Diotima: The Marist Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
become one, whether they want to be or not. For instance, a celebrity expert may have no problem being a bullshitter because of the money and notoriety it gives them. Objections Aside from the objection to T3, I anticipate one other response to the argument I’ve presented as follows: trespassers aren’t trying to get away with something like a bullshitter is, their concern for the truth makes the process entirely different. As I said in response to T3, a trespasser can never be concerned with the truth, because they don’t have the necessary expertise or skills to engage with another field. This also means it doesn’t matter what their intent is when the research begins, or even what the outcome is, as Moberger says, “Whether a certain thesis is bullshit does not depend on its content, but on the circumstances of its acceptance and communication.” 17 For argument's sake let’s imagine a situation in which an experienced plumber
claims they care about determining what’s causing the electrical issue of a water-
based cooling system and are carefully trying to figure out what’s wrong. As they’ve
had years of experience addressing very similar problems, they will likely start by
seeing if there are any issues with their piping system to rule that out. After this,
they’ll run some more tests to focus on specific electrical issues that could be causing
this. Their testing begins to become very extensive, and it's beginning to look as if
they don’t know what they’re doing. However, the plant managers continue to fund
17 Victor Moberger, “Bullshit, Pseudoscience and Pseudophilosophy,” in Theoria , 86 no. 5 (2020): 595– 611.
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