What is a fact today? Facts and Facticity as Cultural Entities

• In Event: 50462 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 12: Trust and Uncertainty

Abstract

The fate of facts is a central concern of contemporary society. Sociological literature on the present crisis of truth and expertise has explored its origins and manifestations, yet often overlooks the shifting meanings of facts and facticity -- understood as the quality of being a fact and epistemic ideal -- in the contemporary public sphere. This paper attempts to fill this gap. Drawing on cross-disciplinary literature, I argue that, to comprehend the so-called post-truth era fully, the epistemological categories of facts and facticity are best understood as cultural entities. They evolve and acquire new meanings in the public sphere as the networks of expertise that sustain them -- and the boundaries between knowledge, technology, and society -- shift in response to broader sociocultural changes. To illustrate this argument, I trace the recent history and evolution of the epistemic practice of fact-checking, which attempts to restore a shared understanding of reality at a time when disagreement thrives. Through an analytical comparison of the most recent iterations of fact-checking on social media platforms from the 2010s to today, I argue that the conditions that led to the present crisis of expertise also engendered changes in what can pass as a fact in the public sphere and that these changes occurred not only in the shift from the turn of the 21st to the post-truth era but also during the post-truth era itself. Ultimately, today facticity comes to reflect the social consensus of an engaged public, with critical social and epistemic implications. The resulting conceptualization of facts helps make sense of the coexistence of facts and alternative facts in the contemporary public sphere.

Author

• Elena De Leo, University of California-San Diego