I conducted some of the ‘first generation’ work in analytic philosophy on conspiracy theories (Clarke 2002; 2006; 2007),[1] and then set the topic aside for 14 years.[2] The current scene is quite different from the one I left. One difference… Read More ›
Articles
Articles are stand-alone contributions to SERRC.
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 ›
Deleuze to the Rescue, Ahmed Bouzid
It was a welcome relief from the running endless procession of redundant “critical” takes on AI to encounter Professor David Gunkel’s essay, “Deconstruction to the Rescue”.[1] Finally, a perspective on Artificial Intelligence, Generative or otherwise, that does not smuggle through… Read More ›
How Christianity Became Platonism for the Masses, Ljiljana Radenovic
In the preface to Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche famously said Christianity is Platonism for the people. This was not meant to be a compliment to Plato or Christianity. On the contrary, Nietzsche thought philosophy had gone downhill since Plato,… Read More ›
Scientism and Sentiments about Progress in Science and Academic Philosophy, Part II, Moti Mizrahi
3. Sentiment Analysis For those who are concerned about selection bias in the results of the 2009 and 2020 PhilPapers Surveys, there is another way to gauge the disagreement about progress in academic philosophy among academic philosophers, namely, to study… Read More ›
Scientism and Sentiments about Progress in Science and Academic Philosophy, Part I, Moti Mizrahi
Abstract Mizrahi (2017a) advances an argument in support of Weak Scientism, which is the view that scientific knowledge is the best (but not the only) knowledge we have, according to which Weak Scientism follows from the premises that scientific knowledge… Read More ›
Public Sentiment and Its Powers, Part II, Mariam Thalos
Walter Lippman, an American critic of democracy, wrote: What then are the true boundaries of the people’s power? …[F]or a rough beginning let us say that the people are able to give and withhold their consent to be governed —… Read More ›
Public Sentiment and Its Powers, Part I, Mariam Thalos
“Public opinion doesn’t exist.” — Pierre Bourdieu 1972/79. This essay aims at rethinking two important conceptions for use in social and political science: (1) Public sentiment, to be used interchangeably, as is the common practice, with public opinion, and; (2)… Read More ›
Why a Pejorative Definition of “Conspiracy Theory” Need Not Be Unfair, Juha Räikkä
Abstract Because of the pejorative connotation of the concept of “conspiracy theory”, many philosophers have proposed that the concept should be redefined. Their worry is that if conspiracy theories are considered implausible by definition, then the theories cannot get fair… Read More ›