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Philosophy? And… Conspiracy Theories!?
236 Plays1 day ago
It's time for another Conspiracy Theory Masterpiece Theatre - OR IS IT? “Philosophy and conspiracy theories” by Juha Räikkä and Juho Ritola (a chapter from The Routledge handbook of conspiracy theories) is about conspiracy theories alright, and its conclusion is quite the showstopper. But "masterpiece"? Listen in to hear our views on whether it's masterful and what it may or may not be a piece of.
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Transcript
Introduction: Who is Daniel?
00:00:00
Speaker
Daniel, my brother. thought your brother was called Lawrence. Well, he's my biological brother. Daniel is more a conspiratorial brother, a fellow in arms, a... Patron?
00:00:13
Speaker
Yes. Yes, yes he is. Oh, haven't had any one of those for a while. What does Daniel do? Oh, I'm sure Daniel is the most disgusting retrobate, engaged in vile conspiracies that would shock even your mother.
00:00:26
Speaker
The things Daniel has done... Well, they're legion. Yeah, we never really did get to the bottom of what our patrons are actually doing, did we? There was that strange set of numbers thing from a few years ago, the missing second Lord Morrissey Morrissey story. Frankly, the meta plot of this podcast seems like a set of discarded dead ends.
00:00:44
Speaker
Well, that's because of the various recastings of the central roles. What people don't realise that the writers of this podcast also changed at the same time. Now
Podcast Evolution and Chris Carter's Role
00:00:54
Speaker
that we have Chris Carter on board... THE Chris Carter?
00:00:57
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no, he was recast as well. Anyway, this is all meant to be about Daniel. Your brother? Yes. Hmm, realize that song's about the Vietnam War. Well, I do now.
00:01:09
Speaker
Play the theme...
00:01:17
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought you today by Josh Addison and M. Denteth.
00:01:37
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy in Auckland, New Zealand. I am Josh Addison in Guangzhou, China. They are Dr. M. Denteth and very hot, I gather. Well, I mean, both both sexually and physically. Yeah, I'd make no make no distinction, yeah.
00:01:53
Speaker
um So, yes, I gather it's it's it's heading into winter here in New Zealand, but over in your part in your neck of the woods, it's very warm. And I gather you are very warm, so maybe we should get into the episode quite quickly. since this is This is an episode that is going to get me a little bit hot under the collar.
Episode Theme: Conspiracy Theory Masterpiece Theatre
00:02:14
Speaker
Okay, well, and in multiple ways. All right, then. well I don't actually have anything to say up the top here, do you? Not at all. Let's crack into what may or may not be an episode of Conspiracy Theory Masterpiece Theatre.
00:02:29
Speaker
Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Masterpiece Theatre.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yes, maybe we'll have to decide afterwards which sting. you You, the audience, will know by which sting we played just now as to whether this is a masterpiece or not, but we might have to decide for ourselves at the end of it. Josh, you will have to decide. i know which sting side I would put in, but like you are in charge of the audio end. I'll be doing the very rarely watched video end, and I know exactly what I'm doing there.
00:03:02
Speaker
Okie dokie. Well, yes, at any rate, Masterpiece will know we are looking at a piece of academic writing today. It's
Philosophical Debates on Conspiracy Theories
00:03:10
Speaker
Philosophy and Conspiracy Theories by Yuha Raika and Yuha Retola.
00:03:14
Speaker
It's a chapter of a book, chapter 1.4, I understand. what what's What's the context here? What is the book that this is extracted from? So this is the book, The Rutledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories, as put together by Michael Butter and Peter Knight. This was a product of the ECOST thing I was involved in, the Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories, or COMPAC, where I was the Romanian representative back in 2016-2017. It's the reason why I went to the Bilderberg Hotel to attend a conference, etc, etc. So when Compact was running, there was a deal with Rutledge to produce a number of books on conspiracy theories. This was kind of the big one. I'm involved in the Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe book. I got in on Compact. slightly too late to be involved in the writing of this book, which is why the chapter on philosophy and conspiracy theories is written by generalists rather than particularists. And my, what a chapter this turns out to be.
00:04:24
Speaker
It really does. Yes, it goes some places. but It starts with an introduction. Would you like to do the honors or shall I? I will do the introduction here, so let me commence.
00:04:35
Speaker
Philosophers have always been interested in conspiracies, but the philosophical debate on conspiracy theories is a pretty recent phenomenon. Karl Popper wrote about the conspiracy theory of society, but his discussion concerns issues of intentional explanations in general, rather than conspiracy theories proper.
00:04:55
Speaker
in this chapter we will review the philosophical debate and distinguish between four questions that philosophers have considered the questions we have in mind are one the conceptual question of what the appropriate definition of the term conspiracy theory is two the epistemic question about the rationality and justification of conspiratorial beliefs three the moral question of the ethical status of conspiracy theorizing and four the practical question of how decision makers should deal with conspiracy theories
00:05:32
Speaker
Obviously, the questions are closely connected to one another. Whether conspiracy theories are, generally speaking, plausible or implausible explanations depends on what is meant by the concept.
00:05:44
Speaker
The ethical status of conspiracy theorizing, in turn, depends partly on the plausibility of conspiracy theories. Finally, whether we should fight against the spreading of conspiracy theories surely depends, at least to some extent, on the ethical status of the theories.
00:06:02
Speaker
Therefore, by defining the key concepts suitably, one can try to settle most of the questions in the debate, not an unusual situation in philosophy. The aim of this chapter is to explain how philosophy could help studying conspiracy theories.
00:06:18
Speaker
The best way to explain this is to review critically the recent debates in philosophy of conspiracy theories. We will concentrate mainly on approaches that represent analytical philosophy rather than continental philosophy.
00:06:33
Speaker
And there it is. So that's that's what we're going to find out. How can philosophy help? How can philosophy help? Well, and yeah, yeah the the conclusion is going to surprise a lot of people. I know it surprised me when I first read it, and I saw you in real time reading and writing notes on this chapter, and I know you were surprised by it as well.
00:06:55
Speaker
Well, I mean, you'd'd you'd spoiled me a little bit, but yes, yes, no, it's we will get there. Let's let's not um let's not put the cart before the horse, ah because where the horse currently is at is in the first section, which is called the question of the definition. So this is a tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, how do you define conspiracy theory?
00:07:14
Speaker
ah They start by saying that the term conspiracy theory seems to be pejorative, which leads them to say this suggests that in ordinary language, people make a distinction between conspiracy theories and other explanations that refer to conspiracies. And and as examples of the latter, they talk about the assassination of Emperor Nero, the 1953 Iran coup, the Volkswagen emissions scandal.
00:07:36
Speaker
You have a paper out on this? well i have a paper out on the idea that people Well, I have a paper out on the idea that philosophers have a consistent idea of what the ordinary language meaning of conspiracy theory is. So two problems with ordinary language generalism, which came out in O'Kentness late last month.
