All Embracing But Underwhelming…

Brian L. Keeley, ‘Of Conspiracy Theories’ in The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 96, No. 3 (Mar., 1999), p. 109-126

p. 109 - ‘The millennium is nigh, and with each passing year, the American consciousness is increasingly in the grip of conspiratorial thinking.’

p. 110-1 - CTs shed light on the nature of theoretical explanation.

p. 111 - ‘The definition of conspiracy theory poses unexpected difficulties. There seems to exist a strong, common intuition that it is possible to delineate a set of explanations-let us call them unwarranted conspiracy theories (UCTs) .’ It is thought that this class of explanation can be distinguished analytically from those theories which deserve our assent. The idea is that we can do with conspiracy theories what David Hume did with miracles: show that there is a class of explanations to which we should not assent, by definition. One clear moral of the present essay is that this task is not as simple as we might have heretofore imagined.’
(The special class of bad CTs; unwarranted CTs.)

p. 111 - ‘In other words, it may well be correct that “the truth is out there,” but given our epistemic situation, we ought not necessarily believe everything which is, in fact, true.’

p. 112 - Maybe some of the 9/11 doubt/CTs came from the initial blaming of Middle-Eastern terrorists in the Oklahoma City bombings…

p. 116-8 - ‘What is a conspiracy theory? A conspiracy theory is a proposed explanation of some historical event (or events) in terms of the significant causal agency of a relatively small group of persons-the conspirators-acting in secret. Note a few things about this definition. First, a conspiracy theory deserves the appellation “theory,” because it proffers an explanation of the event in question. It proposes reasons why the event occurred. Second, a conspiracy theory need not propose that the conspirators are all powerful, only that they have played some pivotal role in bringing about the event. They can be seen as
merely setting events in motion. Indeed, it is because the conspirators are not omnipotent that they must act in secret, for if they acted in public, others would move to obstruct them. Third, the group of conspirators must be small, although the upper bounds are necessarily vague. Technically speaking, a conspiracy of one is no conspiracy at all, but rather the actions of a lone agent.
‘This then might be considered a bare-bones definition of conspiracy theory, be it warranted or otherwise. UCTs-at least the ones that concern me in this essay-have a number of additional characteristics:
(1) A UCT is an explanation that runs counter to some received, official, or “obvious” account.
‘Central to any UCT is an official story that the conspiracy theory must undermine and cast doubt upon. Furthermore, the presence of a “cover story” is often seen as the most damning piece of evidence for any given conspiracy; the fact that someone has gone to such pains to create a false explanation points to a conscious effort to deceive.
‘(2) The true intentions behind the conspiracy are invariably nefarious.
‘I am aware of no popular conspiracy theory according to which some group of powerful individuals is secretly doing good but desperately hopes its schemes will not be revealed.
‘(3) UCTs typically seek to tie together seemingly unrelated events.
‘You might think that the Oklahoma City bombing had nothing to do the 1995 Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway. What if I told you, however, that the appropriate anniversary was not the federal raid in Waco (which occurred two years earlier to the day) but rather the next day, one month to the day since the gas attack in Tokyo? The connection is that the attack in Tokyo was carried out by the CIA in retaliation for the Japanese bugging of the Clinton White House, all part of an ever-escalating Japanese-American trade war. So the Oklahoma City bombing was a “pay-back” hit carried out by the Japanese… As will be discussed below, this unifying aspect of conspiracy theories is a key feature of their apparent explanatory strength.
‘(4) As noted, the truths behind events explained by conspiracy theories are typically well-guarded secrets, even if the ultimate perpetrators are sometimes well-known public figures.
‘What seems to drive many conspiracy theorists is the deeply held belief that, if only the truth can be publicly revealed (in much the way that Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and “Deep Throat” exposed the Watergate break-ins), the conspirators’ nefarious plans will be thwarted. Therefore, it is in the interest of conspirators to see to it that the truth is not revealed, or if it is, that it is not widely believed.
‘(5) The chief tool of the conspiracy theorist is what I shall call errant data.
‘Errant data come in two classes: (a) unaccounted-for data and (b) contradictory data. Unaccounted-for data do not contradict the received account, but are data that fall through the net of the received explanation. They are data that go unexplained by the received account. For example, the early reports that the BATF had prior warning of the Oklahoma City bombing and the fact that 110 BATF employees were in the building at the time of the explosion represent unaccounted-for data with respect to the received account of the bombing. Contradictory data are data that, if true, would contradict the received account. McVeigh’s manifest idiocy in fleeing the scene of the bombing in a car without license plates is a contradictory datum with respect to the official account of him as conspiratorial ringleader capable of planning and carrying out such a terrorist operation. (The role of errant data will be discussed in more detail below.)’
(Questional definition: Counterpoint to 2: What about the Illuminati (some stories…)?)

p. 118 - Keeley seems to dismiss small, benign CTs (surprise birthday party example). Actually, he is dismissing unwarranted CTs that are benign, which is just weird; surely they could be benign?Dismisses them because they are day-today and do not meet his criteria. Is his criteria worth taking, however?

p. 118 - Points out that Watergate and Iran-Contra meet the UCT definition yet still are true… Maybe a point about retrodiction; the theories we have now are true but where the theories put forward at the time warranted?

