Kurtis Hagen

Many scholars have characterized conspiracy theories as self-sealing. That is, they are immune to disconfirmation, since conspiracy can always explain away counterevidence. This is thought to make belief in them irrational. However, the potential to escape disconfirmation by modification of a theory, or of related auxiliary hypotheses, is a feature common to all theories, including scientific theories. Further, attempts to rescue theories from disconfirmation often come at an epistemic cost. More specifically, such attempts, to the degree they seem ad hoc, tend to lower the theory’s credibility. Those who characterize conspiracy theories as “self-sealing” tend to ignore the implication of this. Namely, the fact that conspiracy theories may theoretically resist refutation (a fact shared by all theories) does not mean that they are immune to all standards of evaluation. Individual conspiracy theories should be evaluated on their various individual qualities. This includes the degree to which a particular conspiracy theory depends on positing an implausible cover-up. Such a dependence is, indeed, a consideration that may potentially weigh heavily against that individual theory. But such a judgment will need to take into account the reasons given in support of the particular postulated cover-up, as well as other relevant considerations.

In the philosophical debate over the epistemic status of conspiracy theories, the view that each theory ought to be judged on its own merits, ‘particularism’, has the upper hand. But challenges to this view continue to be put forth; this paper summarizes that debate and reaffirms the particularist perspective. In this paper, we address how different conceptions of what counts as a ‘conspiracy theory’ impact how one might evaluate particularism, with specific emphasis on (1) a ‘simple definition’ of a conspiracy theory as a theory that posits a conspiracy, and (2) ‘contrarian conspiracy theories’ (those that contrast with an official account).

This article addresses the suggestion that people who inquire into Conspiracy Theories are doing something morally repugnant. Namely, they are supporting right-wing racism and/or anti-Semitism, wittingly or not. This view has been articulated most extensively by the philosopher Quassim Cassam, who describes Conspiracy Theories as having several features that render them unlikely to be true. Rather than being genuine attempts to tell the truth, Cassam argues, the fundamental function of Conspiracy Theories is to advance an ideological or political agenda. Cassam stresses the association of Conspiracy Theories with right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic agendas. He proposes responding to Conspiracy Theories by exposing their “real function” and thereby embarrassing potential supporters, causing them to refrain from “flirting with” such theories. I maintain that his proposal is ill-advised, as his argument is tenuous, at best, at every step. And, further, his proposal encourages a prima facie inappropriate way of treating people, and it would likely backfire.

In response to several articles on SERRC, I argue that the common pejorative use of the phrase “conspiracy theory” is the fundamental basis for the distinction between generalism and particularism. That is, generalism describes the “conventional wisdom” about conspiracy theories to which particularism is the corrective. Generalism is best understood as the idea that conspiracy theories ought to be dismissed (perhaps even ridiculed) because they are conspiracy theories--for that is the conventional wisdom (as Charles Pigden has maintained). This is not merely to say, vaguely, that such theories have "epistemic defects." Given this definition, particularism, as the rejection of generalism, is true for any definition of "conspiracy theory" for which Watergate would have at one time counted as one--not just for a minimal definition. Rather than being dismissed based on features that apply to conspiracy theories generally (as generalism would have it), each conspiracy theory should be judged on a case-by-case basis according to its own particular merits and demerits.

Conspiracy Theories and the Failure of Intellectual Critique argues that conspiracy theories, including those that conflict with official accounts and suggest that prominent people in Western democracies have engaged in appalling behavior, should be taken seriously and judged on their merits and problems on a case-by-case basis. It builds on the philosophical work on this topic that has developed over the past quarter century, challenging some of it, but affirming the emerging consensus: each conspiracy theory ought to be judged on its particular merits and faults. The philosophical consensus contrasts starkly with what one finds in the social science literature. Kurtis Hagen argues that significant aspects of that literature, especially the psychological study of conspiracy theorists, has turned out to be flawed and misleading. Those flaws are not randomly directed; rather, they consistently serve to disparage conspiracy theorists unfairly. This suggests that there may be a bias against conspiracy theorists in the academy, skewing “scientific” results. Conspiracy Theories and the Failure of Intellectual Critique argues that social scientists who study conspiracy theories and/or conspiracy theorists would do well to better absorb the implications of the philosophical literature.

