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Problems with Particularism?
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A couple of episodes ago, we looked at a paper on particularism by Kurtis, M and Charles - this episode we're looking at the paper that that paper was a response to, making it both a prequel and a sequel. Just like The Godfather Part II. This episode is the Godfather Part II of podcast episodes - you can tell people we said that.
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Transcript
Opening Remarks and Episode Overview
00:00:27
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 R X Denteth. I don't have much interesting to say, and I think that's going to be a theme for the most of this episode.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really have much to say. Last time, of course, I had the the trials and tribulations of going to Beijing, and in the interim, it's just been...
00:00:54
Speaker
I mean, not trials nor tribulations. It's just been an even flow of various things going up, going down, going sideways, spiralling towards the centre, exfoliating towards the outer reaches of somebody's universe. I mean, really, there isn't much to say at all, I've spent lot of time saying there's nothing to say, which means I did have something to say about there being nothing to say.
Discussing Denteth's Paper on Conspiracy Theories
00:01:20
Speaker
So we have a ah paper look. Now, we've... we've we've We've done this a little bit strangely. So a couple of episodes ago, we talked about a paper edited by M and Curtis and Charles. was yeah Well, not edited, written by. i mean i mean i mean, there was editing going on by all three of us. But the most important part is we wrote the paper. written yeah ah And a large part of it was a reaction to another paper by Keith Harris Keith Raymond Harris Keith Raymond Harris, according to the byline and synthase Or synthase, no one actually knows
00:01:57
Speaker
no bit's What's the other one? Episteme or Episteme. Yeah, no nobody knows. it I think that that's, is that the mark of a good philosophy journal that nobody knows how to pronounce its name?
00:02:10
Speaker
I think it's the mark of philosophers going, I don't know. I've seen it written down. Just something that sounds a bit Latin and the they the proles can deal with it, yeah. So, yes, so we're going to look at this paper. So it's a... This episode is a sequel to a previous one, but it's also a prequel in a weird way.
00:02:26
Speaker
It's one of those ones. It's like... Yeah, so essentially we we did the response before we're doing the paper that we're responding to. So really we should have done this paper first.
00:02:38
Speaker
But we wanted to do something on a freshly published paper by me myself, Curtis and Charles. And the author ordering there is Curtis, me, then Charles.
00:02:49
Speaker
And now it makes sense to kind of well, and it never made sense to do that paper first, but we did it. History cannot be changed. At least we turn into a time-travelling podcast. And then, frankly, if you're listening to this episode after you listen to the episode where we replied to this paper, then that's your problem.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yes. ah But no, so we are going to talk about this paper this time because it it does go in at like the... the The response to it in your paper sort of focused on one particular part of it, I think, whereas there's a bit more that we can talk about in that paper. So let's play a chime and then let's talk about that paper.
Critique of Harris's Paper: Generalism vs. Particularism
00:03:28
Speaker
Welcome to Conspiracy Theory. Welcome.
00:03:39
Speaker
So, to be clear, the paper that we are going to talk about today is called Some Problems with Particularism by Keith Raymond Harris, 2022, published in Synthese slash Synthase.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I guess i guess we we we've already introduced it and why we're talking, but I guess we should crack straight in. So I am definite that it's my turn to read the abstract this time, because last time it was your paper, so you read the abstract, and that made perfect sense. That ah is true, and I will allow it.
00:04:06
Speaker
The abstract to this paper reads... Particularists maintain that conspiracy theories are to be assessed individually, while generalists hold that conspiracy theories may be assessed as a class.
00:04:17
Speaker
This paper seeks to clarify the nature of the importance of the debate between particularism and generalism, while offering an argument for a version of generalism. I begin by considering three approaches to the definition of conspiracy theory, and offer reason to prefer an approach that defines conspiracy theories in opposition to the claims of epistemic authorities.
00:04:34
Speaker
I argue that particularists rely on an untenably broad definition of conspiracy theory. Then, I argue that particularism and its counterpart are best understood as constellations of theses, rather than a pair of incompatible theses.
00:04:47
Speaker
While some particularist theses are highly plausible, I argue that one important particularist thesis is false. The argument for this conclusion draws on the history of false conspiracy theories. I then defend this conclusion against a pair of potential objections.
00:05:00
Speaker
Now I'm going to jump in because actually there's something which struck me about this abstract I hadn't thought of before, which is at the Kaye claim, particulars maintain that conspiracy theories are to be assessed individually, but the gloss on generalism is, generalists hold that conspiracy theories may be assessed as a class.
00:05:21
Speaker
I would argue that if you're going to say that particulars maintain that conspiracy theories are to be assessed individually, then you really need to characterize generalism as the claim that conspiracy theories are to be assessed as a class.
00:05:36
Speaker
The may there goes, well, you know, you might want to assess them as a class, but you don't have to. The argument... that particulars have about generalism is that whilst particulars go, look, evidence matters, generalists go, no, no, no, you can just base your dismissal of conspiracy theories based upon them being labelled as such. So i I think there's an error here, even in the abstract, which I hadn't picked up on before, but now I'm thinking, oh, that does kind of slant the paper as a whole.
00:06:07
Speaker
Right, well, let's see how that develops as we go through it.
Definitions of Conspiracy Theories: Broad vs. Pejorative
00:06:10
Speaker
But um in in the style of all good philosophical papers, section one is the introduction, which begins, Particularists often suggest that particularism enjoys something approaching consensus in philosophy, referring now there to Basham, Denteth, and Pigden. Moreover, there are few, if any, explicit defences of generalism in the literature.
00:06:29
Speaker
It might be tempting to conclude that whatever debate once existed between particularists and generalists, the debate has now been all but settled. This conclusion would be premature.
00:06:43
Speaker
Or i could have gone with... i mean, I would have gone with dun-dun-dun, but that's fine, that's fine. It's significantly...
00:06:51
Speaker
There you go. You get all three. Thank you. yeah Excellent. Excellent. And speaking of three, there are three reasons why he thinks we it would be premature to say that the debate is closed.
00:07:02
Speaker
um And these are the ones he's going to be going through in greater detail throughout the paper. But for now, he says, first, particularism appeals to, quote, an untenably general definition of conspiracy theory.
00:07:13
Speaker
He also says there are several kinds of particularism, again, quote, some of these are plausible, but others are subject to serious objection. And his last point is that, in his words, finally, in contrast to the claims of particularists, the poor historical track record of conspiracy theories warrants it a defeasible skeptical attitude towards such theories as a class.
00:07:35
Speaker
Now, he also says that, ah towards the point at the beginning there, that there there aren't many explicit defences of generalism. He says, well, maybe maybe this is just because um it's taken for granted and felt it doesn't need, we we don't need to defend it because it's it's common sense. As he says, assuming that a generalist scepticism towards conspiracy theories is the default position among philosophers, the dearth of material defending generalism may simply reflect the attitude that generalism needs no defending.
00:08:03
Speaker
From this perspective, the apparent popularity of particularism may actually reflect the view that generalism is commonsensical. One who endorses this perspective may question the value of arguing against particularism, but disengagement with particularism on the part of generalists would be a mistake.
00:08:17
Speaker
Thank you, President Reagan, and your appeal to them the silent majority. yeah I don't know how much of that is just being sort of devil's advocate, and well this this could be the case. You don't know it's not, and he but but yeah, it's...
00:08:33
Speaker
Well, I mean, it a dig against particulars. I'm going, well, look, maybe generalists don't get explicit defences in the literature. But maybe that's because everybody's a generalist. Maybe it's the particulars who are the odd one out.
