Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by  Matthew Shields at Wake Forest University, on his recent paper “ Rethinking Conspiracy Theories ” in Synthese .  Matthew Shields What do you think of when you think of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists? The first image that typically comes to mind are individuals on dark corners of the internet spinning bizarre tales to explain some major event: that the moon landing was faked, that 9/11 was an “inside job”, that Sandy Hook was a false flag, or that Princess Diana was assassinated. You’re in good company: a great deal of the academic research on the topic takes just these cases to be paradigmatic of what and who conspiracy theories and theorists are. Many philosophers have followed suit. Researchers then go on to defend claims such as the following: conspiracy theorists are political extremists, not well-off socioeconomically, less educated, amateurs who lack and repudiate the relevant expert credentials. The problem of conspiracy theories, in t...

As part of the Knowledge Resistance project, a conference was organised in Stockholm from 23rd to 25th August 2022 to bring together philosophers, psychologists, media studies researchers, and journalists and discuss recent work on misinformation. This event was organised by Åsa Wikforss ( interviewed on knowledge resistance here ).  Stockholm University, Albano In this report, I will summarise some of the talks. DAY 1 In his talk entitled “Resistance to Knowledge and Vulnerability to Deception”, Christopher F. Chabris (Geisinger Health System) argued that we need to understand our vulnerabilities to deception in order to appreciate the social aspects of knowledge resistance. He illustrated with many interesting examples of famous deceptions and frauds how deceivers exploit blind spots in our attention and some of our cognitive habits.  Christopher Chabris For instance, we tend to judge something as accurate if it is predictable and consistent. We make predictions all t...

In today's post Quassim Cassam  (Warwick) is presenting his new book, Conspiracy Theories (Polity, 2019). See also his post on the Polity Books blog on why we should not ignore conspiracy theories, and the  interview on the New Books Network on conspiracy theories as a form of propaganda. In my book, I address four questions: What is a conspiracy theory? Why do people believe them? What is the problem with conspiracy theories? How should we respond to them? The take home message of the book is that conspiracy theories are a form of political propaganda. This is, in a technical sense, their function , and also what makes them dangerous. The deeper meaning of conspiracy theories is political, and these theories are as pernicious as the political causes they promote. In practice, these causes have often been extremist causes. Anti-Semitism is part of the DNA of conspiracy theories, and even seemingly apolitical theories are a gateway to more overtly political theo...

In this post, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Gettysburg College , Daniel DeNicola, introduces his just-released book, Understanding Ignorance: The Surprising Impact of What We Do Not Know (MIT, August 2017). He writes on a range of ethical and epistemic issues, usually related to education. His new book grew from an earlier work, Learning to Flourish: A Philosophical Exploration of Liberal Education (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2012). Ignorance, it seems, is trending. Political ignorance has become some so severe that the democratic ideal of an informed citizenry seems quaint. Willful ignorance is the social diagnosis of the moment: critics found to be implicated in prejudice, privilege, ideology, and information cocoons. Ignorance is used both as accusation and excuse. In the broadest sense, it is a ineluctable feature of the human condition. And yet, philosophers have ignored ignorance. While occupied with the sources and structure of knowledge, epistemologists for ce...

Today's post is by Carrie Jenkins , Canada Research Chair and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where she is heading up a multi-year interdisciplinary research project on the Metaphysics of Romantic Love . She lives in Vancouver, and she is @carriejenkins on Twitter. Her new book is What Love Is And What It Could Be (2017, Basic Books). The book takes off from a dilemma facing anyone who wants to know what romantic love is. One promising approach treats love as a biological phenomenon: a bundle, perhaps, of evolved neurochemical responses (chapter 1). Another promising approach locates it as a social construct: a creature of norms, institutions, and practices (chapter 2). These approaches appear inconsistent—evolved neurochemistry is not a social construct—yet choosing one to the exclusion of the other feels like discarding half our hard-won wisdom. After a brief detour through some “canonical” (and often deeply problematic) philosophers ...