Marianna B. Ganapini

It is widely held that beliefs respond to evidence. However, it is not easy to make precise exactly in which sense beliefs are so responsive. In this paper, I develop and defend a novel minimalist account of evidence-responsiveness. I argue that in order for an attitude A to count as minimally responsive to the evidence, e, the attitude holder must follow at least one epistemic standard which appropriately explains her holding A given e. The account given here allows that attitudes may still show responsiveness in this minimal sense, even in cases where we ignore evidence against them or when we lack the capacity to revise them. It also offers a systematic way of demarcating the boundaries between beliefs and other attitudes like imaginings and acceptances. While beliefs are not the sole attitudes whose evidence relations are bound by epistemic standards, beliefs and non-beliefs undergo different forms of regulation.

People report believing weird things: that the Earth is flat, that senior Democrats are subjecting kidnapped children to abuse, and so on. How can people possibly believe things like this? Some philosophers have recently argued for a surprising answer: people don’t believe these things at all. Rather, they mistake their imaginings for beliefs. They are shmelievers, not believers. In this paper, I consider the prospects for this kind of explanation. I argue that some belief reports are simply insincere, and that much of the evidence for shmeliefs can be explained by the content of the beliefs reported, rather than by the attitude people take to them. But some reported beliefs are good candidates for being shmeliefs. I consider how shmeliefs are acquired and sustained, and why they might be harmful despite not being seriously believed.

Why do people endorse conspiracy theories? There is no single explanation: different people have different attitudes to the theories they say they believe. In this paper, I argue that for many, conspiracy theories are serious play. They’re attracted to conspiracy theories because these theories are engaging: it’s fun to entertain them (witness the enormous number of conspiracy narratives in film and TV). Just as the person who watches a conspiratorial film suspends disbelief for its duration, so many conspiracy theorists do not believe the theories they endorse; rather, they suspend disbelief in them. I argue that the serious play hypothesis explains some characteristic features of conspiracy theories, such as their gamification and the kind of relationship they have to evidence.