The Truths of Psychoanalysis

Truth has always been a central philosophical category, occupying different fields of knowledge and practice. In the current moment of fake news and alternative facts, it is mandatory to revisit the various meanings of truth. Departing from various approaches to psychoanalytic theory and practice, the authors gathered in this book offer critical reflections and insights about truth and its effects. In articulations of psychoanalysis with (for instance) philosophy, ethics and politics, the reader will find discussions about issues such as knowledge, love, and clinical practice, all marked by the matter of truth.

Identity Politics and the Politics of Learning

How can faculty assist and equip students to become more “critical consumers” of the information they receive in a culture and climate of alternative facts and multiple truths? With increasing differences in political views informing “truth perspectives,” the shift in what is quickly becoming normalized as a form of appropriate discourse has fostered a culture of entitlement that lends support to voicing critique without critical inquiry. In this article, we examine the multiple and intersecting systems of power and privilege. The recognition of contradictory subjective locations occupied by all the participants in the classroom, including the instructor, are discussed. As practitioners seeking more effective forms of dialogue and engagement, we challenge conventional hegemonic discourses of difference and stereotypical representations within learning by questioning identity politics within the politics of learning and by examining the clashes between discourse and policy in the university classroom.

Memetic rhetorical theory: an analytic model for the spread of information online

Modern discourse is often characterized by such extreme polarization that participants operate from entirely different sets of facts. These alternative facts represent a new line of inquiry for rhetoricians, who must determine how false facts gain credibility. This article outlines Memetic Rhetorical Theory (MRT), a model for understanding how information evolves to become credible in a given environment.

Science-utility and science-trust associations and how they relate to knowledge about how science works

Knowledge about how science works, trust in scientists, and the perceived utility of science currently appear to be eroding in these times in which “alternative facts” or personal experiences and opinions are used as arguments. Yet, in many situations, it would be beneficial for the individual and all of society if scientific findings were considered in decision-making. For this to happen, people have to trust in scientists and perceive science as useful. Still, in university contexts, it might not be desirable to report negative beliefs about science. In addition, science-utility and science-trust associations may differ from explicit beliefs because associations were learned through the co-occurrence of stimuli rather than being based on propositional reasoning. We developed two IATs to measure science-utility and science-trust associations in university students and tested the psychometric properties and predictive potential of these measures. In a study of 261 university students, the IATs were found to have good psychometric properties and small correlations with their corresponding self-report scales. Science-utility and science-trust associations predicted knowledge about how science works over and above self-reported beliefs. The results suggest that indirect measures are useful for assessing beliefs about science and can be used to predict outcome measures.

Confronting the Ideology Behind the Post-Truth Phenomenon: Outlining a Public Theology of Ultimate Concern

The neologism ‘post-truth’ was declared to be ‘the word of the year’ in 2016 by the Oxford Dictionary. It came to prominence in the presidential election of that year in the United States and during the Brexit referendum. It represents the eclipse of a sense of shared objective truths and has become associated with terms like ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ – and, with reference to Covid-19, conspiracy theories. The purpose of this article is to provide a theological engagement with this phenomenon; it does so by making a distinction between two types of response in the extant literature. Moreover, it offers a critique on the basis of theories of ideology and politics and draws upon the theology of Paul Tillich to offer a constructive proposal.

Hermeneutics in an Age of Alternative Facts, Fake News, and Climate Change Denial

A Review of Clingerman, F., Treanor, B., Drenthen, M., and Utsler, D. (Eds.) Interpreting Nature: The emerging field of environmental hermeneutics.

Alternative Facts in Musicology and Vechnaya Pamyat' in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5

The assertions, refutations, and counter-refutations concerning two core pieces of Richard Taruskin’s studies on Russian music—Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5—provide a starting point for discussion about the possibilities, limits, and obligations of musicological interpretation. Moreover, an important aspect of the discussion is the phenomenon of “alternative facts,” both in publication and in pedagogy, and possibly in music itself. Taruskin argues against the logical fallacies of overly specific or overly simplistic interpretations, but hesitates to fully interpret certain music himself, thereby participating in the web of alternative facts. Taruskin refutes popular myths about biographical meanings in Tchaikovsky’s symphony, but in so doing, also seems to reject a tragic reading of any kind. He explains away various musical structures and extroversive references, but fails to explore why those elements are in fact present. As for Shostakovich’s symphony, Taruskin notes its saturation with musical topics, but ignores their allusive specificity, downplaying their significance altogether for what he calls their transferability. Yet Taruskin himself identifies an allusion to a specific Orthodox hymn, and therefrom draws specific conclusions. His evidence for calling the passage a “literal imitation” is actually flawed, but a truly literal quotation of this very hymn may be present throughout the entire symphony, and may act as a sort of species of alternative fact itself. In any case, something that specific, and its placement in the symphonic structure, deserve notice and demand specificity of interpretation.

What is It Like To Be a Bat in the Time of Covid-19, or How Many Pandemics Could We Have?

In these paired years (2020–2021), the whole world has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has resulted in the emergence of different presumptions, alternative facts, and fake news. Among those, the most dominant news was about bats as the culprits of expansion of the virus and, indirectly, the Chinese diet as the root cause. However, there is no proof that the links in the triangle of bat-virus-human are valid; and the source of infection has not been identified. In addition to bats, these viruses can be found in other animals, such as camels, pangolins, and humans. Therefore, individual scientists are reversing the situation by presenting the possibility of transmitting the virus from humans to animals. Nevertheless, it has become ultimately ‘acceptable’ to demonise the bat. In this respect, various authors remind us of certain historical contexts of notions and perceptions of the bats, as well as the similarities and differences of those perceptions during the pandemic, referring to it mainly in the context of Croatia and the world. In the end, the article’s conclusion is that the story about the bats is, actually, a great indicator of the representations of Otherness and the strengthening of a binary and hierarchical division of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

On Some Political Euphemisms in the Post-Truth Era (a Case Study of the English Language)

Th paper focuses on the euphemisms “terminological inexactitude”, “to be economical with the truth” and “alternative facts” in English political discourse of the post-truth era. Ths period is characterised by certain linguistic means, and euphemisation plays an important role here. It is shown that in the post-truth era, where borders between truth and lies are blurred, these euphemisms synonymous with the nouns “lie” are of particular relevance in political communication. Th euphemism “terminological inexactitude” still serves as a metaphor of lying originally determined by speech etiquette and historical traditions, which is the case, for example, during the debates in the British parliament, where there is an offial list of taboo words and expressions referred to as unparliamentary language. However, the other two euphemisms partly change their functionality. In the post-truth world, the expressions “economical with the truth” and “alternative facts” are used by the speaker to deliberately distort reality and conceal the truth rather than to follow the rules of politically correct speech.