On the role of science in times of crisis, bullshitting and the ideal features section

As part of an ETH project, you looked at the relationship between science and the public. What was it about exactly?

The project covered many thematic facets. I will briefly outline one that might be relevant to our discussion: scientific knowledge is not rarely but rather typically provisional knowledge, it is subject to correction. For this reason, it cannot always satisfy the need for certainty and clarity that arises among the public, and also among government decision-makers, as soon as political controversies are linked to questions of knowledge. The coronavirus pandemic showed this, but it was not alone in doing so.

Particularly in times of crisis, we see scientists come out to explain things in public. What role do they play at such moments?

I’d say they do not play one single role when they appear in public. There are – at least – two roles: on the one hand, that of the expert who is consulted and explains, for example, the current state of knowledge in scientific research into a virus, and on the other, the role of the intellectual contemporary who – as “non-experts” also do – speaks out on issues of “public interest” and, for example, comments on certain political measures to combat the pandemic. Under certain circumstances, this can lead to a kind of role diffusion, and this is something that I do not find unproblematic.

“Anyone who gives political advice as a scientific expert, even if implicitly, can be exploited, whether as a prophet or as a scapegoat.”

How is that problematic?

The problematic aspect comes into focus as soon as we ask about the relationship between science and politics – here the key term is “political consultancy”. Put simply and fundamentally: as far as political questions have to do with problems of knowledge, there is nothing to be said against, but everything to be said in favour of also drawing on scientific knowledge when answering them. But it depends on the “as far as” – and on what “drawing on” means. Answers to the question of what we know and what we can know are not, as such, answers to the question that is always disputed in the political sphere, namely: how do we want to live and live together? Scientific findings, especially if they are only preliminary findings, cannot be translated “one-to-one” – smoothly and logically – into political decisions. Since, nolens volens, political representatives of a community have room for manoeuvre even in situations in which no sensible decisions can be made without scientific expertise, they should use it responsibly.

This also means that they should not want to shift the political responsibility for decisions onto the scientific community. Conversely, if scientists are asked for “advice” and also appear in public, they should be prepared to find themselves in the grey area of role dialectics: anyone who gives political advice as a scientific expert, even if implicitly, can be exploited, whether as a prophet or as a scapegoat.

But isn’t it the responsibility of scientists, who are consulted as experts, to point out possible political courses of action?

Yes, scientific experts should also point out possible courses of action – at least in cases where science and politics are intertwined, as in the climate debate. Ideally, however, they will point out various possible courses of action in the form of hypothetical scenarios: what happens with what probability if we do this or that, what happens if we don’t do this or that?

And, in such cases, it is of course sensible to make political decisions on the basis of scientific findings. But such decisions must be legitimised in the political discourse and go through the established political decision-making processes – in political committee disputes and in the political public sphere. This also means: political decisions cannot obtain their democratic legitimacy by recourse to science, not – or at least: not only and certainly not “in the final analysis” – by referring to the fact that science has established this or that. If politicians try to do this anyway, they are contributing to the erosion of our society’s democratic institutions. As are scientists who offer them a helping hand.

To a certain extent, both science and politics were under the weight of expectation during the pandemic.

The weight of expectation increased because people’s need for orientation grew. This, among other things, characterises crisis situations. But I’d say the need for orientation can be articulated in very different ways. It can manifest itself in the desire for certainty, but also in the willingness to doubt everything.

Questioning assumptions is actually very scientific. But that’s not what you mean. Or is it?

Methodological doubt is institutionalised as a procedure in science. But this has no direct counterpart in the public sphere. As a rule, doubt in this sphere is not methodologically disciplined, but is linked to all kinds of political or ideological ideas and beliefs.

Can we say that science has contributed to the division of society?

During the coronavirus crisis, new, preliminary scientific knowledge was continuously generated – and this was done to an extent hardly known before. In some cases, supposed findings were also published without having gone through the usual scientific peer review process. Study results were presented in a preliminary form in a way that had never been seen before – and were called into question again by the results of other studies. The scope for interpretation was wide, evidently also for “scientific laypeople”. It is therefore not surprising that the level of acceptance of scientific statements, and of the measures based on such statements, was low among some of the population.

So this visible appearance of scientists in a political process has contributed to the hardening of fronts?

