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Popper Revisited, or What Is Wrong With Conspiracy Theories?
Open accessAbstract
Conpiracy theories are widely deemed to be superstitious. Yet history appears to be littered with conspiracies successful and otherwise. (For this reason, "cock-up" theories cannot in general replace conspiracy theories, since in many cases the cock-ups are simply failed conspiracies.) Why then is it silly to suppose that historical events are sometimes due to conspiracy? The only argument available to this author is drawn from the work of the late Sir Karl Popper, who criticizes what he calls "the conspiracy theory of society" in The Open Society and elsewhere. His critique of the conspiracy theory is indeed sound, but it is a theory no sane person maintains. Moreover, its falsehood is compatible with the prevalence of conspiracies. Nor do his arguments create any presumption against conspiracy theories of this or that. Thus the belief that it is superstitious to posit conspiracies is itself a superstition. The article concludes with some speculations as to why this superstition is so widely believed.
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Cited by
Understanding Conspiracy Theories
Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12568 · Cited by 1,511
Contesting epistemic authority: Conspiracy theories on the boundaries of science
Harambam, J., & Aupers, S. (2015) · Public Understanding of Science · doi:10.1177/0963662514559891 · Cited by 328
Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them
(2018) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190844073.001.0001 · Cited by 284
'The Government Spies Using Our Webcams': The Language of Conspiracy Theories in Online Discussions
Samory, M., & Mitra, T. (2018) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3274421 · Cited by 74
Schatto-Eckrodt, T., Clever, L., & Frischlich, L. (2024) · Social Science Computer Review · doi:10.1177/08944393241246281 · Cited by 32
“Thus, drawing from the early de fi nitory works of Keeley (1999) and Pigden (1995), we herein de fi ne conspiracy theories as: ... a heterodox explanatory pattern that attributes events and phenomena essentially to a group of people acting in secret (conspirators) who want to mislead the public and…”
Metadata
- Authors
- Pigden, C.
- Venue
- Philosophy of the Social Sciences
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1995-03
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-34
- ISSN
- 0048-3931 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7441
- OpenAlex
- W2007439288
- Cited by
- 224
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 3.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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