00:07:56
Speaker
ah i've so I suddenly realized we're in June now because the year is really slipping by very quickly. And I look at this particular claim that philosophers have said, oh, conspiracy theory is a pejorative. It has a stable meaning in ordinary language. And I go, well, it's interesting that no philosopher who talks about the ordinary language of sorry ordinary language meaning of conspiracy theory is consistent with the other philosophers that talk about it. And that's because I'm doing some work, as has been talked about on this podcast in the past, with the sociologist Martin Orr.
00:08:31
Speaker
And we have some survey results that indicate that actually maybe it isn't the case that an ordinary language people do think of conspiracy theory as a pejorative, and they might not even be making a distinction between conspiracy theories and explanations that refer to conspiracies. However, I will admit, this is a view which is pretty common in the academic literature, so let's run with it and see where they go.
00:09:00
Speaker
Indeed. so where they go, that they say philosophers disagree about whether conspiracy theories should be distinguished from ordinary social explanations that refer to conspiracies. um And so they they talk about you know there are some people who think they should be distinguished, the should two should be kept apart. They so cite Keeley, Cody, Levy and Riker. so Citing Brian Keeley's paper from 1999, which is either his first or one his of his very first ones. It is his first, yes. yeah That's of conspiracy theories as published in the Journal of Philosophy.
00:09:32
Speaker
So from what I understand, of even of that work and definitely his latest stuff, and i don't really think he belongs on the list of people who think that um conspiracy theories and theories that involve a conspiracy are different things.
00:09:45
Speaker
No, because his focus in the 1999 paper is looking at the class of mature, unwarranted conspiracy theories, which may have the feature of going up against some kind of official theory or official story.
00:10:02
Speaker
But that is a subclass of conspiracy theories, not the whole class. ah but And so under this view, the the definition that they're going, the thing that that separates conspiracy theories and theories about conspiracies is that conspiracy theories are quote-unquote unofficial. It's it's that that idea that we've seen ah plenty of times before, that the thing that makes conspiracy theories conspiracy theories is that they're not supported by the relevant epistemic authorities, be that science, journalism, politics, whatever.
00:10:32
Speaker
And so then but then, of course, there's the other side of the coin, people who think that you shouldn't distinguish between conspiracy theories and theories that happen to involve a conspiracy. They're just all conspiracy theories.
00:10:43
Speaker
The motley crew of Pigden, Denteth, and Basham are brought up here. And so they say that according to this view, conventional terminology should be revised. And I read that and thought, that doesn't sound like something N said. You seem more concerned with just the academic terminology. Would that be fair to say?
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in my book, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories, I'm quite frank about this. I say, look, I don't care about ordinary language. I'm only concerned with academic terminology. So I think for academic purposes, we should stipulate what we mean by conspiracy theory. And I think the most theoretically fruitful way to do that is the simple and minimal definition.
00:11:25
Speaker
Now, it is true that people like Lee Basham, so there are some philosophers out there, do think that the ordinary language concept as captured by generalists is wrong. So lee just takes it that people don't use conspiracy theory as a pejorative.
00:11:42
Speaker
And people like Charles, well, he thinks that we should be dropping the pejorative aspect that is associated with this ordinary language notion, because if we think seriously about...
00:11:54
Speaker
History or politics. We all realize we are conspiracy theorists who believe at least one conspiracy theory So there are some people out there that say that the conventional terminology should be revised, but they aren't really capturing my view here.
00:12:11
Speaker
Okay, well Having having brought this idea up they say it is not altogether clear What is the motivation behind the revisionist move? But there are two important arguments here First, anyone who would like it to be true that, quote, many conspiracy theories are justified, unquote, can make their wish come true by defining the concept of conspiracy theory so that ordinary conspiracy explanations are counted as conspiracy theories.
00:12:36
Speaker
I'm not going to say my initial reaction to that because this is ah a family podcast, but... is that seen of it's Is it a family podcast? it's not really. It's not really. but I mean, that it seemed like kind of a bitchy thing to say, really. You're essentially accusing the people who who I think it's fairly clear they don't agree with as basically trying to make themselves right by definition. It just... Especially given we've spent a lot of time arguing about why some definitions are preferable to others, including the whole argument from theoretical fruit fruitfulness. So when they claim it's not altogether clear what is the motivation behind the revisionist move, even if you accept that I am a revisionist as opposed to someone who just doesn't care about ordinary language, there are
00:13:26
Speaker
arguments I mean, I spend an entire chapter of my book, my first book, doing the argument as to why we should be working with a simple and minimal definition. So if it's not altogether clear to them, it's because they haven't actually read or engaged in that literature.
00:13:45
Speaker
But secondly, as we're going to see later on in this particular chapter of theirs, they're going to do the whole definitional thing themselves in order to score cheat points. so this cuts both ways. They have used a definition that makes their conclusion trivially true.
00:14:05
Speaker
And if they're going to make the claim about the particulars doing the same, they should recognize they're doing something similar. Yes, so that definitely seemed like a dodgy move to be making right up front. But they said there were two two arguments they had with this view. that the The second one is that, and so this this is I think this is being presented as the sort of argument you and or people like you would put forwards, which is that the stigmatisation of conspiracy theories may influence the journalists and others' willingness to evaluate those theories fairly, that is, by concentrating on evidence presented. i think what they're getting at there is, yeah, the the idea that if if we keep a
00:14:42
Speaker
pejorative definition of conspiracy theory, people are less likely to take things seriously if they get labelled a conspiracy theory. And there's going to be there's going to be a bit... um A bit more on that later on.
00:14:54
Speaker
and it does at this point mention David Cody's idea that we just shouldn't use the terms conspiracy theory or a conspiracy theorist at all. Yeah, so David is a bit of an illimitivist. He's also illimitivist about things like fake news as well. He feels that we should just be using bog standard terms like disinformation and misinformation in place of things like conspiracy theories and fake news. Although I imagine if David had been writing back in the...
00:15:22
Speaker
1950s, 1960s, when the Soviets are inventing the term disinformatia. We don't need to use this new term. We can use older terms describe the same phenomena. But anyway, so they carry on to say, ideally, however, conspiracy theories would get fair treatment even if we do not reject the distinction between conspiracy theories and ordinary conspiracy
Trust and Epistemic Authorities
00:15:43
Speaker
explanations. And I think the word ideally...
00:15:45
Speaker
is doing is doing a bit of work there. i mean that's the the argument, surely, that that is made, is that at least in some cases, conspiracy theories don't get fear treatment. So that that that that point did not convince me.
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, it does seem to go, look, it's logically possible that even if there's a stigmatizing function for the term conspiracy theory, that doesn't necessarily mean that journalists are going to use it when they're analyzing some claim of conspiracy. And so a lot is resting on the logical possibility that maybe the social structures which constrain us in our investigations won't apply in the majority of cases. So it's going to be fine.
00:16:25
Speaker
This is going to fine. Well, it's all right then. So they continue, furthermore, it's unclear whether the philosophers' decision to revise language would solve the problem, if there is one. Therefore, the grounds for the revisionist move fail to convince. And again, it was not clear to me from reading this who is actually being asked to revise their language, whether it's everyone at all or just academics and philosophers. And that certainly doesn't seem like they've considered the possibility that we could accept the idea that, yeah, academics use the word one way and and colloquial usage is different and that's okay. um The assumption from the start seems to be, yes, everyone needs to use the word the same. So the only option is we leave things as they are, where we we we follow the colloquial definition that a conspiracy theory is somehow different from from a theory that involves a conspiracy, or we have to revise language for everyone.