In a way, yes. There are now sociological studies that describe this. One of them is by Alexander Bogner. In his book “Die Epistemisierung des Politischen. Wie die Macht des Wissens die Demokratie gefährdet” (The Epistemisation of Politics – How the Power of Knowledge Endangers Democracy), he speaks of an “uprising against the rationalistic world view” of science. This uprising was rehearsed during the coronavirus crisis, but is also underway in terms of climate research. The diagnostician of the times sees a “counter-rationalist grassroots movement” at work that not only lives from the need for orientation or simple explanation, but also from an impulse for freedom that expresses itself in a kind of wild self-assertion:  self-assertion against the colonisation of the living environment by “know-it-all science”. And, at the same time, against policy makers that sometimes refer to scientific findings in order to emphasise the supposed lack of alternatives to what they enact as political measures in the crisis situation.

Perhaps we could also speak of defiance in revolt. Without such a component, I can hardly explain how “sceptics” can simply close their eyes and present “alternative facts” in the case of the climate crisis, for example, when the evidence is overwhelming.

And there is no longer any dialogue between the two sides. The discourse is suspended, which is one of the foundations of enlightenment and a prerequisite for liberal forms of society. So just how dramatic is the situation?

The situation may be dramatic, but hopefully it is not tragic in the sense of a tragedy that ends in a necessary and deadly failure. The modern democratic, liberal constitutional state, if you look at it as a stage, acts out all kinds of things: dramas, tragedies, comedies, farces, burlesques, sometimes even operas, even comic ones. What I’m trying to say is: the democratic, liberal constitutional state has the task of ensuring that its citizens can form their own opinions and enabling a “clash of opinions”. This is not quite the same as organising a discussion in a university seminar where only reasonable – comprehensible – arguments count. Only in the ideal case does the dispute take place in the form of dialogues or discourses that are open and unbiased and, at the same time, are supported by a willingness on all sides to reach compromises across ideological camps.

Anyway, this happens more often in a partly direct democratic political system like in Switzerland than elsewhere. But here, too, the following applies: a liberal, constitutional democracy cannot and should not prescribe or dictate “truths”; not just ideological truths, but also scientific truths. Anyone and everyone can believe and publicly assert what he or she wants to believe and assert. As far as assertion – the public expression of an opinion – is concerned, the limits are set by criminal law if necessary.

Assertions are often not substantiated, they are simply repeated. And it’s not just conspiracy theorists who behave in this way, it’s also an American presidential candidate, for example.

Yes, that is the case (although being a presidential candidate and spreading conspiracy theories can certainly apply to one and the same person). It has a fatal tone because it happens not only in authoritarian, dictatorial or semi-democratic societies, but also in democratic societies whose legal system is based on the principle of free self-determination of the individual and that of the collective (which decides by a majority). You can expose people who are talking nonsense. But you can’t prevent them from doing so – or at least you can’t if you don’t want to interfere with fundamental rights.

“Those who habitually produce humbug systematically distort their perception of reality to a certain extent.”

Even if the statements are obviously false?

It is not forbidden to say something that is not true (unless you are testifying under oath in court). Nobody who believes the Earth is a disc has to go to prison for it. The question, however, is whether the statements we are focussing on here are untruths and lies. The American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt spoke of “bullshit” in connection with such phenomena back in 1986, in other words rubbish, nonsense or humbug. In order to understand the phenomenon of bullshit, its relationship to lies must be contemplated. Anyone who lies must know the truth – or at least believe they know it. Anyone who talks bullshit doesn’t have to. The “bullshitter” – and Frankfurt considers this to be essential – is indifferent to the truth; he does not take it or the facts seriously. He is primarily interested in getting away with his claims. He cheats his way through with half-truths or untruths; when it suits him, even with truths. He blathers, spouts hot air and bends everything to suit his needs.  Those who habitually produce humbug systematically distort their perception of reality to a certain extent. One point of Frankfurt’s reflections: bullshit is “a greater enemy of the truth than lies”. This is because the liar must maintain an alert relationship with the truth in order to conceal his lie, the truth – the facts – retain their value. The liar and the person committed to the truth, writes Frankfurt, “participate in the same game, as it were, albeit on different sides”. This is not the case with the bullshitter. He neither accepts the “authority of truth”, nor does he explicitly reject it – he simply ignores it. His unfounded drivel undermines our culture, which relies on the distinction between true and false – and, I would add, on the concept of fact, which logically excludes the existence of “alternative facts”.

If nothing else, digital and social media make it easy to spread bullshit. What if the bullshitter remains unchallenged?

