If your aim is to unify different ways of understanding dishonesty, social manipulation and ‘simulacra’, then Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshitneeds to be considered.
What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerningthat state of affairs. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue ofbeing false. Since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to
I think its worth trying to incorporate Frankfurt’s definition as well, as it is quite widely known, see e.g. this video—If you were to do so, I think you would say that on Frankfurt’s definition, Level 1 tells the truth, Level 2 lies, Level 3 bullshits about physical facts but will lie or tell the truth about things in the social realm (e.g. others motives, your own affiliation), and Level 4 always bullshits.
It does seem that bullshitting involves a kind of bluff. It is closer to bluffing, surely than to telling a lie. But what is implied concerning its nature by the fact that it is more like the former than it is like the latter? Just what is the relevant difference here between a bluff and a lie? Lying and bluffing are both modes of misrepresentation or deception. Now the concept most central to the distinctive nature of a lie is that of falsity: the liar is essentially someone who deliberately promulgates a falsehood. Bluffing too is typically devoted to conveying something false. Unlike plain lying, however, it is more especially a matter not of falsity but of fakery. This is what accounts for its nearness to bullshit. For the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony. In order to appreciate this distinction, one must recognize that a fake or a phony need not be in any respect (apart from authenticity itself) inferior to the real thing. What is not genuine need not also be defective in some other way. It may be, after all, an exact copy. What is wrong with a counterfeit is not what it is like, but how it was made. This points to a similar and fundamental aspect of the essential nature of bullshit: although it is produced without concern with the truth, it need not be false.
Taken this way, Frankfurt’s model is a higher-level model that distinguishes the ones who care about reality from the ones that don’t—roughly speaking, bullshit characterises levels 3 and 4 as the ones unconcerned with reality.
If your aim is to unify different ways of understanding dishonesty, social manipulation and ‘simulacra’, then Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit needs to be considered.
I think its worth trying to incorporate Frankfurt’s definition as well, as it is quite widely known, see e.g. this video—If you were to do so, I think you would say that on Frankfurt’s definition, Level 1 tells the truth, Level 2 lies, Level 3 bullshits about physical facts but will lie or tell the truth about things in the social realm (e.g. others motives, your own affiliation), and Level 4 always bullshits.
Taken this way, Frankfurt’s model is a higher-level model that distinguishes the ones who care about reality from the ones that don’t—roughly speaking, bullshit characterises levels 3 and 4 as the ones unconcerned with reality.
I replied to a similar comment by SDM elsewhere at the time of posting, thought i should link it.