Post-Truth

Overthink

Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Education

4.7 • 549 Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With conspiracy theories, fake news, and anti-science rhetoric everywhere, we are living in an age of post-truth. In episode 137 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the meaning of truth in our contemporary political and social landscape and how post-truth has increased in the recent years. How do phenomena like opinion overload, news fatigue, and information overload contribute to the spread of post truth? And are we really “post” truth, or do we simply live in an age of “many” truths? Ellie and David explore different conceptions of truth, the differences between misinformation and disinformation, and between lying and bullshitting. And what’s the connection between post-truth and postmodernism? Have so-called “pomo professors” contributed to the rise of political dishonesty and deception? In the bonus, your hosts talk about Michael Hannon’s article “The Politics of Post-Truth” and consider whether “post-truth” is even the right word for the crisis we’re facing.

Works Discussed:
Max Black, “The Prevalence of Humbug”
Harry Frankfurt, “On Bullshit”
Ralph Keyes, The Post-Truth Era
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition
Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth
David M. Peña-Guzmán and Rebekah Spera, “The anatomy of a philosophical hoax: The politics of delegitimation in contemporary philosophy”
Simon Truwant, De waarheid heeft vier gezichten

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Overthink.
0:19.8	The podcast where two philosophers help you sift the truth from the bullshit.
0:25.0	I'm Dr. David Pena Guzman.
0:26.7	And I'm Dr. Ellie Anderson.
0:28.9	We are living in a post-truth era.
0:33.9	Politicians can seemingly say anything and get away with it these days.
0:37.7	We have all sorts of misinformation being spouted by randos online.
0:42.2	I was just hearing on NPR recently about how much women's health information is being, or women's health misinformation is being spread on TikTok, all kinds of myths about birth control
0:55.9	and food, really scary stuff on social media, right?
0:59.2	Like there's a ton of this.
1:01.5	YouTube and podcasts our mati are also absolutely not innocent.
1:08.8	Podcasting arguably helped inaugurate our current political situation, our current
1:14.5	administration, where Post-Truth is, you know, really off to the races. And the line between
1:19.9	fact and fiction, I would say, hasn't so much blurred has been rendered moot, at least according
1:26.1	to theorists of the post-truth era. I think you're right that it has been rendered moot, at least according to theorists of the post-truth era.
1:29.1	I think you're right that it has been rendered moot.
1:31.0	And there is no shortage of examples of what post-truth looks like.
1:36.2	It goes all the way from truly unhinged conspiracy theories that violate even the most basic
1:43.2	loss of common sense, all the way to
1:46.2	people in positions of power, especially politicians, peddling claims that are straight
1:52.1	up false and easily falsifiable.
1:55.1	So here I'm thinking about all the things that have been in the news cycle in the last few
	...

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