Just two years ago, Jürgen Habermas published a small update of his “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere”. In it, he speaks of fragmented public subgroups with a view to the socio-electronic sphere: there is an affective polarisation taking place that prevents dialogue and a fact-based exchange of opinions. Opinions are formed and judgements are made on the basis of group affiliation, not on the basis of factual considerations and reasonable arguments. We are all familiar with the talk of “echo chambers” and “bubbles”. But Switzerland is also better off in this respect than some other countries. According to a recently published study by the University of Basel based on a Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG) survey, the affective polarisation, the ideological divide, does not appear to have increased in recent years. The reasons for this can be found in the numerous direct democratic votes on factual issues that are discussed in public and which repeatedly result in “voting coalitions” across different camps.

So you haven’t given up hope?

We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater when criticising the current situation. As long as the democratic and direct democratic institutions and also the scientific institutions and the education system still function to some extent, I see no reason to write off the project of enlightenment and self-enlightenment.

In order to conduct a dialogue, we need a forum, a medium that does not contribute to affective polarisation.  You were the NZZ features editor for over 20 years and once described the features section as a medium for public discourse. Is that still the case today?

It was, in a way, an ideal type that I had in mind during my many years as an editor responsible for the humanities, reviews of non-fiction and diagnosis of the times in the features section – an ideal that goes back to the Age of Enlightenment, to the idea of a self-enlightened public, as described by Immanuel Kant: the public is “educated”, not necessarily “scholarly”, it reads (magazines, newspapers, books), discusses what it has read and, if necessary, also writes itself. This was once called the “educated middle class”; I would lower the requirement profile a little and say: an amendable smattering of knowledge was and is sufficient to be able to belong to the features section readership. This, in turn, means that regularly opening a good features section contributes to adult education.

 “Making judgements does not mean taking predetermined positions or opinions.”

What is special about the features section?

For me, the particularity of the features section as a department, as well as the type of text that the term denotes, lies in what I would like to call “formation of taste”. I mean formation of taste in a broad sense that doesn’t only refer to theatre, music, literature and art. We could also say that the features section serves to cultivate reasoning or the power of judgement – the reflective power of judgement in Kant’s sense, which does not subsume the “particular” under a predetermined “general” (a principle, a law), but rather searches for points of view and standards of judgement first and always once more. Such sharpening of the power of judgement goes hand in hand in places – only seemingly paradoxically – with sceptical abstention from judgement. Making judgements does not mean taking predetermined positions or opinions. The features section leaves that sort of thing to other, more “opinionated” departments.

But what would it mean to judge and make judgements?

To make judgements means first of all to differentiate, to facet, to distinguish – and in the literal sense that means: to criticise. The features section is the “organ” of a critique that turns against schematic thinking in supposedly exhaustive alternatives – black or white, no or yes – not only in the aesthetic sphere, but also in the ethical, moral, political and social spheres … The motto of the features section is therefore: “tertium datur”, there is a third – at least; better still: a third, fourth, fifth perspective in which a social phenomenon, a moral problem, a play, a book can be perceived. The features section cultivates a sense of possibility. In addition to curiosity, this requires a certain impartiality. Ideological blinkers of any kind are an obstacle. In this sense, I think we tried to contribute to the formation of taste and judgement in my time in the NZZ features section.

What can your discipline, philosophy, contribute to promoting a diversity of perspectives?

Philosophical motifs are clearly woven into the implied typical ideal concept of the features section: clearing up prejudices, clarifying concepts, making rigid forms of thought more fluid, questioning opinions that seem self-evident, reflection and criticism, sharpening judgement – all this has been part of the core business of philosophy since its European beginnings in Greece. And its beginnings also include the practice of a wide range of knowledge. In the form of Socrates, philosophy went back and forth between the marketplace and the academy, between the sphere of exchanging opinions and that of the pioneering search for truth.

The question is whether, now that it is well established as a university discipline, it can maintain the knowledge-promoting tension that results from such a range of knowledge. It cannot do this if it ignores what is happening in the meeting place and marketplace (Greek: agora, Latin: forum), if it forgets that it – at least also – has to grasp its own time in thought, as Hegel characterised the task. However, it is just as unable to maintain the tension when it does what Hegel criticised the popular philosophy of his time for doing: it speaks “to our ordinary consciousness, applying it as the ultimate standard”. Not to take ordinary consciousness as the ultimate standard means, if you like, giving honour to the truth. Of course, this does not mean, however, that it is unphilosophical to take up everyday consciousness, to enter into dialogue with it in order to begin a philosophical search movement that is guided by an interest in truth.

Does this also represent an educational task?

I can hardly imagine a more important educational task: exchanging opinions, views, assertions, prejudices, judgements and questions together and mutually practising the art of criticism, the art of differentiating judgement. That would be adult education for the advanced – or better: for the advancing.