A Critique of the Persian Translation of On Bullshit, by Kaveh Behbahani

Bullshit should not yet have become a commodity. Because it is probably good for nothing and it is unlikely anyone would pay money for it. In a world that turns everything into commodities you have to pay for, you can still lounge under the cool breeze of the home split-unit air conditioner and, with great pleasure, bullshit and write. But sometimes they force you to pay for bullshit. How? Let me tell you a story...

On Bullshit on the Procrustean Bed

Kaveh Behbahani (Translator and Philosophy Researcher)

Harry G. Frankfurt[1], the American philosopher and professor emeritus at Princeton University, in one of his essays titled On Bullshit, probes bullshitting/talking nonsense/uttering balderdash with one of the philosophical tools of the analytic intellectual tradition, called conceptual analysis, in order to cultivate a theory about bullshitting in communication between people. If Jürgen Habermas sought to understand the systematic distortions and malformations hidden within human interactions, Harry Frankfurt considers talking nonsense one of the factors of a defective and distorted understanding[2]. He analyzes bullshit and warns of its prevalence. Harry Frankfurt's book has, as it happens, been translated into Persian. The writing that follows, while examining the translation of the book and suggesting a relationship between the book's translation and Frankfurt's thoughts on bullshit, will point a finger at a pervasive ethical problem in society: the problem of bullshit philosophical translations.

Bullshit should not yet have become a commodity. Because it is probably good for nothing and it is unlikely anyone would pay money for it. In a world that turns everything into commodities you have to pay for, you can still lounge under the cool breeze of the home split-unit air conditioner and, with great pleasure, bullshit and write. But sometimes they force you to pay for bullshit. How? Let me tell you a story: Americans have a philosopher named Harry Frankfurt who is still alive and has a thought-provoking view on the profound problem of free will and determinism. This philosopher has a small essay (about 15-16 pages). This essay was first published in a literary quarterly and nearly two decades later came out as an independent book. A book called On Bullshit, which means On Bullshit, or with the translation I prefer, On Bullshitting. I believe the equivalent "یاوه‌گویی" for bullshit has at least one virtue, and that is that it makes translating bullshitter / یاوه‌گو easier. The book was on the bestseller list for weeks. Of course, this same essay was also published once in one of Harry Frankfurt's essay collections. But, the book On Bullshit has, to its misfortune, been translated into Persian. About three years ago, shortly before I accidentally saw this translation in one of the city's bookstores, a dear and erudite friend who was also a senior editor at a publishing house asked me to render this book into Persian. I read On Bullshit carefully and realized that translating it into Persian requires a great deal of finesse. Until that day when, all of a sudden, my eye fell upon the translation of Frankfurt's book in a bookstore, with these specifications: On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt, translated by Elaheh Hashemi Haeri, Elmi Publishing. Book price: 2750 Tomans. I eagerly picked up the book and paid for it. I didn't even take back the remaining 50 Tomans. I said to myself, in an age of billion-dollar embezzlements, these 50 Tomans won't make a difference. I hailed a taxi and, by the time I got home, I set about reading the book. I skipped the introduction and curiously went straight to the translation itself, which begins as follows:

"One of the most salient features of our culture [Americans] is that there is so much bullshit. We Americans are like a swimmer gliding smoothly through water with this feature." (p. 17 of Elaheh Hashemi Haeri's translation; the brackets were added to the text by the translator herself).

I was wondering where Frankfurt got this swimmer analogy. I didn't recall seeing it in the text. Americans bullshit and, by virtue of this characteristic (= bullshitting or talking hot air), resemble a swimmer who slowly rolls over in the water. The sentence above probably means this, but where is the point of comparison in this insipid and sloppy simile? Does the philosopher Frankfurt mean that you cannot build a house on water, just as a society where bullshit is prevalent is a society built on shaky foundations? I consult the original text of the book, and you won't believe it. There is absolutely no trace of this sentence in the original text! And interestingly, the translation of the first sentence is also incorrect. The book's discussion is not about "exaggeration" (as the translator puts it, and I don't know why "exaggeration" and not something else!) at all. And of course, exaggeration or hyperbole differs from bullshitting, and if the equivalent of bullshit is "exaggeration," why wasn't this same equivalent used in the translation of the book's title? I still didn't know, however, that I was standing, Alice-like, at the threshold of Wonderland. I continue reading:

"We all know that we go to extremes in exaggeration, and we all share in this extremism" (p. 17, ibid.)

