bullshit will observe three of its aspects the
product (the bullshit), the producer (the bullshitter), and the audience (the bullshittee).
The forefathers of the field, Frankfurt and Cohen, take on the problem of
bullshit by approaching it from different aspects, that of the producer and the

Scott Kimbrough also offers an account that justifies the preference for bullshit instead of (outright) truthtelling in certain life circumstances. See Kimbrough 2006.

Philosophia

product, respectively. Consider the Oxford English Dictionary definition of

bullshit that they tackle:
Bullshit n. & v. coarse sl. n. 1 (Often as int.) nonsense, rubbish 2 trivial or insincere
talk or writing v. intr. (shitted, shitting) talk nonsense, bluff. Bullshitter n.
Frankfurts analysis gives most of its attention to the second entry, in which our
understanding of bullshit is derived from its perpetrators state of mind during bullshit
production. Frankfurt draws on Max Blacks similar notion of humbug, which denotes
Ba deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of
somebodys own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes^ (Black 1985: 134). Though Frankfurt
finds Blacks account conceptually inadequate for several reasons (Frankfurt 1988: 118
121), he follows suit in terms of focusing on the performer of bullshit, rather than the
product itself, thus tying the nature of the product to the intention of the producer and
pursuing Bthe essence^ of bullshit in the producers mental states.
To a bullshitter, claims Frankfurt, the truth of his utterances are of no importance, and
he distinguishes himself from the liar in that the liar is concerned with the truth, so as to
withhold it from us. The bullshitters intention, the account goes, may not be concerned
with the truth or falsehood of his statements at all, the deception he wishes to commit
being about something else entirely (for example, giving a particular impression of
himself). Frankfurt calls our attention to another OED entry, that of bull sessions, which
he characterizes as informal sessions in which individuals consensually spout bullshit, free
from the pressures of having their utterances taken with any seriousness. Their utterances
are usually related to controversial topics such as sex, religion, and politics, and they are
experimenting with the reactions of the audience in an adventurous fashion, without being
held to what they say, as a necessary condition for its operation (Frankfurt 1988: 1256).
Cohens initial objection is that Frankfurts rather particular explicandum does not do
well enough in his pursuit of the Bessence^ of bullshit. The bullshit that captures Cohens
focus is more akin to mine the bullshit that plagues the academy and he protests to
Frankfurt that his essentialist account does not push the envelope in this direction. What
Cohen wants to look at is bullshit taken independently from the producer, as he believes an
utterance might be considered bullshit regardless of the utterers mental states. It is indeed
possible, as both authors acknowledge, that they might be talking about different kinds of
bullshit altogether. However, I will later aim to show that at least one kind of bullshit,
obscurantism, extends the notion of bullshit conceived by Frankfurt, and requires us to
include both the producer and the product in its characterization.
How does Cohens conception of bullshit in the academy prove Frankfurts account
inadequate, or insufficiently extensive? Firstly, Cohen seems to be correct in that the
Bessence^ of Frankfurts bullshit does not capture the kind that he is interested in. The
interest in question relates to obscure writing, and such which is Bnot only obscure but
which cannot be rendered unobscure, where any apparent success in rendering it
unobscure creates something that isnt recognizable as a version of what was said^
(Cohen 2002: 332). 2 Both Cohen and I object to Frankfurts account by saying that
2

Cohen specifically targets Althusserian Marxists, and his characterization of their work as bullshit is his
driving force for starting up, together with several other authors such as Jon Elster and John Roemer, the
September group, also popularly known as analytical Marxists or Marxists without bullshit.

Philosophia

bullshit may well be concerned with truth, but our objections nonetheless slightly differ.
Cohen says that bullshit may arise irrespective of the authors intentions, and
that it is meaningful to say, in full honesty, the following statement, while
being utterly committed to saying something truthful: BIm not sure whether
what Im about to say is bullshit^ (2002: 331). If a person wants to show that
Hegel or Heidegger are not bullshitters, says Cohen, then what needs to be
shown is not that they did have a concern for the truth, but that what they
wrote makes sense (2002: 332). My objection differs in that authors may be
bullshitters at the very same time as they attempt to utter or write something
truthful. A particular claim that the same author considers to be truthful may be
dressed up by him in obscure jargon, with the purpose of giving the truth an
air of relevance and complexity. The author might want to do so for a number
of reasons, which are not limited to the ones I mention here: 1.) he finds the
claim trivial, but that is the only claim he has available for exposition; 2.) he
finds the claim relevant and complex, but thinks or fears others might not; 3.)
he can only base his claim on intuition, and he lacks rational grounding for it;
4.) he uses obscurities as substitutes for the skills needed to lay out a consistent
argument, which he knowingly lacks. All these examples portray the hypothetical author in doing something deceptive about the claim he is exposing to his
audience, but it does not show him to be unconcerned with truth.3 Notice that
this part of my argumentation is not incompatible with Cohens, but it hints
that we will still have to keep an eye on the producers intentions.4
In his attempt at exposing the incessant perpetrators of bullshit in the
academy, Cohen introduces the factor of the audience the bullshittee in
saying:
BI focus on unclarifiable unclarity in particular in preparation for a further
inquiry into bullshit that addresses the question why so much of that
particular kind of bullshit is produced in France. This kind of academic
bullshit, [] comes close to being celebrated for its very unclarity by some of its
producers and consumers. What some of them certainly celebrate is a disconnection with truth: in what perhaps ranks as the consummation of the development of
unclarity-type bullshit, a consummation that Hegel might have called Bbullshit