00:08:49
Speaker
And this is a strange argument for a philosopher to make. We'll go, well, look... People who don't really think about these things have a default position, so we should just assume that default position is popular and probably correct. That's a bad argument, and that's an argument that when it's used politically, we automatically spot that's an appeal to the so-called silent majority, which... Reagan engaged in from a Aotearoa New Zealand perspective. Peter Dunn often argued that his party, United Future, was probably a lot more popular than it appeared to be because most people agreed with him, because at one point he was the party in its sum total, even though not many people voted for it. It's just a it's a bad argument, and it's worth highlighting this is kind of a defence of generalism against particularism. And it's not a very good defense of it.
00:09:47
Speaker
No, it's a bit... I notice as we go through the paper, he does it at a few points sort of say, here's this phenomena which people have taken to mean this, but but here's an alternative explanation for it.
00:09:59
Speaker
And, yeah, that doesn't seem... like Like, it doesn't seem a but a particularly strong thing to say. Yeah, okay, yep, sure. as as As we all know, because we're good little philosophers, theory is underdetermined by data, and you can always you can always come up with multiple explanations for something that shows up, but but should you? Anyway.
00:10:17
Speaker
So that's the introduction done. So we come to section two, defining conspiracy theory, which begins, much of the existing philosophical work on conspiracy theories aims to define the term conspiracy theory.
00:10:29
Speaker
My purpose in this section is not to decisively argue for a particular definition of conspiracy theory, but to instead define a class of theories that could reasonably be called the class of conspiracy theories, and at least stands with it nor substantially overlaps the class of all conspiracy theories. So he does say right at the front, which I think is a fair point. There's probably no like probably no way to so to to decisively say this is what conspiracy theories mean, because we know people use different words to me, and and and and the definition, you know it's it's about choosing a particular definition.
00:11:00
Speaker
And this is why I've always argued for a stipulative definition. So I argue that we should define conspiracy theory as any explanation of an event that c cites a conspiracy as a salient cause.
00:11:12
Speaker
I don't care about ordinary language. All I care about is theoretical fruitfulness. So I stipulate what I mean by the term and then argue that, look, If we want to engage in serious academic discussion of conspiracy theories, whether it's regard to warrant, whether it's regard to social consequences, whether it's regard to identifying examples in the world, the simple and minimal definition is the most theoretically fruitful definition to use. Because yes, you're right.
00:11:44
Speaker
People use the term in different ways, and as we'll see, Harris has a preferred definition of conspiracy theory that he's going to carry through this paper and use as a reason to dismiss particular types of particularism.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yes. So he goes through three of them in in three separate what would you call them subsections, I guess. So subsection 2.1, He looks at a broad definition, which he says, under this definition, conspiracies are typically understood as morally suspect secret plans by groups to influence events. I'm citing Charles Pigden for that one there.
00:12:27
Speaker
I would suggest that a truly broad definition wouldn't even include morally suspect. Yeah. But at any rate. Yeah. I mean, my, I mean, I, I talk about this in the book. So all the way back in 2016 and in the book, I kind of talk about the idea that look, we often think of conspiracies as being morally suspect.
00:12:50
Speaker
And I, I think that's, Justified to a certain extent, because the type of conspiracies we tend to be interested in are the ones we go, well, if that is true, that's pretty bad and we should put a stop to it.
00:13:04
Speaker
But I argue that we actually shouldn't add that into the definition of conspiracy, in part because what counts as morally suspect to one person won't count as morally suspect to another. And also because I have a really broad definition of conspiracy, I take it there are lots of examples of conspiracies that just don't have the morally suspect character that is identified here. So when Charles talks about morally suspect secret plans, he's really talking about the class of political conspiracies. Whilst when I talk about conspiracies, I go, well, look, there are political conspiracies and non-political conspiracies, and I'm interested in both.
00:13:46
Speaker
Nevertheless, it's it's morally suspect or not, it's definitely a broad definition.
Epistemic Authority and Its Challenges
00:13:52
Speaker
Our neighbours are letting off fireworks. That's exciting. But but but what's what's wrong with it, in Keith Harris's view? is His problem with it is that it goes against ordinary usage.
00:14:01
Speaker
As he says, the official version of nine eleven and other historical explanations that invoke secret and morally dubious plans are not typically regarded as conspiracy theories, which is true enough. I know plenty and in in the... in the um conventional sense, people often think that that the official version isn't isn't a conspiracy theory. Indeed, the the true version of anything can't be a conspiracy theory. But um the question then, of course, is why okay so what's wrong with that? It's true. yeah you would be the first to agree that youre this broad definition of conspiracy theory
00:14:34
Speaker
It isn't the same as the colloquial definition of it, but what's wrong with that? And at this point, to be honest, I got a little bit lost. He spends a good half a page and quite a bit of verbiage explaining why the definition you use should go with the ordinary definition.
00:14:51
Speaker
But all I could really take from it was that we should conform to ordinary usage because we should conform to ordinary usage. I didn't. So he he does say near the end, I take it to be a desideratum for any definition of conspiracy theory that it makes the identification of conspiracy theories largely uncontroversial.
00:15:10
Speaker
While it may be controversial whether some conspiracy theory is true, it should not generally be a matter of controversy whether a particular theory is a conspiracy theory. Do you have a better take on this section of the paper?
00:15:22
Speaker
So essentially what Harris is referring to here, although I don't think he mentions this explicitly, is a notion of Carnapian explication. So Carnap argues that, look, when you're Using a term, it should at least match to some extent with the ordinary usage of that term. And there are people who argue that we should we should engage in this kind of Carnapian explication whenever possible.
00:15:51
Speaker
If you are going to talk about conspiracy theories, you don't want to redefine them as being theories about unicorns causing the earth to go around the sun because then conspiracy theory in no way resembles how people ordinarily talk about these things now carnappian explication is a nice to have if you can talk about a term in a way that the folk use so it's close enough but it's also specified enough that you can do actual theoretical work with it that's great
00:16:22
Speaker
But it's actually and not a necessity. You don't have to engage in carnappian explication. And the scientist is filled with examples of terms that people use that scientists go, no, actually, they're just completely wrong to use it in that way. When we talk about X in the sciences, the public think Y, but actually we think Z instead.
00:16:44
Speaker
And so it's a nice to have, but it's not a necessity. Now, I know there are a large number of philosophers, generalists and particulars alike, who are big fans of this kind of Carnapian move, that we don't want to define conspiracy theory in a way that an ordinary language user wouldn't recognize.
00:17:07
Speaker
I disagree with those people, in part because, once again, I think we can stipulate the term for theoretical fruitfulness, and also because I'm actually... dubious that there is a stable, ordinary usage that we can easily attach the theoretically fruitful term to, in that we know people sometimes use conspiracy theory to simply mean any weird belief. So sometimes people will talk about flat earth beliefs with no conspiratorial components whatsoever. as being conspiracy theories. People will talk about Bigfoot sightings as being, oh, that's just a conspiracy theory, even though there's nothing necessarily conspiratorial about it. So I'm dubious it's a stable, ordinary usage that we can attach this term to. But Harris's explication here of the Carnapian point is quite vague.
00:18:02
Speaker
It actually would be better if he was explicitly Carnapian here, as opposed to kind of just insisting that, no, no, no, you you have to talk about conspiracy theories the way the folk talk about conspiracy theories.
00:18:15
Speaker
And this then leads to the further issue that under Harris's gloss here, essentially we are relying on a I know it when I see it standard. Well, we all know what conspiracy theories are. Well, how do we know? Well, because other people know what conspiracy theories are. I mean, it's quite obvious what a conspiracy theory is, right? And the answer is, well, no, because going back to the 9-11 point, it is true that in the United States, there's the official version of 9-11, the hypothesis that al-Qaeda was responsible for the destruction of the Twin Towers, is taken to be the official theory.
00:18:57
Speaker
That is not necessarily true in places that are not the United States. There are some nation states on Earth that take the US official theory to be the conspiracy theory, and the official theory is Group X was responsible, where Group X is either not al-Qaeda or...