00:17:17
Speaker
And in danger of repeating myself from previous episodes of this podcast, this is a weird claim for them to rely upon. Because we know in science that the public use scientific terms differently from professional scientists. I mean, the classic case during the latter part of the 20th century, was trying to persuade the public to understand how heat capture and heat transmission works because people thought they they they they had led weirdly different views about keeping heat inside a home from the way that scientists understand heat capture and heat transmission. And you'd think, according to the kind of arguments that Yu-Ha and Yu-Ho are putting forward, they're going, oh, well, you know me, scientists should be revising their latin lat language to match ordinary usage. But we don't do that in the sciences. We recognize that the public use terms in different ways from professional scientists and
00:18:20
Speaker
It's on one level, that's okay. We accept that that is a thing that goes on. And on another level, we go, yeah, but maybe the public should revise their terms to match the rarefied terms in the academic debate.
00:18:33
Speaker
So it seems odd We go, oh, but in the conspiracy theory case, we must use the ordinary language conception and ignore the academic arguments for going otherwise. And yet we don't do the same thing when it comes to other academic terms. Even when they can cause problems, I mean, just off the top of my head, evolution is a good term, has a very specific meaning in biology. But the the the reason why I think you get a lot of argument between evolution and creationism and that sort of stuff is because the colloquial version of evolution at least has the idea of progress baked in whereas the biological says nothing, you know, just means change. And so then you get these arguments yeah and stuff like that. Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
not a Yeah, I haven't heard anyone saying, no, everybody needs to use exactly the same meaning of the word evolution. Anyway, anyway, the point is, at the end of the section, we are sticking with the idea that conspiracy theories and quote marks are different from conspiracy.
00:19:31
Speaker
any old theory that happens to involve a conspiracy. So we we need to keep that in mind as we go through here when they talk about stuff. When they say a conspiracy theory, they're talking about a conspiracy, sorry, a theory that involves a conspiracy and which is not, which which goes counter to the epistemic authorities.
00:19:49
Speaker
Which is important because the next section is the epistemic status of conspiracy theories. And it starts by saying that the likes of, once again, the the dastardly pigged in Dentith and Basham have argued that history is full of conspiracies, so it is in fact sensible to believe that governments, businesses and what have you conspire today. And then they say...
00:20:08
Speaker
However, for one reason or another, conspiracy theorists have not been successful in revealing conspiracies. And think I'm going to say, rather, it's been the it's been the these epistemic authorities, historians, social scientists, research institutions, state agencies, or investigative journalists, aided sometimes by leakers,
00:20:27
Speaker
who have who have revealed these conspiracies. And at that point, I kind of sat up and said, hang on, what so what's a conspiracy theorist? They haven't actually said what a conspiracy theorist is, but here they're saying that conspiracy theorists have never successfully revealed conspiracies. So I guess, though, we can work backwards. If the if we're using their definition of conspiracy theory, then a conspiracy theorist must be anyone who believes in a conspiracy theory, i e they have a theory about a conspiracy theory,
00:20:56
Speaker
that isn't shared by the relevant epistemic authorities. But they never actually spell that out. No, it's just taken to be the case. Look, we all know conspiracy theorists are freaky individuals that are up to no good. And we know that the real conspiracies are exposed by you know our our journalists, our state agencies, etc., etc. But they've done the thing they've accused the particulars of doing. which is they've basically snuck in their conclusion via their definition. By defining a conspiracy theory as being counter the work of epistemic authorities, they well, look, you can't reveal the existence of a conspiracy as a conspiracy theorist. You don't believe what the authorities do, and the only people who can be authoritative about conspiracies are epistemic authorities. So there you go
00:21:50
Speaker
Case closed. And so we we start to get into the generalism versus particularism thing, having done that. they They say, are conspiracy theories, generally speaking, implausible, given that they challenge the views supported by the epistemic authorities, referring to Harris 2018?
00:22:05
Speaker
One could argue that, as a group, conspiracy theories are neither plausible nor implausible, and that some conspiracy theories are plausible while others are not, denteth 2016. They say, and then they they go on to say that it's simply not true that you can't estimate conspiracies in general terms. And estimate, again, I sat up a little bit and like, hang estimate? We've been talking about evaluating before, but is estimating and evaluating are two kind of different things. And they definitely pick particularism.
00:22:37
Speaker
is all about evaluation, if I'm right. It's saying you can't you can't write off a conspiracy theory simply because it's a conspiracy theory. You have to look at it and evaluate it. And I think one of the things that struck me about this paper is that it's it's a little bit murky on exactly what the generalist and particularist position is because...
00:22:56
Speaker
They go on to say, generalism that allows us to make a general judgment about the plausibility of conspiracy theories is completely consistent with particularism that encourages us to evaluate individual theories on the basis of evidence.
00:23:10
Speaker
The particularism bit sounds right. The generalism, I'm not so sure about. Well, yeah, so this is the weird thing. So I think when they say estimate conspiracies in general terms, what they mean is we can look, we can make a claim about largely how many conspiracies there actually are.
00:23:28
Speaker
And so we can say, look, there aren't that many conspiracies, whilst there are lots and lots and lots of conspiracy theories. So, of course, it must be the case that generalism must be true. Most of those conspiracy theories are false, and actually by their definition, they're probably all false because they go against what epistemic authorities actually believe.
00:23:49
Speaker
And conspiracies are very, very rare. So if you're going to go around saying, oh, but we need to treat conspiracy theories seriously because conspiracies occur, then the generalists will go, ah, no, pause there.
00:24:04
Speaker
There aren't that many conspiracies. So you're wasting your time engaging in an investigation of these conspiracy theories that not really going to bear much fruit because not many of them could be true anyway.
00:24:19
Speaker
And so this is where they get the kind of weird view of generalism, which is, oh, well, what we're saying about generalism is actually just that there are so many conspiracy theories out there. There's no point actually engaging in an investigation of conspiracy theories. Sure, the particulars might be right that we need to evaluate individual theories on the basis of the evidence. What's the point?
00:24:42
Speaker
so many of them in fact the vast majority indeed almost infinite number of these theories will turn out to be false compared to the really small incidence level of actual conspiracies so you might as well just give up Yeah, certainly. So I want to say generalism is consistent with particularism. So you can make general judgments about the plausibility of conspiracy theories, and that's consistent with encouraging us to evaluate and individual theories. So that means this they're saying that this general judgment you make doesn't do anything to discourage us from evaluating individual conspiracy theories. So what...
