2. Religious and conspiracy theorist worldviews

Michael Barkun (Reference Barkun2006: 3–4) wrote of a “conspiracist worldview” which sees “a universe governed by design rather than by randomness”.Footnote ³ For the purposes of this article, I am less interested in conspiracy theories as specific phenomena (what Wittgenstein might have called the “surface grammar” of conspiracy theorising, understanding their specific claims) than I am in the general conspiracy theorising worldview or a person's disposition towards conspiracy theories (the “depth grammar” of conspiracy theorising, which explains their functions). Just as Popper criticised the “conspiracy theory of society” (Reference Popper2002a: 165), I would like to draw on Joel Buenting and Jason Taylor's (Reference Buenting and Taylor2010) conceptual split between “generalism” and “particularism”, as I attempt to reframe conspiracy theories as a class to help understand them as a worldview just as one may understand religious belief as a worldview.Footnote ⁴ Just as followers of a religion are part of a tradition and practice, so too are conspiracy theorists participating in what Johan Byford has called a “tradition of explanation” (cited in Stokes Reference Stokes and Dentith2018: 28), and it is this worldview that needs greater understanding. As Stokes himself warns, we lose sight of the “broader epistemological stance toward society” if we only analyse conspiracy theory in formal, particularist terms (Stokes Reference Stokes and Dentith2018: 28). I therefore take issue with M.R.X. Dentith's characterisation of “generalists” as viewing conspiracy theories as “typically irrational” (Reference Dentith2018a: 13) with “particularists” willing to judge specific conspiracies as “rational” depending on the evidence. Rather, drawing on the rich literature in the philosophy of religion, I concur with Malcolm that:

The “groundlessness” of the conspiracy theorising worldview means that as an epistemological reading of society, it requires no rational justification. Indeed, framing the debate in this rational vs non-rational context misses the essence of what conspiracy theories are and why people hold them. Although individual conspiracy theories may well be assessed on their particular merits, conspiracy theories as a general disposition or worldview should be understood as a different category.

Typically, therefore, the conspiracy theorising worldview involves three key features: the belief that nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and that everything is connected (Barkun Reference Barkun2006: 3–4). It is a truism that Barkun's three-part definition is typical of the monotheistic religious mindset too. Three normative sources suffice from the Abrahamic faiths that invite reflection on the believer's relationship with an omnipotent God.

First, Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of the Jewish faith, includes:

Second, the Nicene Creed in the Christian tradition states:

Third, the Qur'an 2: 164 declares:

As these seminal religious texts demonstrate, theists not only believe in God as Creator but also in God as Redeemer who bestows His providence upon the world. As Brian L. Keeley concludes: “God's alleged mysterious ways are not unlike the alleged secret and mysterious activities common to secular conspiracy theories” (Keeley Reference Keeley2007: 146). A classic biblical example of conspiracy is the unholy wager the Lord makes with Satan concerning the righteous Job. God and Satan conspire in order to test Job and see if he will remain “blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (1: 8) even if all is taken away from him. Interestingly, it never occurs to the author that Job might assume “bad luck” or “coincidence” to explain his downfall. As Martin Buber (cited in Glatzer Reference Glatzer2002: 57–8) put it, “That everything comes from God is beyond doubt and question …” showcasing the religious mindset as exemplified by Job, the most loyal of God's servants. And yet it is clear that such a mindset continues to manifest itself through continued religious faith that sees the hand of God through the unfolding of history. Similarly, the conspiracy theorist worldview seeks out the connections in order to make sense of the otherwise inexplicable. Stokes (Reference Stokes and Dentith2018: 28) offers the helpful example of the “false flag with crisis actors” narrative which is speedily deployed in the wake of any mass casualty event in the United States. Evidence isn't sought before the expression of a “prior commitment to a particular explanatory framework” (Stokes Reference Stokes and Dentith2018: 28). On the contrary, friendly ‘facts’ are subsequently interpreted to fit into the a priori worldview of the conspiracy theorist. So too for God's servant, Job, and his friends, all that occurs is a result of the Lord's providence: “Shall we also accept the good from God, and not accept the evil?” (Job 2: 10).

Moreover, Douglas et al. (Reference Douglas, Sutton and Cichocka2017: 538) offer the following taxonomy which “serves as a useful heuristic to classify the motives associated with conspiracy belief”. Conspiracy theorising arises from epistemic, existential, and social motives, providing attractive explanations to make sense of the world and one's place in it. Epistemically, conspiracy theories serve to “protect cherished beliefs”, with evidence suggesting that conspiracy theories resonate “among people who habitually seek meaning and patterns in the environment, including believers in paranormal phenomena” (Douglas et al. Reference Douglas, Sutton and Cichocka2017: 539). Conspiracy theories also stem from existential motives, serving “the need for people to feel safe and secure in their environment” (Douglas et al. Reference Douglas, Sutton and Cichocka2017: 539). Finally, conspiracy theorising explanations help fulfil “the [social] desire to belong and to maintain a positive image of the self and the in-group” (Douglas et al. Reference Douglas, Sutton and Cichocka2017: 539). The application of this heuristic to understand the epistemic, existential, and social motives of the religious believer is stark, revealing “family resemblances” long overlooked. Indeed, in surveying the American public's fascination with conspiracy theories, Oliver and Wood reveal:

Yet a key difference in how we perceive beliefs in religion and conspiracy theories has been a mere accident of history: whereas religious beliefs and culture – whether centred on God or Satan – have been at the front and centre of human existence since time immemorial, the conspiracy theorising worldview has been pushed to the margins of society and simply not taken seriously.Footnote ⁵

At the same time, Hugo Drochon (Reference Drochon2013), as part of Cambridge University's ‘Conspiracy and Democracy’ research project, explored the notion that “conspiracy theories today play the role that religion may have played in past societies”. The “gap” between our understanding of the world and God's infinite powers may well have been replaced in epistemic, existential, and social terms, by trying to make sense of the government or the state in the face of famine or other catastrophes. Just like followers of religion seeking to make sense of divine mysteries, David G. Robertson (Reference Robertson2017: 4) points out that conspiracy theorists have a “propensity to draw on a broader range of epistemic sources than is accepted by the epistemic authorities”, including “channelled information, intuition, tradition and (despite etic claims to the contrary) scientific reason, as well as giving undue weight to individual testimony and linking small pieces of circumstantial evidence across time, space, and context”.