Speaking exaggeratedly is, of course, not a commendable act (except in a few instances, such as literary exaggerations in literary speech). It has no degrees. It is not good for a person to exaggerate in what they say to others. Whether they go to extremes in this or proceed slowly. Just like fraud. Fraud is a reprehensible act. A little of it is reprehensible, a lot of it is too, and it is unlikely that the philosopher Frankfurt is unaware of this not-so-novel point. In the original text of the book, however, this sentence does not exist, and the translator felt inclined to personally add it to the text. So be it. The translation is fabricated and arbitrary, by a sloppy and careless translator. As an example, I will present the first two paragraphs of Frankfurt's book along with the aforementioned translation of this book, and finally, I will add the correct translation of this same passage so that you too might dispel some tedium by witnessing the wonders of the age:

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry.

In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis. I shall not consider the rhetorical uses and misuses of bullshit. My aim is simply to give a rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not, or (putting it somewhat differently) to articulate, more or less sketchily, the structure of its concept." (P. 117)[3]

And now read Elaheh Hashemi Haeri's translation of the above text, with this note that the translator has disrupted the author's paragraphing and even the punctuation of the original text; at her own discretion and unaware that these very paragraph breaks and these very semicolons have a logic and purpose:

"One of the most salient features of our [American] culture is exaggeration, or, to put it more simply, bullshitting. We Americans are like swimmers gliding effortlessly on the water with this characteristic. We all know that we go overboard with exaggeration, and we all share in this excess. Most people (in America) think they can tell bullshit from the truth, and that is precisely why they think they can protect themselves from this phenomenon. This very way of thinking has meant that the phenomenon has not given rise to any anxiety or questioning; the result is that we ourselves have not properly understood the concept of 'bullshitting' and do not know why 'bullshit' is so prevalent in our lives, or why, in principle, so much bullshit is uttered, and what our aim is in all this bullshitting? We all lack the necessary self-awareness regarding our bullshitting and the meaning and significance of what it has brought upon us; in other words, we lack a theory on this matter. So I propose that, for now, we embark on a philosophical analysis within the framework of a provisional experiment.

Here, I do not wish to enter into a discussion of rhetoric and the meanings of words; nor do I want to start a debate on how these words should or should not be used, in what cases their usage is appropriate and in what cases it is inappropriate and wrong."

(Translation by Elaheh Hashemi Haeri, pp. 17 and 18)

And here is a correct translation of the text that I have produced; observe:

"One of the most salient features of[4] our culture is that there is so much bullshit in it. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry.

In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, of why there is so much of it, or of what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis. I shall not consider the rhetorical uses and misuses of bullshit. My aim is simply to give a rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not, or (putting it somewhat differently) to articulate, more or less sketchily, the structure of its concept."

As you can see, the translation of the book in question is entirely erroneous and irrelevant, and the translator, of her own accord and with a clear conscience, has added to or subtracted from the text whatever she pleased.

You have surely heard that among the conditions necessary for a translator, three obvious ones have been rendered banal through excessive repetition: that the translator must have a perfect command of the source language, must know the target language, and must be sufficiently proficient in the subject matter. Of course, these three conditions are the most prominent, but a translator must also possess many other qualities that, due to their extreme obviousness and self-evidence, are sometimes left unmentioned. For example, a translator has no right to add her own fabricated and meaningless sentences to the text. The translator in question, of course, possessed none of the minimum requirements necessary for translating the text.

