The adversarial passages of Unit 2 were Boersema, Plato, De Gouges, Borges, Davis, Morrison, and Marx. The accommodative passages were Locke, Maalouf, and Diderot. I made these distinctions because the adversarial passages supported their ideas with evidence and were typically less “traditional,” whereas the accommodative passages seemed to support their ideas through their personal intuition and were more “traditional.” The first paper was not necessarily adversarial or accommodative, but had elements of both. It was adversarial in the fact that we used evidence to support our arguments and made more progressive arguments, things that were not solely taught to us by parents or teachers. However, it was accommodative since the arguments left room for disagreement and tolerated other belief systems. Adversarial work in the humanities tends to have more “revolutionary” elements to them, as they abandon tradition, bringing changes to thought. Accommodative works tend to fit in with the traditional humanities, with older philosophers.
Is Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” passage bullshit, or is his final line ironic? Also, if someone becomes very good at bullshitting, where do we draw the line between bullshit and legitimate thought? I found this passage puzzling because I believe Frankfurt goes in circles and sometimes contradicts himself, which appears to be “bullshit,” but he is also criticizing this concept. I also believe that many people, when writing papers, say that they completely “bullshitted it” only to receive the paper and realize that there are some good ideas in their work. This made me question if we can even know when we are bullshitting. In the humanities, much work can be made starting with “bullshit,” as long as it is expanded upon by the writer.
