Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
M's Conference Report
1 Plays3 seconds ago
M has been off schmoozing with their peers, cavorting and carousing at one of those star-studded, high-rolling philosophy conferences you always hear about on the news. They're back in China now, ready to give us a breakdown of what they got up to. No good? Some good? TOO MUCH GOOD?! The only way to know is to listen.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Edison and Ian Denteth.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello, it's the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy in
Hosts' Locations and Aging Discussion
00:00:31
Speaker
Auckland, New Zealand. i am Josh Addison, back in Guangzhou, China. It's Dr. M.R. Extenteth, who was in Auckland, New Zealand, but not long enough to record an episode, and is now back in China.
00:00:43
Speaker
I have. I've gone from the heat to the cold, back to the heat. And my is my body ever so slightly confused by everything that's going on around it. Although that might be a function of age.
00:00:55
Speaker
It's really hard to tell. Because, yes, you did. Since last episode, you have gone and aged another year. I keep telling you not to, every year... Look, doctors tell me if I keep putting it off, it's going to be really bad in the long term. I need to do at least one day of aging per year in order to stymie the Grim Reapers getting to me earlier than expected. It's just science, Josh. I don't understand why you don't understand how medical science works. It's leeches, it's iron fillings, it's magnetic field. It is just standard science.
00:01:32
Speaker
Fine, fine, all right then. I'll let you away with it this year, but next year, you're going to have
Conference Experiences and Monty Python
00:01:37
Speaker
to have words. So you actually, you you had your birthday during this conference that you were at, didn't you?
00:01:43
Speaker
I did indeed, and some drinks were purchased. Well, we all know how those philosophers can drink, ah ah according to Monty Python anyway. Well, I mean, old not not not naming names, but I was at the conference dinner at the end of the conference, and we were half an hour into the conference dinner, and there were already some big-name philosophers trying to steal bottles of wine from other people's tables because they had already finished the wine that had been provided gratis at the beginning of the night.
00:02:17
Speaker
So, yeah, there there was some. So they say in wine there is truth, and that is true about philosophy, although the truth part itself is actually largely irrelevant.
Australasian Philosophy Conference Overview
00:02:31
Speaker
There's just wine. Well, so you know that's what we're going to be talking about this episode anyway. Em's going to give us a little conference report. So before we before we get bogged down with tales of drunken debauchery, which I assume is going to make up the bulk of your report, ah let's play a chime and then start doing it properly.
00:02:51
Speaker
Okidi-okili!
00:02:58
Speaker
Yes, so give us give us a bit of background. Where where exactly have you been What have you been doing there? So, Josh, I have just attended the AAP, the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, this year held at the University of Waikato in the Waikato in the kind of well kind of middle of the North Island of New Zealand. It is central. I mean, I kind of think of Rotorua as being the centre and Hamilton is north of it, but it's kind of in a central region of the North Island yeah of the country. I'll accept it.
00:03:31
Speaker
So the AAP hold a big conference every year and the Australasian Association of Philosophy, by its name, suggests it is held in Australasia. Often the conference is held in Australia, Australia being a larger landmass, a larger population and having more universities. But every so often New Zealand gets a punt.
00:03:52
Speaker
And this was one of those years. So how like how how big is it? How many people are there? All right, so right one one one way to describe this, it's a four-day conference. There are multiple streams. I think there were six simultaneous streams. So we're talking...
00:04:12
Speaker
eight or nine papers per day times four times six. And then you add in some additional people who are there to see papers, but not actually to present papers. And it is a big conference. It's one of the largest philosophy conferences I've been to in the last five years. The last big one being the previous AAP I had been to at the University of Auckland just before I came to China.
00:04:40
Speaker
And is it is it just people from Australasia? i mean, I suppose you're there representing a Chinese university, so I assume there are people from outside the Antipodes?
00:04:51
Speaker
Yes, so the AAP's policy is they'll accept basically any paper that is submitted. So we had a number of Americans in attendance. We had a number of people from Taipei in attendance. it was, of course, myself from Zhuhai slash Guangzhou in attendance as well. There were people from actually the people from the UK.
00:05:13
Speaker
So it was a global conference, although the predominant people there were Australasians. or at least people working at Australasian universities. So what what exactly, actually, I know you've got some things to talk about, about what you did, but before we get into that, what did you what did you see? what What other things did you attend that interested you?