00:19:17
Speaker
or US government. so So I should i specify, is either a group that isn't Al-Qaeda or is explicitly a group within the United States.
00:19:28
Speaker
Nevertheless, harris Harris thinks that a broad definition is not up to the task, so the next he considers is a section 2.2 pejorative definitions.
00:19:40
Speaker
So he he says, talking of pejorative definitions, such a definition would build in the claim that conspiracy theories are false, lacking evidence, or something of the like. So he says this this seems to match it seems to be a better match for the ordinary usage. um He cites the paper, What is a Conspiracy Theory? by Napolitano and Reuter from 2021, which says that pejorative uses usages are common.
00:20:05
Speaker
This is not a paper we've looked at is Is it a masterpiece? Right. So it might be a paper we look at if another paper that I'm involved in writing gets published. So it's out for review at the moment. I won't say where or in what domain because I don't want to andt i don't want to prejudice prejudice anyone who might be a reviewer who is listening to this podcast. Yeah.
00:20:31
Speaker
So if that paper gets published, or when... um I'll be positive. When that paper gets published, we might look at Napolitano and Ruta, because it is kind of a reply to them. Although, in many respects, it's not, because we're just working from fresh data. But it's not a paper which I'm a particular fan of, in part because, a a little bit like this paper, I feel that Napolitano and Ruta kind of make their paperwork by misrepresenting particular perspectives, and also because I think they they have to hedge their results in a way which really is quite unbecoming. So if we look at the paper, we'll get into the depths of that, but no, at this stage, it's not on the list.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yes, I had had a very quick glance through it. Is it a philosophy philosophy paper or is it... It's an experimental philosophy paper. So it is it's doing corpus analysis and also some survey work to try and elicit from people and from usage what people mean by the term conspiracy theory.
Normalizing Skepticism: Harris's Argument Critique
00:21:42
Speaker
And actually, Harris's complaint about this paper that we're going to look at now...
00:21:49
Speaker
is, I think, the major fault of the paper, in that Napolitano and Ruta seem to think that ordinary speakers are just coming up with a notion of conspiracy theory in isolation, rather than being informed by being members of a language community, where there are certain forces which may be guiding your adoption and usage of terms.
00:22:17
Speaker
So let's get into that now. Yes. Yes. So the paper, it contains a bunch of studies where they they sort of surveyed people's attitudes towards things that were called conspiracy theories and things that weren't and stuff like that, and and believe they showed that people having negative associations, basically, with with conspiracy theories or or related terms.
00:22:37
Speaker
But... Harris, as you say, he he's not a fan of the pejorative definition, and he's not a fan of Napolitano and Reuters' findings. He he basically seems to suggest they may be putting the cart before the horse, rather than it's showing you that there's this negative association, rather than it's showing that if you call something a conspiracy theory, then it will cause people to not like it.
00:22:58
Speaker
It may actually be that they they already dislike conspiracy theories, and so when you show them a conspiracy theory, they're reacting negatively to it, not because they've suddenly learnt that. that this thing is a conspiracy theory.
00:23:09
Speaker
As he puts it, while the study might be taken to support a pejorative definition an alternative interpretation is that individuals typically have negative attitudes towards conspiracy theories and hence describe such theories in negative terms indeed one might think that if individuals took negative evaluations to be internal to the meaning of a conspiracy theory use of negative adjectctors would be redundant and To be fair, so sometimes sometimes they are. we we have we have talked about cases where someone will say, oh, that's just a conspiracy theory. and They don't explicitly use negative language, but it's implied that a conspiracy theory is a bad thing. But yeah, people, if if if if it was simply intrinsic to conspiracy theories that they're bad things, people wouldn't feel the need to to say that.
00:23:50
Speaker
And then beyond that theoretical point, he also has issues with with studies. He he says, you know, some of them show that that not all people report negative attitudes in various cases. Some of the study sizes were small.
00:24:02
Speaker
and as he says, it is not easy to tease apart what individuals think conspiracy theories are and what individuals think theories are generally like. So I think he basically just thinks that the data doesn't show exactly what Napolitano and Reuter think it does show.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, and in part, they also then have to hedge those results because they kind of, in a footnote, exclude a whole bunch of responses because they take them to be too extreme.
00:24:31
Speaker
So they go, oh, no, no, these are these are far too pejorative. So we just need to ignore those those results. So they are kind of cherry picking the notion of conspiracy theory they like from the survey results that they get. This is why I'm just not a big fan of this paper.
00:24:50
Speaker
so so So at this point, Harris, he he hasn't been convinced by the arguments for a pejorative definition. And so now he turns to look at some arguments against a pejorative definition. So he starts off by saying that making if if you were to make conspiracies false by definition, that's obviously a problem because sometimes conspiracy theories are true. The example he gives is the NSA data collection as brought to light by Edward Snowden.
00:25:15
Speaker
At this point, I got a little bit slightly confused here because at this point he doesn't seem to like the idea that whether or not something as a conspiracy theory could change over time because obviously this this yeah in the idea that the NSF is involved in widespread data collection of of the entire public was seen as false and a conspiracy theory but it turned out then be true which then makes it not a conspiracy theory later on certainly other authors seem to have been okay with the idea that whether or not something's a conspiracy theory could change by place and by time And indeed, later on in the paper, he also, we'll see, does seem to be okay with whether or not something is a conspiracy theory being something that could change over time. So I'm not sure if it was simply, all he was actually saying was that in order to actually show whether or not something's a conspiracy theory, you'd need to be able to show it's true or false to begin with before you could even define it. And that's not practical, I think. think that might have just been his point. I mean, that would entail being a particularist because you would need to then go, all right, is it false? All right, how do we know it's false? Oh, look, I'm doing a bit of particularism now. So he wants to avoid that. But no, you're right. Given the definition that he's going to adopt, which is the appeal to credible sources,
00:26:33
Speaker
He has to kind of bite the bullet and go, well, look, it might be the case at time X. Sources say this is a conspiracy theory. And at time X plus one, they might go, actually, no, it's not anymore because it turns out we were wrong to label it as such in the past.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yes, and so finally, before before moving on, he also looks, says, okay, I'm making them false by definition. That's definitely a problem. How about if we just make it the the case, we think it's the case that conspiracy theories lack evidence by definition. And he's not happy with that either.
00:27:02
Speaker
In one case, he's like, no no, there's not going to be any conspiracy theory where there's no evidence whatsoever. At at the absolute very least, the people who were involved in the conspiracy know about it, so evidence for the conspiracy exists in their minds, if nowhere else.
00:27:19
Speaker
And he also talks about the idea that you can have misleading evidence for or against a conspiracy theory, which might use that claim again. So he's not fond of the broad definition, he's not fond of pejorative definition, but in section 2.3 he looks at the idea of counter-authority definitions, so the idea that conspiracy theories are defined as being contrary to an official account.
00:27:41
Speaker
So he likes this bit. he He thinks this this this is a better fit for explanations of historical events, like 9-11, where there is an official theory that the conspiracy theory can be counted to. Although he points out we can't we the definition can't only be about historical events because some conspiracy theories concern the future. There are conspiracy theories that say these people are working towards setting up a one-world government at some point in the future.
00:28:07
Speaker
So there isn't necessarily official account to oppose at this point, because the thing that supposedly is going to happen hasn't happened yet. So rather than simply say stipulating, you know we're saying we're talking about conspiracy theories that go against an official theory, he suggests the proposal that conspiracy theories are theories that allege conspiracies that conflict with the claims of authorities.
00:28:32
Speaker
And he points out that this this conflict may be explicit, maybe that the authorities officially say this this theory is not the official theory, we don't agree with it, or it may be an implicit conflict in that possibly the relevant authorities have never actually said We think this is the wrong, yeah this is this is not the ah this is not a good theory, this is not the official theory, here's what the official theory is.
