Open AccessLife and Truth
Author(s) -
Hugo Strandberg
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
nordic wittgenstein review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2194-6825
pISSN - 2242-248X
DOI - 10.15845/nwr.v8i0.3501
Subject(s) - self deception , deception , existentialism , epistemology , psychology , isolation (microbiology) , phenomenon , order (exchange) , social psychology , philosophy , finance , microbiology and biotechnology , economics , biology
The “post-truth” phenomenon is not primarily a cognitive problem, but a moral or existential problem, a problem of self-deception. But what does this mean? In order to clarify that, two things need to be discussed. First, if the conception of belief is rejected according to which a belief has sense in isolation from the roles it, and the holding of it, plays in our lives, then the problem of self-deception needs to be met as a problem of life. Second, a problem of life is not something that individuals get into all by themselves. In other words, ways of living can be self-deceptive. The task of the text is hence to discuss some of the ways in which truth, belief and self-deception unfold on this non-individual level, specifically on the political one.
Keywords: post-truth, self-deception, belief, democracy, Simone Weil