The Last Refuge of Scoundrels: The Problem of Truth In A Time of Lying

Abstract

This essay addresses the problem of truth today in light of the common belief, especially among progressives, that we have entered a post-truth age, as well as of the frequent claim that our post-truth society is the fault of postmodernists and their challenge to the objectivity of truth. The essay does not resolve the strategic question whether the post-truth argument is, as a purely tactical political matter, an effective approach to respond to the onslaught of misrepresentations and lies by President Donald Trump and the New Right. Instead, it explores the post-truth argument from a more synoptic perspective regarding the age-old questions surrounding truth and illusions.

Keywords: truth, evidence, post-truth, fake news, alternative facts, truth decay, climate change, Richard Rorty, Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, John Rawls, Nietzsche, Donald Trump, New Right, White Supremacy, epistemology, political theory, ethics, aesthetics, NOMOS