DEMOCRACY AND TRUTH: A SHORT HISTORY
Book ID/图书代码： 13567918C00002
English Summary/英文概要： "Fake news," wild conspiracy theories, misleading claims, doctored photos, lies peddled as facts, facts dismissed as lies—citizens of democracies increasingly inhabit a public sphere teeming with competing claims and counterclaims, with no institution possessing the authority to settle basic disputes in a definitive way.
The problem may be novel in some of its details—including the role of political leaders, along with broadcast and digital media, in intensifying the epistemic anarchy—but the challenge of determining truth in a democratic world has a backstory. In this lively and illuminating book, historian Sophia Rosenfeld explores a longstanding and largely unspoken tension at the heart of democracy between the supposed wisdom of the crowd and the need for information to be vetted and evaluated by a learned elite made up of trusted experts. What we are witnessing now, under the pressure of populism, is the unraveling of the détente between these competing aspects of democratic culture.
In four bracing chapters, Rosenfeld substantiates her claim by tracing the history of the vexed relationship between democracy and truth. She begins with an examination of the period prior to the eighteenth-century Age of Revolutions, where she uncovers the political and epistemological foundations of our democratic world. Subsequent chapters move from the Enlightenment to the rise of technocratic notions of democracy during the nineteenth century to the troubling trends—including the collapse of social trust—that have led to the rise of our "post-truth" public life. Rosenfeld concludes by offering suggestions for how to defend the idea of an extra-political truth against the forces that would undermine it.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 假新聞、陰謀論、刻意誤導人的言論、遭到篡改的照片、真真假假、假假真真──民主國家的公共領域充斥著越來越多完全相反的主張和互相衝突的言論，而且不再有任何組織或個人有能力以足夠的權威明確地平息爭論。
從細節來看，這個問題也許顯得很新奇──包括當今政治人物們的角色、數位新媒體的崛起、以及越來越盛行的無政府主義知識論（註１）等等──但在民主的世界中到底如何衡量真相，這個問題其實一點都不新，而是有其歷史的淵源。
在這本書中，歷史學者Sophia Rosenfeld為我們揭露了在民主的心臟中存在已久但從未被廣泛討論的兩股力量之間的緊張關係──即所謂的群眾智慧，和認為資訊需要被值得信賴的專家組成的知識菁英審查和評估的概念。而我們現在正目睹這兩股在民主文化中互相較勁的勢力解除緩和狀態，衝突越來越頻繁。
透過四個章節，Rosenfeld循序漸進的追溯了民主與真理之間爭論不休的關係，她首先考察了十八世紀革命時代之前的時期，揭示了民主世界的政治和認識論的基礎哲學；接著，她從啟蒙運動討論到於十九和二十世紀之間興起的民粹主義和技術官僚的概念，並進而探討到現今各種令人不安的趨勢──包括社會信任的崩潰──這導致所謂「後真相」的公共領域的興起，並以我們應如何對抗破壞的力量以捍衛真理的概念作結。
註１：無政府主義知識論（epistemic anarchy）由美國科學哲學界理論家Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994)所提出，他向邏輯實證主義和批判理性主義的方法論提出了挑戰，抨擊唯理主義科學方法論，論證說最成功的科學研究從來不是按照理性方法進行的，不應要求科學家遵奉某一種方法論從事科學活動，而應以「無政府主義知識論」取代「理性主義」，充分發揮科學家的獨創性，倡導著名的「怎麼都行」的方法論原則，在西方學術界影響甚大。
(Zoe)
Awards/获奖情况：
About the Author/作者介绍： Sophia Rosenfeld是賓夕法尼亞大學瓦爾特•安納伯格學院的歷史學教授，著有《常識:政治史》一書，該書獲得了馬克•林頓歷史獎和早期美國共和國史學會圖書獎。
Sophia Rosenfeld is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Common Sense: A Political History, which won the Mark Lynton History Prize and the Society for the History of the Early American Republic Book Prize.
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