How Post-Truth Affects Experts
Summary
Many academics argue that we are now living in a Post-Truth world, where truth, and those whose job it is to share it, are becoming overlooked in favour of political lies and propaganda. The aim of this thesis is to propose an account of how Post-Truth negatively affects experts, as informants of truth, from a socially epistemological perspective. I will focus on outlining what an expert is by attributing them to the specific role of being good informants, and demonstrating how that relies on the transmission of justified testimony. I will then draw attention to three features of Post-Truth that I find the most damaging and relevant (misinformation, echo chambers and polarization), and the manner that they affect experts through their impact on the hearers of testimony. I lastly introduce some practical examples and arguments to demonstrate how exactly Post-Truth negatively affects experts and their role.