When fiction trumps truth : what ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ mean for management studies

In this essay, we explore the notions of ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ for management studies. Adopting a pragmatist perspective, we argue that there is no intrinsically accurate language in terms of which to refer to reality. Language, rather, is a tool that enables agents to grab hold of causal forces and intervene in the world. ‘Alternative facts’ can be created by multimodal communication to highlight different aspects of the world for the purpose of political mobilization and legitimacy. ‘Post-truth’ politics reveals the fragmentation of the language game in which mainstream politics has been hitherto conducted. Using the communicative acts of businessman-turned-politician President Trump and his aides, as a prompt, we explore the implications that ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’ have for today’s management scholarship. We argue that management scholars should unpack how managers navigate strategic action and communication, and how the creation of alternative realities is accomplished in conditions of informational abundance and multimodal communication

#alternativefacts? Citizens' perceptions of the reliability of 'facts' presented online by political parties in Scotland.

This conference paper presented the emerging findings of research which explored the relationship between post-truth politics and Scottish citizens' information behaviour. The research consisted of two key elements. Firstly, an online survey (538 responses) gathered citizens' opinions on the reliability of five images containing various 'facts and figures' that had been posted on social media by Scotland's five main political parties. Secondly, 23 extended interviews with citizens explored their response to information explicitly presented as 'the facts' on the websites of the five main Scottish parties

Complementary and alternative medicine : facts and figures (part I)

Complementary and alternative medical practices are flourishing despite the current fast pace of scientific research and discovery. Traditional practices combine with newer philosophies to make up the vast spectrum that constitute this phenomenon. To describe homeopathy and acupuncture, proposed mechanisms of action, present scientific research to prove or disprove their efficacy and discuss safety issues. Studies, reviews and meta-analyses dealing with this subject were researched from various publications to present evidence for or against the efficacy of complementary and alternative medicine. Recent rigorous studies on acupuncture and homeopathy show no results beyond what is attributable to placebo effect. Complementary and alternative medical practices should be researched for efficacy and safety by the same standards used in conventional medicine.peer-reviewe

Facebook\u27s Alternative Facts

In this short essay, I argue that Facebook’s adoption of the alternative-facts frame potentially contributes to the divisiveness that has made social media misinformation a powerful digital tool. Facebook’s choice to present information as “facts” and “alternative facts” endorses a binary system in which all information can be divided between moral or tribal categories—“bad” versus “good” speech, as Sandberg put it in her testimony to Congress. As we will see, Facebook’s related-articles strategy adopts this binary construction, offering a both-sides News Feed that encourages users to view information as cleaving along natural moral or political divisions

The Metaphysics of Moral Explanations

It’s commonly held that particular moral facts are explained by ‘natural’ or ‘descriptive’ facts, though there’s disagreement over how such explanations work. We defend the view that general moral principles also play a role in explaining particular moral facts. More specifically, we argue that this view best makes sense of some intuitive data points, including the supervenience of the moral upon the natural. We consider two alternative accounts of the nature and structure of moral principles—’the nomic view’ and ‘moral platonism’—before considering in what sense such principles obtain of necessity

Numerical Range and the Dynamics of a Rational Function

Sometimes we obtain attractive results when associating facts to simple elements. The goal of this work is to introduce a possible alternative in the study of the dynamics of rational maps

Defenses to International Antitrust Suits: An Aggregate Approach

Part I of this Comment will discuss briefly the cases in which the defenses have been asserted. Part I will examine the underlying policies of each defense. In Part II of this Comment each of the defenses will be applied separately to the facts of a recent antitrust case, In re Uranium Antitrust Litigation. Finally, in Part III, the application of the separatist approach to those facts will be critiqued, and an alternative approach to the defenses will be discussed

Defenses to International Antitrust Suits: An Aggregate Approach

Part I of this Comment will discuss briefly the cases in which the defenses have been asserted. Part I will examine the underlying policies of each defense. In Part II of this Comment each of the defenses will be applied separately to the facts of a recent antitrust case, In re Uranium Antitrust Litigation. Finally, in Part III, the application of the separatist approach to those facts will be critiqued, and an alternative approach to the defenses will be discussed

Rational Internalism

I describe and motivate Rational Internalism, a principle concerning the relationship between motivating reasons (which explain actions) and normative reasons (which justify actions). I use this principle to construct a novel argument against Objectivist theories of normative reasons, which hold that facts about normative reasons can be analyzed in terms of an independently specified class of normative or evaluative facts. I then argue for an alternative theory of normative reasons, the Reasoning View, which is consistent with both Rational Internalism and one standard motivation for Objectivism