Can Peirce help us in the Age of Post-Truth?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.362546Keywords:
Peirce, post-truth, fallibilism, realism, postmodernismAbstract
This article examines current problems in communication: the phenomenon of post-truth, epistemic bubbles, and echo chambers, which have contributed greatly to the polarization of societies and threaten democracy. It argues that these phenomena depend, in terms of their philosophical assumptions, on the central tenets of postmodern philosophy: that all reality is socially constructed and infinitely manipulable, and that truth is a useless notion because solidarity is more important than objectivity. The main thesis of the article is that these postmodern assumptions can be dismantled using the philosophy of Charles Peirce. Peirce developed a solid semiotics that gives a prominent place to interpretation and yet is based on a three-category realism that allows each of the assumptions of postmodernism to be addressed from a communitarian epistemology.
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