As the convenor of the Wednesday Graduate Seminar series at the University of Auckland’s Department of Philosophy I’m contributing a short twenty minute paper on Conspiracy Theories on the 9th of April, 4pm in the Fisher Building, Level 2, Room 202, 18 Waterloo Quadrant.
The abstract follows:
I think it would be fair to say that most commentators treat co-conspirators as, in part, perfectly rational agents aware of the reach and morality of their plans (if not sufficiently omniscient to know how successful their plot will be). Yet a lot of recent Conspiracy Theories do not make that assumption and focus rather on the co-conspirators acting malevolently without necessarily realising it. Indeed the historical record shows this is usually the case. Have we mischaracterised co-conspirators and thus what the Inference to Conspiracy Theory entails to a believer? Does our scepticism apply to a view few actually hold?