An objection may be raised here that the bullshitter is not truly concerned with truth, since, the claim goes, he
primarily wants to bamboozle an audience. But I believe that would be oversimplifying matters. If we deeply
consider the listed reason (apart from, perhaps, the first one), we realize it would be erroneous to isolate
deception at the forefront of the authors intentions. Rather, authors may employ obscurities because they
believe their claims, which they consider to be true, will otherwise not be taken seriously (for the stated
reasons). These authors then believe using obscurities is necessary for their arguments to capture attention. But
surely that is not the same as having the primary intention to bamboozle, or having indifference toward truth. I
thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this objection.
4
Note here that obscurantism, which is of primary focus here, is not the only way in which authors try to
enchant a claim they or others find trivial with an air of relevance and complexity. One such method could be
an overuse of perfectly clear and well defined technical language or the needless insistence on logical symbols
in cases where such expression is clearly redundant to the points being made. I will not delve into the
complexity of whether such methodology might fall under a more extensive conception of bullshit, but the fact
that I am bringing it up suggests that I find such practices normatively controversial.

Philosophia

risen to consciousness of itself,^ truth is, in much postmodernism, expressly

disparaged.^ (2002: 333)
Regardless of whether one agrees with Cohen that the French audience has been not
only tolerant to obscure bullshit,5 but came to celebrate it precisely because of its obscurity,
the quote faces us with two issues that I will explore more closely in the following sections
of the paper. The first is the role of the audience in the production of bullshit and what the
bullshitter usually assumes about his audience before he attempts to bullshit it.
The second is a dilemma I take on immediately. Cohen has been criticized for his notion
of unclarifiable unclarity,6 firstly because his example of Etienne Balibars text as being
unclarifiably unclear is claimed not to work,7 and secondly because we are not given an
account of how we should assess something as unclarifiable unclarity. The first criticism
does not really hurt the notion of unclarifiable unclarity, as much as it proves Cohens
example inadequate. The second criticism, however, in case it shakes the very notion of
unclarity, opens the case up to the relativist objection that unclarity is in the eye of the
beholder. What might be unclear to you might not be unclear to me, and the same might go
for clarity. Be that as it may, it is difficult to take this objection too seriously. People may
sometimes disagree on what they consider to be unclear, or they may not be equally
proficient in reading and understanding particular traditions of writing. But it is evident to
us that some texts (say, of Frankfurt) are written more clearly, and with more attention to
being clear, than other texts (say, of Heidegger), and we can say so without a robust notion
of (un)clarity. The notion of unclarifiability, however, may be somewhat harder to salvage.
More or less effort can be made in producing a deeply opaque argument, and some
arguments might turn out deeply opaque with no effort made at all. Cohen indeed
differentiates between aim-bullshitters (hereinafter referred to as obscurantists), who Bseek
and rely on unclarifiability^, and accidental bullshitters, Binnocent speakers of bullshit
[] merely victims of it^ (2002: 335). But if we are to keep this distinction, then it is not
clear why Cohens polemical target remains on the Bbullshit, and not bullshitters, or
producers of bullshit, as such^ (2002: 335). It is not even obvious that the innocent
producers of obscurities are even bullshitters in the proper sense, as they might, perhaps,
merely be reiterating the obscurities of the obscurantist bullshitter. What is obvious is that
the obscurantist bullshitter is much more blameworthy, while the non-intentional producer
of obscurities might merely be lacking in the capacities of making himself more clear and
precise, and may not know he is producing nonsense before it is pointed out to him.
5

Some might object here that I take for granted that obscurantism and bullshit are strongly related, which is
not at all obvious. Note, however, that throughout the paper, I am insistent on relating my account of bullshit to
ordinary language, and to the avoidance of strictly technical language. I claim here that one commonplace
notion of bullshitting people involves the deceptive utilization of obscurities. This notion, I believe, is
prominent enough in ordinary use to claim that its exclusion from an account of bullshit would make it
incomplete, and perhaps even arbitrary and technical. As I will show later in the paper, the proposition x is
bullshitting y, which I believe certainly imputes intentions of x to create an effect on y in one way (say, by
usage of obscure language), is a fundamental notion of bullshitting in our ordinary language, more so than
the inadvertent production of nonsense.
6
For a full account of these criticisms, see Frankfurt 2002, and Gjelsvik 2006.
7
See Frankfurt 2002. The quote of Balibar goes as follows: This is precisely the first meaning we can give to
the idea of dialectic: a logic or form of explanation specifically adapted to the determinant intervention of class
struggle in the very fabric of history.^ However, Frankfurt quite successfully makes Ba stab^ at its meaning:
BThe most distinctive point of dialectical explanations is precisely that they are supposed to be particularly
helpful in illuminating how class struggle has significantly determined the course of history.^