1- Unfamiliarity with the Persian Language:

As an example, take a look at these sentences:

"Someone might ask here what characteristics humbug has that make it humbug or turn it into a lie, and of course it must be said that this has nothing to do with a person's belief or intention, whatever it may be, or if they want to play a trick, humbug or misrepresentation falsely appears "to lie", or conversely, this matter relates to the speaker's particular state of mind, whether at the time of speaking their mind was more predisposed to false misrepresentation or to lying; in any case, how did their mind turn and what form did it take?" (same translation, p. 23, verbatim)

"What Augustine calls 'real lies' and 'the liar' is both rare and extraordinary" (p. 58)

"Someone who talks bullshit . . . makes things appear 'fake'." (p. 49)

"Humbug . . . has a particular category or class that not only falls within the category of the rhetorical model but is also a kind of movement or mobility that may be accompanied by intentions or actions." (p. 24)

What kind of Persian writing is this? What strange language is it that Elahe Hashemi Haeri has invented? Numerous sentences of this sort show that the author does not have a proper grasp of the Persian language.

2- Unfamiliarity with the English Language:

But perhaps she undertook the translation of such a text in the shadow of her knowledge of English. So let us take a look at some brilliant examples of her linguistic prowess. The original text reads:

For one thing, the expression bullshit is often employed quite loosely-- simply as a generic term of abuse, with no very specific literal meaning. For another, the phenomenon itself is so vast and amorphous that no crisp and perspicuous analysis of its concept can avoid being procrustean. (P. 117)

She has translated it as:

"First, the term 'bullshit' is usually used for many things and in many cases [for people] 'bullshit' is constantly abused, that is, a generic system of abuse that has no specific literary meaning either, while for another group the phenomenon of bullshit has such a vast scope that it has no specific form or framework either." (Elahe Hashemi Haeri, p. 18).

The translation is a masterpiece in that packing this many errors into the rendering of two or three lines is no one's work but his. First, does "expression" mean vocabulary? Second, English has a structure: "For one thing . . . for another . . ." which means "one reason is that . . . and another reason is that . . ." The translator, familiar only with the most handy equivalent of the word "for" (i.e., "barāye"), translates "for one thing" as "first of all" and "for another" as "while for another group," and since the sentence, like the rest of the book, makes no sense, and he has probably caught a whiff of this, he very elegantly and ceremoniously adds, in brackets, the phrase "for the people" to the first sentence, and delighted that this sentence has finally been fixed, moves on to the next paragraph. Unaware that everything he has done is "not building, but destroying." In fact, without ceremony, his entire translation ought to be placed in brackets. Because this whole translation has nothing to do with the words of the philosopher Frankfurt. Next, what on earth does "a generic system of misuse" mean, which he has suddenly turned his pen to? The word "system" does not exist in the text. This word is an English word that the translator has offered as an equivalent for a Persian word! A glance will reveal that "system" is the translator's proposed equivalent for the word "term"! Woe to the times of Persian lexicographers from Soleiman Haim to the late Dr. Haghshenas and the esteemed Dr. Bateni, long may they live, for not recording such a worthy and fitting equivalent for the word "term" in their dictionaries. Is that all? No! He has translated "has no very specific literal meaning" as "has no particular literary meaning." The translator has blithely translated the word "literal" as "literary"! Probably because he found its pronunciation similar to that of the word "literary." The correct translation of this word is literal or actual (as opposed to figurative). Of course, it is still not over, and the translator has further errors in rendering these same two or three lines, which are so obvious they need no mention. The correct translation of these lines (regardless of the difficulties of translating the word "procrustean," which has mythological connotations, and for which I have considered the equivalent "contrived"[5]) is something like this:

"For one thing, the expression 'bullshit' is often employed quite loosely—simply as a generic term of abuse, with no very specific literal meaning. For another, the phenomenon itself is so vast and amorphous that no crisp and perspicuous analysis of its concept can avoid being procrustean."