In Part I, I offer a "constructivist" interpretation of Xunzi's philosophy. On the constructivist view, there is no privileged description of the world. Concepts, categories, and norms as social constructs help us effectively manage our way through the world, rather than reveal or express univocal knowledge of it. ;In the opening chapter, I argue that dao should be understood as open ended and that Xunzi's worldview allows for a plurality of legitimate daos---at least at the theoretical level. Chapter Two discusses the concepts of li and lei and rejects the idea that true categories follow from a "god-like" understanding of rational patterns. Rather, patterns and categories are mutually entailing. That is, categories are not simply based on patterns, but are at the same time a precondition for patterning. Chapter Three addresses the related concept of ming , and the idea of zhengming . Attuning names is not matching them to any transcendent standard, but making them fitting given our nature and circumstances. It is constructing and maintaining a socially responsible language. I also discuss here the complex manner in which early Confucians understood names to be developed and sanctioned. In Chapter Four I discuss ritual theory and argue that Xunzi offers a this-world centered religious sensibility. Far from a matter of slavishly following a code of behaviors set down perfectly by ancient sages, the performance of li requires interpretation in every application. Further, norms associated with li may evolve in response to changing needs and conditions. In the final chapter of Part I, I turn to the issue of virtue and moral development, arguing that there is no fixed set of virtues. ;Part II shifts focus to the contemporary relevance of a constructivist way of thinking by using it to understand the cross-cultural dynamics taking place in international discourse on human rights. In short, interpreting the arguments of contemporary representatives of East-Asian countries through a constructivist lens reveals them to be more compelling than they might otherwise have seemed

My purpose has been more negative than positive. That is, I have challenged the view that Sorai understoodtian as an intentional agent. At minimum, Sorai’s philosophical views do not depend upon such a conception oftian, and he refrains from characterizingtian in such terms when he discusses the concept oftian directly. However, I do not claim to have proven that Sorai’s view oftian was completely naturalistic, or even that Sorai did not—at some level—believe thattian had intentions. I have, I hope, shown thatthe case that Sorai viewedtian as intentional has not been convincingly made. Further, something closer to a dynamic and indeterminate naturalistic view is a reasonable alternative. On my reading, Sorai steers a course between the Song Confucian view oftian as static and knowable (a view that he explicitly rejects) and a view oftian as intentional (a view he never unequivocally expresses)—indeed, he rejects the idea of personifyingtian. When Sorai speaks of thexin or mind of tian, he is best understood as employing a metaphor that implies complexity, mystery, activity, and perhaps moral structure, but not intentionality in the normal sense. The complexity, indeterminacy, and dynamism oftian, as these are expressed in Sorai’s writings, do not necessarily imply willful intent on the part oftian, for they are all consistent with the Xunzian interpretation oftian as a natural process, even iftian’s regularities have a moral character

As the title Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi accurately suggests, this collection of essays edited by T. C. Kline III and Justin Tiwald addresses Xunzi’s perspective on ritual and religion. Some of the essays are new, others are have been published previously. As a whole, the book strives to portray Xunzi as a religious philosopher, and to elucidate his potential contribution to the understanding of religion and ritual. Although there are a variety of views presented, Xunzi is generally characterized as renovating and reinterpreting religion, rather than denouncing it, as he has sometimes been interpreted.After an introduction, the first chapter is Edward J. Machle’s seminal 1976 essay “Xunzi as a Religious..