Philosophia

Hence, the bullshitter denominator seems much more appropriate for the first kind.8 This
point becomes even stronger if we reject Cohens implausible notion of unclarifiability,
for then we would abandon our fruitless search for a level of deep opaqueness at which an
obscurity would be passing, or failing to pass, the threshold of bullshit. Obscurities would
sometimes be noticeably deeper or shallower in comparison to one another, but our
attempts to set a level of deepness that would label some of them with the negative term
of bullshit would have to be arbitrary. The analysis, therefore, must go back to the
bullshitter and his intentions.
However, to amend Frankfurts characterization of the bullshitters state of mind in
the process of producing bullshit, in order to avoid the counterexamples which it faces, is
more difficult than it might seem at first glance. As I stated at the beginning, bullshit is a
very evasive notion and its applications are quite loose. One attempt of an amendment is
offered by Olav Gjelsvik, who states that Frankfurt was on the right track, but got the
bullshitters subject of unconcern wrong. Bullshitting and bullshit are characterized by a
certain state of mind, Gjelsvik says, but it is not the state of mind of being unconcerned
with truth, but with knowledge (2006: 102). Gjelsvik claims that you could either be in a
state of mind in which you do not care about what is known of what you speak, or you
might hold knowledge in concern, but be mistaken about the conditions of what it takes
to be concerned with knowledge in a particular specialized field. One example is to
make statements and assertions about the French Revolution without any sensitivity
toward present methods and recent findings among historians (2006: 105106).
But an essentialist approach, which Gjelsvik attempts to salvage, also runs the risk of
characterizing bullshit and bullshitting in a technical way. Surely, if we want to capture
the way in which people treat these concepts in ordinary language, we cannot merely
devise a semi-arbitrary notion that captures certain kinds of phenomena we would call
bullshit and bullshitting, and exclude all other examples that intuitively seem to fit the
bill. And though Gjelsvik might have had the best intentions to avoid a technical
conceptualization, his account faces the same criticism as Frankfurts it fails to include
the obscurantist who might be concerned with both truth and knowledge, but who
manipulates the way those truth-claims and knowledge-claims will be taken by others by
shielding them with obscurities. This conscious act is clearly an act of bullshit.
So if an essentialist account is so hard to establish, what is there to do? What is the
purpose of talking about obscurantists if they merely seem to discourage essentialism?
Is it not a kind of mistake that Platos Meno makes, by stating examples rather than
8

Cohens supporters might object here that the way I am curtailing the conceptions of bullshitter and bullshit is
value-laden. They might claim that I have strayed from Frankfurts and Cohens descriptive approach, and that my
(arbitrary and technical) ascription of bullshit to linguistic phenomena stems from my unfounded assessments of
different degrees of blameworthiness. As far as the value-ladenness is concerned, these critics would be correct.
But their criticism would be misguided in two ways. First, my approach does not stray from Frankfurts and
Cohens, since both their approaches are value-laden Frankfurt talks about the badness of bullshit compared to
lying, while Cohens text is underpinned by a recommendation to avoid bullshit in academic texts and cleansing
traditions of thought from it (for instance, Marxism). An attempt to engage in a purely conceptual, or a purely
ethical discussion on bullshit, is inappropriate, as the character of its blameworthiness, in the particular context in
which we are discussing it, is what drives both its conceptual and normative analyses. We want to learn what it
means to bullshit, but mainly because we want to know what kind of fault it is, and how it relates to other kinds of
faults. Second, it does not follow from the fact that an account is value-laden that it is also technical and arbitrary,
as it may nevertheless attempt to capture how users of ordinary language themselves use the concept in a valueladen way. The way in which I differentiate between intentional and non-intentional exercises captures, or so I
claim, the tendencies for marking certain categories as bullshit.

Philosophia

dealing with the essence? My intention here is to reflect on accounts of obscurantism

and show them to be a kind of bullshit in which all three aspects of this section are
relevant the bullshit, the bullshitter, and the bullshittee. This might not give us an allencompassing essentialist account of bullshit, but when the essence seems absent or out
of view, the best option we have is looking at examples and considering what they
reveal, especially if they contradict previous notions about the essence.