3- Unfamiliarity with Philosophical Terminology

It is evident that the translator does not know the source and target languages equally well. But one should not be pessimistic. A pessimist makes himself and others miserable. One should give the benefit of the doubt that the translator was at least proficient in the subject of the translation. Even if she does not know the source and target languages as well as she should, she may well be thoroughly familiar with philosophers (especially the analytic philosophers, of whom Harry Frankfurt is one). Let us put her philosophical knowledge to the test. Before that, it is fitting to mention a point. What Frankfurt does in On Bullshit actually makes sense in the shadow of one of the techniques of analytic philosophy. A technique called conceptual analysis. That is, finding the necessary and sufficient conditions for the realization of a concept in language. Of course, the conceptual analysis of bullshit, as Frankfurt himself points out, is somewhat arbitrary (arbitrary, or “delbkhāhāneh” according to Frankfurt and “ekhtiyāri va az ruye meyl va erāde-ye taraf” according to the translator, p. 18). The philosopher Frankfurt, in the lines we read together earlier, is in fact explaining the reasons for this very arbitrariness. In short, the translator of such a work must be familiar with conceptual analysis and know that analytic philosophers analyze concepts, and among the concepts they have analyzed extensively is the concept of lying. She should be familiar with philosophers such as the famous philosopher Bernard Williams (and his book on this subject, Truth and Truthfulness), Thomas Carson (the American philosopher from Loyola University and his fine book Lying and Deception, Theory and Practice), Sissela Bok (the contemporary Swedish-born American philosopher and her book Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life), James Edwin Mahon (the Irish philosopher and author of the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on lying and deception), and many others, and have examined their works. If so, she would know that lying is a concept distinct from, for example, the concept of falsehood/falsity. (Granted, some philosophers believe a necessary condition for a statement to be a lie is that it be false, but in any case, lying and falsehood are two separate concepts)[6]. We will see that Harry Frankfurt, in his book, constantly seeks to clarify the boundary between lying, bullshitting, and false statements. With this reminder, let us turn to the translation in question. The translation reads:

“Another noteworthy source on this matter is an article by Max Black called ‘The Prevalence of Trickery, Deceit, and Lying.’ But I am still not sure to what extent the meaning of trickery and lying is close to the meaning of ‘talking nonsense’?” (Elāheh Hāeri Hāshemi, p. 19)

Let us look at the original text:

“Another worthwhile source is the title essay in The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black. I am uncertain just how close in meaning the word Humbug is to the word bullshit.” (P. 118)

As you can see, the translator has rendered the word Humbug as “trickery, deceit, and lying.” That is, completely indifferent to the difference between these terms! Essentially, the translator has no idea that lying differs from trickery. The philosopher Frankfurt, in the book On Bullshit, tries to analyze the difference between humbug and bullshit, and the translator, who chose a three-word equivalent for humbug, realizes midway that, no, she cannot translate Frankfurt’s words with these three terms, and suddenly, without informing the reader, decides midway to insert the word itself in English into the text instead of translating it, abandoning her own fabricated equivalent. However, she sometimes writes “humbug,” sometimes “hāmbāg,” and sometimes “trickery, deceit, and lying,” and even other equivalents. Earlier we encounter such phrases as:

“Humbug: deceptive misrepresentation, deceitful rhetoric that is ‘a hair’s breadth’ away from ‘lying’.” (Elāheh Hāshemi Hāeri, p. 20)

Given that all the bizarre punctuation is the translator’s handiwork, let us see the original text:

"Humbug: deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying. . ."(P.118)

As you can see, the author explicitly states that humbug is "short of lying," and the translator can no longer use the equivalent "trickery, fraud, and lying" for it, which is why he has changed his mind, abandoned the aforementioned equivalent, and sometimes substitutes "humbug" for it. At times, he even conflates its definition with its equivalent and writes "deceptive misrepresentation" instead!

But to grasp how much the translator knows about philosophy, there is no need for such subtleties. Any first-semester philosophy student, and even any ordinary speaker of the language, intuitively knows the logical difference between the connective "or" (disjunction, as logicians call it) and the connective "and" (conjunction, as logicians call it). Yet the translator, throughout the work, with his usual ease, oversimplification, and carelessness, blithely translates "or" as "and/or"! Observe:

"To put it more simply, he can be called an example of a person who is also concerned about his report, whose content may be true and/or false (a lie) . . ." (p. 60)