00:05:36
Speaker
that's a very good question. I wish I had my notebook to hand to kind of go back. One the things about a big conference is that by the final day, you are exhausted, you are feeling slightly silly, and you are struggling to remember the things you actually experienced the three days prior. So i went to a number of talks based upon indigenous philosophies, both in Aotoro New Zealand and outside Aotoro New Zealand,
00:06:07
Speaker
In part because I am interested in the development of indigenous philosophy in our homeland, I am also interested in it in respect to the fact that people keep asking me what's indigenous philosophy like back in Aotearoa, and I feel I need to know more about it I went to a large number of epistemology and political philosophy talks. So there were several talks on things such as gaslighting, notions of when reasonable disagreement actually turns out to be unreasonable disagreement,
00:06:43
Speaker
Notions of how to understand appeals to expertise why sometimes practical reasons are going to trump epistemic epistemic reasons There were a large number of talks I went to and then there were the large number of talks I would like to have gone to but they conflicted with other talks I either wanted to attend or were I was obliged to attempt So it is a bit of a mess. A lot of stuff was
Conference Rules and Presentation Loopholes
00:07:11
Speaker
watched. I think I missed exactly two talks during the conference.
00:07:18
Speaker
One talk I missed because there's a mentoring system they have at the a at the AAP. I put myself down as a mentor, so I spent one of the talks talking with my mentee about her forthcoming talk, and one of the talks I missed was on a gentle which I have no interest in whatsoever, and felt there was just better for everyone involved if I wasn't in the room.
00:07:42
Speaker
Right. But what you definitely were in the room for were the sessions that where you actually presented stuff. so Yes. In the hope that someone's going to generate what I call the Dentist Rule.
00:07:56
Speaker
Let me give you a bit of background. okay The AAP has very strict rules about how many presentations you can deliver at the AAP.
00:08:06
Speaker
And they have this very strict rule because in the annals of history going back to the 1980s, basically, there was a particular Australasian philosopher who gave, or at least hoped to give, a lot of talks per conference. This was someone who would offer two or three talks at the AAP. And because the AAP has a policy, which is we accept all talks, this person kind of ended up being a larger figure at the conference that was possibly desired. So a rule was put into place saying you can only give a single talk.
00:08:47
Speaker
I have discovered a loophole, a loophole that I think they should close and thus develop what I shall call the Dentist rule, which is you can give a solo talk and then you can give a joint talk by adding one additional name to submission form.
00:09:04
Speaker
and then you can run a panel because a panel has to have three people involved in it and thus there is a loophole which allows a person to give three presentations.
00:09:17
Speaker
I would not recommend giving three presentations at a conference. I thought this was a good idea before I left for the Waikato and then the realization that I had to prep for three sets of slides, and prep three talks, made me realise this was one of the worst ideas I've ever had. And thus I am adamant the dentist rule must be applied to stop people like me in future from committing such a serious mistake and breach of etiquette.
00:09:46
Speaker
Right, so it's for your own good, not necessarily for the good of the conference. Both. Well, okay then. So, three sessions then, three sessions you were involved in, I guess start us off. Which which which which was the
Philosophical Debates: Particularism vs. Generalism
00:10:01
Speaker
first?
00:10:01
Speaker
Right, so the first session was a joint presentation. This presentation was made by myself and Charles Pigden with the ghost of Curtis Hagen lurking in the room. Not because Curtis is dead, but because Curtis wasn't actually physically present for the conference.
00:10:19
Speaker
So Charles, Curtis and myself wrote a paper. Actually the author nut number basically is Curtis, me, then Charles. And we decided that it's and under review. Let's get some additional feedback by presenting this at the at at the AAP.
00:10:37
Speaker
And this paper is a reply to a paper by Keith Harris called Some Problems with Particularism. And we argue that the problem with some problems with particularism is that Harris not only fails to characterize two key particulars adequately, which happened to me, me and Charles, the people who were presenting the paper in the room, But even if he had got us right, his argument as to why particularism fails itself fails, and even worse for his argument, his argument for generalism fails as well.
00:11:14
Speaker
Now, we've looked at at this keep this paper by Keith Harris, and then we also looked at, I think before we looked that. replies that Charles Curtis and myself write. This is another reply. This is a different one, yeah.