00:28:55
Speaker
But it may be that a particular conspiracy theory goes against the kinds of things that that authorities
Philosophical Debates: Particularism and Generalism
00:29:01
Speaker
would say. If the authorities were to ever say anything about it, they would disagree with it based on the other things they say. Yeah, so if we think about some of the conspiracy theories put forward by Andy Basiago, a name we have not uttered in a long time. it's been a And so his his conspiracy yeah theories were all about how the US military and NASA were maintaining bases on Mars. which trained, and I'm using Basiago's terms here, a young Barry Obama to be an operative for the CIA using time travel technology. Now, as far as I'm aware, the US military nor NASA have ever explicitly denied Andy Basiago's claims.
00:29:47
Speaker
But we can also say that the claims of those authorities, if indeed authorities they are, the US military and NASA, are in conflict with the claims of Andy Beshiago, in that the official history of NASA records no human-led missions to Mars up to this point, and the US military has no list of military bases on another planet. So in that respect, they are implicitly in conflict with Andy Basiago's claims.
00:30:20
Speaker
Yes. So we're talking about conflicting with authorities. What's an authority? um He suggests yeah authority can mean you can talk about authority in terms of power, political authorities or or other influential figures, or you can talk about authority in terms of epistemic authority, someone being an authority on a given subject.
00:30:40
Speaker
And Harris prefers the latter because, in in the case of the former, we know that figures in power do engage in conspiracy theorizing. And he gives the example of of Trump's claims about Biden's presidential win or the way European heads of states will engage in conspiracy theories about George Soros. so I should point out it's only some European head of state that have these discussions with George Soros. And it's mostly Viktor Orban in Hungary.
00:31:07
Speaker
Yeah. So, yes. So so because because if we're talking about authority in terms of power, these people do put forward conspiracy theories, so they can't be the official one. So he likes an epistemic authority. So what's an epistemic authority?
00:31:20
Speaker
Now... And as I recall, this came up in your particularism reaffirmed paper. Some people will say the epistemic authorities are are reliable. they're They're the reliable source of true information. But the problem is if you talk about reliability, it can be a bit tautologist or at least take us back to a pejorative definition. Because if you're saying conspiracies are opposed to epi epithemic epi epistemic authorities, epistemic authorities are reliable, then you're saying conspiracy theories are by definition unreliable. And we're back to a pejorative definition.
00:31:50
Speaker
so what he says is i will instead understand epistemic authority in terms of credentials positions and the like rather than in terms of reliability on this approach the reliability of epistemic authorities will be contingent upon whether credentials and positions are reserved for those who are epistemically reliable In well-functioning systems, only those who will be reliable judges about claims in a certain domain will receive credentials or positions constitutive of epistemic authority in that domain.
00:32:18
Speaker
For example, in a well-functioning system, only individuals who are reliable judges of questions concerning biochemistry will receive advanced degrees in biochemistry. Likewise, in a well-functioning system, only individuals with a high degree of reliability concerning questions related to engineering will occupy prominent roles within engineering associations.
00:32:36
Speaker
And a little bit later, he says, in a well-functioning system, only those who will be reliable judges when occupying positions of epistemic authority hold those positions. In a poorly functioning system, by contrast, individuals may occupy positions of epistemic authority by virtue of nepotism, bribery, or some further factor unrelated to reliability.
00:32:54
Speaker
And as but as your particularism reaffirm paper pointed out, throughout the rest this paper, he does seem to assume we live in such a well-functioning system without even really arguing for it. And as you pointed out of the paper, several authors, yourself included, have argued that maybe our system is not as well functioning as we might think.
00:33:14
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah yeah there are kind of two responses here. One is to deny we live in a well-functioning system entirely. To say, well, look, people who have advanced degrees from universities are kind of induced to think that other people are just like them, and thus everybody who has a degree has got it under justifiable means. And we've got some evidence to go well, look, that's...
00:33:38
Speaker
often the case, but not as often as we would like it to be. And maybe actually not particularly often at all. it might just be rare that people are awarded correctly. i mean, there are lots of bad philosophers out there with advanced degrees from very good universities.
00:33:57
Speaker
But the the kind of bigger issue here, because I realize I'm actually now mixing both of my complaints. The first complaint is you might just deny that we live in a well-functioning system at all, that the system just doesn't work the way we think it does.
00:34:10
Speaker
Let's agree that for things like biochemistry and engineering, we live in a well-functioning system. So only people who are good at biochemistry get biochemistry degrees. Only people are good at engineering get engineering degrees.
00:34:27
Speaker
If we're going to start talking about conspiracy theories, though, it's hard to know what's the domain for investigating and working out whether a conspiracy theory is suspicious or not. So in chemistry, it's it's fairly straightforward. In engineering, it's fairly straightforward. When it comes to conspiracy theories, these are theories that cross multiple domains.
00:34:53
Speaker
And so arguing that, oh, we can just sort out the warrant of conspiracy theories by appealing to well-functioning systems might work for certain types of claims, but may not work for the kind of complicated, which is to say, conjunctions of lots of discipline, claims that make up conspiracy theories. So you can just deny the well-functioning system exists, and And we've got some evidence from history that maybe we don't live in a well-functioning system at all, although ideally we'd like to. or you can make the claim, well, look, maybe for certain domains we do live in well-functioning systems, but for certain complicated claims...
00:35:36
Speaker
There is no way of applying the well-functioning system analysis the way that Harris wants to here. Nevertheless, he does, which takes him to proposing the definition of conspiracy theories as theories that allege conspiracies and conflict with the claims of relevant epistemic authorities, where epistemic authority is a matter of credentials and positions.
00:36:00
Speaker
Now, at this point, he does point out that that what you might call relevant epistemic authorities can engage in conspiracy theorizing, giving the example of Andrew Wakefield, who at the time he first published his paper about MMR vaccines and autism and have you, was ah was ah an epistemic authority. that's that that that That has changed in in the years since.
00:36:19
Speaker
but so So to account for the fact that that can happen, Harris says we need to understand the claims of relevant epistemic authorities, and that definition he just said, as being the consensus view among authorities. And consensus doesn't have to be 100%. consensus can exist in the face of dissent by a minority. As all your various anti-vaxxers and the like like to say, there are site you can find scientists out there who do support their view. There is not a 100% consensus, but the there is nevertheless a consensus.
00:36:47
Speaker
So Harris thinks that this definition fits better with the ordinary view, with with considerably less controversy, although not not no controversy. It does show, if if you use this definition, it shows why the official version of 9.11 isn't a conspiracy theory, but the inside job theory is.
00:37:04
Speaker
So he says, the proposed definition of conspiracy theory like similar definitions referring to his earlier paper from eighteen implies that the same theory may or may not count as a conspiracy theory depending on when and where it is considered the allegation that the ea has engaged in large-s scale spying on american citizens may have been a conspiracy theory but no longer The allegation that Russian hackers penetrated the US power grid via a Vermont-based utility was not a conspiracy theory when first brought to public attention. However, given changing attitudes among relative epistemic authorities, it is now a conspiracy theory. In short, the proposed definition effectively relativizes the designation as conspiracy theory.
00:37:41
Speaker
And so here he is explicitly saying that he's fine with the fact that whether or not something is a conspiracy theory can change over time, which is why I assume that's not what he was saying earlier. Now, he sort of he finishes this section out by saying that other people may choose to use other definition definitions. As he said right at the top, there's no way of definitively saying this is the definition of conspiracy theory.
00:38:03
Speaker
He does think that at the very least, this this this definition identifies a particular subclass of conspiracy theories. And he thinks that even if you do use a different definition, that his arguments will show there's a reason to be skeptical of at the very least this subclass of counter-authority conspiracy theories.
