On Bullshit

A frequent gripe, especially from three- and four-star reviews, is that the book is too short for the concept it names; readers wanted more worked examples in politics and religion instead of Frankfurt's narrow, tight argument. Low-star reviewers go further, calling it a case where “the text is dry, and the substance is suspect,” and one jokes the manuscript only got published because a “renowned moral philosopher, bitches” submitted it. Another accuses Frankfurt of being “drowned by his intellectual masturbation.” A structural complaint recurs too: Frankfurt spends real energy dissecting a decades-old remark from a colleague while passing over an actual sitting president's evasions as an obvious, waiting example, which more than a single reviewer reads as the essay proving its own point. Some editions bundle it with Frankfurt's follow-up On Truth, which draws little attention of its own.