00:11:29
Speaker
Okay, so I mean, yeah, we we've definitely, i definitely remember looking at some problems with particularism. And and having some problems with some problems with this particularism, yes. And then, as I recall, the reason why we were looking at that paper was because we had previously looked at the paper that you'd done that, as I recall, was a more general thing that made reference to Keith Harris's paper, but that he was just sort of one example of stuff. So now this one is specifically... replying to his specific paper. Is that is that how it goes? Yes, and I think when we talked about some problems with particularism and the reply to some problems with particularism, although from memory, we did the reply first and then we looked at some problems. So and so we we got causal we got the causality completely back to front with the way that we should have handled this particular paper. I think I mentioned at the time...
00:12:22
Speaker
that we had actually written a really, really, really long reply to Harris. And then we realized that we should actually split the reply in twain. And so this is the other half of that Frankenstein paper. Sorry, Frankenstein monster. Actually, guess we are the Doctor's Frankenstein in the writing of this paper. The paper is Frankenstein's paper. We are Frankenstein.
00:12:47
Speaker
sorry It sounds like I'm about to do some kind of We Are Spartacus thing. Anyway, this particular paper is a quite specific attack on Harris's portrayal of strong and weak particularism.
00:13:00
Speaker
Now, for those people who don't want to go back to December of last year to look at our review of some problems with particularism, basically Harris thinks there are two forms of particularism. There's weak particularism, which is simply the claim that if there is evidence for the existence of a conspiracy, we should assess that when we're looking at a conspiracy theory. So this is an evidentialist approach. If there is evidence for a particular claim, it would be wrong to ignore that evidence. And Harris finds weak particularism to be unobjectionable and plausible.
00:13:38
Speaker
However, he doesn't think that particulars are weak particulars. He takes that his two exemplar particulars, Charles and myself, are strong particulars. And we are the kind of people who deny that there are more kind of general considerations against the warrant of conspiracy theories as a class.
00:14:01
Speaker
Now, this is in part because Harris is a fan of the contra-official theory definition of conspiracy theory. And he takes it that the existence of official theories weigh against conspiracy theories as a class, but he admits there are other definitions which are available to philosophers.
00:14:19
Speaker
The problem with strong particularism is just that we object to the idea that there are general considerations that would weigh against the warrant of conspiracy theories, either as a class or as particular instances.
00:14:33
Speaker
Now, this paper, we basically argue that we are not strong particularists. If you look at our work, we have always admitted, going all the way back to Charles's work in 1995, that there features of conspiracy theories.
00:14:50
Speaker
features of conspiracy theories which means that you end up going, well, we mean we need to think whether this is a warranted theory or not. Particularists have always said there are features which count against the warrant of conspiracy theories.
00:15:06
Speaker
It's just that it can't that can't be the only thing we consider. We still need to be weak particulists and actually ask, yeah, but is the conspiracy theory true in this particular case?
00:15:20
Speaker
So we argue, look, we're not strong particularists, we are weak particularists. And that's a problem for Harris, because Harris finds weak particularism to be plausible and unobjectionable.
00:15:33
Speaker
And thus, if it turns out that particularists are not strong, but rather weak, that seems like a problem for Harris's criticism of particularism as a thesis, at least as propounded in the extant philosophical literature.
00:15:48
Speaker
But even worse, his argument for generalism seems to rely on holding to a counter-authority or counter-official theory definition of conspiracy theory. And even he admits you can operationalize the notion of conspiracy theory. with reference to different definitions of conspiracy theory. So his generalism ends up being one which goes, well, I mean, conspiracy theory could also not be contra an official theory or contra authority, which means that in those kind of situations, we wouldn't need to assess the evidence to work out whether the theory is good or bad.
00:16:30
Speaker
So it seems that the kind of generalism he argues for itself is particularly weak and gets trumped by weak particularism, which he admits is a plausible and unobjectionable theory.
00:16:45
Speaker
Now, is is is his idea, I've actually gone back and looked at our notes from the previous one, so he, he in his paper, his definition of strong particularism is The proper assessment of any given conspiracy theory supervenes on the evidence for and against that theory, and there is no evidence against the truth of conspiracy theories as a class.
