Wars on Truth

This is the Introduction of a paper I am working on (a bit aside of what I usually do; feel free to comment):

Truth is one of those things that make a lot of noise by their absence. The cacophony around it comes as no surprise because we are supposedly in a “post-truth era, where ‘alternative facts’ replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence” (McIntyre 2018). The election of Donald Trump has revived old philosophical debates about truth. The New York Times—now displaying the slogan “The truth is worth it”, while the April 3, 2017, edition of the Times bears the headline “Is Truth Dead?”—maintains that Trump told “public lies or falsehoods” almost every day since he took office, while reporting that his lawyer

publicly said that “Truth isn’t truth,” and that his administration hired individuals close to the President who have been recently charged with making materially false statements.

Philosophers and other intellectuals have said a whole lot about truth. From Socrates onward the question was to determine what exactly this concept is that everybody seems to approve or aim to achieve. The propositions have been numerous but the lack of consensus appears to amount to the most basic failure, because we lose sight of what we really want to achieve and of what is really the object of our approval. In the last century or so, many philosophers associated with an intellectual tradition close to relativism, social constructivism and postmodernism have come to defend a deflationary stance on truth, somewhat lowering the case for certainty and objectivity. All of this could just be a matter of speech if it were not for the real consequences that this failure has emboldened. In effect, absence of agreement about truth is one major reason for all kinds of abuses in politics.

Some other philosophers closer to the scientific tradition, with its influence on policy, have defended what they identify as the role of truth in politics. For instance, the American philosopher Daniel Dennett found the culprits for this post-truth era in postmodernists who are allegedly “responsible for the intellectual fad that made it respectable to be cynical about truth and facts” (The Guardian, Feb. 2017). He thus “begrudge[s] every hour that [he has] to spend worrying about political issues” and bemoans the demise of truth in the politics of Trump. This is one example among many. While the opinions of philosophers about truth and politics often diverge, they can have a truly important influence on how truth is perceived, understood and instrumentalized in social life in general and in politics in particular. Two examples from the left are most telling.

Gianni Vattimo is emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Turin and a member of the European Parliament who published in 2011 A Farewell to Truth, in which he contends that “truth as absolute objective correspondence […] is more a danger than a blessing.” According to him, modern politics never abandoned the notion of truth as correspondence to reality and that is the reason why we cannot have a true democracy. Therefore, “truth” should be abandoned.

Pulitzer Prize winner Michiko Kakutani recently published a book called The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump in which she depicts the epistemic crisis we live in. This crisis emerged from anti-intellectualism, post-modernism and paranoia, and celebrates subjectivity with “the diminution of objective truth.” While reminding us that two of the most monstrous regimes in human history came to power in the twentieth century by being predicated upon the violation and despoiling of truth, she contends that without it “democracy is hobbled.” Therefore, “truth” should be re-conquered.

The more recent attacks on truth, especially in American politics with the ascent of Trump, have arguably come from the populist right, and globally with figures such as Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsanaro and Narendra Modi. However, the Left also participates in this masquerade, especially in what could be seen as exaggerations from certain academic circles (close to Vattimo for example). What explains these wars on truth? Postmodernism is an obvious culprit. Perhaps like the Loch Ness monster, many think they have seen it but each provides a different description of it. A conceptual distinction from philosopher Richard Rorty (1989), often associated with this école de pensée, between two stances called “solidarity” and “objectivity,” is useful in understanding why both ‘slayers’ and ‘defenders’ of “truth” are found across the political spectrum, but also how, if ever, a truce can be instituted.

Accordingly, this paper falls into the domain of political epistemology, which is the theory of knowledge applied to our political lives. The first section is devoted to a broad presentation of the concept of truth. It then presents Vattimo’s and Kakutani’s position on truth. The fifth section interprets the quarrels over truth in politics with Rorty’s distinction, while the sixth section attempts to explain why both the Left and the Right have come to “fight” with it. The last section sketches the conditions for truce over truth between the solidarity” and “objectivity” stances.