ABSTRACT
It is important to well-functioning democracies that one has informed citizens, and how this places epistemic demands on one’s society, such as ensuring that there is a free press, that a range of differing viewpoints can be aired (i.e. a right to free speech), and that there is a good education system. Such epistemic conditions on a well-functioning democracy are often under threat. How do we weigh up the need for people to be exposed to a range of different viewpoints with the fact that some of these viewpoints can be offensive? One particularly challenging aspect of this debate concerns how to treat opposing viewpoints that challenge the scientific consensus, such as those who deny evolutionary theory on religious grounds. The challenge posed by such debates is to find a way that we can accord scientific inquiry its epistemically privileged status while at the same time acknowledging that it is a fallible enterprise, and thus that the epistemic benefits of the marketplace of ideas might mean that even proposals that go against the scientific consensus should be tolerated. We examine the notion of bullshit, where this is understood as a philosophical concept. The thing about the bullshitter is not that she is lying but that she doesn’t care about the truth. We examine this notion through the lens of the modern phenomenon of spin, and consider how such a disposition to bullshit is contrary to the intellectual virtues. We consider the contemporary notion of a ‘post-fact’ politics, and what this means in terms of our political climate. We described how a post-fact world could generate the (superficially very different) twin epistemic challenges of relativism and dogmatism. The former is the idea that there is no objective truth since truth is relative. The latter is a certain kind of dialectical stance, whereby one strongly asserts one’s own viewpoint and is unwilling to listen to opposing viewpoints. Finally, we consider the problem of epistemic injustice. This is when certain sectors of society are not afforded the epistemic status that they deserve, and hence their contributions (e.g. their testimony) are routinely downgraded, compared with other, more privileged, sectors of society.