00:17:08
Speaker
Is there anyone who is a strong particularist who does actually believe in that, or is it just a total straw man? So I bring this up in my solo paper, but there is ah there are grounds to think that maybe Lee Basham is a stronger particularist than the other, under Harris's taxonomy, the other weak particularists, in that Lee seems to be much more gung-ho than about being an evidentialist about conspiracy theories and not being so concerned by particular features which count against it. But even Lee, in work he did with Yuhao Raike, talks about the implausibility of fantastical conspiracy theories. So there is a philosopher who gets close to strong particularism, but never actually becomes a strong particularist.
00:18:02
Speaker
Right. And so on those grounds, then, I guess you can say that Harris's argument, even if it did work, which you don't seem convinced of, it would be irrelevant because it doesn't actually apply to anyone. Yeah. And even if it does apply, his commission the fact that he's he's willing to admit you can use other definitions of conspiracy theory, means that his gent his generalism is really weak. it requires It requires you to then be a generalist and a weak particularist. And once you're a weak particularist, you're not a generalist.
00:18:33
Speaker
And thus it seems particularism is vindicated. ah Has this been published? i guess It is in review. Okay. So i was I was wondering, has Keith Harris seen this yet? Where is he? No, not yet. but He wasn't conference, I assume.
00:18:49
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no. Okay, well, leave we'll be able to see what what reaction to that, if any, there is later.
00:18:59
Speaker
Coming up. So anything more to say about that one or should we go on to your your next session? I think we should move on to session number two.
Panel Discussion on Philosophical Dominance
00:19:10
Speaker
This was the panel? This was. this is the panel which featured Charles Pigden, Steve Clarke and myself. And when I proposed the panel, I proposed three questions. One, why does it seem that particularism is the dominant view, at least among philosophers?
00:19:27
Speaker
Two, are generalists right to claim that non-philosophers agree with generalism? And three, is there some intermediate position between the two views?
00:19:38
Speaker
And I tried to work out how to order the speakers here, because everyone basically got 10 minutes to give their points of view on these three topics. and then we open things up for Q&A afterwards. I should point out the session timings for the AAP are 55 minutes, so you need to fit your talk and your Q&A into 55-minute slot.
00:19:59
Speaker
And so I was going, how do I do this? I mean, I could do it by age, at which point it goes by seniority. I can't say seniority. Seniority?
00:20:12
Speaker
i See, I'm trying to say some kind of plural of seniorita. Seniority. No. No. Anyway, could go we could go by age, Charles, then Steve, then me. We could go by geographical location, and given we're in the South Pacific, given we're in Aotearoa, New Zealand, we should start from the bottom and go up, which would be Charles, Steve, then me.
00:20:36
Speaker
So it seemed like, look, we've got two reasons to go. the ordering should be Charles Pigton, Steve Clark, and then myself. Charles largely spoke to topic one, why does it seem that particularism is the dominant view, at least among philosophers, largely talking about the history of the development of particularism with his work and then going forward from there.
00:20:58
Speaker
Steve largely spoke to three. Is there some intermediate position between the two views? This was kind of deliberately set up because Steve doesn't call himself a particularist.
00:21:11
Speaker
Steve calls himself a non-generalist or anti-generalist. So he agrees with kind of the idea of particularism. He just thinks that it's the wrong kind of taxonomy to use. We shouldn't generalize about conspiracy theories as a class.
00:21:28
Speaker
but we don't necessarily have to call ourselves particulars as a consequence. And I largely spoke to, too, the claim, our generous right to claim that non-philosophers agree with generalism. And my argument there was both on linguistic grounds, would be really, really weird if everyone across the globe shared the same concept of conspiracy theory in the different policies and linguistic groups they belong to,
00:21:55
Speaker
But also, it's not clear from the linguistic data we have that this agreement is true in the English-speaking world. And it certainly isn't clear that other academics agree with philosophers about generalism. It does seem that other academics are either just agnostic about this debate, or they use particular definitions of conspiracy theory and then focus on motivating examples which tend to be the conspiracy theories they're concerned with, but they don't want to classify all conspiracy theories as resembling those concerning cases.
00:22:33
Speaker
When you say non-philosophers, do non-philosophers agree with generalism? you Do you mean academics who aren't philosophers, or is it the lay public also? Both.
00:22:44
Speaker
Okay, so it's says so it's everyone. Okay. So so you you you think they are not right to say that most people are generalists? Yes. I am saying that they – I'm saying the evidence is not clear and some of the evidence we have actually points in the other direction.
