Basic Myth as a Mechanism of Cultural Appropriation of Truth: from the Philosophy of Truth to the Philosophy of Post-Truth

The article analyses the phenomenon of post-truth as one of the mechanisms of cultural mobilization of the masses in the context of the Philosophy of Truth and the Basic Myth theory of George Sorel. The relevance of the study is determined by the possibility of establishing several previously unstudied reasons for the cultural turn that has led to the spread of the phenomenon of fakes. A result of which leads to emotional assessments, political bias and prejudices prevail over rational arguments, and the concept of truth is blurred. The purpose of the article is to provide a conceptual analysis of the trend that can be defined as the transition from the philosophy of Truth to the philosophy of post-Truth. In order to achieve this goal, it was necessary to complete the following tasks: 1) to explicate the conceptual apparatus of Russian philosophical culture, grouped around the philosophical themes of Truth and Verity; 2) to test it by analyzing the processes of reception and further development of Marxist philosophy in Russia; 3) to identify and describe the non-trivial features of these processes; 4) to compare the concept of post-Truth with G. Sorel’s theory of basic myth; 5) to apply the resulting theoretical hybrid to the analysis of fakes in the culture of the information society. The research materials are the works of Russian philosophers and prominent socio-political figures who reflected on the relationship between Truth and Verity in the 19th – 20th centuries. The research utilizes historical-genetic, hermeneutic and axiological approaches, which use various methods of description, comparative and conceptual analysis. G. Sorel's teaching on the basic myth was also used as a theoretical lens. As a result of the study, the cultural and philosophical specificity of the transition from the philosophy of Truth to the philosophy of post-Truth was reconstructed. The paper shows that the conceptualization of Truth and Verity in Russian culture and philosophy that took place in the 19th and early 20th centuries revealed the potential for mutual correspondence and inconsistency between these concepts. Applying the resulting conceptual apparatus to the development of Marxism in Russia in the first half of the 20th century that the concept of posttruth appeared as early as in the first third of the 20th century. The key features of the early model of post-Truth can be considered its manipulative nature, dependence on leaderism and connection with the media. Moreover, the consideration of this phenomenon as an element of Soviet ideology in the framework of the theory of the basic myth of G. Sorel showed its connection with the so-called culture of meaning, which moved from the search for Verity to the search for Truth and later to the state of post-Truth. In turn, philosophizing in the post-Truth mode has proven effective in mobilizing collective action, which served to further popularize and develop the practices of using the philosophy of post-Truth. This process manifests itself within the framework of the strategy of producing fakes, actively implemented by groups and individuals at the present time.

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