Impact of Definitions on Conspiracy Theory Assessment
00:38:21
Speaker
Now, from from this point on, I believe, throughout the rest of the paper, he's just going to talk about conspiracy theories. But we have to take it as read that when he says conspiracy theory from now on, he means specifically conspiracy theory defined as a conspiracy theory. that is in conflict with the claims of the relevant epistemic authorities, which can be a little bit of a tangle. It takes takes me all the way back to, um was it Brian's old initial paper with the natural unwarranted ones? Yes, and when he starts talking about conspiracy theories in the second half, what he actually means to be talking about mature conspiracy theories. Yeah.
00:38:57
Speaker
Yes, so throughout this, we I assume to be fully charitable to his arguments, we we have to assume that there's that particular definition of conspiracy theory that he's using. But this takes us into section three, what is particularism?
00:39:11
Speaker
So later on in the in this paper, he's going to explicitly defend generalism. But first he wants to consider this this concern that it's not exactly clear what particularism claims.
00:39:25
Speaker
So he starts with Blinting and Taylor's definition, which is that particularism denies that the rationality of conspiracy theories can be assessed without considering particular conspiracy theories.
00:39:36
Speaker
And he sees that as relating to assisting assessing conspiracy theories themselves. He looks at some some plucky upstart by the name of Dentiff, who seems more concerned with assessing belief in conspiracy theories.
00:39:50
Speaker
It does go back and forth a bit, this paper, I think. whether we Are we talking about... whether or not a conspiracy theory is okay or whether or not belief in a particular conspiracy theory is okay. Yes, yes, it just gets into a tricky thing.
00:40:02
Speaker
Well, I mean... And one level when people want to say, conspiracy shit is should you believe in a conspiracy theory, then you're making a claim about A, whether the conspiracy theory is to true, and B, are you justified in believing that claim? And of course, this can get tangled up. a conspiracy theory could be false, but it might be justified to believe it, given available evidence. If politicians are acting in strange unusual ways, it might be reasonable to go, well, They're just engaging in a conspiracy. We don't know about what, but they're engaging in some kind of conspiracy. But it just turns out that they're politicians who are just naturally shady people. That's the way it's the way they talk and act. Whereas conversely, you might have a conspiracy theory that turns out to be true, but the conspirators have engaged in such a clever campaign of deception.
00:40:57
Speaker
that it's just never justified to believe in it. There's just no evidence that would be sufficient to show that belief in that conspiracy theory should be rational. So yeah, there are two related questions.
00:41:09
Speaker
And I do think philosophers, particulars included, sometimes need to be more precise. as to when we are talking about the claim, is the conspiracy theory true or false, and the other claim, is it reasonable to believe the conspiracy theory?
00:41:29
Speaker
Sir Harris says, particularism as defined by bunting and taylor asserts that conspiracy theories are to be assessed by considering the evidence bearing on particular theories We may recognize another particularist thesis, according to which there are no general reasons to doubt the rationality of beliefs in conspiracy theories. For each particularist thesis, we may define a corresponding and conflicting generalism.
00:41:50
Speaker
And a bit later on, he'll also talk about the difference between what evidence exists for a conspiracy theory and what evidence a particular person has for it as being possibly our different different scenarios.
00:42:02
Speaker
So he thinks that that in in this way, some particularisms can be compatible with generalisms. So possibly not the particular k' but a particular a particular particularism might not be compatible with its opposing generalism, but could be compatible with generalisms that oppose other particularisms, if that makes sense. He says...
00:42:22
Speaker
One might in principle think that conspiracy theories can only be adequately assessed by considering the evidence bearing on each theory, while also maintaining that there is strong reason to doubt the rationality of any particular belief in a conspiracy theory, insofar as such beliefs are typically caused by a best-to-be vice-cognitive bias or something of the sort.
00:42:40
Speaker
what what but what What do you say to that? Can you have certain be particularist about something and generalist about something else? I mean, I would say no, and that I think that they are not a constellation of theses, but mutually incompatible theses, because the particular says, look, you can't talk about conspiracy theories as a class.
00:43:02
Speaker
You have to assess them properly. as particular theories. Well, the generalist goes, oh, look, we've got a prima facie reason to think that as a class, conspiracy theories are bad. So no, I i don't think it's compatible unless you're modifying generalism or particularism. Now, in a book chapter, we might look at in the future, I think Harris has modified generalism such that he's actually expressing a kind of weak particularism of the type we'll be talking about in the next section. So I think he's chipped away at what he takes to be the problematic features of generalism to produce a generalism which is in fact just a rebranded form of particularism.
00:43:52
Speaker
is It's just one where he goes, well, I mean, i think I'm still entitled to be dismissive of certain kinds of conspiracy theories. But as we'll see in the next section, particulars have also made claims of that type. Although the kind of suspicion that particulars put forward to say, well, look, there are some conspiracy theories that if you hear about them, you can go, m Probably not true doesn't justify a blanket dismissal by saying they're probably false. It simply means you need to have a studied agnosticism about those theories until someone goes and checks them for the details.
00:44:32
Speaker
yes well at any rate after that harris he also addresses the fact that as he says many particularists worry that a dismissive attitude towards conspiracy theories is dangerous in so far as such an attitude would allow for conspiracies to remain hidden referring again to the works of cody pigden and that wily and mysterious dentif He says, what I want to draw attention to here is that particularists are partly motivated by practical considerations. I'm not quite sure why he wants to draw attention to that. It's simply if if we're on the theme of saying, well, there are different kinds of particularism, as he's saying, well, then there's yet another kind of particularism, which is a practically motivated one
00:45:09
Speaker
he so he sort of brings that up and then doesn't really go anywhere yeah I had a look at the section again and I also am not entirely sure what the point is there this makes me think that maybe a reviewer said oh by the way and this is being put in as a sop to that reviewer because it isn't clear in the paper exactly what this means and the consequences of treating it as true would be But nevertheless, so having introduced the idea that there there may be different kinds of particularism, he moves on to section four, which is called weak and strong particularism.
00:45:47
Speaker
So he talks about the weak version of particularism, as Bunting and Taylor put it, judging any theory to be insufficient independently of considerations regarding the evidence is irrational.
00:45:57
Speaker
Thus, a rejection of conspiracy theories simpliciter seems irrational. rational rejection or acceptance of a theory must supervene on the quality of evidence for or against that theory now he compares that to the work of the dastardly denteth who he says goes further to say quoting the prima facie suspicion of conspiracy theories generally before assessing the particulars of individual theories gets things back to front So from from these two, which he believes to be conflicting definitions, he sets up the following distinction. he he He talks about weak particularism, which he defines as saying the proper assessment of any given conspiracy theory supervenes on the evidence for and against that theory. And then strong particularism, which he says 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.
00:46:52
Speaker
so so So to him I say, do you agree with this distinction, and do you consider your position to be the strong particularism, which appears to be what he is he is saying there? He's set up your position, we call it strong particularism, and and and and opposed it to the Bunting and Taylor one.
00:47:10
Speaker
So I'll say you can make this distinction. I don't think this distinction is very useful because... I can think of one person who might be a strong particularist, and that's Lee Basham.
00:47:25
Speaker
But the particularists that Harris is going to tilt against, which is mostly me and Charles, we're weak particularists on his particular distinction here. And I mean, the evidence for this in my case is actually quite simple. I published a paper called Suspicious Conspiracy Theories, where I go through and I list the different ways that particularists have said, well, look, There are conspiracy theories that have certain features. is If a conspiracy theory has those certain features, whether it be it has a conspiracy which suffers from the problem of defectibility, conspiracy theories which include fantastical elements, conspiracy theories which are mature, conspiracy theories that seem to be recurrent narratives, you do have a reason to be suspicious of those theories as a kind of subclass.
