Author Archives
-
The Political Sins of Cybernetics: A Review of Evgeny Morozov’s The Santiago Boys, Felipe Figueroa
My interest in Evgeny Morozov’s new podcast on Project Cybersyn is long-lasting. I come from Chile and have been interested in Project Cybersyn ever since reading Eden Medina’s wonderful book Cybernetic Revolutionaries (2011). Hence, I have been eagerly waiting for… Read More ›
-
Conspiracy Theory and the “Bodyguard of Lies”: The Bennewitz Matter, Mark D. West
Joseph Uscinski and Adam Enders (2022) describe “conspiracy theory” as a pejorative term, one employed in what they see as our “post-truth” era to indict official explanations for historical events. Conspiracy theories involve answers for why things happened that conflict… Read More ›
-
William Whewell: Dramaturge of Science, Steve Fuller
What follows is the English original of my Chinese introduction to the main account of the life, work and times of William Whewell: Richard Yeo, Defining Science: William Whewell, Natural Knowledge and Public Debate in Early Victorian Britain (Cambridge University… Read More ›
-
Defining ‘Conspiracy Theory’: A Reply to Lee Basham, Jesse Walker
Lee Basham asks how I define “conspiracy theory.”[1] I have a rather broad-church definition: I use the phrase to mean any theory that posits a conspiracy. I do not think a theory needs to be implausible, fringy, or false to… Read More ›
-
Requiem for Expertise, Des Hewitt
It is perhaps an understatement to say that expertise has undergone something of an assault in recent years. Under the post-truth condition, experts and their knowledge have been under attack from politicians, commentators, and ironically those who oppose politicians and… Read More ›
-
SERRC: Volume 12, Issue 7, 1-47, July 2023
Volume 12, Issue 7, 1-47, July 2023 • Humanity 8.0 Podcast: Season 2, Episodes 9-16. • Part II: Xabier Renteria-Uriarte “The Value of Shooting at a Plane with a Rifle: A Reply to Dennis Masaka.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply… Read More ›
-
Walker and the Fiction of Conspiracy Theory as “Fringe”, Lee Basham
Jesse Walker is a prolific and accomplished writer with the Reason Foundation, a group associated with a certain Nozick-like political-economic libertarianism and a general impatience with skepticism about our underlying political and economic systems in the West. It’s encouraging to… Read More ›
-
Conspiracy Theory as Public Intelligence: A Reply to Keeley, Lee Basham
While passing through Grants, New Mexico, you will see haunting bumper stickers. The town is for the most part the picture of poverty. But there is a powerful back-story, the near-by Ambrosia Lake Uranium mines. The old, local restaurants, now… Read More ›
-
Science vs. Scientism in Consciousness Research: A Reply to Ann-Sophie Barwich, Philip Goff
I am very grateful to Ann-Sophie Barwich for taking the time to comment on my work in her paper ‘Between Electrical Light Switches and Panpsychism: Scientism and the Responsibilities of the Humanities in the Twenty-First Century’ (2022; unless otherwise stated… Read More ›
-
When Is a Conspiracy Theory a Conspiracy? Jesse Walker
It has been nearly a decade since I wrote this passage, which Brian Keeley quotes in his discussion of the folk use of “conspiracy theory”:[1] People started using the phrase “conspiracy theory” to mean “implausible conspiracy theory,” then “implausible theory,… Read More ›