00:23:03
Speaker
Right. Actually, the the first one that Charles spoke to, why does it seem that particularism is the dominant dominant view, at least among philosophers, is the answer to that because it is?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, yeah there are I mean, there are two ways to to interpret this, which is it does seem that particularism has been a very successful research program in that a lot of people admit that particularism is the consensus amongst amongst philosophers.
00:23:35
Speaker
I've been accused of simply making that as a bold assertion, so I actually started the debate, debate the panel, with a list of citations of people who are not me, who claim there is a consensus in the philosophy of conspiracy theories, that that consensus is particularist, and notably that many of the people making that claim are in fact generalists. They're generalists who are reluctant to admit it or think it's dreadful this is the case, but it does seem that philosophers do go at the moment well. Particularism seems like it is the dominant position. And it seems to be the dominant position because people seem to be convinced by it.
00:24:16
Speaker
Which makes a bit of sense. So the for that the the third point that Steve spoke to, is this intermediate position simply his his anti-generalism? Did he go into that? Did he consider other candidates? How did how did that bit of it go?
00:24:32
Speaker
So Steve likes to go back to the original Boosing and Taylor piece and look at the way that Boosing and Taylor classify generalism versus particularism.
00:24:43
Speaker
And he's right to point out that when Boosing and Taylor talk about generalism versus particularism, they are talking basically about empiricism and rationalism.
00:24:56
Speaker
So the particulars are the empiricists, they want to know, no does the evidence count for or against a particular theory? The generous are the rationalists, they go look, are there modes or ways of thinking which make people believe in conspiracy theories? So if we are Booting and Taylor popularists, then you go, look, there are two debates going on here. There's the empirical debate, and then there's the the debate about the rationality of belief in conspiracy theories more general.
00:25:30
Speaker
And Steve rejects the kind of generalism that comes up from the rationalist position. He goes, look, you don't you don't need to commit to this rationalist perspective on conspiracy theories all being bad. There are multiple ways to look at this particular issue. So that's why he's an anti-generalist. He's tilting against the assumptions of rationalism that seem to underpin generalism if we accept the Booting and Taylor definitions as being kind of the canonical ones that we should always be referring to. Right. So following that then, did did you get interesting questions or did you simply get 25 minutes of standing ovation like you're a film at the Cannes Festival?
00:26:15
Speaker
Oh, if only we did get 25 minutes of standing ovation. No, so what we got question-wise largely were people going, am I a generalist or a particularist? And then articulating their particular view on why they're sometimes suspicious of conspiracy theories, but also going, but it's not a reason to think that they're all going to be false. And so a lot of people were going, well, look, I just think when a conspiracy theory goes up against an official theory, I think the official theory has some evidential weight here, which the conspiracy theorist needs to...
00:26:53
Speaker
you know shoulder the burden of. And I going, look, read Curtis Hagen's work. He's a contra-official theories particularist. He will say, look, if a theory has an if so if it can if a theory has an official rival,
00:27:12
Speaker
then you need to ask why does it have an official rival? It might have an official rival because the official theory is better, or it might have an official rival because it's a set of ostensible authorities who have simply poo-pooed some non- or unorthodox hypothesis.
00:27:32
Speaker
and So if that's the kind of thought you have you are a particular she was simply not a simple and minimal definition of conspiracy theory particularist You're a counter official theories particularist instead right it was was this? Common of most of the people who spoke or who asked questions rather or did you get some interesting definitions or why attitudes towards conspiracy theories?
00:27:55
Speaker
To be honest, I cannot recall because there were three sessions and three sets of questions and answers, but that was the general gist. Right. I suppose I didn't ask, what did people say about your first session?
00:28:08
Speaker
They seemed to like it. Well, that's good. i well I should point out, the a the AAP is a very friendly philosophical environment. People are very polite. Right.
00:28:23
Speaker
So maybe there were people who were going, oh, this is the worst thing I've ever seen. But it requires a really, really bad paper for someone to actually vocalise that in a Q&A.
00:28:34
Speaker
Righto. session number three was your – so the order that you've got them here is that the order that you gave them.
Josh's Paper on Misunderstanding Particularism
00:28:41
Speaker
Yes. yeah the So your solid paper was the last one. It was indeed. So this was on the Thursday. Yes, so it was the last day of the – conference. This is the solo paper that I've been working on, a paper I started writing in Dunedin last year.