One cannot say the content of a report is "true and/or false." For in logic, a proposition cannot be true "and/or" false. Rather, it can be true or false. The connective "and/or" is among the newly invented logical connectives by the translator. Moreover, interestingly, as is evident from the above translation, after all the analyses and distinctions the author has discussed in the text, the translator still has not understood that false and lie are different, and once again has placed lie in parentheses opposite false.[7]

4- Meaningless and Extravagant Additions to the Translation:

It is evident throughout the book that the translator has neither a sound knowledge of the source and target languages nor of the subject matter. But I suspect there is a bigger problem at hand. In the translated text, one can frequently find sentences, clauses, and even pages that do not exist in the original text and that the translator himself has added to the text! Look at these utterly meaningless and useless lines:

" . . .for example, I say to you, did you give the 'ghaz' to the 'ghaz'? For someone who does not know that the goose is the only bird that pecks and bites the fingers of the feeder or the hand of the feeder, and if this statement is only said orally and is not written down, how is the listener to know what is meant by this sentence? It very often happens that people have absolutely no idea what the point of this question is? The point here is that they are asking a high-ranking judicial figure, have you given 'judgeship' to the 'goose'? And since this habit among birds is limited only to the goose, the speaker's meaning is that you have entrusted the task of judging to an unworthy individual, that the said individual lacks outstanding and good character and standing; both the words 'ghaz' and 'ghaz' are homophonous, and how is the listener to know that the first 'ghaz' means 'judgeship' and the second 'ghaz' is the bird." (Elaheh Hashemi Haeri, p. 21).

I know you will not believe it until you see it with your own eyes, but the above drivel is in no way present in the original text of the book, and not only that, but you will not even find anything resembling it in the text of the book!!!

Look again:

"Of course, words and terms can be freely used anywhere, but the displacement of words may cause trouble, and it is quite clear that any word may be used in a different sense" (Elaheh Haeri Hashemi, p. 19)

"Words can be freely used anywhere" ??? I doubt any writer other than the translator of our book would do such a thing. Grasp the original text with this explanation that the author is talking about the difference between the word bullshit and humbug, and the sentence is not at the beginning of a paragraph but in the middle of it:

"Of course, the words are not freely and fully interchangeable; it is clear that they are used differently." (P. 118)

which means: “Of course, these words cannot be used freely and completely interchangeably. It is clear that their usage differs.”

Our translator should know that the very point at issue is that, contrary to their assumption, “words and terms” cannot be used freely and arbitrarily anywhere.

But as I go a little further, I encounter another astonishing point. Up to this point, I had thought I was dealing with a translation of the book On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt, as stated on the book’s cover and as the translator has explicitly said in the preface to their masterpiece, which I will examine later. Granted, this translation is erroneous and exorbitant. But suddenly and unexpectedly, I come across these lines:

“I must point out that humbug, while possessing many of the characteristics of a lie, is at the same time devoid of many others. ‘Harry Frankfurt,’ the author of the book, goes into the details between lying and bullshit and is so immersed in explaining the psychological details between a liar and their differences from someone who constantly talks nonsense that it leaves the reader in wonder” (Elaheh Hashemi Haeri, p. 23)

The translator suddenly and without warning decides, in the middle of the text, to stop translating and, with their exemplary knowledge, to expound upon the views of the philosopher Frankfurt?!!! Yes, that is correct, and a few lines later they decide again to return to the realm of “translation.” Never mind that it is unlikely anyone would continue reading the book up to page 23 to reach the translator’s masterpiece and enjoy their transitions from “translation” to “authorship” and vice versa. What the translator has rendered is, more or less, one of two things. Either it is not present in the original text, or, if it is, it has been translated incorrectly.