Obscurantism
In this section, I mainly draw from Buekenss and Boudrys insights into what
constitutes obscurantism (Buekens and Boudry 2014). What I comply with is the view
of mechanisms they describe as elements of an obscurantist strategy. We should be
interested here not only in what the intentions and motivations behind obscurations are,
but the usual methods the obscurantist uses in the act of obscuring, in our attempts to
recognize obscurantism in philosophy and expose it for what it is. The authors and I
however part company with regard to some other issues.
Buekens and Boudry define obscurantism as a type that does not overlap with
bullshit. Strangely, even though their notion of obscurantism shares features with
Cohens notion of act-bullshitting, they express their satisfaction with Frankfurts notion
of bullshit, as not relating to epistemic value (2014: 2). So in a way, Buekens and Boudry
concern themselves with the same phenomenon that was also uncovered by Cohen.
Their responses differ, however, in that it drives Cohen to suspect Frankfurts notion of
bullshit and its completeness, while Buekens and Boudry simply separate it from
Frankfurts category. It might be true that people use different referents when they utter
the word bullshit, but my intuitions are with Cohen here. It is somewhat odd that
obscurantists, in the vein that I have described them so far, would have no effect on how
we intuitively understand bullshit. Thus, it appears to me that Buekenss and Boudrys
decision to break these two concepts apart is a technical move, and I want to avoid that.
The authors also claim that Bobscurantism need not be a deliberate exercise in the art
of seduction^, as well as that:
Bsuccessful beliefs systems often display an internal rationale, including their
appeal to potential audiences, their mechanisms of psychological commitment,
and their resilience in the face of critical scrutiny. The obscurantist may be an
ordinary impostor, but he may also be deluding himself, or taken in by the belief
system.^ (Buekens and Boudry 2014: 3)
It seems quite odd to lump both the impostors, or as Cohen calls them, the actbullshitters, and the victims of the belief system into the same category. Though it is
obviously true that philosophers need to tackle obscurities and argue for methodological clarity whenever possible, regardless of whether the production of obscurities was
deliberate or not, it is apparent that those who engage in the deliberate production of
obscurities are not guilty of the same kind of transgression as the unsuspecting
distributers. If the latter are to bear any guilt whatsoever, it should be that of omission,
for they are not investing sufficient rigor in dealing with concepts and arguments, and
are allowing themselves to be lured in. But the deliberate producer commits a very

Philosophia

different and barely comparable kind of moral fault, characterized by his deceitfulness,
not his carelessness. The comparison of their moral faults reveals it is quite harsh to call
the careless philosopher an obscurantist, which becomes even more emphasized if we
translate the said comparison into the language of bullshit (as I argued we should in the
previous paragraph). The deliberate producer seems the bullshitter proper, as it is his
intention to deceive, using the obscurities that he is peddling. Conversely, the gullible
distributer of obscurities, who merely passes them on, is not really trying to bullshit
anyone at all, and is in fact himself an oblivious victim of bullshitting. He might be a
bad philosopher, but that does not make him a bullshitter. For these reasons, I believe
victims of obscure belief systems should be kept clear of the bullshitter denominator,9
for their fault is much less condemnable. More about this in the following section.
To argue for the distinction in the previous paragraph carries a practical difficulty.
Buekens and Boudry need only identify the mechanisms they are describing in a
philosophers activities to label him an obscurantist, irrespective of that philosophers
intent. A more narrow conception that I offer, in which only deliberate production of
obscurities makes someone a bullshitter, brings up the practical difficulty of identifying
authors as bullshitters, since intent is hard to substantiate. Our discussion about
obscurantism as bullshit will then hardly yield a list of offenders, like the one suggested
by Jon Elster (2011), although heedless distributers of obscurities are still condemned
due to their guilt of omission, so the exercise should not leave those with a taste for
prosecuting violators dissatisfied. The convenience Buekenss and Boudrys account
enjoys should not deter us from pointing out the important difference between the
moral faults of deliberate production and the mere passing on of obscurities a sensible
conception of obscurantism should factor it in. We are all occasionally susceptible to
obscurantist bullshit and its self-reproducing capacities, but the fact that we sometimes
fail to resist it and obliviously pass it on does not make us bullshitters.
Critics may still remain unconvinced. What is the purpose of an account of
obscurantism if it is conditioned upon the mental states of the author, and is thus (at
least partially) ineffective in practical terms? How does it aid us in assessing whether a
particular author was an obscurantist or not? A few responses can be offered against
this. First, the validity of a philosophical distinction, such as the one I argue for here is
not defeated if it does not offer a reliable diagnostic tool for tracking down offenders.
Consider the difference between liars and the ignorant. Most of us would agree that
lying is a deliberate attempt to convince others that what the liar knows to be a
falsehood is indeed true, while the ignorant are not aware that what they are saying
is a falsehood. But the fact that we sometimes cannot tell between liars and the ignorant
does not suggest that we should suspend the distinction and that all utterers of
falsehoods should be lumped into one group for practical reasons. Second, insisting
on the distinction, and isolating the obscurantist and bullshitter denominators for
only one of the groups, does not preclude against attempts to minimize obscurities even
when they are produced inadvertently. A principle of clarity gives us reasons to
confront all instances of obscurity, and if the unsuspecting philosopher who creates
deep obscurities makes no effort to clear them up or shies away from the appeal to
clarity, he may then rightly be regarded an obscurantist bullshitter. Finally, it is not that
the difficulty of identifying obscurantists leaves us helpless. Buekenss and Boudrys
9

I will refrain from calling them obscurantists either.

