Modern truth is underwritten by intersubjective control rather than given social status

Evidence

One knows, or senses, that behind every experience of objects there are possible statements and that behind every statement there lie human processes through which information has been worked on and worked out – not some immutable Truth of Being. In principle these processes are intersubjectively controllable, having the task of providing everyone with accessible knowledge, and are thus independent of particular societal structures and, above all, independent of higher status based on, for example, religious, political or economic functions. This principle of intersubjectivity, and hence the separation from particular given societal structures, now underwrites the certainty value of statements and, in this modern sense, their truth. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 217

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts sharply with Stevens’s world where truth derives from Lord Darlington’s positional authority — the principle of intersubjectivity is precisely what Stevens’s deference bypasses. — connects to: Religious truth is measured by collective need rather than solitary validity — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 301; Post-truth is a choice of response to reality, not a fixed condition; Hayek and Popper grounded truth in intersubjective convention rather than foundations — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 61 (+2 more)
• SEED: Could support an essay contrasting modern truth-as-intersubjective-check with pre-modern truth-as-status, using Ishiguro’s Stevens as the cautionary case.