Wish politicians looked out for miners instead of minors on some island somewhere. … They want to have total control, know what you think, know what you do. — Oliver Anthony Jesse Walker’s background premise is that we are paranoiacs…. Read More ›
conspiracy theory
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
The Le Monde Declaration: Can Suppression of Conspiracy Theory be Conspiratorial? Lee Basham
Remarkably, with a dash of amusement, the answer to the question posed in the title is “yes”. The irony of the Le Monde declaration lives on. Let’s turn our thoughts to plagiarism. Of course, we need to take plagiarism and… Read More ›
Response to Hill: Conspiracy Theorizing, Ordinary Usage and Integrity, Lee Basham
Scott Hill’s most recent defense of the Le Monde declaration against conspiracy theory is welcome.[1] It’s an enjoyable and thoughtful piece with a high spirit to it. He also shares a disturbing revelation. Most important, it represents another opportunity to… Read More ›
Avoiding the Stereotyping of the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories: A Reply to Hill, M R. X. Dentith
Scott Hill has recently challenged philosophers like myself, Lee Basham, and the other signatories of our 2016, for both our criticisms of an article by some social scientists which appeared in Le Monde back in 2016, and for supposedly and… Read More ›
The “New Conspiracism” is Not: Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of People are Saying, Lee Basham
“It’s time to confront conspiracy theories? We’ve always been out of time for that.” — Otto Blaast In Social Epistemology we find an essay by philosopher Steve Clarke, “Is There a New Conspiracism?”[1] He argues Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of… Read More ›
We Need to Talk About Religion: A Response to Smith’s “A Quasi-Fideist Approach to QAnon,” David G. Robertson
As a scholar of both religion and conspiracy theories, it was perhaps inevitable that Nicholas Smith’s (2022) recent article would catch my attention. Happily, I agreed with his conclusions in the main, but I was moved to respond nonetheless, as… Read More ›