00:25:19
Speaker
What's the value of that general judgment then? it seems like that, yeah, if if if you're being properly generalist, that the position should be that the judgment does preclude the idea that you you need to evaluate every individual conspiracy theory. So yeah, just the whole thing seems just a little bit off to me.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yes, it's a but a little bit little bit like saying, look, we know most conspiracy theories are false, but we're going to investigate every single one of them anyway. Now, that is a view that particulars might endorse. Particulars will quite happily say, look,
00:25:50
Speaker
A lot of conspiracy theories, in fact probably most conspiracy theories, will turn out to be false upon investigation because there are going to be more theories about conspiracies than there'll be actual conspiracies. In the same respect, there'll be more scientific theories than there'll be warranted theories that turn out to be true upon serious investigation.
00:26:12
Speaker
But the generalists can't be making that claim because they're trying to make a claim about whether you should even engage in the investigation in the first place. so
Toxic Truths and Public Knowledge
00:26:22
Speaker
if you're arguing that, well, actually, there's most conspiracy theories are false, that's meant to be a and that's why you don't need to go around investigating them.
00:26:31
Speaker
Anyway. according to this According to this chapter, they want to say that because epistemic authorities, quote, work tolerably well, we can conclude that, again, quoting, every conspiracy theory is prima facie implausible and that the burden of proof rests on the side of the conspiracy theorists. Again, of course, we have to remember that they're defining conspiracy theories as theories that the authorities don't agree with.
00:26:55
Speaker
And we have to ask how well these tolerably well-working authorities turn out to be. Because there's lot resting on work tolerably well. What is our toleration here for authorities getting things wrong or being involved in conspiracies?
00:27:14
Speaker
Yes, well, indeed. So that that that brings us on to the next topic, which is basically the trustworthiness of epistemic authorities. Now, I say, whether or not epistemic authorities are properly trustworthy is too big a topic to go into in one chapter about philosophy or one part of one chapter. on on philosophy. it's ah It's a bigger subject than that, but they they want to bring up three points here. The first is our reliance upon the expertise of others is very extensive and almost automatic. They want to say, yeah, epistemic authorities, they're not always right. We can admit that. you know They're not true by by by definition. And they vary in trustworthiness depending on when and where you are.
00:27:54
Speaker
But we do actually rely on them most of the time. we do We do actually believe most of what we read in the newspapers, most of what scientists tell us, and so on and so forth. Now that's a nice pragmatic view.
00:28:07
Speaker
So from a pragmatic perspective, we go, well, look, we live in a heavily social world in which most information comes from other people. mean, the entire educational system is based upon trusting teachers to confer information to students in order to generate the next generation of information being passed on, et cetera, et cetera.
00:28:28
Speaker
But the pragmatics of trust is different from a question as to whether the experts are successful in transmitting information epistemically. So sure, we need to trust other people if we want to live in a social world, but that doesn't tell us that the experts are properly trustworthy in an epistemic sense. It just tells us that it's kind of a prerequisite for living in a society, so that we have to place some trust somewhere.
00:28:57
Speaker
Nevertheless, they go on to their second point, which is that critical and rational people often suspect the information provided by the epistemic authorities, but the suspicion is usually based on beliefs that are supported by the other views of the same authorities and not, say, by the views of miracle mongers, which is a phrase that I like. So yeah again, they're saying, yeah yes, even when people do distrust epistemic authorities, it's usually because other epistemic authorities say that they that they they should be suspicious of it or or because there's possibly a disagreement within a particular area and the authorities conflict sometimes.
00:29:32
Speaker
And then third, they say the supporters of conspiracy theories often think that, quote, it is possible that we live in a society that merely looks open, dentif, 2018. However, those who claim that media research institutes and so on can be untrustworthy and sincere seem to trust them when they reveal conspiracies.
00:29:49
Speaker
Now, first of all, the fact that it calls you a supporter of conspiracy theories is, Are you a supporter of conspiracy theories? I mean, I'm a supporter of conspiracy theorizing, so I think we should engage in conspiracy theorizing because we should be on the lookout for the existence of conspiracy. So I guess on a very technical level, yes, I am a booster of conspiracy theories, but this is all shades of Kassam's notion of the conspiracy apologists.
00:30:20
Speaker
people who are apologizing for the vile and terrible conspiracy theories that exist out there. Because once again, we have to remember the definition of conspiracy theory that is being put forward here is a contra-epistemic authority, contra-official theory's definition of conspiracy theory. And whilst I'm a supporter of conspiracy theories, I'm a supporter of conspiracy theories according to the simple and minimal definitions. of conspiracy theory. So it's one of those things where technically they are right, and yet philosophically they're actually getting me completely wrong.
00:31:01
Speaker
And yes, this is another thing that I found goes through this paper a bit. Having talked about sort of generalists and particularists at the top, They, kind of not not always, but often they kind of boil it down to particularists are people who think conspiracy theories are great and we should do them, and and generalists are people who think conspiracy theories are bad and we shouldn't conspiracy theorize, which of course are completely different positions.
00:31:24
Speaker
Anyway, from here we go on to the old the old toxic truths issue, referring again to your good self and to Lee Basham. So the idea that some conspiratorials are they're too toxic. They contain these toxic truths. I like that you said some conspiratorials. i'm consider that's That's exactly what I meant.
00:31:44
Speaker
ah i some and i like it. I like it a lot. Actually, can you go through the toxic truths issue briefly, just given that it's you and Basham, Lee Basham, who get reference to you? right. So Lee has this idea that there are some truths which are simply too toxic for the public to know about. So the example he uses and conspiracy theories and rationality, or maybe it's rationality and conspiracy theories,
00:32:11
Speaker
is the idea that the Atomic Energy Commission knew about the danger of fallout, and they kind of knew about it kind of after a lot of damage had been done to people observing nuclear tests in the desert.
00:32:25
Speaker
So they were going, the public doesn't need to know about this because there's going to be a huge loss in trust. in authorities if they find out that the thing that we said was safe turned out not to be particularly safe. So that truth was too toxic for the public to know about, and therefore it was kept from the public as part of a conspiracy. And this really did happen. So Lee goes, look, there's a kind of elite decide notion that there are some things the public just don't need to know about.
00:33:00
Speaker
Now, I think Lee is right that this does occur, but I think Lee's analysis also ignores the fact that sometimes there's a bottom-up approach, which is that people in general decide that there's information they're just not going to acknowledge as being true in their society. And I call this the polite society hypothesis, the idea that sometimes we just politely ignore information of malfeasance in our communities. And the great example of that in the latter part of the 20th century was the public knowing full well that the police were fitting up people for crimes they did not commit and going, well, we're just going to ignore this because they are putting bad people in jail. And we know the police are doing a bad thing to put those bad people in jail, but those bad people deserve to be there in the first place anyway.
00:33:56
Speaker
And so that's bottom-up approach, which is complementary to toxic ah Lee's notion of toxicity or toxic trodes, but also goes, sometimes it is the elites deciding what the public need to know, and sometimes it's the public deciding what they're just going to pretend isn't trode.
00:34:16
Speaker
or is true, depending on the way it cashes out. So the reply to this issue that's put forth in this chapter is that, historically speaking, the usual institutions of public information have been able and willing to publish news that must have seemed very toxic at the time, pointing out that was at the Washington Post, Breitwatergate, and what have you. And my immediate response to that was two words, Jimmy Savile. And also the other response you should have, if you're even vaguely historically literate about Watergate, is that Woodward and Bernstein were castigated for pursuing the matter for months and months and months. And Richard Nixon won a landslide election during that investigation.