Xunzi is often interpreted as offering a method for transforming our desires. This essay argues that, strictly speaking, he does not. Rather, Xunzi offers a method of developing an auxiliary motivational structure capable of overpowering our original desires, when there is a conflict. When one succeeds in transforming one’s overall character, original desires nevertheless remain and are largely satisfied. This explains why one may be motivated to follow the way even before one has developed noble intentions. On Xunzi’s view, following dao provides the best chance of satisfying one’s original desires, as well as fulfilling the more noble aspirations that arise from the process

This paper challenges the view of several interpreters of Xunzi regarding the status of names, ming. I will maintain that Xunzi's view is consistent with the activity we see not only in his own efforts to influence language, but those of Confucius as well. Based on a reconsideration of translations and interpretations of key passages, I will argue that names are regarded neither as mere labels nor as indicating a privileged taxonomy of the myriad phenomena. Rather, Xunzi conceives them as constructs designed to facilitate social goals. Finally, I will suggest an alternative to overly simplistic understandings of how appropriate names are fashioned and of who is responsible for their form.

Many scholars view Confucianism as relatively open to war, as a legitimate tool for maintaining order and rescuing oppressed peoples. Indeed, it is not uncommon for statements such as the following to be presented as though they were straightforward matters of fact: “Confucians would approve the use of force by one state against another state for the protection against abusive rule in the latter if properly carried out”.1 Such claims find support in the work of Daniel A. Bell, Tongdong Bai, and Yan Xuetong. Both Bell and Bai are explicit in their view that Confucians ought to support some humanitarian interventions. Bai writes, “When it is humane and strong, a state...

In an article published in the Journal of Political Philosophy, Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that the government and its allies ought to activelyundermine groups that espouse conspiracy theories deemed “demonstrably false.” They propose infiltrating such groups in order to “cure” conspiracy theorists by treating their “crippled epistemology” with “cognitive diversity.” They base their proposal on an analysis of the “causes” of such conspiracy theories, which emphasizes informational and reputational cascades. Some may regard their proposal as outrageous and anti-democratic. I agree. However, in this article I merely argue that their argument is flawed in at least the following ways: their account of the popularity of conspiracy theories is implausible, and their proposal relies on misleading “stylized facts,” including a caricature of those who doubt official narratives and a deceptive depiction of the relevant history

In the social science literature, conspiracy theories are commonly characterized as theories positing a vast network of evil and preternaturally effective conspirators, and they are often treated, either explicitly or implicitly, as dubious on this basis. This characterization is based on Richard Hofstadter’s famous account of ‘the paranoid style’. However, many significant conspiracy theories do not have any of the relevant qualities. Thus, the social science literature provides a distorted account of the general category ‘conspiracy theory’, conflating it with a subset of that category that encourages unfairly negative evaluations of conspiracy theories. Generally, when evaluating theories, one should focus on the most plausible versions; the merit of a theory is independent of the existence of less plausible versions of it. By ignoring this and glossing over important distinctions, many academics, especially in the social sciences, have misclassified many conspiracy theories and in doing so have contributed to an epistemically unfair depiction of them. Further, even theories that genuinely fit the description of ‘the paranoid style’ cannot be completely dismissed on that basis. All conspiracy theories ought to be judged on the totality of their individual merits.

The philosopher Quassim Cassam has described a concept called ‘Conspiracy Theories’ (capitalized) that includes several ‘special features’ that distinguish such theories from other theories positing conspiracies. Conspiracy Theories, he argues, are unlikely to be true. Indeed, he implies that they are, as a class of ideas, so unlikely to be true that we are justified in responding to them by criticizing the ideology they are (presumed to be) associated with, rather than engaging them solely on their individual epistemic merits. This article argues that Cassam’s ‘special features’ are ambiguous. Under some interpretations, they are not epistemically problematic. Under other interpretations, they do not fairly describe many of the theories Cassam treats as examples of Conspiracy Theories. In the end, there seems to be no interpretation of these features that would justify the inference that theories Cassam treats as Conspiracy Theories, including JFK Conspiracy Theories, can be reasonably dismissed on account of having these features.