I think it has become clear by now that the buyer’s time and money have been utterly wasted. I suspect the translation in question has established an interesting connection with Harry Frankfurt’s arguments in this very book. What Frankfurt means by a bullshitter is a person who is not particularly concerned with the truth or correctness of what they say. People have obligations when communicating with others. One of the duties of every participant in a conversation is to be mindful of the truth or falsity of their words. Of course, the fact that someone is deeply concerned about the truthfulness of their statements does not guarantee that their statements will turn out to be entirely correct, but at least they will not utter bullshit. A statement may well be true yet be bullshit, and a statement may be false yet not be bullshit, because the speaker has carefully weighed it, measured it on the scales of common sense, and then uttered it, but, as it happens, their calculations turned out to be mistaken or they overlooked a point in their reckoning. Naturally, Frankfurt distinguishes not only between bullshitting and false speech, but also between bullshitting and lying. “The liar is perfectly capable of telling the truth, but has simply decided not to. In fact, the liar and the truth-teller are playing opposite sides in the same game, whereas the bullshitter, while pretending to be a partner in their game, is essentially playing a different game altogether.”[8]. However, certain economic and political enterprises sometimes pave the way for bullshitting and listening to bullshit. For instance, imagine going out into the street with a microphone and asking everyone and anyone, “What is your opinion on yellowcake?” or “Do you think relations with such-and-such a country are desirable for us or not?” Under these conditions, you open the path to bullshitting, because you compel people who have not the slightest knowledge or familiarity with the subject to speak about it. Hence, one can speak of the political economy of bullshitting, though not within the limited scope of our discussion. It is clear that the translation in question is a bullshit translation, precisely in the sense intended by Harry Frankfurt. That is, a translation with errors of every hue, whose translator was never concerned with the truth of what they were putting down on paper (truth in the sense that their translation conveys the words of the original book’s author). Perhaps the apparatus of academic publishing is not without blame in promoting such bullshit translations. The book was printed in a run of 1,650 copies and has squandered several million tomans in economic, human, and natural capital. The paper leaves on which such nonsense and bullshit are printed were once beautiful trees of nature and had many benefits. Perhaps the real problem of the translator and the author lies in ethics. Perhaps the translator did not know that having their name appear on the cover of a book at the cost of pretending to know things of which they had not the faintest scent is not ethically permissible. Perhaps the publisher does not know that it would have been more ethical (and indeed more economical) to assess the quality of the work before bringing it out by paying a fee to an expert, instead of squandering capital. The said book was supposed to be a translation of Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit, whereas it bears not the slightest relation to it, except to make one loathe that book.

I still cannot bring myself to let go of this translation. So let me make one final point. I claimed that the translation in question is, in precisely the sense intended by the philosopher Frankfurt, entirely bullshit and fit for the bin. But the translator is a master not only of rendering bullshit but also of writing it. How so? The book contains an introduction penned by the translator herself (do not be astonished! In the manner of the literati and scholars of our time, the translator has also written an introduction to a book she did not know how to read). The introduction is about three pages long, but three pages worth reading, titled “The First Word.” The translator says she bought Frankfurt’s book at Frankfurt Airport! and finished reading it right there. In one part of her note, we read:

“A lady with an infant in her arms sat in the seat opposite me, took her mobile phone out of her bag, and since she was speaking English, I naturally heard . . .” (Elaha Hashemi Haeri, p. 4)

They have written, “since she was speaking English, I heard.” To be honest, until today I had assumed that whether we hear a sound depends on the frequency of the speaker’s voice, not on the language they are speaking. They probably should have written, “since she was speaking English, I understood,” which then, perhaps, given what I have demonstrated, could be doubted from another angle.

Or, for example, the translator, in her introduction, mentions the English equivalents of Polish, Dutch, German, Spanish, Japanese, etc. words in parentheses opposite them! (Probably to show off her linguistic prowess, cf. p. 6, Elaheh Haeri Hashemi). And there are many such bizarre instances. In another short note she has added to the beginning of the book, she provides an important explanation, part of which we shall read:

". . . in American society, and especially in smaller communities, regarding the presentation of various goods, this lecture has truly been 'apt' and positive. In any case, this lecture is 'specific' to American society and perhaps does not carry much weight in other societies." (Elaheh Hashemi Haeri, p. 8, the strange and inappropriate use of quotation marks is the translator's own)

The translator, who is never suspicious of herself or her own situation, constantly emphasizes that these matters have nothing to do with her or her society and apply to America. It is for this reason that in the translated text she has repeatedly inserted the phrase "we Americans," with or without brackets. In any case, whatever it is, it stems from the incongruous and misshapen stature of others, and by the irony of fate, this is quite evident from her translation.