Philosophia

account demonstrates a set of typical obscurantist methods, and if those are being
systematically applied in ones philosophizing, there is a good chance one is making
deliberate use of them. I turn to these methods now.
Methods of the Obscurantist
In this sub-section, I present a few mechanisms Buekens and Boudry claim are taking effect
in the production of obscure philosophy. Many of the mechanisms from their extensive list
refer specifically to the works of Jacques Lacan, but I only pick out the ones I find to be
most commonplace. The list should by no means be considered exhaustive.
It should first be noted that the successful thriving of obscure philosophy is often
predicated upon certain values the audience is meant to embrace. The most common of
such values is viewing the ambiguity of obscurity as something desirable. Obscurantists
will often rely on loose and undefined concepts in equally loosely configured systems
of conceptual relations, for Bwhen different or even incompatible interpretations see the
light of day, this testifies only to the Brich^ and Bprofound^ character^ (Buekens and
Boudry 2014: 5) of the insights we have been offered. The appeal of ambiguity
probably lies in aesthetical quality, as loose and undefined concepts seem to harmoniously fit with a variety of ideas, conceptions, and contexts. Buekens and Boudry argue,
for example, that the Other in Jacques Lacans writing takes exactly this form, as it
may refer to a whole range of things Bother individuals, society, the law, moral order,
the mother-figure, the opposite sex, a persons own body, Language, images or even
according to Slavoj iek the simulated reality in The Matrix^ (2014: 5).10
A value closely related to ambiguity is that of preserving obscurities in their original
form. To try to break the original text down, or present an obscure argument or
conception Bin a more or less streamlined fashion will eventually end up as a fatal
distortion of the theorys subject matter^ (Buekens and Boudry 2014: 8). 11 I would
argue that this kind of argument is, yet again, derived from aesthetical notions about the
subject matter. If we were to similarly try to break down the points that a book or a film
are portraying, those who appreciate their artistic form would object that the points we
have reconstructed taken independently from the experience of the art form itself are
distorted and lacking in value. However, since we have no aesthetical obligations
toward the philosophical text we are producing, the objection is misplaced in such a
context. The value of preserving the material in its original form is only there to enable
the obscurantist to keep his obscurities intact.
Buekens and Boudry also differentiate between two ways in which an obscurantist
isolates his obscurities from objections. The first are labeled the immunizing strategies
of the obscurantist, which are made up of usual theory-neutral arguments raised to
deflect criticism:
BImmunizing strategies consist of general and theory-independent arguments,
such as radical relativism about truth (Btruth is always relative to a discourse,
This is not to say that the concept of the Other may not be conceptually pinned down and applied in
particular texts, or that we may not have any use for it. The objection from Buekens and Boudry specifically
refers to Lacans text.
11
Here, Buekens and Boudry are paraphrasing Lacans claims.
10

Philosophia

so your arguments miss the point since youre speaking a different type of
discourse^), certain forms of social constructivism (BEvery discourse creates its
own version of the world, so your criticism does not apply to my paradigm^), or
general informal fallacies (ad hominem arguments, straw man, false dilemma,
etc.).^12 (Buekens and Boudry 2014: 4)
The second way in which audiences are duped by the obscurantist is the exploitation
of some of their cognitive mechanisms. One such mechanism is the principle of charity,
according to which we are willing to take entirely on assumption, up to a point, that the
content we are exposed to makes sense, even if it initially appears to us that it does not.
To extend the degree up to which our charitable assumptions are in play, the obscurantist will try to Bpersuade the intended reader that the hidden treasure, the true
meaning, is indeed so valuable and so revealing that he is willing to invest a huge
hermeneutic effort in trying to understand whatever his hermeneutic efforts indicate as
the Btrue meaning^ (Buekens and Boudry 2014: 11), at which point other cognitive
biases come into play loss aversion and adaptive preference formation (Cohen 2002:
322). As Cohens take on Althusserian Marxism shows: Bwhen I managed to extract
what seemed like a reasonable idea from one of their texts, I attributed to it more
interest and/or importance (so I later came to see) than it had, partly, no doubt, because I
did not want to think that I had been wasting my time^ (2002:322). In a nutshell, people
are persuaded to engage with some philosophical text, and although it is obscurantist,
they try to stick to it because they are charitable toward it. Then, if they are charitable
long enough, they may not want to face the chance that their effort for understanding it
has been wasted, so they cherish the small meanings that they have extracted. The
obscurantists scheme is to assert himself so that the readers charitableness remains
effective until other cognitive biases become operative. One way to do so is to persuade
the reader that there is hidden meaning beneath the obscurities. Another is to assume a
pose of an authority figure who has some privileged access to knowledge, and whose
testimonial evidence should suffice for the reader (Buekens and Boudry 2014: 12). A
third is in the very introduction of obscurities, which people then sometimes take for
12

