Rory Aird

This thesis is comprised of five discrete but related chapters in applied, social, and political epistemology. Specifically, most of the thesis is centred around fighting falsity; that is, for example, what should you do when one someone asserts something wrong, outlandish, or flat-out dangerous to you or those around you? What is the best course of action if you come across such a claim on the internet? What sort of claims even are wrong, outlandish, or flat-out dangerous? I open with a discussion of bullshit and identify a new phenomenon I call “hedged bullshitting” which I argue is a superlative form of deception we ought to be concerned about. I turn in chapter two to a discussion of what makes for an epistemically good objection (and forbearance from objecting), employing the influential performance-normative framework from virtue epistemology to answer this. I then call for caution in chapter three; objecting can and will go wrong, especially when it comes to certain controversial false assertions, thus we ought to not be so laissez-faire when it comes to engaging with interlocutors. In light of this call for reticence, I explore a different method of fighting falsity in chapter four: censorship and no-platforming. While potentially effective strategies, I argue they make for hiltless swords—they cannot be safely used. In the final chapter, I offer a broad critique of the philosophy of conspiracy theories, rejecting almost every widely held assumption in the literature. I offer my own, more satisfactory definition of conspiracy theories that I argue will best advance the literature.

Recent work in social epistemology has discussed obligations to engage with challenges to our beliefs like climate change denial or anti-vaccine sentiment, and the potential benefits to and dangers for both the engager and the engaged from doing so. The spotlight being trained here, however, has elided a key issue: the possible risks from engaging for third-party observers, not merely the engager and the engaged. In this paper, I argue that not only are these risks an underappreciated aspect of engaging that should be discussed, their neglect is especially concerning as the potential negative epistemic fallout threatens to overwhelm any possible benefits that may be gained from engaging, regardless of how the engagement actually goes. I close by drawing out the theoretical and practical implications from this and sketch a few strategies to conceivably avoid said risks.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, conspiracy theories, misinformation, and fake news about the virus have abounded, drastically affecting global health measures to oppose it. In response, different strategies have been proposed to combat such Covid-19 collective irrationalities. One suggested approach has been that of epistemic paternalism – non-consultative interference in agents’ inquiries for their epistemic improvement. While extant literature on epistemic paternalism has mainly discussed whether it is (ever) justified, in this paper, I primarily focus on the potential implementation of widespread epistemically paternalistic policies (such as no-platforming and censorship) and its consequences. I argue that pursuing epistemic paternalism to combat Covid-19 collective irrationalities leads to a hitherto unnoticed puzzle for proponents of epistemic paternalism. Central to the puzzle is the idea those (governments, corporations, social media giants) who actually can (i.e., have the requisite power to) enact widespread epistemically paternalistic policies seem the institutions who are least suited to having such informational control over the populace. Thus, epistemic paternalism appears a sword without a hilt; while it may prove an effective strategy in tackling Covid-19 collective irrationalities, we do not have any way to use it without incurring serious risks.