00:48:22
Speaker
So I take it that I am, under Harris's distinction, quite obviously a weak particularist. There are some reasons to go there are certain conspiracy theories out there that if they have these particular features, and some conspiracy theories may have only one feature, other conspiracy theories may have a constellation of these features if you see a conspiracy theory with those features then you have a reason to be suspicious prima facie are you going before i even investigate the theory i can go well look there's good reason to think this theory has a low likelihood of being true
00:49:02
Speaker
Now, admittedly, i then say, well, look, that suspicion that you generate is what I call a type 1 or weak suspicion. It justifies being suspicious of the theory. But if you want to then move from that suspicion to the claim it's a type 2 or strong suspicion, the claim that my suspicion establishes this theory is likely false, then then at least someone needs to go and do some investigation. And the examples I use are, well, look, we all think it's very unlikely that alien shapeshifters have come to the earth thousands of years ago, infiltrated our governments, and taken over the world.
00:49:44
Speaker
The problem is it's not logically impossible that this has occurred. So it's not logically impossible that aliens from a far-flung planet or even from another dimension made it to Earth and have been slowly taking over governments piece by piece over thousands of years. It seems unlikely because it's a fantastical theory, but there's nothing logically impossible about it. So someone, say like myself, should sit through talks by David Icke and go, look, is there an actual argument here? What does the evidence look like? Is there a reason to think there might be something about this theory that holds water? So you do need to do some amount of investigation, but at the same time,
00:50:30
Speaker
There are theories with features that license a suspicion of those features. So I'm clearly not a strong particularist. And given that Charles, the other person that Harris punts against, is the person who put forward the notion of defectibility, that, look, certain conspiracies, you would expect people to defect from them over time. So if they persist as kind of mature conspiracy theories... then that's a reason to go, well, they're probably not true. Charles is also not a strong particularist here.
00:51:04
Speaker
So I recognize you can make the distinction. i just don't think Harris adequately captures the people he's criticizing as being strong particularists. and Nevertheless, it is strong particularists who he's going to spend the rest of the paper arguing against. whether he Largely because I think he thinks there probably is something plausible about weak particularism. He's still going to counsel against it, but he takes it that weak particularism is at least a plausible thesis to hold. What he takes that strong particularism is bad. The only problem is...
00:51:40
Speaker
There may be one strong particularist out there, but they're not indicative of particularists or particularism as a whole. Before he moves on from the section, though, he once again defends his definition of conspiracy theory, that being counter-authority ones. He says, "...the definition of conspiracy theory adopted here largely conforms with common usage, and because the present definition at least picks out an important class of theories within or overlapping..." with the class of all conspiracy theories. So once again, all the time here when he's been talking about conspiracy theories, he's been talking about his his particular definition of conspiracy theories being those ones counter to the claims of epistemic authorities.
00:52:20
Speaker
So section five is entitled Two Pessimistic Meta-Inductions for Conspiracy Theories. which is as philosophical a title as you're ever likely to read. He says, the case for generalized skepticism concerning conspiracy theories resembles the pessimistic meta-induction in philosophy of science, by which he means basically the people have pointed out, was it Barkun who did this? I can't remember. Historically,
00:52:46
Speaker
Most scientific theories get disproved, which means that current scientific theories are likely to be wrong, or at least are likely to change, likely to need refining. we've we've you know You can see see the big things where Newtonian mechanics gets replaced with Einsteinian mechanics.
00:53:05
Speaker
ah But ah and in lots of little ways, there's there's a term about the half-life of facts. It's sort of acknowledged. I remember that the the panels show the British panel show QI, I remember one time, brought up this half-life of facts that over a certain amount of time, a certain percentage of things that we believe were true actually turn out to be false and theories need to be revised.
00:53:26
Speaker
I can't remember how many seasons into QI it was, but they sort of, in that point, they said, yes, in fact, here in our earliest season, we said this. Turns out people now think that's not true, and and so on and so
Pessimistic Meta-Induction and Conspiracy Theories
00:53:36
Speaker
forth. So applying that to conspiracy theories, he says, in short, the argument appeals to the history of false conspiracy theories to warrant skepticism of other conspiracy theories. The appeal to the history of false conspiracy theories mirrors previous defenses of particularism, many of which appeal to history. Consider the following example.
00:53:54
Speaker
And then once again quotes quos your good self, where where you talked about how people seem to have historically underestimated how much conspiracy was going on as evidenced by the Edward Snowden leaks.
00:54:06
Speaker
Now, having looked at that, he he starts talking about prior probabilities of conspiracy theories over history, and he says, here and lies the greatest challenge to the argument now under consideration when we consider the history of conspiracy theories we are met with an overwhelmingly high proportion of false conspiracy theories history warrants a strong presumption of falsity for further conspiracy theories And he just kind of says that.
00:54:31
Speaker
He doesn't really justify And and again, if we're ah yeah like if we were using the broad definition, then I think that would be obviously false. But if we're talking specifically about counter-authority conspiracy theories, do they have a history of being overwhelmingly false?
00:54:48
Speaker
Maybe they do. mean, we i mean we we actually just don't know. we actually do not know the the empirical success or failure rate. But the thing which I want to point out here, so I mean, this is going to be a problem throughout this entire section. So he's relying here on the notion of the pessimistic meta-induction.
00:55:07
Speaker
which is, in the scientific case, most scientific theories have turned out to be false. That gives us a reason to think that most scientific theories are false now. And then that gives us a kind of pessimistic conclusion, no scientific theories are going to be true. And most people reject that by going, well, that, I mean, it follows inductively.
00:55:29
Speaker
But it's not a very good argument because there's something about the scientific endeavor which is aiming towards veritism. So, yeah, previously theories were false, but that doesn't mean that the new crop of theories are as false as the previous crop. In fact, there's an argument. to say yeah Now, admittedly, the pessimistic meta-induction becomes complicated by the fact that philosophers think that scientists care about truth.
00:55:57
Speaker
But practically, this is a sociology of science issue, most scientists are anti-realists. They simply go, look, the theory we're working with now is an adequate description of the world. We're not making any claim about the theory's truth. We're simply saying it matches our understanding of the world at this particular time.
00:56:18
Speaker
If the data changes or we make new discoveries, we'll just revise the theory. We're not making any claims about the truth-likeness or truthity. Truthity? That's a brand new word. The truthity of the theories.
00:56:31
Speaker
We're simply saying they work. That's all scientists tend to care about, which is why anti-realism is rife in the sciences, even though philosophers of science go, no, no, you should care about truth because this pessimistic meta-induction looks really bad.
00:56:47
Speaker
And scientists are going, yeah, but we kind of accept that. Past theories were false, but we didn't care about their truth. We just wanted to know, do they work? Are they useful? Can we operationalize them? Et cetera, et cetera.
00:57:02
Speaker
And as we're going to see... Harris wants to apply the pessimistic meta-induction to conspiracy theories, even though he knows it doesn't work for scientific theories. So at this point, I think a reader can quite go, but I mean, history warrants a strong presumption of falsity for scientific theories, and you're already going, that's...
00:57:27
Speaker
Probably not a very good argument. So why do you want to apply it to the conspiracy theory case here? Because that's also going to affect psychological theories and theories of all particular types.
00:57:42
Speaker
Historically, most theories have been wrong. But we don't tend to take that as a marker of the claim that most current theories of that type are wrong as well, no matter how small or large that previous set of theories turned out to be. Yeah, and throughout this bit, if I'm reading it correctly, he seems to be...
00:58:05
Speaker
sort of representing the particularist argument a little bit like he he seems to be arguing against the idea that true conspiracy theories are common but I don't think particularism requires that that be the case it's simply saying not all conspiracy theories are false because we know that some of them turn out to be true we have to investigate them to find out if the one particular one we're looking at is one of the true ones and which doesn't seem to be really what he's arguing against.
00:58:31
Speaker
And again, and also, this is still looking at the strong particularism regarding conspiracy theory, regarding counter-authority conspiracy theories.