00:28:59
Speaker
So it's been a long time coming, this particular paper. And the main main reason why it took a long time to write was not that the paper was difficult to write. It's the fact that I promised i promised two people three book chapters.
00:29:13
Speaker
And then I realized had to write those book chapters. And it turns out writing book chapters does kind of get in the way of other writing. And then I had revisions and things to do on papers. So this kept on being pushed to one side by there's no deadline for this particular paper. These papers have deadlines. I need to work on them now.
00:29:34
Speaker
But in the last few months, I finally had, well, actually by proposing this paper for the AAP, I realized that gave me a deadline and I had to get the paper finished.
00:29:46
Speaker
So this paper, which I started in Dunedin at the latter part of last year, was basically motivated by the question, are generalists actually capturing particularism in their critiques of particularism? Because there are a lot of versions of particularism which are being articulated in the generalist literature.
00:30:10
Speaker
And I was going, there seems to be too many forms of particularism being talked about by generalists. Let's try to work out what's going on there.
00:30:21
Speaker
So the first third of the paper basically is going, look, this is what generalists have said particularism is. This is why they think particularism is wrong. OK, now we have a statement of intent. These are the generalist versions of particularism.
00:30:38
Speaker
Let's now contrast those with what particularists have said about particularism. And I find that even though generalists think there are four or five versions of particularism in the literature.
00:30:53
Speaker
We really only see two versions of particularism being put forward by particularists. And those two versions are the ones which rely either on the simple and minimal definition of conspiracy and conspiracy theory, so the kind of particularism put forward by people like myself or Charles Pegden,
00:31:13
Speaker
or you get the contra-official theory version of particularism that relies upon the idea that conspiracy theories exist in opposition to some official theory notably curtis hagen is an advocate of this particular type of particularism And so there seems to be there are two articulated forms of particularism by particularists.
00:31:37
Speaker
There are a lot of forms of particularism being put forward by generalists. And the reason why there's a difference there is that generalists are putting forward stereotypical or caricatured versions of particularism that just don't capture what particulars have said. And that's a problem.
00:31:59
Speaker
If the camp which is opposing the consensus is failing to capture what holders of the consensus are arguing, that's an issue for their particular argument.
00:32:13
Speaker
But possibly the most astounding thing I discovered... no generalist ever acknowledges let alone criticizes contra official theory particularism they all assume particularists hold to the simple and minimal definition of conspiracy and conspiracy theory And this is a problem for the generalist project because a lot of generalists, possibly even, well, definitely a polarity, maybe a slight majority, most of those generalists agree
00:32:53
Speaker
that conspiracy theories are contra-authority or contra-official theories. So the fact that they are ignoring a form of particularism which shares, if not the same definition of conspiracy theory, has a conspiracy theory definition which is really similar to theirs, does seem very, very odd.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah. One thing I have noticed come up a bunch of times is in these papers talking about particularists is they keep saying, keep referring particularists as like defenders of conspiracy theories. The idea that being particularists means you're actually pro-conspiracy theories. Yeah, because some makes that claim. Yeah, which definitely seems like something of a caricature. Was this motivated by the Keith Harris paper, was he sort of the straw that broke the camel's back?
00:33:48
Speaker
you as you just It's one of those things I've been thinking about for a while. and actually, it was when I was co-teaching the segment on the philosophy of conspiracy theories with Charles last year that I went, I've been thinking about this for a while. I really need to write this up. And that was why I started work on that paper at that time.
00:34:08
Speaker
The sorts of things you talk about generalists saying are very much the sort of thing that Keith Harris said in his paper. Was he, like like like Like the previous one that you you did with Charles, was this sort of a reply to Harris? or was it was he No, no, this is a reply to a lot of people. It's a reply to Harris. It's a reply to Napolitano and Baldry. It's a reply to Napolitano and Russo. It's a reply to Paul Nordhoff. It's a reply to a lot of people.
00:34:41
Speaker
Right. Were these all philosophers or people in other disciplines? Yes, so I'm only looking at philosophers in this particular survey. Okie dokie.
