More than a reiteration of old quarrels about the epistemic status and policy implications of science studies, post-truth concerns the very statute of reality. Various takes on post-truth focus on sociology of scientific knowledge’s (SSK) symmetry principle, failing to acknowledge how Actor-Network Theory’s generalised symmetry expresses and fosters an intellectual attack on western dualist ontology, connected with the rise of post-Fordist economy and neoliberal rule. The ensuing, novel political rationale gains momentum in the aftermath of 9/11. On this view, more than post-truth, one should talk of pre-emptive truth: the adjustment of words and things, knowledge and reality – beginning with the past – for reactionary purposes. If post-truth may be a fashionable topic of passing relevance, pre-emptive truth is likely to increasingly affect social, and socio-material, affairs. To keep open a possibility of critique, STS should work out a form of perspectivism, steering clear from traditional naturalism, the illusion of a (re)turn to well-guarded cognitive fortresses, and the belief in the guaranteed emancipatory implications of the “democratisation” of science and of the case for the contingency of the encounter of matter and cognition.
Post-truth or pre-emptive truth? STS and the genealogy of the present
Pellizzoni L
2022-01-01
Abstract
More than a reiteration of old quarrels about the epistemic status and policy implications of science studies, post-truth concerns the very statute of reality. Various takes on post-truth focus on sociology of scientific knowledge’s (SSK) symmetry principle, failing to acknowledge how Actor-Network Theory’s generalised symmetry expresses and fosters an intellectual attack on western dualist ontology, connected with the rise of post-Fordist economy and neoliberal rule. The ensuing, novel political rationale gains momentum in the aftermath of 9/11. On this view, more than post-truth, one should talk of pre-emptive truth: the adjustment of words and things, knowledge and reality – beginning with the past – for reactionary purposes. If post-truth may be a fashionable topic of passing relevance, pre-emptive truth is likely to increasingly affect social, and socio-material, affairs. To keep open a possibility of critique, STS should work out a form of perspectivism, steering clear from traditional naturalism, the illusion of a (re)turn to well-guarded cognitive fortresses, and the belief in the guaranteed emancipatory implications of the “democratisation” of science and of the case for the contingency of the encounter of matter and cognition.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