If we put informal fallacies aside, a discussion on the remaining immunizing strategies resurfaces the
problem of intent. We should be bothered by whether the producer of obscurities intends to utilize relativism or
constructivism in order to shield off his obscurations, or he believes one of these positions to be true. In
Buekenss and Boudrys conception, where every obscure philosopher is equally an obscurantist, regardless of
intent, this is irrelevant. It does not matter to them whether you put immunizing strategies into use with full
awareness of their power and purpose, or with the belief that the positions characterized as immunizing
strategies are true. Like before, I retain my position that intent should be the dividing point between
obscurantists and those merely obscure, even at the cost of not always being able to tell between the two.
Further inquiry into immunizing strategies does, however, put those merely obscure at some moral fault, if
their claims are shielded by such positions with little or no argument, and with no awareness of the shielding
that they provide.
I do believe, however, that the consideration of immunizing strategies faces Buekenss and Boudrys
account with a problem. Positions like relativism and constructivism are Blegitimate^ and Bcompetitive^
positions in philosophical debate, which cannot be cast aside willy-nilly as immunizing strategies. Should
Buekens and Boudry offer conditions for when relativism and constructivism are indeed immunizing
strategies? In another paper, by Boudry and Braeckman, the claim is that a sincere adoption of positions like
relativism and constructivism may still be compatible with the claim that they are being used as immunizing
strategies. This is due, the claim goes, to self-deception and rationalization, as authors adopting such positions
may unconsciously be driven to look for reasons to dismiss weighty conflicting evidence, rather than
consciously deliberating about it. For the full account, see Boudry and Braeckman 2012: 358359.

Philosophia

granted, and try to comprehend within the context in which they were said (Buekens
and Boudry 2014). There is also the conventional tendency of most people to assume
that if something is conveyed in complex wording, then it must be highly intellectual.
Obscurantists are very aware of these susceptibilities.

The Cultural Embeddedness of Style Objection

I now turn to the central objection to my claim and some grey area cases. The objection
places philosophers into a time-space context of a particular writing style. Let us
assume, first, that there is a philosopher who was not only born into this specific
culture, but also has a deeply rooted education in this cultures writing style. He has
been told all his life by his teachers and supervisors that a good writing style
consists of a particular set of features, and the audience with which he wants to
communicate corresponds with the same writing style. Now let us assume the
writing style in question tolerates obscurities, and does not abide by principles
of clarity and precision. Does the philosopher have an epistemic obligation to
write more clearly?13
We can imagine cultural contexts in which the writing style flourishes with various
degrees of influence. The context might be a university, a country, or a region in which
philosophers subscribe to a particular writing style. Correspondingly, the pressures and
expectations of the audience within these contexts might appear in varying degrees of
force. In the modern setting, in which the philosophical traditions clash and overlap,
and with philosophers exposed to different styles of writing, fully isolated and shielded
contexts of writing styles are rare. Yet, we know that philosophical education in a
particular tradition is a decent predictor of the style of writing the philosopher will end
up adopting. Let us assume then, for the sake of argument, that a philosopher was
brought up in a context of strong influence from mentors, that there was little exposure
to competing writing styles, and that the tastes of the audience were in line with the
dominant writing style being adopted. Let us call this context Obscuria. With respect to
the distinction I have insisted on that between obscurantists and those merely obscure
I will discuss here what kind of factor the upbringing in Obscuria might be, bearing in
mind the various attitudes philosophers might end up having toward Obscurias writing
style. Recall that I have differentiated between obscurantists, who aim at deception of
different kinds, and the merely obscure philosophers, who are simply careless about
how they present their ideas. I have argued that being an obscurantist is a more serious
kind of moral fault, and that they should be equated to bullshitters. The consideration of
the philosopher in the context of Obscuria will introduce some grey areas, either about
how we conceptualize the distinction, or the moral faults we ascribe to the two
categories. The consideration of philosophers in particular contexts of writing also
reminds us that for these people, philosophy is a source of income, and a specialized
activity they have invested a lot of time in.14
13

I owe the core of this objection to Zsolt Kapelner.

Note that if Boudry and Buekens hold onto their conception of the obscurantist, according to which
intention does not play a role, their account is completely unaffected by this objection. That, however, seems
strange.

