The art of truth : remarks made between political and legal discourse.

Abstract

In 1873, Nietzsche claimed that a generally and uniformly valid designation is invented for things. This designation has normative force: as a matter of fact, the «linguistic» legislation dominating the practice of language establishes the first laws of truth (On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense). In other words, for Nietzsche the artificial nature of truth, given the artificial nature of language itself, was out of discussion. In this paper, I approach the contemporary debate on post-truth by juxtaposing it with the idea of «artificial» or «conventional» truth typical of legal discourse and by showing the aporia behind each search for truth. In order to do so, I focus on the specific nature of «legal» truth and I invite to consider the centrality of the performative force of truth-making procedures – crucial for lawyers and legal practice – in order to underline the importance played by technology in the construction of truth also in the political discourse.

Keywords:

Post-truth Law Ordeal Procedure Art Artificial

References

Andina T. (2019). Truth, Lies and Post-Truth. In Condello A. & Andina T. (Eds.). PostTruth, Philosophy and Law. London: Routledge.

Arendt H. (1968). Truth and Politics. In Arendt H. Between Past and Future. Eight Exercises in Political Thought (pp. 227-264). London: Penguin.

Condello A. & Andina T. (Eds., 2019). Post-Truth, Philosophy and Law. London: Routledge.

Condello A. (2019). After the Ordeal. Law and the Age of Post-Truth. In Condello A. & Andina T. (Eds.). Post-Truth, Philosophy and Law. London: Routledge.

Derrida J. (1978). Writing and Difference. Alan Bass (Transl.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Domenicucci J. (2019). Can we trust post-truth? A Trojan Horse in liberal counterspeech. In Condello A. & Andina T. (Eds.). Post-Truth, Philosophy and Law. London: Routledge.

Ferraris M. (2017). Fare la verità. Proposta di una ermeneutica neorealista. In Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, vol. 11, n. 1.

Fitzpatrick P. (2017). Post-truth: For or Against Socio-legal Studies?. In Socio-Legal Review https://www.sociolegalreview.com/post-truth-for-or-against-socio-legal-studies

Foucault M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978. (Trans. Graham Burchell). Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Marconi D. (2019). Fake news, the crisis of deference, and epistemic democracy. In Condello A. & Andina T. (Eds.). Post-Truth, Philosophy and Law. London: Routledge.

Mason L. (2019). Idealism, empiricism, pluralism, law. Legal truth after modernity. In Condello A. & Andina T. (Eds.). Post-Truth, Philosophy and Law. London: Routledge.

Patterson D. (1996). Law and Truth. Oxford: OUP.

Resta E. (2008). Diritto vivente. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

Schiavone A. (2017). Ius. L’invenzione del diritto in Occidente. Torino: Einaudi.

Viola F. (1995). Judicial Truth. Persona y derecho, 32, 1995, pp. 249–266.

Reference by