00:34:52
Speaker
I mean, largely because the particulars generous debate is only going on in philosophy at this stage. Actually, see that's not entirely true. There are people who are beginning to talk about that debate outside of philosophy, and quite gratifyingly, most of them are talking about the problems of generalism in their own domains, but the actual center stage of that debate is in philosophy, and thus I am engaging with the philosophers who disagree with particularism.
00:35:19
Speaker
So ah how was this one received? Did you get any interesting questions after this? I got a wonderful Patsy question by a virtue epistemologist, and because she was a virtue of epistemologist, I thought she'd be friendly to towards Kassam and Kassam's views. And yet the Patsy question was, your paper is great, I love your work. Could we apply a particularism to topic X, Y, and Z? And I went, yes, actually, I'm doing some preliminary work with a scholar applying it to Z. So thank you for that question. So yes, it was...
00:35:54
Speaker
that That question time did seem a little bit like um a mutual back-passing society. It was mostly, this is good, here are some thoughts, as opposed to this is bad and this is what you need to do to fix it.
00:36:08
Speaker
What do you think generalists need to do to fix their stuff? well I mean, they need to give up on being generalists, but that seems like an overly onerous task. I think if generalists are going to have any inroads to combating or even defeating the particular consensus in philosophy, they need to recognize the existence of Curtis Hagen's work.
00:36:34
Speaker
Because even if they can show... that the simple and minimal form of particularism fails, which I don't think they can do, then they have to deal with the fact that Curtis can sweep in and go, but hold on, I've got an argument for particularism which doesn't rely on the simple and minimal definition that you find so objectionable.
00:36:56
Speaker
So I think that's the first thing they need to do. The second thing they need to do is they they need to be aware that their generalisms can't be as general as they want them to be.
00:37:07
Speaker
i think the best form or best case for generalism is for so what I would call so-called local generalisms. They might be able to justify generalism for maybe a culture and a time and place.
00:37:21
Speaker
or a subset of conspiracy theories that have a pernicious feature that always seem to make them unwarranted. And these kinds of generalisms are localized. They're indexed to a time, they're indexed to a feature. They don't apply to all conspiracy theories. They only apply to a set or a place.
00:37:42
Speaker
I think that's the way out for generalism. But I also recognize many generalists will go, well, we're just going to be generalists in a kind of weird nominal sense. guess, well, yes, that's what you need to be.
00:37:55
Speaker
You can't be general generalists. That theory doesn't work. And so that was your that was your contribution to the conference your contributions to the conference. Yes. And the reason why the dentist rule needs to be applied Yes. Yep. I will get on to the organisers, tell them to do it and make sure they name it after you.
00:38:16
Speaker
but I mean, the previous rule is named after the philosopher that spurred it. So i don't I don't see why they can't have a rule named after Mac. Yeah, um makes perfect sense. ah So in general then, I mean, these conferences always seem, you you always seem to get something out of them, but and for this one in particular, where did it, um did it take you in any interesting new directions? Did it give you inspiration for anything to um be going on with in the future?
00:38:43
Speaker
I mean, I didn't come out of it with, oh, there's a new project to work on here, largely because I came out of it going, yeah, my thoughts about the next few papers I want to write are kind of confirmed by what I've seen here.
00:38:58
Speaker
I will say I made a lot of new friends at the conference. And that's kind of what you want. You want to make connections with people. You want to talk to them about their work. You want to talk about your work with them.
00:39:13
Speaker
The thing which makes these conferences important is largely the socialization occurs after after hours, and that is, of course, a socialization which is sometimes greased by alcohol, which, as we know, is not a very good grease.
00:39:30
Speaker
No, no, no. It can be gritty, actually, sometimes, depending on... I mean, they do talk about whiskey as being oily, but it's not quite oily enough to work in an engine as a lubricant.
00:39:42
Speaker
No, no, I wouldn't. As a fuel source, depending on the alcohol. But yeah anyway, um what was i going to say I was going to say that, yes, I think conferences just in general philosophy or otherwise are as much or if not more about the networking as they are about the the actual talks that are given.
00:40:02
Speaker
So, um
Conference Socialization and Research Reflections
00:40:03
Speaker
good. so so I guess if it didn't send you off in any new directions, it does sound like it it affirmed that the direction you are on currently is a good one.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yes. Yes, although i would say that. Wouldn't i Well, unless someone had stood up in one of your presentations and and thoroughly dissected and demolished every one of your arguments and shown you out to be a fraud and a fool in front of an entire audience of your peers. they haven't done that yet, Josh. They haven't done that yet. One day, one day they'll theyll they'll discover exactly who I am, but they haven't done it yet.