p. 119 - ‘They are popular, I suggest, because they exhibit several well-known explanatory virtues. They are nonetheless unwarranted because they exhibit these virtues in ways
that undermine the strength of those virtues.
‘The first and foremost virtue which conspiracy theories exhibit, and which accounts for much of their apparent strength, is the virtue of unified explanation or explanatory reach. According to this virtue, all things being equal, the better theory is the one that pro-
vides a unified explanation of more phenomena than competing explanations. Unified explanation is the sine qua non of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories always explain more than competing theories, because by invoking a conspiracy, they can explain both the data of the received account and the errant data that the received theory fails to explain.’

p. 119-20 - ‘The role of errant data in UCTs is critical. The typical logic of a UCT goes something like this: begin with errant facts, such as the observation that no BATF employees were injured in the Oklahoma City bombing and the early reports of prior warning. The official story all but ignores this data. What can explain the intransigence of the official story tellers in the face of this and other contravening evidence? Could they be so stupid and blind? Of course not; they must be intentionally ignoring it. The best explanation is some kind of conspiracy, an intentional attempt to hide the truth of the matter from the public eye.
‘By invoking a conspiracy hypothesis, large amounts of “evidence” are thrown into question. This is one of the most curious features of these theories: to my knowledge, conspiracy theories are the only theories for which evidence against them is actually construed as evidence in favor of them. The more evidence piled up by the authorities in favor of a given theory, the more the conspiracy theorist points to how badly “They” must want us to believe the official story.’

p. 120 - ‘The history of science is replete with examples of theoretical innovation initiated by an investigation into data that did not fit the standard paradigm. It is a good pragmatic heuristic for scientific effort to be expended on chasing after errant data, in the hopes that these loose strings might lead to the unraveling of currently misguided theory. What conspiracy theories get wrong, however, is that the existence of errant data alone is not a significant problem with a theory. Given the imperfect nature of our human understanding of the world, we should expect that even the best possible theory would not explain all the available data. One’s theory should not fit all the available data, because not all the available data are, in fact, true. Invariably, some of our measurements, some of our interpretations and other theories get something wrong about the nature of the world.’

p. 120 - ‘ By hypothesis, the conspiracy theorist is struggling to explain phenomena that other, presumably powerful, agents are actively seeking to keep secret. Unlike the case of science, where nature is construed as a passive and uninterested party with respect to human-knowledge gathering activities, the conspiracy theorist is working in a domain where the investigated actively seeks to hamper the investigation. Imagine if neutrinos were not simply hard to detect, but actively sought to avoid detection! This is exactly the case with which conspiracy theorists contend we are confronted in the cases they seek to explain. This is why countervailing evidence and lack of evidence can and ought to be construed as supporting their theories.’
(Falsifiability…)

p. 121 - ‘It is not ad hoc to suppose that false and misleading data will be thrown your way when one supposes that there is somebody out there actively throwing that data at you.’
(Falsifiability…)

p. 121 - ‘Falsifiability is a perfectly fine criterion in the case of natural science when the target of investigation is neutral with respect to our queries, but it seems much less appropriate in the case of the phenomena covered by conspiracy theories.’
(Falsifiability…)

p. 121-2 - ‘No, the problem with UCTs is not their unfalsifiability, but rather the increasing degree of skepticism required by such theories as positive evidence for the conspiracy fails to obtain. These theories throw into doubt the various institutions that have been set up to generate reliable data and evidence. In doing so, they reveal just how large a role trust in both institutions and individuals-plays in the justification of our beliefs. The problem is this: most of us-including those of us who are scientists and who work in scientific laboratories full of expensive equipment-have never carried out the experiments or made the empirical observations that support most contemporary scientific theories. Unless we want to conclude that the vast majority of us are not warranted in believing that the platypus is a mammal and that gold is an atomic element, we need some procedure by which the epistemic warrant obtained by those who do make the appropriate observations can be transferred to the rest of us. In modern science, this procedure involves the elaborate mechanisms of publication, peer review, professional reputation, university accreditation, and so on. Thus, we are warranted in believing the claims of science because these claims are the result of a social mechanism of warranted belief production.
‘In the public sphere where conspiracy theories dwell, there are related mechanisms for generating warranted beliefs. There is the free press, made up of reporters, editors, and owners who compete to publish “the scoop” before others do. There are governmental agencies charged with investigating incidents, producing data, and publishing findings. And there are, of course, various “free agents” (including the conspiracy theorists themselves) who are members of the public. Inherent in the claim that alleged evidence against a theory should be construed as evidence for that theory is a pervasive skepticism about our public, fact-gathering institutions and the individuals working in them. Thus, as a conspiracy theory matures, attempt after attempt to falsify a conspiracy theory appears to succeed, and this apparent success must be explained as the nefarious work of the conspirators. As a result of this process, an initial claim that a small group of people is conspiring gives way to claims of larger and larger conspiracies.’
(Public trust issues; last paragraph also summaries the accelerating growth of CTs)

p. 123 - ‘It is this pervasive skepticism of people and public institutions entailed by some mature conspiracy theories which ultimately provides us with the grounds with which to identify them as unwarranted. It is not their lack of falsifiability per se, but the increasing amount of skepticism required to maintain faith in a conspiracy theory as time passes and the conspiracy is not uncovered in a convincing fashion. As this skepticism grows to include more and more people and institutions, the less plausible any conspiracy becomes.’
(Hmm?)

p. 123 - ‘Conspiracy theorists are, I submit, some of the last believers in an ordered universe. By supposing that current events are under the control of nefarious agents, conspiracy theories entail that such events are capable of being controlled.’
(Keeley on why people believe…)