The rise of untruth in politics has mostly been met by a stout defense of a robust notion of truth and an equally robust notion of the sciences. Yet all too often, this answer sacrifices the results of critically examinations of actual practices in the sciences and humanities.
My article “Critical Theory and Political Epistemology. Six Theses on Untruth in Politics” outlines a response for critical theories that enables them to defend truth and objectivity against organized climate change denialists or political propagandists without embracing a naïve positivism about ‘the scientific method’ or objectivity.
The article is published in a special issue of Azimuth. Philosophical Coordinates in Modern and Contemporary Age on the topic “Critical Theory Today: An Old Paradigm for New Challenges?”, edited by Gianluca Cavallio and Giorgo Fazio. THere are plenty of more interesting articles in the issue:
Azimuth 16
Vera King: Psyche and Society in Critical Theory and Contemporary Social Research. With Special Reference to Horkheimer/Adorno and Bourdieu
Ferdinand Sutterlüty: Reconstructive Critique: A Demonstration Encompassing Two Areas of Research
Katia Genel: On Some »Pathologies« of Democracy: Authoritarianism, Prejudice, Populism. Towards a Critical Theory of Democracy?
Claudia Leeb: The Right Extremist Identitarian Movement in Europe: A Critical Theory Analysis
Jan-Philipp Kruse: Reason, Religion and the Crisis of Social Semantics: Habermas’ Philosophy of Religion as a Guardrail for Derailing Modernity
Rodrigo Duarte: Culture Industry Once Again Reconsidered: Adorno’s Critique and Thereafter
Carl Cassegård: Is Dialectics Applicable to Nature? The »Lukács Problem« and the Critical Theory of Nature
Emmanuel Renault: Suffering at Work as Epistemological and Political Problem
Gonςalo Marcelo: Tasks for a Critical Theory of Democracy in Europe
Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod: Relire Adorno et Horkheimer après Axel Honneth? L’actualité de la théorie critique francfortoise
Emmanuel Charreau: Reconnaissance, conflit et servitude. Perspectives lefortiennes sur la théorie de la reconnaissance
Felipe Torres: Eindimensionalität zwischen Homogenität und Heterogenität. Marcuse und Bataille