Verschwörungstheorien und das Erbe der Aufklärung
Conspiracy Theories and the Legacy of Enlightenment
- 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 articleConspiracy 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.…
Author details: | Thomas J. SpiegelORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1515/dzph-2022-0015 |
ISSN: | 0012-1045 |
ISSN: | 2192-1482 |
Title of parent work (German): | Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie : Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung |
Subtitle (German): | auf den Schultern von Scheinriesen |
Subtitle (English): | on the Shoulders of Bogus Giants |
Publisher: | De Gruyter |
Place of publishing: | Berlin |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | German |
Date of first publication: | 2022/05/25 |
Publication year: | 2022 |
Release date: | 2022/10/17 |
Tag: | Aufklarung; Demut; Rationalitat; Verschworungstheorien; Vertrauen; soziale Erkenntnistheorie; vice epistemology; |
Volume: | 70 |
Issue: | 2 |
Number of pages: | 21 |
First page: | 253 |
Last Page: | 273 |
Organizational units: | Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Philosophie |
DDC classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 10 Philosophie / 100 Philosophie und Psychologie |
Peer review: | Referiert |