The epistemology of costly communication – offline and online

Introduction

In our digital era, characterised by easy access to both information and misinformation, understanding the mechanisms that encourage truthful communication is more crucial than ever. Despite the social and ethical importance of these issues, however, we lack a unified framework to systematically investigate the social incentives that motivate speakers to communicate truthfully.

Project Overview

COST-X will inaugurate a novel, interdisciplinary, empirically-minded approach to studying communicative norms. The project’s overarching goal is to develop a new methodology, grounded in Costly Signalling Theory, to study how norms and reputation underlie truthful communication, offline and online.

Research Focus

Adopting this new lens, COST-X will radically change our understanding of a diversity of phenomena relating to truthfulness:

1. The nature and epistemic function of communicative norms
2. Deniability and indirectness in speech
3. Testimonial transmission of knowledge
4. Online communication

It will inaugurate a new field of study, digital infrastructure epistemology, which investigates how misinformation spreads by attending to how online platforms alter the reputational infrastructure that motivates speakers to be truthful.

Methodology

Methodologically, COST-X will bring rigorous analytic thought into dialogue with empirical research. Theoretical assumptions will be tested empirically, and theory-building will profit from interdisciplinary cross-pollination from:

• Linguistics
• Biology
• Game theory
• Epistemology
• Psychology

Scientific and Practical Value

It will be of high scientific value to all disciplines investigating, or building on, human communication and its norms. Its findings on online communications will have practical uses, establishing philosophical foundations to better understand and tackle the spread of fake news – thus bolstering support for democratic institutions, which rely on a healthy information environment to function properly.