If you ask what fake news is, many people will have an answer. Nevertheless, I think that a correct reply to this question is not easy. It’s not simply so that fake news is a message or generally a fact that is said to be true although actually it is false. For example, if in the 13th century someone would have said that the earth revolves around the sun, probably he would have been accused of bringing fake news. Maybe he would even be sentenced to the stake for that view. At least in Europe this could happen. In the 17th century, however, there were already many people who believed that the statement was true, although in some countries it was still dangerous to say so (see what happened to Galileo). Now in the 21th century almost everybody thinks that the statement is true and it is safe to express this view. Nevertheless, people in the 13th century had good reasons to think that it’s not the earth that revolves around the sun, but that’s the other way round. Then (in Europe) the highest authority for truths was the Bible, and hardly anybody called in question what is written in this Holy Book. Today the highest authority is science. This shows that what fake news is, is not only an objective fact but also a social affair.
Here we see that what fake news is, is determined by two factors: Its truth and its relation with other statements that are considered to be true. However, both factors are problematic, for when do we call a statement true? There are several definitions of “true” (or “truth”). The most accepted definition says that a statement is true, if it corresponds to the facts, or, as others say, to the actual state of affairs. But how do we know what the facts are or what is actual? Here we have a problem. In short it is this: In order to know what a fact is, we must now what is true, and in order to know what is true, we must know what the facts are. The circle is round. You might try to solve the problem by developing reliable measures instruments, but even then the question remains when we consider instruments reliable. Another way to solve the problem is saying that the search for truth has a long history and that we must try to relate new statements to the already established facts in order to find out whether they are true. If a new statement coheres with the old truths, it’s probably also true, if it doesn’t it is apparently false. However, does it get us any further? For in medieval Europe what the Bible said was considered true, so seen that way the idea that the sun revolves around the earth was correct. Today we say that it is false.
Gradually I have come to discuss already the second factor just mentioned that determines whether a statement is fake or fact: Its relation with other statements that are considered to be true. This leads us to another theory of truth: A statement is true not if it corresponds to the facts, but if it properly fits with a system of coherent facts that have been accepted on reasonable grounds. However, also this approach is problematic, for also here the question arises what makes us accept a system of coherent facts. Also here the circle is round. Nevertheless, I think that there is an elegant solution of this circularity problem. Actually it combines both views on truth just discussed and it leads to a kind of spiral idea of truth: Karl R. Poppers idea of error elimination. Represented schematically it goes this way:
P1 > T1 > E > T2 > P2.
P1 is a problem
we want to discuss. Then we form an idea (statement, theory) how things might be
arranged (T1). Next we test the idea with what we consider reliable means, such
as an experiment, in order to judge whether it holds. If not, we eliminate the
idea as being false. If it holds, we add it to the existing stock of knowledge,
which leads to an improved or extended theory (T2). Our knowledge has reached a
higher level, so to speak. It has spiralled upward. Now the process can start
anew with P2.So far, so good. For this works for science where we have time, means and money to test statements, but not in daily life where these sources are often scarce. Even so, I think that what I have written here can be used as a guideline to judge what is fake and what is fact, if critically applied. The central questions are: What is the established stock of facts and what does a new view or statement add to it? Can it be fit into the established stock? Does it undermine established facts, and if so do we have reasons to belief that it undermines these facts on good grounds? Actually, this is the only thing the average citizen can do but it is at least something she or he can do in order to distinguish fact from fake.
Sources
- Karl R. Popper,
Objective Knowledge. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979; p. 164.
- My blog “Why
it is good to make a bad plan”, dated 13 July 2015.
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