The Post-Truth Kerfuffle

Susan Haack, who is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts & Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law, at the University of Miami, talks with Angela Tan about how and when we know.

- Angela Tan

Professor Haack, you've argued that the proliferation of falsehoods and half-truths fosters a “deep-seated mistrust of everything others tell us.” How do you see this erosion of trust affecting how people engage with truth claims in everyday life? And in contexts where skepticism is both necessary and potentially corrosive, how can we encourage more careful discernment of truth without undermining meaningful communication?

I’m glad to see you understand that the ‘post-truth’ claim is both a claim about the proliferation of lies, half-truths, and so on, and a claim about the disillusionment with the concept of truth that this has engendered in some people. Sad to say, some in mainstream neo-analytic philosophy have used the post-truth idea as an excuse to argue and re-argue their old disputes about which kind of theory of truth is preferable, the minimalist or the substantialist. But this is not the key issue. There certainly are many, many outright lies, half-truths, evasions, etc, in the news media, in academia, and, indeed, everywhere these days. And, yes, it's all too easy to just decide to believe nothing that you read or hear. But that would cut you off from the useful information that's out there among the garbage. So what I think we have to do is to decide what topics or questions are most important for us or to us, and concentrate our attention on sifting the good stuff from the bad in communications on those topics.

It’s also wise to cultivate the habit of curiosity, when, for example, headlines strike you as puzzling. For instance, on the front page of a recent