00:58:42
Speaker
If we're talking about a broad definition of conspiracy theories, then true conspiracy theories indeed are commonplace. So, you know, again, by focusing on this one thing, he he's sort of limiting the implication, I guess, of it. But having said that, I see he doesn't really argue for this this this the overwhelmingly high proportion of false conspiracy theories. he does He goes on to talk about this a bit. he as it goes through the section, he he taught he wants to motivate the claim that past conspiracy theories have overwhelmingly been false by mustering empirical and theoretical considerations. So his sort of the theoretical side of it is, first all, he basically says there are or have been lots and lots of conspiracy theories, possibly more than you might think. Well, not more than you might think, but more than many people might think. Conspiracy theories can be prompted by sort of momentous events and also mundane events, which means there could be a lot of them, but we just tend to not talk about the the mundane ones so much.
00:59:40
Speaker
And so because there's a lot of them, he says, one might conclude from the fact that the overwhelming majority of conspiracy theories have been false, that conspiracy theories now under consideration are overwhelmingly likely to be false, even absent consideration of the evidence specific to those theories.
00:59:54
Speaker
Now, again, he he's sort of he's he talks about this. He says there's lots of them. so that So, you know, if it turned conspiracy theories were very rare, but we're still had a majority false, that might not be so much if if it's a small sample size. But he's saying it's a lot of them. But then again, he just kind of still says the overwhelming majority of conspiracy theories have been false. And I don't know...
01:00:16
Speaker
I don't know where that comes from. if it's specifically specifically If we're talking about counter-authority conspiracy theories, the only way to come to the conclusion that they're overwhelmingly false is if we assume that that epistemic authorities are usually right. Which, of course, he does because he believes that we're in a well-functioning system. But of course, if you don't think we're in a well-functioning system, then authorities saying a conspiracy theory is false, which of course is required by his definition. in Conspiracy theories are things which are not endorsed by relevant epistemic authorities. If the well-functioning
01:00:52
Speaker
system hypothesis is false in the strong sense, it doesn't exist, or false in the weaker sense, we've got no reason to think that there is a well-functioning system when it comes to claims about conspiracy theories, then yeah, we we just we just don't know.
01:01:10
Speaker
It just feels like he's he's falling back into that problem that he identified of you end up with this sort of pejorative definition and pretty much a tautologist definition where where conspiracies are basically being defined, by being wrong by default. But...
01:01:26
Speaker
At any rate, he says he continues by saying, thus, we have an argument against strong particularism for what we might regard as a weak form of generalism. In denying strong particularism, we need not deny that the appropriate way of assessing conspiracy theories is through consideration of the evidence.
Reliability and Skepticism in Conspiracy Theories
01:01:41
Speaker
On the contrary, the argument here shows that the poor track record of conspiracy theories offers grounds for a presumption of doubt towards such theories as a class. Notably, in mitigating this presumption of doubt, we vindicate at least to some degree the dismissive attitude towards conspiracy theories so often criticized by particularists.
01:01:57
Speaker
This is not to say that conspiracy theories can never be rationally believed. Rather, the upshot of the argument here is that there is reason to assign a low probability to individual conspiracy theories prior to considering the evidence bearing specifically on individual theories.
01:02:10
Speaker
Such a conclusion is consistent with the possibility that one can sometimes have sufficient evidence favoring a conspiracy theory to believe that theory rationally, which... I mean, that doesn't sound like it's again doesn't sound like it's arguing against particularism really particularism says you you have to evaluate them on the evidence and this is you can be suspicious of them beforehand Which is what the what the under his term the weak particular state Charles and myself have been arguing and Charles has been arguing this since basically 1995
01:02:45
Speaker
Now, at this point, he he considers the objection that the most preposterous of conspiracy theories do not discredit all other conspiracy theories, and emphasizes that this argument is, in his words, intended only to motivate the assignment of relatively low probabilities to conspiracy theories before the details of those theories are considered.
01:03:04
Speaker
However, the distinction between preposterous and non-preposterous conspiracy theories will be apparent only when those theories are examined more closely, compared against common sense, compared against available of evidence, and so on. At this stage, some theories will perform better than others. However, the distinction at its later stage does not undermine the case for an initial assignment of low prior probabilities to conspiracy theories in general.
01:03:24
Speaker
And I mean, again, it doesn't sound like that's what particularism says. You know, he says you get it relatively before the details of those theories are considered.
01:03:34
Speaker
So, I mean, it's what he thinks the strong particularist is arguing. except that he's not arguing against strong particulists. So he's either misread the particulist literature and assigned a claim to particulists like Charles and myself that we don't hold, or he's misrepresenting the particulist literature in order to score cheap shots.
01:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he says... It's intended to motivate the assignment of relatively low probabilities counter to conspiracy theories before the details of those theories are considered. But the whole point of particularism, surely, is that the details of those storie its theories need to be considered before you can make it. You can't assign probabilities. until you have investigated the evidence. Now, admittedly, I'll backtrack on that slightly. If you think you live in a highly conspired society, let's say I'm in Romania, where political conspiracies are more common than they are in my home nation of Aotearoa, New Zealand,
01:04:41
Speaker
that's going you are going to assign a higher probability that when a government minister makes a claim, they're probably covering up something else that the government has done. But that's still based upon available evidence. You're assigning the probability to the conspiracy theory given particular types of evidence you have access to.
01:05:04
Speaker
So, yeah, none of this seems to be inconsistent with the arguments put forward by extant particularists. If he's going to argue against a strong particularist, he needs to actually show that people are making these types of claims in the literature, which he hasn't.
01:05:22
Speaker
Yes, so he then, he turns now his concern to weak particularism with a different analogy to science, which is that the empirical success of contemporary scientific theories is not a reliable indicator of truth. The basis for this argument is the body of past false scientific theories that were nonetheless empirically successful. Now relating this to conspiracy theories, he asks whether conformity to evidence is a reliable test for truth in the case of conspiracy theories.
01:05:49
Speaker
and And previously here he had said conspiracy theories not generally motivated by the ability to make novel predictions, but rather by the ability to account for data left unexplained by official narratives or the perspectives of epi epistemic authorities more generally, reminding us again that we are still using this counter-authority definition. but His concern, if I'm getting this right, is that even under weak particularism, which is once again, the proper assessment of any given conspiracy theory supervenes on the evidence for and against that theory, says that even even under this case, practically all conspiracy theories might perform well with respect to the evidence, provided that one makes the appropriate background assumptions. Now, let me point out, this will also be true for a lot of scientific theories are being put forward at a given time. Because if we're working with the Quinean notion that you know theory is underdetermined by evidence,
01:06:47
Speaker
Well, you're going to have lots of evidence out there in the world and lots of scientific theories trying to make sense of that evidence. And then some of those theories, when tested or investigated, will fail. And some of those theories, when tested and investigated, will provide you with positive results such that you decide to continue investigating that particular theory, writing it up, publishing it, and making it a kind of scientific orthodoxy.
01:07:16
Speaker
So conformity to evidence might be something which is a test for truth in the case of conspiracy theories, but only because conformity to evidence is a reliable, well, might be a reliable test for truth in the case of all other theories as well.
01:07:32
Speaker
So if he's going to make the claim this is a problem for conspiracy theories, this is still going to be a problem for any other kind of theory. Well, he he summarizes this whole section by saying, to conclude this section, let us state plainly what the pessimistic meta-inductions presented here show.
Conclusion and Summary of Philosophical Debates
01:07:50
Speaker
Because we've defined conspiracy theories as theories that conflict with the claims of epistemic authorities, we may take our first argument to indicate that believing allegations of conspiracy that conflict with such claims is likely to lead one to error.
01:08:02
Speaker
Thus, insofar as we aim to have true beliefs and avoid false ones, we have reason for an initial skepticism of conspiracy theories. a second argument illustrates that the conformity of conspiracy theories with evidence is not a reliable indicator to the truth of such theories. Thus, one should not too readily accept even those conspiracy theories that appear to conform to the evidence.