14

Philosophia

Here I discuss four ways in which the Obscuria philosophers relate to the writing
style they are exposed to. First, I will start from the simplest and least controversial
case. Let us assume that the first philosopher is fully aware of the methods Buekens and
Boudry present in their paper, and wants to utilize them to trick people into taking his
points more seriously than they should be taken, or into believing that there are secret
truths to uncover where there are none. This philosopher is clearly an obscurantist
aiming at bullshitting the audience.
Second, let us assume there is a philosopher who does not ponder on the methods of
the writing style, and does not consider the obscurities to be obscurities, or defense
mechanisms to be defense mechanisms what he produces is merely obscure writing
because he is mimicking his environment. Recall that we assumed the cultural writing
style influence to be quite strong in his philosophical education, and that he was not
exposed to competing styles. Clearly, a philosopher who relates to Obscurias writing
style in this way is a merely obscure philosopher, not an obscurantist. Now, in view of
what I argued before, the merely obscure philosophers may be guilty of omission, and
the guilt may increase if they also fail to recognize the defense mechanisms used to
shield off obscurantist theories. While this may be said about the Obscuria philosopher
of this second case, one should keep in mind that for philosophers who come from a
context other than Obscuria, where they are, presumably, exposed to competing and
less obscure writing styles, the fault of omission is easier to avoid. Additionally, a
merely obscure philosopher might be aware of methodology issues and conflicts, but he
may simply not care so much about them, devoting most of his attention to what he
wants to convey, rather than the style he is conveying it in. In this case, then, the
Obscuria philosopher is most definitely a merely obscure philosopher, while the moral
fault of omission must be weighed against the strength of influences he is exposed to.
Third, a philosopher of Obscuria might be aware of the fact that his cultural context
favors obscurities, and that there are competing and less obscure writing styles, but may
consider the writing style of Obscuria the principle to abide by. This is a tricky case.
The Obscuria philosopher of this example knows the obscure philosophy he is producing will result in conflicting interpretations, and he believes this to be preferable to
adopting a clarity and simplicity driven style. Would we treat cases differently if we
looked into the reasons for why he adopts the writing style? One might be that he is
merely biased toward the context in which he was educated a common occurrence
among philosophers of all traditions. Another might be that he offers arguments with
which he attempts to support his adherence to Obscurias writing style. This Obscuria
philosopher might say that philosophy deals with complex and deeply opaque problems, and correspondingly requires equally complex and deeply opaque conceptual
frameworks. He may think that there is something inherent about opaqueness that
opens doors to profound truths. Although that kind of argument is obviously shallow,
and this Obscuria philosopher might merely be victim to self-deception, we have
established, ex hypothesi, that the influence of culture is strong, and the earlier
mentioned bias might drive philosophers into genuinely supporting shallower arguments, even if their support is based on mere rationalizations. But this case runs across
the boundaries of the two categories, as this Obscuria philosopher wants to wittingly
introduce obscurities, but not for the purposes of deception. Simultaneously, he fails to
notice his own biases, either toward the style itself, or the shallow arguments that
support it, which amounts to a kind of carelessness. It is difficult to carry a verdict on

Philosophia

whether this philosopher is an obscurantist, a merely obscure philosopher, both, or

neither. He also might represent the most serious challenge to the distinction.
Finally, let us imagine a fourth kind of Obscuria philosopher, who not only tests the
distinction, but also the moral faults I have earlier ascribed to the two categories. This
Obscuria philosopher deeply regrets that the writing style in Obscuria is such as it is, and
enjoying such support. He would rather see Obscurias standard shift toward a more
transparent writing style. Additionally, he cannot shift to a different style of writing, either
because he is not fully aware of available alternatives or he is not skilled or educated
enough to make the shift. The philosopher knows that if he does not make his writing at
least slightly obscure, he will not get published, and nobody will take his work seriously.
The hitting of this minimal obscurity threshold implies that some of his claims will end up
producing a variety of (mis)interpretations regarding his work, and the writing style will
draw attention to his claims for reasons he finds inadequate in terms of why those claims
should draw attention. Yet the Obscuria philosopher still prefers keeping his writing
somewhat obscure, if that guarantees getting his work out. We should find it regrettable
that his work will draw the aforementioned negative consequences, but it is seems morally
permissible that he should proceed. The fourth philosopher, like the third, is in one way an
obscurantist, as he wittingly produces obscurities knowing what the consequences might
be, but he also has no direct intention to deceive. Unlike the third philosophers case, on
the other hand, we have less reason to regard the fourth philosopher to be a merely obscure
philosopher as I defined one earlier, as he is by no means careless in his production of
obscurities. So if he indeed is an obscurantist, and thus a bullshitter, then obscurantism in
philosophy is at least in certain cases permissible.
The attitudes that I present are the ones persistently obscure philosophers most
commonly take in the face of obscurities. The examples here are aimed at mimicking
social contexts in which philosophers reside, which quite obviously complicates the
distinction I have introduced in this paper. Things might become even more complicated
considering that actual social contexts are even more complex, but it is equally possible
that the opposite might be the case. My verdicts here have been quite charitable toward
certain kinds of Obscuria attitudes, but in the real world, where exposure to alternative and
competing writing styles is usually greater, philosophers should bear greater responsibilities in avoiding obscurity. The Obscuria philosopher of the third kind will face a more
clarity-driven style as competition, and will be asked to dismantle the opaqueness. The
philosopher of the fourth kind will have access to alternative education and publication
opportunities in a style he prefers. Certainly, the counterexamples show that the details of
the distinction between obscurantists and those merely obscure have not been fully settled,
but I do not regard these examples powerful enough to crash the distinction entirely, as real
life cases might be more likely to settle the controversial cases than the thought experiment
I have put forward here. To hold this view does not seem implausible.

