Suchergebnisse

International audience ; Epistemic Populism, or the Tyranny of Common Sense Post-truth politics recruits epistemic populists in order to spread in our contemporary societies. I will present a brief phenomenology of the «epistemic populist» by describing some of their fundamental attitudes, such as naïve realism, methodological individualism, monism, nostalgy, arrogance, etc., to highlight some of the features that make them appeal to the virtues of common sense against the technocratic élites. Then I discuss what common sense means and how it relates to the Greek notion of koiné, as a set of beliefs that are commonly held by an entire population. The epistemic populist reacts against a technocratic management of power that doesn't respect this koiné. Technocracy is of course highly problematic in democracies as it has been discussed at length by many philosophers and there are reasons for the epistemic populist to oppose its power. Nonetheless, the quest for a «pure» non-mediated relation to knowledge and power is naïve and is easily manipulable especially in the era of social media. The paper analyses the mixture of empowerment and frustration that social media elicit in the epistemic populist by stressing the shift from an ideal struggle for recognition on social media to a struggle for reputation, that is, for a measurable visibility on the Web through digital features such as likes and retweets. I conclude by a note on what can be done on social media in order to diminish that competition for reputation, and make the design of conversations more suitable for a democratic exchange of opinions that doesn't exacerbate the clash between the people and the élites.

International audience ; Epistemic Populism, or the Tyranny of Common Sense Post-truth politics recruits epistemic populists in order to spread in our contemporary societies. I will present a brief phenomenology of the «epistemic populist» by describing some of their fundamental attitudes, such as naïve realism, methodological individualism, monism, nostalgy, arrogance, etc., to highlight some of the features that make them appeal to the virtues of common sense against the technocratic élites. Then I discuss what common sense means and how it relates to the Greek notion of koiné, as a set of beliefs that are commonly held by an entire population. The epistemic populist reacts against a technocratic management of power that doesn't respect this koiné. Technocracy is of course highly problematic in democracies as it has been discussed at length by many philosophers and there are reasons for the epistemic populist to oppose its power. Nonetheless, the quest for a «pure» non-mediated relation to knowledge and power is naïve and is easily manipulable especially in the era of social media. The paper analyses the mixture of empowerment and frustration that social media elicit in the epistemic populist by stressing the shift from an ideal struggle for recognition on social media to a struggle for reputation, that is, for a measurable visibility on the Web through digital features such as likes and retweets. I conclude by a note on what can be done on social media in order to diminish that competition for reputation, and make the design of conversations more suitable for a democratic exchange of opinions that doesn't exacerbate the clash between the people and the élites.

Nous observons l'environnement social pour en extraire des indices réputationnels, recueillir des signaux de nos informateurs, et développons une posture de confiance en ce qu'ils disent selon le contexte. Je présente ici le projet d'une épistémologie de la réputation, c'est‑à-dire, de l'usage des configurations sociales pour en extraire de l'information. Je passe en revue les définitions de la réputation existantes dans les sciences sociales, en soulignant l'importance de l'aspect social/relationnel de la réputation comme propriété des personnes et des choses, pour esquisser une définition propre à l'épistémologie. Quelques exemples illustrent ensuite les configurations réputationnelles qui permettent d'extraire de l'information.