01:08:22
Speaker
Now, having said that, section six is objections and replies. He considers some replies that defenders of strong particularism might make to the arguments he's put forth. They might say, the argument is mistaken, one might argue, because epistemic authorities need not be reliable. After all, I have explicitly declined to define epistemic authority in such a way as to require reliability.
01:08:44
Speaker
The argument is dangerous, one might argue, because it seems to encourage blind faith in epistemic authorities whose overriding motive may be to protect malign interests rather than to discover and disseminate the truth. And indeed, we know there have been situations where epistemic authorities have been unreliable. I think, again, referring to you, he talks about the example of the the Soviet Union, under Stalin, where they're busy air-rushing people out of photos. and and on Good old Moscow show trials.
01:09:10
Speaker
And so Harris says, in such a context, it seems that that the fact that some allegation of conspiracy conflicts with the claims of epistemic authorities is no mark against it. Well, Harris has three replies to this idea. at First, he says that just because some authorities are unreliable doesn't mean the authorities we're appealing to in any in any specific context are unreliable. I mean, it'd be nice to give some way of working out when it is and isn't the case, but sure. yeah He says, second, it is not clear from the examples given by particularists that even epistemic authorities within the Soviet Union were so unreliable as to nullify the pessimistic induction in that context.
01:09:46
Speaker
Which I think indicates that Harris doesn't know much about how science was done under the Soviet Union, but we'll leave that to one side as well. Lysenko and what have you. And finally, Harris's argument against strong particularism doesn't assume that epistemic authorities are reliable full stop, as he puts it. It just assumes that, quote, trusting epistemic authorities as good guides, at least with respect to what not to believe, is the best available strategy with respect to the twin epistemic aims of believing truths and shunning falsehoods.
01:10:16
Speaker
So i think he seems to be basically saying that even if epistemic authorities are of dubious reliability, they may still be the most likely to eventually arrive at the truth. Oh, that's nice then.
01:10:29
Speaker
Now, he also talks about the non-epistemic concern that a sceptical attitude could allow real conspiracies to go undetected. this is Again, this is the those sort of practical so concerns they mentioned earlier on in the paper.
01:10:41
Speaker
But he says, but such concerns are misguided whatever consequences the attitude of scepticism towards conspiracy theories might have such consequences are irrelevant to the arguments given above moreover it is far from clear that this attitude of scepticism would have worse consequences than the absence of scepticism Even if we suppose a skeptical stance towards conspiracy theories would allow some conspiracies to go undetected, this cost is not obviously worse than the cost of assigning relatively high prior probabilities to conspiracy theories.
01:11:08
Speaker
Additionally, because one can investigate conspiracy theories even while maintaining a highly skeptical attitude toward them, it is far from clear that skeptical attitude would have any negative consequences. Although, as I recall, in particular, as I'm affirmed, you talked about things like the the dodgy dossier in the invasion of Iraq.
01:11:24
Speaker
which seem to show that that having a sceptical attitude to things that get labelled conspiracy theories involves quite a significant loss of life. and Yeah. Now, the other non-epistemic concern is that this line of argumentation could lead to people being overly trusting of unreliable epistemic authorities, which basically says we just need to be better at improving the systems whereby individuals become epistemic authorities, which, I mean, yeah...
01:11:49
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I mean, if everybody agrees with that. if we If people are going to be promoted into positions of authority, whether it be academic, political, media, et cetera, et cetera, then we should have robust systems that ensure that the people that are promoted are the right kind of people, although that then gets you into really interesting political debate as to who qualifies as the right kind of person that improves a system. As we're seeing in the United States right now, the Republicans have a theory about what improved academic systems would look like, where essentially what they want is DEI for white people.
01:12:35
Speaker
So, but nevertheless, he's made his arguments, he's considered objections to them. As far as he's concerned, he's all done, which leads us to section 7, concluding remarks. And the section reads in full, Particularism is often presented by its explicit defenders as at least approaching consensus status within the philosophy of conspiracy theories.
01:12:55
Speaker
I have sought to challenge this picture. As I've argued here, particularism is best understood not as a single thesis, but rather as a constellation of related theses. Hence one may be a particularist in some respects and a generalist in others.
01:13:07
Speaker
I have argued that strong particularism, according to which there are no grounds for generalized but defeasible skepticism of conspiracy theories, is false. This result does not imply that particularism is on the whole mistaken, but it does imply that particular as triumphalism is premature.
01:13:23
Speaker
I think I would have liked it better if he had said it's generalized, there's no generalized ground no grounds for generalized but defeasible skepticism of counter-authority conspiracy theories. so I really feel it good would have would have done to sort hammer home that definition right at the end there because reading it by itself, it sounds like a much stronger conclusion. Stronger claim. yeah makes yeah And also there's this is kind of curiosity curiosity about this claim. One may be a particulist in some respects and a generous in other ah and
01:13:54
Speaker
others, which gets mentioned early on in the paper, but it's never really developed and it would be nice to see what he means by that because I'm not really sure if we reject strong particularism that that that distinction works at all. And I think we should reject strong particularism because there might be one strong particularist out there which may be Lee Basham, but you need to actually go look at his work and establish that claim.
01:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, and I assume he, again, things get a little bit muddy when we talk about sort of skepticism and prior probabilities and what have you. It sounded like he's going for the idea that yeah you you can you can be sort of suspicious of conspiracy theories in general, but then investigate them particularly, which just sounds like particularism.
01:14:41
Speaker
So, yeah, I don't know. But there we go. we have um we've've We've put the cart before the horse. we've We've looked at the prequel, having already looked at the sequel. And now we we have a better picture, I think. We do.
01:14:55
Speaker
So I can see why that paper would motivate you pen a reply. Well, I mean, it motivated Charles to go, oh, what about it? And and then Curtis going, oh, we should write that. And my going, yes, we should, which then led to a waiting a year and then going, oh, we probably should actually write that reply that we talked about a year ago.
01:15:16
Speaker
So we did. That's how things work in academia. It's how time works in academia, which is really quite disturbing. Yes, yes. So, ah that's it. we've we've We've looked at a paper. That's all we set out to do. So we're all done.
01:15:34
Speaker
are. We're not all done. We're not all done because, of course, we have to record a bonus bonus episode for our beloved patrons, those who are, quite frankly, better than all the rest of you who aren't patrons. We're not afraid to say it. So it's going to be an intro. Now, we...
01:15:48
Speaker
We said we were going to talk about the Anselmo case last time again. We we meant it. We did mean it, but then... to but i mean to know it The problem was you know we got that email from David Addison, who Josh assures me is not a relation. Although, frankly... i do have an Uncle David. that's the yeah But you're adamant this is not the same.
01:16:09
Speaker
is not the same. And as far as I know, there are eight people with the last name Addison in the world. So frankly, this person has to be a relation of some particular kind. Anyway, we got this email, and it did make us rethink how we're going to talk about the Al Salmo case. And I think we're ready to. So this time, this time we promise. think we can go on. We are tackling the Al Salmo case.
01:16:34
Speaker
in detail in the patron bonus episode. So, look forward to that, patrons. For the rest of you, thanks for listening anyway. You you are literally our audience, without which we'd just be two people talking to each other. and Who wants that? People talking to each other? Disgusting. I mean, there is actually a possible world where we just do this anyway.
01:16:55
Speaker
Well, it's entirely true. But we don't. We do this, and you listened, and thank you very much. And see you next episode. Goodbye. Goodbye!
01:17:12
Speaker
Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy features Josh Addison and Associate Professor M.R. Extentive. Our producers are a mysterious cabal of conspirators known as Tom, Philip, and another who is so mysterious that they remain anonymous.
01:17:26
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.
01:17:53
Speaker
And remember, he who laughs last is standing behind you right now.