Critics of conspiracy theories often charge that such theories are implausible because conspiracies of the kind they allege tend to fail. Thus, according to these critics, conspiracy theories that have been around for a while would have been, in all likelihood, already exposed if they had been real. So, they reason, they probably are not. In this article, I maintain that the arguments in support of this view are unconvincing. I do so by examining a list of four sources recently cited in support of the claim that conspiracies tend to fail. I pay special attention to two of these sources, an article by Brian Keeley, and, especially, an article by David Grimes, which is perhaps the single “best” article in support of the idea that conspiracies tend to fail. That is, it offers the most explicit and elaborate attempt to establish this view. Further, that article has garnered significant (uncritical) attention in the mainstream press. I argue that Grimes's argument does not succeed, that the common assertion that conspiracies tend to fail remains poorly supported, and that there are good reasons to think that at least some types of conspiracies do not tend to fail.

While Sorai's intellectual debt to Xunzi is often mentioned, the similarities between their views have not often been explored at length in English2.2 Further, while Maruyama Masao does compare the two thinkers in his influential monograph Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, he stresses (apparent) differences between Xunzi and Sorai, in order to hail Sorai's uniqueness. Without meaning to take anything away from Sorai as an independent thinker, I maintain that with regard to precisely those views for which Sorai is lauded as unique - that dao is a product of real people that evolved over time and continues to evolve - his position was also held by Xunzi. In addition, there is a related yet rarely highlighted aspect of Xunzi's thought that is also acknowledged by Sorai. That is, virtues acquired by participating in the way in turn qualify one to contribute to its continuous open-ended development.

This article explores contrasting interpretations of early Confucian philosophy as they apply to education, focusing primarily on the Analects of Confucius, the Mencius, and the Xunzi 荀子. I first describe a common interpretation of the Confucian worldview, according to which an already perfected way is thought to have been established. This view tends to encourage thinking of education as a process of conveying the True Way and ensuring conformity to the norms that constitute it. I then describe and defend a contrasting Confucian worldview, in which the learner’s initiative, critical engagement, creativity, and personal qualities play a significant role. According to this interpretation, the way is, to some degree, indeterminate and evolving, and thus more open to participatory inquiry as well as influence. Illustrious virtue, which Confucian learning aims at developing, is likewise to some degree indeterminate and legitimately personalized. Although some degree of conformity to established norms is involved, especially in early stages, Confucian education culminates in the cultivation of personal distinction, developing one’s own uniqueness.

Xunzi was chronologically the third of the three great Confucian thinkers of China’s classical period, after Confucius and Mencius. Having produced the most comprehensive philosophical system of that period, he occupies a place in the development of Chinese philosophy comparable to that of Aristotle in the Western philosophical tradition. This essay reveals how Xunzi’s understanding of virtue and moral development dovetailed with his positions on ritual propriety, the attunement of names, the relation betweenli (patterns) andlei (categories), and his view ofdao (the way) in general. I have argued for a constructivist understanding of each of these aspects of Xunzi’s philosophy in some detail elsewhere (see Hagen 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003), and so here I will just briefly review a few key points before addressing their relation to moral development

