The notion of bullshit, discussed by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, is distinct from lying. Frankfurt maintains bullshit is not lying in one distinctive feature:
“it is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.”
The utter conviction of someone who is bullshitting refers to something between convictions, beliefs and lies. Bullshit seems to be a complex distinction between de re and de dicto and interaction with de se: what I say is true and what is in fact true and what I know about myself.
The de re and de dicto distinction has developed a rich literature over the centuries. In some modal logics, de re becomes the technical phrase, “Some x is such that it is necessarily A” and de dicto for “Necessarily, some x is such that it is A”. The distinction has been controversial. For Latitudinarians, de re is a special case of de dicto. A viewpoint that would seem to exclude the possibility of bullshit in quite the manner Frankfurt proposes.
If Frankfurt is correct then bullshit is neither de re nor de dicto which leaves a possibility: de se. Distinguishing between de re and de dicto can be achieved by understanding the holding of self-contradicting thoughts about others.
Frequently superheroes have a dual identity: extraordinary and ordinary. The extraordinary is endowed with special powers. The ordinary has no special powers. Taken de re, the belief that superheroes both have super powers and do not have super powers is untenable. Taken de dicto this becomes tenable when the holder of the attitude does not know that the ordinary and extraordinary persons are the same. This distinction provides a fruitful area for bullshit yet leaves the de se distinction unexplored.
Consider the superhero, drunk after a day of super heroics, watches television and sees something extraordinary being performed by a superhero yet not realising that the person on the screen is themselves. They say, “I would like to shake their hand and pat their back”. The superhero is saying something that is true de re and de dicto. Yet, they are not expressing a desire to shake their own hand. This is the de se distinction: neither de re nor de dicto.
Discovering de se distinctions seems to be where bullshit resides. Discovery seems to be consistent with Frankfurt’s distinctive feature of Bullshit. Making bullshit statements contains something more than a true or false statement to be discovered. Bullshit seems to be a specific form of dispelling ignorance: a lack of self-knowledge around the ordinary and extraordinary vanishing. A transformation completed by apprehending the distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary without de re and de dicto.
Bullshit that transforms a person into a superhero.
So, what does bullshit have to do with Internet Commerce? Quite simple. The distinction between de re and de dicto and de se works perfectly well in the real and substantial world. In the virtual world there is no de re only de dicto. Superheroes get past that distinction and see where the money is and where the money can go to. It is not X-Ray Vision or the ability to Fly. It is patience and the patience to put the Bullshit on the Virtual Roses.
The Superheros are the ones who know where the Roses are.