Harry Frankfurt


Harry Gordon Frankfurt is an American philosopher. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, where he taught from 1990 until 2002, and previously taught at Yale University, Rockefeller University, and Ohio State University.

Biography

Early life

Frankfurt was born on May 29, 1929, in Pennsylvania. He obtained his B.A. in 1949 and Ph.D. in 1954 from Johns Hopkins University.

Career

He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University.
He taught at Ohio State University, SUNY Binghamton, Rockefeller University, Yale University, and then Princeton.
His major areas of interest include moral philosophy, philosophy of mind and action, and 17th-century rationalism. His 1986 paper On Bullshit, a philosophical investigation of the concept of "bullshit", was republished as a book in 2005 and became a surprise bestseller, leading to media appearances such as Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. In this work he explains how bullshitting is different from lying, in that it is an act that has no regard for the truth. He argues that “It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.” In 2006 he released a companion book, On Truth, which explores society's loss of appreciation for truth.
Among philosophers, he was for a time best known for his interpretation of Descartes's rationalism. His most influential work, however, has been on freedom of the will based on his concept of higher-order volitions and for developing what are known as "Frankfurt cases" or "Frankfurt counterexamples". Frankfurt is probably the leading living Humean compatibilist, developing Hume's view that to be free is to do what one wants to do. Frankfurt's version of compatibilism is the subject of a substantial literature by other philosophy professors. More recently, he has written on love and caring.
He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford University; he served as President, Eastern Division, American Philosophical Association; and he has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Interviews