At the end of the introduction, it states:

"But I enjoyed reading this book and I hope you enjoy it too" (Elaheh Haeri Hashemi, p. 7)

We said an amen and derived an enjoyment beyond reckoning. However, if the readers of this piece are inclined to enjoy themselves further, let them first refer to the translation itself, for, as they say, hearing is one thing and seeing quite another! But unalloyed pleasure is not to be found in this mortal world. If you become thoroughly intoxicated from reading the translation and the next day a hangover seizes you, simply Google Elaheh Haeri Hashemi to discover she has translated (and even authored) other books. One is called The Formation of Modern Thoughts, published by the same Elmi Publishing. I, for one, went to get the publisher's number to order this book. The rest is up to you[9]!

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[1] Harry G. Frankfurt

[2] distorted

[3] This text can be found in at least two places. One is as an article among the essays in the following book (I refer to this source):

"On Bullshit." The Importance of What We Care About, P. 117, Cambridge University Press.

And the other is in the form of a standalone book with the following details, which is exactly identical to the text published in the above book, and I have personally verified this:

On Bullshit, Harry Frankfurt, Princeton University Press.

[4] The editor I told you about is my dear friend Reza Dehghan, who drew my attention to a point: that comparative and superlative adjectives in English are not necessarily equivalent to these types of adjectives in Persian. As is evident, if in the above text the superlative adjective 'most hidden' in English were rendered as a simple/absolute adjective in Persian (= more hidden), it would sit better and the statement would gain more force.

[5] In Greek mythology, Procrustes had an iron bed on which he would lay people down. If they were shorter than the bed, he would stretch them, and if they were taller, he would cut off their legs, thus making them fit the size of his bed. Procrustean is derived from this name, meaning to forcibly make something fit with something else. Figuratively, it means to do something in a contrived manner. And the irony of fate is that this word is used in a text whose translator has made the translated text her own Procrustean bed, inflicting wounds and giving contrived twists and turns to the sentences of the book On Bullshit to tailor this work to the stature of her own inarticulate mind and language.

[6] Sometimes this very simple point has led translators astray. For example, the intelligent and erudite translator Mir Shamseddin Adib-Soltani translated a book by Bertrand Russell entitled Philosophical Essays (Amir Kabir Publications). This book has a chapter called On the nature of truth and falsehood, and in translating the title, Adib-Soltani rendered the word falsehood as lying. It is more precise in philosophical texts (and especially analytic philosophy) to translate this word as falsity or falsehood, whose opposite is truth, and to reserve lying for the word lying, whose opposite is truthfulness or honesty. This is because later analytic philosophers seek to distinguish between falsity and lying, and have consequently developed various theories about lying.

[7] Those familiar with the texts of philosophers know well that they sometimes use this form in their writings: "and/or". This, of course, is very different from what our translator does, and means that the sentence can be read with both the conjunction "and" and the conjunction "or".

[8] I took this part from Linda Zagzebski's book, in her description of Frankfurt's On Bullshit. See Epistemology, Linda Zagzebski, translated by Kaveh Behbahani, Ney Publishing, pp. 43 and 44.

[9] Finally, I am grateful to my learned friend Ali Salehi and Dr. Hassan Eslami, who read the above text and pointed out many very useful points. More importantly, they reduced the text's nervous tone, and furthermore, Mr. Salehi informed me that the translator in question also has authored works, and interestingly, another critic has written an article about one of her compositions (Greek Philosophy from Another Perspective, written by Elaheh Hashemi Haeri, Meshkoh Publications, 1994) and has shown that one of her books is plagiarized from an Arabic book, and with a flawed translation at that. Mr. Salehi was kind enough to provide me with this article as well. The details of this article are as follows:

Translation or Compilation?, Mohammad Mohammad Rezaei, Ayeneh Pazhoohesh, Mehr and Aban 1995, No. 34.

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A Critique of the Persian Translation of On Bullshit by Elaheh Hashemi Haeri

Critic: Kaveh Behbahani (Translator and Philosophy Researcher)

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