.

             It is ironic there is so much bullshit in the discussion of Frankfurt's theory of identification, since it was he who made himself famous with his provocatively entitled tract "On Bullshit" (Frankfurt 1986). While he does not fall prey to his own definition of bullshit, which he sees as a cavalier disregard for telling the truth, to be distinguished from lying (in which the liar has a great concern for the truth to the extent that he intends to not tell it) or humbug (in which the intent is to appear virtuous rather than to specifically lie), all four of these writers fall prey to the popular, conventional meaning of the term.

             There is a great deal of intellectual pomposity, vanity, ego, and effete intellectualizing, with each writer all the while effusing a smug presumption of his own brilliance due to his demonstrable ability to juggle concepts and speak in rarefied jargon. The problem with this vacuous and almost (but not entirely) meaningless activity is that it lacks the very ingredient that all great philosophers from Socrates to Nietzsche have had: the ability to perceive deeply and originally, and to express it clearly.

             The discussion of identification theories by Frankfurt, Bratman, Watson, and Vellemon consists of making fine verbal distinctions with little or no resonance of larger meaning. It is as ingrown as a philosophical toenail. It is as sterile as the meaninglessly elaborate exercises in poetic form that prospective Confucian bureaucrats were expected to master in order to be hired in medieval China. .

             The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts Frankfurt's concept of self-integration under the rubric of integrity, although the former does not specifically address himself to that issue. .

             "According to Frankfurt, desires and volitions (acts of will) are arranged in a hierarchy. First-order desires are desires for various goods; second-order desires are desires that one desire certain goods, or that one act on one first-order desire rather than another.