Just the Facts (eBook)

Untangling Contradictory Claims

Joel Best (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
226 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-42133-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Why can’t we seem to agree on facts? In this succinct volume, sociologist Joel Best turns his inimitable eye toward the social construction of what we think is true. He evaluates how facts emerge from our social worlds—including our beliefs, values, tastes, and norms—and how they align with those worlds’ standards. He argues that by developing a sociological perspective toward what we think we know, we can better parse the use of facts and untruths around us.

This book examines how facts are created and supported through science, government, law, and journalism, revealing that facts are actually claims. These claims are malleable and can change over time through fact-checking, revision, and sometimes rejection. Best guides us through these processes so that we can question our assumptions and understand why disputes happen in the first place. In a time of increasing social and political divide, Just the Facts urges us to resist defensiveness over our facts and approach disputes in critical new ways.

Inhalt

Contents
 
Preface: Aren’t Facts Indisputable?
Acknowledgments
 
1 Agreeing about Facts
2 Making Facts
3 Fact-Checking
4 Revising Facts
5 Rejecting Facts
6 Disagreeing about Facts
 
Notes
References
Index
 

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.8.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Schulbuch / Wörterbuch ► Lexikon / Chroniken
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Empirische Sozialforschung
• Schlagworte: belief systems • critical thinking • Epistemology • information manipulation • journalism ethics • Knowledge Production • Media Literacy • misinformation studies • Political Polarization • public opinion formation • scientific credibility • Social construction of knowledge • Sociology of Knowledge • truth and bias
• ISBN-10: 0-520-42133-7 / 0520421337
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-42133-2 / 9780520421332