00:35:00
Speaker
But I mean, the Jimmy Savile, there had been rumours about him for decades and decades, and yet no newspaper. I'm sure I've said this before. After he died and all the stuff about him came out into the the wider public sphere, there was The Independent, I think, one of the newspapers, sort of as a bit of a mea culpa, published an old interview, an article about him, to basically saying, look look how wrong we got it.
00:35:23
Speaker
And at one point in this in this old profile of Jimmy Savile, they actually bring up the idea that, oh, there are these rumours about him, but no one's ever, like, investigated or charged him with anything. And surely, you know, surely any newspaper would would want to take down a big public figure. So the fact that no one has is is the best evidence we have that all these rumours are false, which we now know is completely wrong.
00:35:45
Speaker
So, yeah, the ah the idea that that these these institutions of public information are always willing to publish news, this toxic news, doesn't seem entirely true. And indeed, in this chapter, they bring up the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, which is a ah similar case in that his ah the the idea that Lance Armstrong had been doping had been rumoured for to...
00:36:08
Speaker
And nobody really wanted to look into it until eventually they did um and stuff happened. Bill Cosby, i guess, he's another one. Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, you eighty got he actually got arrested for what he eventually got arrested for a second time.
00:36:24
Speaker
And so certainly, at least ah at least in the case of Jimmy Savile, no one really seemed interested in after his death, so there'd be no repercussions, especially with Britain's weird-arse libel laws. So yeah, again, yeah yes, certainly some public institutions have indeed exposed corruption, but there are other cases where we know they, if not covered it up, then then made the choice not to reveal them.
00:36:48
Speaker
it Or not to pursue any additional reporting. um And so then they go through a few other epistemic problematic epistemically problematic features of conspiracy theories. So the the old inconsistency thing that's studied by Wood and, was it just Wood or Wood and someone else about how? and Douglas. Wood and Douglas, there we go.
Characteristics and Ethics of Conspiracy Theories
00:37:07
Speaker
about how supposedly conspiracy theorists hold inconsistent or contradictory views, which we talked about at the time. It it never really said that at all. And also, even if it did say that, there have been two responses, one by sociologists and philosophers. And so by psychologists going, and well, actually, they don't quite understand exactly what's going on there. It's not as inconsistent as it looks. It's just people identifying hypothe hypotheses.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yes. So we get good old epistemic vices. Qasim Qasim comes in there. We've talked about that plenty. ah The idea of conspiracy theories being irrefutable, which I think is is referring to the idea of and sort of being unfalsifiable. The idea that these conspiracy theories can be irrefutable because no matter how you try to disprove them, they'll just get bigger and bigger. And, you know, the the whole, of this goes all the way to the top thing.
00:38:02
Speaker
And also, I mean, in the year of our Lord 2020, when this chapter came out, the fact that people are still talking about falsificationism, despite the fact it was discarded in the philosophy of science in the middle of the last century, well, latter part of the last century. i mean, Popper puts it forward in the 50s or 60s, and by the 70s, people have gone, actually, this theory doesn't work. The fact that people are still using it,
00:38:29
Speaker
is it kind of beggars belief particularly from philosophers. ah Now, they do acknowledge at this point that these these um these problematic features are not characteristics of all conspiracy theories. They're not saying every conspiracy theory is is inconsistent, not not saying every conspiracy theorist possesses these epistemic vices and what have you.
00:38:49
Speaker
And they they they finish up by saying, it would be misguided to think that all conspiracy theories must be false. Epistemic authorities make mistakes and scientific misconduct is not uncommon. Perhaps a conspiracy theorist will one day reveal a conspiracy that is not revealed by the epistemic authorities. I would love someone to have a look into that and see if that's already happened. But anyway... Maybe it will be one in which an epistemic authority, such as a state agency, is involved. A person's general trust in the media, government agencies, and the court of law is consistent with the view that some of them have a mistaken view or have lied about a particular issue.
00:39:22
Speaker
And I'll just point out, if you have a simple minimal definition of conspiracy theory, which then gives you a simple minimal definition of conspiracy theorists, then conspiracy theorists have been revealing conspiracies since time immemorial.
00:39:36
Speaker
and Indeed. But that's it for the epistemics of conspiracy theories. Now we want to move on to the ethics of conspiracy theories. As they say at the start, conspiracy theorizing is a form of human action and is thus an appropriate object of ethical evaluation.
00:39:49
Speaker
As is the writing of papers on conspiracy theory, but we'll leave that to one side. certainly is. um So here they they say they want to distinguish between conspiracy theorizing in general and specific individual conspiracy theories. um They also want to distinguish between actively developing and publishing conspiracy theories versus just passively disseminating them, sharing emails, sharing links and things like that.
00:40:17
Speaker
That does make it sound as if some conspiracy theorists are just giving off spores. Because I'm not actually doing anything. I'm just... My conspiracy spores. It's just that time of year. It's that time of year.
00:40:28
Speaker
So basically, I guess developing conspiracy theories versus versus sharing them. But anyway... So some people, again, that that Clark, Cody, Pigdom, Basham and Denteth, think that conspiracy theorizing is ethically approvable, their words, because it helps to maintain an open society and that criticizing conspiracy theories lets actual conspirators get away with their conspiring.
00:40:51
Speaker
yeah Ethically approvable is a weird way to put it. i would I mean, I guess I'd say something along the lines of it's ethically permissible and that I think you should be allowed to theorize about conspiracies.
00:41:05
Speaker
But as most particulars have argued, that doesn't necessarily mean you should launder every single conspiracy theory in public. We do recognize that there are bad conspiracy theories out there. In fact, most of us recognize that there are an awful lot of bad conspiracy theories out there which have led to fairly drastic social consequences. So there are sophisticated views as to, you know,
00:41:32
Speaker
How these investigations into conspiracy theory should go about, whether claims should be made in public, how much investigation should be done, etc., etc. So this is this is a very scant characterization of a very complex debate.
00:41:48
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I guess ethically approvable, they're wanting to get the idea that the conspiracy theorising is not inherently ethically wrong, but not inherently ethically right either. It's just a thing that can be right, but yeah.
00:42:03
Speaker
So, you know, they they carry on. So their response is to say the idea in most apologies of conspiracy theorizing, there you are again, you're conspiracy theory apologist, you, is that main mainstream media and investigative journalists who get help from leakers are unable to satisfactorily fu fulfill their function as watchdogs.
00:42:21
Speaker
Which again is based on the idea that conspiracy theorists are opposed to epistemic authorities, these these mainstream media investigative journalists. Well, I would take it that most investigative journalists are conspiracy theorists. They entertain notions of, well, not all of them. The kind of investigative journalists who investigate political corruption or malfeasance are often entertaining theories about conspiracies and then going, is this worth pursuing? Is there any evidence for this particular claim? Et cetera, et cetera.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yes, and remember right up right near the start, they had that little note about how members of epistemic authorities can be conspiracy theorists if if if their theories are not accepted by the epistemic authority at large, which I guess would make Woodward and Bernstein conspiracy theorists, wouldn't it? It would, yes. There's your example of conspiracy theorists bringing about conspiracy theory. But anyway, ah so so those those are people...
