@article{Spiegel2022,
  author    = {Spiegel, Thomas Jussuf},
  title     = {Verschw{\"o}rungstheorien und das Erbe der Aufkl{\"a}rung},
  series = {Deutsche Zeitschrift f{\"u}r Philosophie : Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung},
  volume    = {70},
  journal   = {Deutsche Zeitschrift f{\"u}r Philosophie : Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {De Gruyter},
  address   = {Berlin},
  issn      = {0012-1045},
  doi       = {10.1515/dzph-2022-0015},
  pages     = {253 -- 273},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {Conspiracy theories are currently all the rage in philosophy and broader intellectual culture. One of the most common background assumptions in the discourse on conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists exhibit certain epistemic vices in the sense of cognitive misconduct. This epistemic vice is mostly seen as a form of irrationality; the corresponding "remedy", as suggested by some commentators, is a return to the ideals of the Enlightenment. This article argues that this idea is wrongheaded. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that conspiracy theorists are actually motivated by the rational Enlightenment ideal of self-thinking in the first place. In contrast to the standard discourse, the article posits that conspiracism is based on a certain form of social scepticism, according to which conspiracy theorists radically mistrust a certain form of expert testimony, namely "official" statements. This form of social scepticism in turn facilitates a naive appropriation of the Enlightenment ideal of self-thinking. The article closes by drawing connections to the ethical and epistemological debate on trust and offers the pessimistic assessment that there are no easy solutions based on individual epistemic virtues.},
  language  = {de}
}
@misc{AhnertDecultotGroteetal.2017,
  author    = {Ahnert, Thomas and Decultot, Elisabeth and Grote, Simon and Lifschitz, Avi},
  title     = {The German Enlightenment},
  series = {German history : the journal of the German History Societ},
  volume    = {35},
  journal   = {German history : the journal of the German History Societ},
  publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0266-3554},
  doi       = {10.1093/gerhis/ghx104},
  pages     = {588 -- 602},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {The term Enlightenment (or Aufkl{\"a}rung) remains heavily contested. Even when historians delimit the remit of the concept, assigning it to a particular historical period rather than to an intellectual or moral programme, the public resonance of the Enlightenment remains high and problematic—especially when equated in an essentialist manner with modernity or some core values of 'the West'. This Forum has been convened to discuss recent research on the Enlightenment in Germany, different views of the term and its ideological use in public discourse outside academia (and sometimes within it).},
  language  = {en}
}