Article ID: CBB195941349

No funeral bells: Public reason in a ‘post-truth’ age (October 2017)

unapi

The label ‘post-truth’ signals for many a troubling turn away from principles of enlightened government. The word ‘post’, moreover, implies a past when things were radically different and whose loss should be universally mourned. In this paper, we argue that this framing of ‘post-truth’ is flawed because it is ahistorical and ignores the co-production of knowledge and norms in political contexts. Debates about public facts are necessarily debates about social meanings, rooted in realities that are subjectively experienced as all-encompassing and complete, even when they are partial and contingent. Facts used in policy are normative in four ways: They are embedded in prior choices of which experiential realities matter, produced through processes that reflect institutionalized public values, arbiters of which issues are open to democratic contestation and deliberation, and vehicles through which polities imagine their collective futures. To restore truth to its rightful place in democracy, governments should be held accountable for explaining who generated public facts, in response to which sets of concerns, and with what opportunities for deliberation and closure.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB195941349/

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Authors & Contributors
Delafontaine, Ramses
Arancibia, Florencia
Crawford, Kate
Saulnier, Katie Michelle
Joly, Yann
Cecilia Passanti
Concepts
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Science and law
Authorities; experts
Technology and government
Expertise
Political activists and activism
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Kenya
Wales
Argentina
Europe
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