00:43:16
Speaker
um who think that that conspiracy theorizing is quote unquote ethically approvable. But then other people criticize conspiracy theorizing and they point out that the spread of certain conspiracy theories has resulted in very bad things. Anti-vaccine theories have done a lot of damage, I think you could say. Climate climate change denial theories, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, obviously, have been hugely damaging.
00:43:39
Speaker
ah But then they say, of course, but yeah well once again, they're not saying that every conspiracy theory is damaging. They say some of them are relatively harmless. Shakespeare, authorship conspiracy theories, moon landing conspiracy theories, they call them rather harmless, although the moon landing theories did get that one guy punched in the face. But then he was the guy spreading the theory, wasn't it? Buzz Aldrin was the guy he was just pestering. But anyway, um they say, possibly the main problem of conspiracy theories is that, considered together as a whole, they cast a massive shadow over the institutions that have epistemic functions in our lives and lessen general trust in, quote, the behavior and motivations of other people and the social institutions they constitute. Keeley, 1999.
00:44:21
Speaker
In totalitarian societies where general trust is low, for example, people are unable to make rational long-term plans and reasonable personalable personal investments. Lessening epistemic trust is ethically questionable, given that there are no grounds for a general suspicion, as there are in totalitarian societies. Conspiracy theories can therefore be seen as morally problematic and possibly as more problematic than other forms of sowing confusion and doubt.
00:44:45
Speaker
I think that's a good one. but Yeah. So so ah now now we get into why these conspiracy theories are bad things. they They bring up the idea that conspiracy theories tend to involve libels and false accusations, which tend to, elsewhere they've said, yes, some conspiracy theories have these negative features. Not all of them, though.
00:45:04
Speaker
This is the first time they've seen conspiracy theories tend to do something bad, which does seem to imply that that's it's the majority. that's that they They do it more than they don't. Yeah, so they've actually subtly changed their definition from being not just contra-epistemic authority, but also involves typically libels and false accusations. So there's a modification of the definition here to kind of sneak this point in.
00:45:32
Speaker
And this is interesting because this is very similar to Patrick Stokes' worry about the role accusations play in conspiracy theorizing. So when Stokes puts forward his notion of reluctant particularism or defeasible generalism, he's going, look, we know conspiracies occur. And we know that we should be investigating claims of conspiracy because sometimes they turn out to be evidence of actual conspiracy. So we should treat conspiracy theories with enough solemnity to check to see whether they are examples of warranted conspiracy theories or unwarranted conspiracy theories. But we should also be concerned that conspiracy theories often involve accusations conspiracy
00:46:18
Speaker
ethically questionable behavior so if you're going to accuse prince philip of being behind the assassination of princess diana you are this is a weird claim to make you are impugning the moral character of prince philip who as we know was a morally upstanding gentleman and one of the greatest people to ever grace the queen's earth and so you're impugning his reputation and that's a bad thing to do So this is the worry that you know accusations play a strong role in certain conspiracy theories, and people like Stokes, and it seems Yuha and Yuho, are also concerned that these things lead to people acting in morally dangerous ways by engaging in these kind of moral accusations, and we should avoid that kind of behavior.
00:47:09
Speaker
Now, at this point, they bring up the idea, well, even if conspiracy theories are morally problematic, conspiracy theorists themselves may not be morally blameworthy. Sometimes they're just ignorant and stupid.
00:47:21
Speaker
Sometimes they just can't help themselves from conspiracy theorizing. I'm not sure if they're... if you're implying mental illness on that part, on that on that idea, that's an obsessive pairing. they might just be saying, these people just don't know better. They don't know that they're engaging in activity, which is morally harmful.
00:47:39
Speaker
ah But nevertheless, they then go on to say, actually, no, they don't find that convincing. if if Even if people don't know that they're causing harm by publishing and or spreading conspiracy theories, well, they just bloody should. They should know that it's a bad thing, yeah which is pretty much all they all they have to say about that.
00:47:55
Speaker
Now, then there's another... There's another supposed defence of conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists, which is the idea that conspiracy theorists, they're just asking questions, and they're just trying to encourage debate, bring things out into the open, into the public sphere.
00:48:10
Speaker
And they reply, well, actually, lot of the time they're not. um On the contrary, they are participating in the debate, often with a vociferously loud voice. And I mean, that's that's certainly true in some cases. We have seen um conspiracy theorists of of various stripes being very, very, very loud, very loudly opposed um to the other side when we look at, you especially anti-vax stuff in the age of COVID and stuff like that. But I don't know. I mean, they do refer Husting and Orr's 2007 paper there, which I don't recall, but... Dangerous machinery. ah That's not kind they've heard often, that conspiracy theorising is okay because they're just asking questions.
00:48:52
Speaker
I mean, it's it's it's part of the do-your-own-research debate. So the idea, look, all the more conspiracy theorists are doing is doing their own research, and we normally encourage that. That's considered to be you know one of the Enlightenment ideals. You shouldn't just take things in authority. you should actively investigate and question authority all the time. And yes, it is true. Some conspiracy theorists participate in debates by engaging in gish gallops, by just being the loudest voice in the room. But that, once again, that's not all conspiracy theorists.
00:49:29
Speaker
and certainly it doesn't help their definition of conspiracy theorist as being contra epistemic authority means that of course these people are acting badly they're going against what the experts believe so once again the definition is doing so much work here But so they they they've um they've defined the the conspiracy theories the way they want to which has led them to say that conspiracy theories are epistemically problematic, which has led them to say that conspiracy theories are ethically problematic.
00:49:59
Speaker
And so then that gets into the final well the final section bar, the conclusion, which is called the fight against conspiracy theories. What are we to do? about these conspiracy theories. There are there are a few ideas here. Brain chips in the back of the neck, that's what I say.
00:50:14
Speaker
Well, we'll get to that. So they say, those philosophers who find conspiracy theorizing an important and desirable social activity encourage people to develop, disseminate, and evaluate conspiracy theories open-mindedly.
00:50:26
Speaker
They
State Strategies Against Conspiracy Theories
00:50:27
Speaker
warn people that they should not dismiss possible explanations of important political events simply on the grounds that the explanations are labeled conspiracy theories, referring... once again to the pair the duo of Dentith and Basham.
00:50:38
Speaker
Do you encourage people to develop and disseminate conspiracy theories? I mean, not personally. I've never gone around and go, oh, Josh, I think you should develop some more conspiracy theories, and also I think you should be making sure you tell everybody in your workplace about them in the loudest possible voice. I mean, it's an interesting sentence here, because they've got the open-mindedly...
