The Epistemology of Fake News

News is vital for a healthy democracy. Collective decision-making requires accurate, reliable information. Nevertheless, much of the information we encounter is inadequate for this task. And some--peddled by politicians, profiteers, bots and algorithms--is fake. Social media platforms and emerging technologies allow fake news to dominate our information landscape. An adequate understanding our current information landscape calls for a new discipline, the epistemology of fake news. The epistemology of fake news studies knowledge communication under imperfect conditions. This book is the first sustained inquiry into the new epistemology of fake news. The chapters, authored by established and emerging names in the field, pursue three goals. First, to analyse the meaning and novelty of 'fake news' and related notions, such as 'conspiracy theory.' Second, to discuss the mechanics of fake news, exploring various practices that generate or promote fake news. Third, to investigate potential therapies for fake news.

Sven Bernecker, University of Cologne,Amy K. Flowerree, Texas Tech University,Thomas Grundmann, University of Cologne

Sven Bernecker is Humboldt Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cologne and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. Besides Germany and the USA, he held tenured academic positions in Austria and the UK. He obtained his PhD in Philosophy in 1997 at Stanford University and the Habilitation in 2002 at the University of Munich.

Amy K. Flowerree is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Texas Tech University. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Contemporary Epistemology and the Kantian Tradition (CONCEPT) at the University of Cologne. She completed her PhD in philosophy at Northwestern University in 2017.

Thomas Grundmann is professor of philosophy at the University of Cologne since 2004. Before that he held academic positions in T?bingen and Saarbruecken. He obtained his PhD in Philosophy in 1991 and the Habilitation in 200, both at the University of Tuebingen.

Preface
Introduction, Sven Bernecker, Amy K. Flowerree, and Thomas Grundmann
Part I. Analyses of Fake News
1. Speaking of Fake News: Definitions and Dimensions, Romy Jaster and David Lanius
2. Good News, Bad News, Fake News, Duncan Pritchard
3. The Fake News about Fake News, David Coady
4. Conspiracy Theories and Evidential Self-Insulation, M. Giulia Napolitano
Part II. Mechanics of Fake News
5. Enquiry and Normative Deviance: The Role of Fake News in Science Denialism, Filippo Ferrari & Sebastiano Moruzzi
6. Facing Epistemic Authorities: Where Democratic Ideals and Critical Thinking Mislead Cognition, Thomas Grundmann
7. Is Fake News Old News?, Catarina Dutilh Novaes and Jeroen de Ridder
8. How Vice Can Motivate Distrust in Elites and Trust in Fake News, Maura Priest
9. Echo Chambers, Fake News, and Social Epistemology, Jennifer Lackey
10. The Dissemination of Fake Science: On the Ranking of Retracted Articles in Google, Emmanuel J. Genot and Erik J. Olsson
Part III. Therapies of Fake News
11. The Virtue of Epistemic Trustworthiness and Re-Posting on Social Media, Sarah Wright
12. Fake News and Epistemic Rot - Or, Why We Are All in This Together, Sanford C. Goldberg
13. An Epistemic Defense of News Abstinence, Sven Bernecker
14. Fake News, False Beliefs, and the Fallible Art of Knowledge Maintenance, Axel Gelfert
15. Trust No One: The (Social) Epistemological Consequences of Belief in Conspiracy Theories, Michael Baurmann and Daniel Cohnitz