Concluding Remarks
The previous section might leave us with the impression that the problem of obscurantism
as bullshit is primarily concerned with philosophical traditions and writing styles. That
was not the intention. As a matter of fact, the intention was not even to paint the
philosophy world into two colors, where one represents an evil obscurantists/bullshitters

Philosophia

cabala, and the other the valiant guardians of clarity and conceptual precision. Regardless
of whether some philosophers are more prone to bullshit, and some less, the point is not in
some imagined struggle between conflicted groups. I shortly clarify this here, by reflecting
on obscurantism/bullshit as a constant temptation both for producers and the audience,
and on whether battling it aids us in pursuing a principle of clarity.
The insights about what constitutes obscurantist bullshit, how certain people tend to
use it against us, and how audiences are sensitive to its aesthetic appeal or likely to buy
into it affected by their cognitive biases, may well help us to recognize bullshit once we
are faced with it. Getting to know what the means of obscurantist bullshit are empowers
the reader, but not necessarily the inadvertent producer the merely obscure philosopher. Tim Williamson claims that much of philosophy produced in Beveryday
language^ may still be very obscure. He says that analytic philosophers are just as
guilty in moving too fast to reach the juicy bits of their argumentation, sacrificing
argumentative precision and clarity. They do not pay as much attention to detail, and
they treat similar formulations as equivalent. Williamson resumes:
BShoddy work is sometimes masked by pretentiousness, allusiveness, gnomic
concision or winning informality. But often there is no special disguise: producers
and consumers have simply not taken enough trouble to check the details. We need
the unglamorous virtue of patience to read and write philosophy that is as perspicuously structured as the difficulty of the subject requires, and the austerity to be
dissatisfied with appealing prose that does not meet those standards. The fear of
boring oneself or ones readers is a great enemy of truth.^ (Williamson 2006: 185)
The adherence to a principle of clarity therefore does not amount to understanding what
constitutes bullshit. Williamsons point is that we are often tempted by the desire not to be
aesthetically boring to our audiences. We also either tend to be sloppy in not paying
enough attention to detail, or to properly structure a coherent argument, all at the expense
of clarity. Obscurantism, on the other hand, represents the philosophers constant temptation of insulating his argumentation from criticism, under the influence of bias toward
his own text and work. To this we might add that we tend to be bad at assessing how clear
we actually are when writing, and that we need others to point this out to us. To abide by a
principle of clarity requires a lot of self-criticism, effort and pedantry (and arguably,
cooperation with others). The scrutiny of obscurities might only be one small part, or the
starting point, at best, in properly following a principle of clarity.
Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude to Aleksandar Simi, Zsolt Kapelner, Lovro Savi,
Nino Kadi, Mihovil Luki, and Alexandru Moise for providing me with important feedback and valuable
comments and suggestions in the course of my work on this paper.

References
Black, M. (1985). The Prevalence of humbug and other Essays (Reprint ed.). Cornell University Press: Place
of publication not identified.
Boudry, M., & Braeckman, J. (2012). How Convenient! the epistemic rationale of Self-Validating belief
systems. Philosophical Psychology, 25(3), 341364.

Philosophia
Buekens, F., & Boudry, M. (2014). The Dark Side of the Loon. Explaining the Temptations of Obscurantism.
Theoria. doi:10.1111/theo.12047.
Cohen, G. A. (2002). Deeper into bullshit. In S. Buss & L. Overton (Eds.), Contours of Agency: Essays on
Themes from Harry Frankfurt (pp. 321340). Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press.
Elster, J. (2011). Hard and Soft obscurantism in the Humanities and social Sciences. Diogenes, 58, 159170.
Frankfurt, H. G. (2002). Reply to G. A. Cohen. In S. Buss & L. Overton (Eds.), Contours of Agency: Essays
on Themes from Harry Frankfurt (pp. 340345). Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press.
Frankfurt, H. G. (1988). On bullshit. In The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays (pp.
117134). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gjelsvik, O. (2006). Bullshit Illuminated. In J. Elster, O. Gjelsvik, A. Hylland, & K. Moene (Eds.),
Understanding Choice, Explaining Behaviour: Essays in Honour of Ole-Joergen Skog (pp. 101111).
Oslo: Fagbokforlaget.
Kimbrough, S. (2006). On Letting it Slide. In G. L. Hardcastle & G. A. Reisch (Eds.), Bullshit and
Philosophy: Guaranteed to Get Perfect Results Every Time (pp. 319). Chicago, Ill: Open Court.
Richardson, A. (2006). Performing bullshit and the Post-Sincere condition. In G. L. Hardcastle & G. A. Reisch
(Eds.), Bullshit and Philosophy: Guaranteed to Get Perfect Results Every Time (pp. 4963). Chicago, Ill:
Open Court.
Williamson, T. (2006). Must do Better. In P. Greenough & M. P. Lynch (Eds.), Truth and Realism (pp. 278
292). Oxford: Oxford University Press.