00:51:02
Speaker
condition at the end so on one level they're saying look we're just encouraging people to develop disseminate and evaluate conspiracy theories in an open-minded fashion but there's also a reading here where we're going we're encouraging people to develop and disseminate conspiracy theories with that kind of bad open-mindedness where people just go well any idea is important and i'm going to pursue it And so, yeah it's a little bit hard to know, are they capturing my view here correctly? I mean, I do think we should be open-minded about conspiracy theories. The last part of it, evaluate conspiracy theories. And I do think that people should be open to theorizing about conspiracy theories. So I guess in that particular aspect, I think we should encourage people to develop conspiracy theories in the sense of thinking about them.
00:51:52
Speaker
Do I think conspiracy theorizing is an important and desirable social activity? i mean, that's an interesting question. za I do think it's important... in order to question whether there are conspiracies going on there. But desirable is an interesting point. I'd be prefer to live in a society where conspiracies never occur, at which point you might go, well, look, given the available evidence, it's important to think about conspiracy theories. But whether it's a desirable social activity is actually something which is open to debate.
00:52:25
Speaker
But anyway, forget about forget about reprobates like you and Lee. um What should right-thinking people do to stop these conspiracy theories? Better still, what should the state do stop conspiracy theories? And they say three approaches have been suggested. One, prohibition. Two, direct fight. And three, indirect actions. And they go through all three in turn.
00:52:46
Speaker
So looking at the idea of prohibition. So for instance, in some countries, Holocaust denial is already illegal. That's a kind of conspiracy theory that is actually prohibited by law in some countries.
00:52:58
Speaker
And so they say, well, how about we extend that idea? How about we do that with other conspiracy theories that are plainly false and and clearly harmful, like perhaps climate change denial?
00:53:09
Speaker
Now, of course, i say there are problems with this approach. Obviously, it's actually hard to say which conspiracy theories are plainly false versus maybe quite implausible. So drawing drawing that line as to which which conspiracy theories should be made illegal would be a very difficult thing. Which is a concession that they're having to make here, because by their definition, conspiracy theories go against epistemic authorities, and so they should be implausible by definition anyway.
00:53:39
Speaker
So they've conceded some ground to the particularist here. but And then also they say that that doing this, it it is a weird way to limit people's freedom of speech.
00:53:50
Speaker
They're prohibiting, like, there's prohibited free speech, which is directly harmful, the the old shouting fire in a crowded theatre sort of thing. um or or you know stoking hate and um deliberately inciting acts of violence, what have you. Under this view, their views that supposedly they are doing some form of social harm, but not actual harm at the time they're expressed in many cases, saying that climate change is a hoax,
00:54:17
Speaker
is not harming anyone right now, even if even if the the the wider movement does end up doing actual harm. So I yeah i see it' it's just a, it is it is just a too too too strange a thing to be workable, I think.
00:54:31
Speaker
So they move on to the idea from prohibiting conspiracy theories to fighting directly against them. And it's Sunstein and Vermeule. We all knew this was coming, the old Sunstein and Vermeule idea that governments should actually be be directly combating conspiracy theories, possibly by it by and infiltrating groups of conspiracy theorists and stuff like that.
00:54:53
Speaker
Now, we said at the time that there's there's some big problems with this and and plenty of other people have, and indeed they acknowledge that in this paper as well. They say, they quote Curtis Hagan saying the idea that state agency, or rather they refer to Curtis Hagan, I don't think this is his exact words, the idea that state agencies should engage in a conspiracy against groups that promote conspiracy theories would warrant the claim that there are conspiracies operated by the state.
00:55:17
Speaker
It sure would. They refer to David Cody when they say, more importantly, to recommend cognitive infiltration is to recommend policies which could never be successful in a truly open society and which, to the extent that they are successful, would make our society less open.
00:55:32
Speaker
Such policy would be inconsistent with the values of liberal democracy. Yeah, and it's important to note, even though they're claiming that this is a direct fight mechanism, it's actually important to note that Sunstein and Vermeule think this should be done with a certain degree of secrecy. Because Sunstein and Vermeule are aware that people in those conspiracy theory fora if they are aware that people are infiltrating those fora, are going to be very suspicious. So this is a kind of indirect action. And as David points out, you know if you're if you've got the government secretly infiltrating groups of people they don't like to persuade them not to believe the things they don't like, imagine what things they don't like that they're going to, which are true,
00:56:20
Speaker
And they're going, yeah, but we don't want you believing that, though, so we're going to make it hard for you to put two believe that. So, yeah, it would be it would be a drastic turn against a liberal Western democracy to engage in this particular kind of activity.
00:56:36
Speaker
And also they say the the idea of of cognitive infiltration is based on the assumption that conspiracy theorists work typically in groups and do not listen to alternative explanations. Both empirical and some assumptions are questionable, if not obviously false.
00:56:51
Speaker
So then that leads them to the idea of indirect actions. And they give a few suggestions here. They say the state authorities can try to ensure that the views of scientific communities get enough publicity and that people have sufficient skills to interpret the media. The authorities could certainly have an important role in educating people in critical thinking and argumentation.
00:57:10
Speaker
Also, they say, furthermore, the state can ensure that truly diverse views are published and receive publicity in civic debate so that there would be less need for specific conspiracy theory forums. And go on to say the state can certainly enhance diversity, say, by supporting newspapers that cannot survive without financial backing.
00:57:28
Speaker
So therefore, the and the state playing a role in ensuring that there is a diversity of opinions out there, so that there would be less need for people to be coming up with with conspiracy theories. Although that being said, having the state engage in a diversity of views in the current era of a resurgent far right would mean it does seem that both of these scholars would be going, well, you know, there should be some far right newspapers out there to ensure there are diverse views. We should be funding hate speech.
00:57:58
Speaker
That does actually seem to be a view that some people hold in the present day. now it's interesting that's That's what makes it weird. Now, that section in direct actions does not refer to anybody else's papers. So can I assume that's the view of the authors here? I would have to assume so as well. I mean, it does seem a little bit half-baked, so it does seem like something you put into a book chapter by going, well, I've got some vague thoughts about this, so well I'll put them here and maybe play around with those in a future paper.
00:58:29
Speaker
So, all of us all of this leads us to the conclusion, which is short enough that I can just read out the whole thing. ah ge Shall we... shall shall we shoot show paragraph by para yeah there are three paragraphs here. So maybe i read the first you read the second and i read the third Okay, go for it then. In comparison to discussions in social psychology and political science, for instance, the reception of conspiracy theories has been rather positive among philosophers. A central contention within this reception has been that one is not warranted in rejecting a particular political explanation only on the grounds that it has been labelled as a conspiracy theory.
00:59:15
Speaker
Unfortunately, the philosophical discussion on conspiracy theories has suffered from unnecessary antagonism and needlessly belligerent argumentation. For one reason or another, the willingness to understand the opposite side and the readiness to try to find the most sensible interpretation of the opponent's arguments have been in short supply.
00:59:31
Speaker
We fear that it is not an exaggeration to say that some philosophers have forgotten the principle of charity and their contributions to the debate, although truth lovers, if that is what a philosopher can claim to be, should respect the principle.
00:59:43
Speaker
One explanation for the strong language is that many issues related to the epistemology and ethics of conspiracies have a political dimension. Possibly there are also other incentives not to find an agreement. Where to start?
