The Return of the Repressed: Subject, Truth and Critique in Times of Post-Truth

• Published in: Philosophy of the social sciences Vol. 53; no. 3; pp. 194 - 222
• Main Authors: Söderberg, Johan, Bjurö, Olle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2023; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: critique; Derrida, Jacques; Description; Foucauldian analysis; foucault; Foucault, Michel; genealogy; Humanism; Ideology; Philosophers; Philosophy; post-truth; Postmodernism; Psychoanalysis; Refusal; science; science wars; Skinner, B F (Burrhus Frederic Skinner) (1904-1990); Social sciences; Social Sciences - Other Topics; Sociologi; Sociology; sts; subject; Truth; ideology; critique; science wars; subject; psychoanalysis; post-truth
• ISSN: 0048-3931; 1552-7441
• DOI: 10.1177/00483931221126912

The surge of post-truth calls for a reassessment of psychoanalytic and ideology critique-approaches in the social sciences. Both traditions are dismissed by the principal antagonists in the post-truth debate, the “positivist” defenders of science and the “post-modern” critics of science. The antagonists share a predisposition towards anti-humanism, refusal to distinguish between the latent and the manifest, and adherence to descriptive methods. In order to substantiate these claims, the article investigates commonalities between B.F. Skinner and Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The article concludes that the allegedly “pseudo-scientific” or “metaphysical” concepts of Subject and Truth, pivotal to both psychoanalysis and ideology critique-approaches, need to be rehabilitated in response to the challenge of post-truth.