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the XunziKurtis HagenVirtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi. Edited, with introduction, by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000. Pp. xvii + 268.Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe, is an anthology that has much to recommend it. It brings together several seminal papers on Xunzi by established and distinguished scholars of Chinese philosophy, such as Antonio S. Cua, D. C. Lau, David S. Nivison, and Henry Rosemont, Jr. It also includes contributions from relative newcomers, who focused their dissertations on Xunzi's philosophy, namely T. C. Kline III and Eric Hutton. While most of these essays have been previously published, some appear in print for the first time in this volume. There is also a succinct introduction, name and subject indexes, and a targeted bibliography, which may serve as a reading list for those interested in supplementing their study of Xunzi. Another nicety is that references to passages in the Xunzi in older articles have been updated to include John Knoblock's translation1 as well as A Concordance to the Xunzi,2 and romanizations have been standardized to pinyin. [End Page 434]For the most part, the title Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi accurately represents the most prominent subject matter of the book. However, by "nature" what is meant is apparently "human nature," if that is an adequate translation for the concept Xunzi designates with the character xing. Xunzi's view of tian (the propensities of nature, the heavens) is not prominently discussed.3 Most of the essays, chapters 4 through 11 (the final chapter), deal extensively if not primarily with understanding Xunzi's conception of human nature. Chapters 5 through 7 are tied even closer together under the theme of moral agency (more on their connection below). Virtue is the topic of chapter 3 and plays a role in chapters 4 and 7.Although the first two chapters seem not to fall neatly within these categories, Henry Rosemont, Jr.'s contribution, "State and Society in the Xunzi: A Philosophical Commentary," seems an appropriate choice for the lead chapter of this collection. A sweeping polemic in defense of Xunzi's political philosophy, this seminal essay demonstrates the philosophical strength and potential relevance of Xunzi's thought. Specifically, Rosemont argues that Xunzi's political system is no less "reasonable" than democracy, and that while Xunzi advocates what Karl Popper would call a "closed society," Xunzi's system is defensible against Popper's critique of such societies.4The second chapter, "Ethical Uses of the Past in Early Confucianism: The Case of Xunzi," is authored by Antonio S. Cua, who has been a consistent contributor to the understanding of Xunzi's philosophy for more than twenty years. A collection of essays on Xunzi would be incomplete without Cua's work being represented. However, given the themes of the book, it is not entirely clear why this particular piece was selected. While Cua has written on both human nature and virtue in the Xunzi, this essay only tangentially addresses the theme of virtue. Nevertheless, it exemplifies the kind of careful scholarship characteristic of Cua's work, and there is something to be said for an anthology like this to exhibit breadth as well as focus. In his contribution, Cua analyzes Xunzi's appeal to history in terms of its "pedagogical function," "rhetorical function," "elucidative function," and "evaluative function."In chapter 3, "Virtues in Xunzi's Thought," Jonathan W. Schofer offers a lucid depiction of Xunzi's moral theory as a kind of virtue theory, despite the lack of any systematic analysis on Xunzi's part of a specific set of virtues. He then suggests that, given Xunzi's theory and goals, the omission of any analysis of specific virtues may have been deliberate.The last eight chapters deal extensively with the issue of human nature. Chapter 4, "Xunzi: Morality as Psychological Constraint," by Joel J. Kupperman, compares Xunzi's and Mencius' conceptions of human nature. Kupperman argues that, unlike Mencius, Xunzi does not really have a "view of human...

In an article based on a recent address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Keith Harris has argued that there is something epistemically wrong with conspiracy theorizing. Although he finds “standard criticisms” of conspiracy theories wanting, he argues that there are three subtle but significant problems with conspiracy theorizing: It relies on an invalid probabilistic version of modus tollens. It involves a problematic combination of both epistemic virtues and vices. And it lacks an adequate basis for trust in its information sources. In response to Harris, this article argues that, like previous criticisms, these criticisms do little to undermine conspiracy theorizing as such. And they do not give us good reasons to dismiss any particular conspiracy theory without consideration of the relevant evidence.

Many intellectuals scoff at what they call “conspiracy theories.” But two Harvard law professors, Cass Sunstein (now working for the Obama administration) and Adrian Vermeule, go further. They argue in the Journal of Political Philosophy that groups that espouse such theories ought to be infiltrated and undermined by government agents and allies. While some may find this proposal appalling (as indeed we all should), others may find the argument plausible, especially if they have been swayed by the notion that conspiracy theories (or a definable subset thereof), by their nature, somehow or another, do not warrant belief. I will argue that Sunstein and Vermeule’s proposal not only conflicts with the values of an open society, but is also epistemically indefensible. In making my case, I will adopt their favored example, counter-narratives about 9/11.