00:59:54
Speaker
And there's still a paragraph to go, but where to start with this paragraph? The philosophical discussion on conspiracy theories has suffered from unnecessary antagonism and needlessly belligerent argumentation, like this very chapter itself.
01:00:10
Speaker
For some reason or another, the willingness to understand the opposite side opposite side and readiness to try and find the most sensible interpretation of the opponent's arguments have been in short supply, as demonstrated by the writers of this particular chapter.
01:00:28
Speaker
And what are these other incentives not to find an agreement? Is that meant to be some kind of claim that either particulars are engaging in a conspiracy? Or is it meant to be the even stronger dig that the particulars are just conspiracy theorists and are trying to find a way to justify their position?
01:00:50
Speaker
It does sound like a conspiracy theory, I have to say. It does, yes But the third the third paragraph is really the kicker. In addition to the conceptual questions about the definitions of conspiracy and conspiracy theory, an essential disagreement among philosophers seems to concern the question of how well the fact-gathering institutions work in ordinary democratic countries.
01:01:16
Speaker
those who have defended conspiracy theories are not optimistic about the present state of the ordinary epistemic authorities while others assume that they are likely to reveal conspiracies sooner or later if there is something to reveal however the question of how well the media research institutes, state agencies, investigative journalists and historians do their job is largely empirical, and surely there are considerable differences between countries and time periods.
01:01:49
Speaker
This suggests that, in the final analysis, philosophers may have relatively little to give to the theory of conspiracy theories. Although the epistemic question of when and why we are justified in using testimony as a basis of our beliefs is certainly a deep philosophical problem, examining the present state of existing knowledge-producing institutions in different countries is not primarily a philosophical project. Drop mic, walk away.
01:02:18
Speaker
So there you have it, they said at the start. The aim of this chapter is to explain how philosophy you could help study in conspiracy theories, and the answer is it can't. yeah that's that that's a conclusion and a half right there yep it sure is this is why i really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really actually and chart and type you because we're infin arms that' that that to selfsstep but i really really don't like this chat
01:02:53
Speaker
Yes, i can I can see why you wouldn't. Yeah, how the whole absolute slap in the face to particularism, mostly in part that it doesn't capture particularism, and in not capturing particularism actually engages in gross mischaracterization of that thesis in order to effectively score cheap points.
01:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the whole thing, again, it just it just seemed a little bit fuzzy on its definitions. It didn't really capture particularism, and it didn't really feel like it captured generalism, or at least it gave a very very sort of watered-down idea that conspiracy theories are, yeah, yeah in general, maybe they're not very plausible, but but hey, man, that's okay. you should you should You shouldn't write them off. You should defend them anyway, which then it just sort of makes generalism sound like particularism with extra steps. So, yeah, and and then, as I said before, they'll –
01:03:45
Speaker
A lot of the time they'd say some people think conspiracy theories can be good and they encounter that by saying, but other people think conspiracy theories can be bad, which isn't actually contradictory. And what can we do about that? Who knows? Who knows? Philosophers have nothing to contribute to that debate.
01:04:02
Speaker
And then, yeah, just the idea that they sort of go from the general generalism and particularism to people who defend conspiracy theories and people who don't think they're good things, again, is another...
01:04:15
Speaker
It's another dodgy move. So, yes, yeah, i can I can see why you don't like that paper slash chapter. It is a needlessly belligerent and antagonistic paper, and it's just amusing that apparently, no, it's ah it's it's it's the principal Skinner thing. No, am I out of touch? No, it's the kids who are wrong.
01:04:36
Speaker
Yep. Well, there you go. i think i know i've got i mean I've got one more point to make here. So, as I say, I was involved in the ECOS movement compact that generated this book, but I came into the project after this book had been commissioned.
01:04:51
Speaker
And it is interesting that this is the chapter on the philosophy of conspiracy theories in this work. Because you can imagine if I'd been involved earlier on and and finangled my way into writing a chapter, we'd have something quite different from this.
01:05:09
Speaker
And what does fascinate me is that the two editors of the handbook, Michael Butter and Peter Knight, are people who have historically said that they don't think that philosophy has much to add to conspiracy theory theory. So this is the kind of chapter those editors wanted. And I do wonder how much input they had into the writing of this chapter and directing the two authors towards a conclusion that says, look, you've both published on conspiracy theory in philosophical journals. We want you to conclude that even your work doesn't really add anything it.
01:05:55
Speaker
to the academic debate about these things called conspiracy theories, because it's a fairly condemning thing for these authors to admit that even their own work doesn't contribute anything of note to an ongoing debate about belief in conspiracy theories in contemporary societies.
01:06:13
Speaker
Yes, yes. sir I think at the end of the day, I know which sting I'm going to be putting on the front of this one. I imagine it's the same as yours. Indeed. we We've come to the end of an episode and not before time, which means we, of course, have to go and record a bonus episode for our patrons, including our brand new patron, Daniel. Is is he actually brand new? or did he pop up a little Well, i mean I mean, so I sent you the email saying that we had the new patron a month or so ago. We just never got around to doing the intro, but we have now, Daniel. We have now.
01:06:47
Speaker
Thank you very much. Yeah, so you um and other people are going to get a bonus bonus episode. where we We figured we'd talk about that. um if If you haven't heard, that there's there's a thing going on with Lego and Mormons.
01:07:01
Speaker
and And it's not that Lego has released a Book of Mormon or Josiah Smith Lego set. It's it's one of the things I didn't really want to know about it, and then the internet made me know about it.
01:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, i so yeah i the two least attractive words to me in the English english language are possibly video essay. i do not like long-form YouTube videos, but this this is an interesting one and a lot has been said about it. So we're going to talk about that a bit and who knows what else.
01:07:33
Speaker
I mean, i would say I do enjoy the occasional video video essay. I'm not entirely against them, but I also am very selective about which video essays I'm willing to watch.
01:07:47
Speaker
Yes. So... If you want to hear about that and you're not currently a patron, you can just go to patreon.com podcaster's guide to the conspiracy, I think it is, or just put it in the search bar. You'll find us eventually. And if you're not a patron, that's good good for you anyway. You're a listener. That's practically the same thing. It's not. Let me be clear. It's not the same thing. but it You don't have that golden sheen that our our patrons get, which admittedly I have been told by doctors is something we should be looking into more so because it's probably not healthy to have that kind of golden sheen.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yes, yes. But that's ah you can put that concern to the side. So that is the end of an episode. So so to all of you patrons and regular listeners good alike, I just say goodnight.
01:08:33
Speaker
Goodnight! Because it's night time. Night-night! Obviously. Yep.
01:08:44
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy features Josh Addison and Associate Professor M.R. Extentis. Our producers are a mysterious cabal of conspirators known as Tom, Philip, and another who is so mysterious that they remain anonymous.
01:08:59
Speaker
You can contact us electronically via podcastconspiracy at gmail.com or join our Patreon and get access to our Discord server. Or don't, I'm not your mum.
01:09:26
Speaker
And remember... these!