00:40:40
Speaker
Not, uh, throw things? No, no rotten vegetables. No. I think that would cause an issue with the janitorial staff. And actually would cause an issue with the organizers because the organizers are expected to clean up after each session.
00:41:00
Speaker
So I don't think that Dan, who was running the thing, would be happy if anything was being thrown in those rooms. Okay, well then let's let let let's make this official then. Philosophers, no throwing things at other philosophers. Even if they're nice, even if you're throwing them chocolates, bouquets of flowers, laurel wreaths, that sort of thing, just don't.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, the only thing you can throw is shade. Yes, precisely. So, have we any more to say about this conference or is that the lot? i say it was going really cold in the Waikato.
00:41:33
Speaker
But then the again, it's because it came from 34 degree heat in Guangzhou. Well, I mean, it is wintertime here in New Zealand, while while Europe and the Northern Hemisphere are sweltering under ridiculous temperatures. It's it's getting a bit chilly down here.
00:41:47
Speaker
But what can you do? that's that's that's That's the planet Earth and its tilt relative towards its its orbit of the sun. Well, and also human-induced climate change. Well, yeah, the climate change does does does give it a bit of a but a bit of a kick up the backside.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, it is is a bit of a resumatize to the general heat people are experiencing at the moment. So i think we have reached the end of the episode. If if you've managed to hear ah raucous laughter at my end that I did manage to not edit out, it's because my son and a bunch of his friends are in another room watching Shaolin Soccer by Stephen Chow, which I think you'll agree is a very funny film.
00:42:28
Speaker
Although I think God of Cookery is funnier. Yeah, God of Cookery is funnier because of the UFO joke. The UFO joke and the... and the fault I watched it with my son a while ago and I remembered the UFO joke and I was ready for that, but I'd forgotten that bringing out the the steel chair and smacking the guy with that in the middle of their kung fu duel. I'd forgotten about that as well. Yeah, yeah. In a while, it's in a Stephen Chow film.
00:42:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Go watch Stephen Chow films. They're very funny. So with that ringing endorsement, I guess we should leave, but not before we endorse our own bonus content. as a way of ret attracting people to become our patrons. So we're going to go and record a bonus episode, which only our patrons get to hear because they're quite frankly better, better than you, better than us, better than anyone. And they deserve it. We're going to talk about mushrooms.
00:43:19
Speaker
We're going to talk about, oh, we've we've got ah we've got another another art world story. This has this has become a ah sort of ah ah very a very irregular theme in our bonus episodes where we um dig up stories about conspiratorial or at least criminal, which is usually conspiratorial happenings in the art world. We've got one of them and a little bit of local New Zealand stories.
00:43:39
Speaker
little little little politics, but a bit of political conspiracy theorising going on here as well. So if you want to hear any of that and you're not a patron, then just go on to Betrayon.com.
00:43:50
Speaker
Search for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. Search for Denteth and Addison, I found, is actually is an easier way of doing it. but we're on the does we do We do sound like a low-grade BBC detective show. Ah, yes. i i remember watching Denteth and Addison back in the 1980s.
00:44:09
Speaker
Yes, a couple of... God, the sexist jokes they made all the time. It was a different time. It was a different It a different time. It was literally a different time. You could tell because the numbers and the years were different from what they are now. Oh, not one of those numbers realists, are you?
00:44:25
Speaker
i'm afraid so. Yep. These years have a two in front of them, and that makes them different from the years they had a one at the front of them. That's what say to that. oh So while you do your best horse impression, i will fire up the bonus podcast engine, and the rest of you can get along with your lives.
Conclusion and Quantum Mechanics Note
00:44:45
Speaker
Goodbye.
00:44:47
Speaker
You say it was a horse impression? I say nay. o Oh, I don't know I can approve of that. i don't, yeah. Normally, normally I'm okay with a pun, but that one was particularly, i want to say pungent, but then that sounds like I'm making a pun and it's it's all gone wrong.
00:45:04
Speaker
It's all gone wrong.
00:45:11
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 was so mysterious that they remain anonymous.
00:45:25
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.
00:45:52
Speaker
And remember, according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, a stranger is just a friend you haven't met.