This is why conspiracy theories are simultaneously heartening and terrifying, just as religion always was. As Drochon (Reference Drochon2013) puts it: “If religion no longer plays the role it played in past societies, then perhaps those who were liable to think in those ways have moved on to conspiracy theories as a way of making sense of the world.” This was indeed the view posited by Popper himself in his analysis of the “mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society – especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people as a rule dislike – is the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups” (Popper Reference Popper2003: 104). Popper refers to this phenomenon as a “secularisation of the religious superstition”:

Popper has been seen as chief among the critics of the “conspiracy theory of society” (Popper Reference Popper2002a: 165) for two main reasons. First, in his highly influential writing on the subject he rejected conspiratorial thought as “a theory which I think implies exactly the opposite of the true aim of the social sciences” (Popper Reference Popper2002a: 165). Whilst accepting that “the conspiracy theory of society” was widespread, Popper argued that it has “very little truth in it” (Popper Reference Popper2002a: 166). This is because “one of the striking things about social life is that nothing ever comes off exactly as intended” (Popper Reference Popper2002a: 166). It can be said that “Popper and his disciples sought to replace the ‘conspiracy theory of society’ with ‘the cock-up theory of society’” (Coady Reference Coady2006: 5). As Popper wrote:

In this vein, Keeley (Reference Keeley1999: 117) described conspiracy theories as “unwarranted” when the chief tool in their arsenal was the reliance on “errant data”, an intellectual vice that tainted their theory:

Second, Popper's classic work on “the problem of demarcation” (Popper Reference Popper2002b: 51) was instrumental in highlighting another intellectual vice in the worldview of the conspiracy theorist. Aiming to draw a line between scientific truth claims and pseudo-science or even metaphysical propositions, Popper argued that it was the “criterion of falsifiability” that would provide the solution to the problem of demarcation “for it says that statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations” (Popper Reference Popper2002b: 51).

Popper himself (Reference Popper2002b: 48) passed Einstein's theory of gravity as having “clearly satisfied the criterion of falsifiability” for “[e]ven if our measuring instruments at the time did not allow us to pronounce on the results of the tests with complete assurance, there was clearly a possibility of refuting the theory”. In contrast, he failed astrology, Marxism and the two psycho-analytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. Whilst Popper (Reference Popper2002b: 48–9) saw the latter two approaches as “simply non-testable, irrefutable”, the first two escaped refutation and falsification, thus destroying their testability. Astrologers simply “predict things so vaguely that the predictions can hardly fail: that they become irrefutable”. Meanwhile, followers of Marx “re-interpreted both the theory and the evidence in order to make them agree … and by this stratagem they destroyed its much advertised claim to scientific status.”Footnote ⁶

So too, conspiracy theories are seen as intellectually tainted because of this vice of unfalsifiability. As Delaplante (Reference Delaplante2011) has observed, conspiracy theorists are often guilty of ‘self-sealing’, for “[w]henever the theory is poked by some bit of countervailing evidence, it seals itself by reinterpreting that evidence as consistent with the theory after all”. Critics of conspiracy theory argue that this is done precisely because “conspiracy theorists are dogmatically attached to an ideological worldview that is immune to rational criticism” (Delaplante Reference Delaplante2011).

However, a more nuanced reading of conspiracy theories suggests that they cannot be dismissed a priori. To borrow a phrase from John Hick, a philosopher of religion, ‘epistemic distance’ exists between the truth and the public at large, and conspiracy theories arise precisely where there is a knowledge gap – real or perceived.Footnote ⁷ Where ‘epistemic distance’ is greatest, such as in a totalitarian state, conspiracy theories will thrive, such as in the Middle East. Yet as Edward Snowden's leaking of the National Security Agency's mass surveillance programme in 2013 reminded us, even in democracies, where full transparency is unviable nor necessarily desirable due to national security considerations, ‘conspiratorial ambiguity’ will naturally result as the full truth becomes unattainable. As Keeley reasons:

We know that governments and powerful corporations have sought to cover up conspiratorial behaviour, sometimes resorting to extreme and even illegal measures. Thus the suggestion that conspiracy theories can be dismissed on epistemic grounds due to their alleged unfalsifiability is too simplistic, highlighting the unique challenge conspiracy theory presents. With an eye on conspiracies such as Watergate and Iran-Contra, Keeley warns that, “[s]trictly hewing to the dogma of falsifiability in these cases would have led to a rejection of conspiracy theories at too early a point in the investigations, and may have left the conspiracies undiscovered” (Keeley Reference Keeley1999: 121). This leaves the sceptical position open to the intellectual vice of naivety and related moral vice of an excessive willingness to obey those in authority. In seeking to avoid these vices on the extremes, Coady has sought to “level the epistemological playing field” and promote the virtue of ‘realism’ in a more ‘balanced’ approach to conspiracy theories where we should be “wary of any a priori attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff” (Coady Reference Coady2006: 10). Even so, the very term ‘conspiracy theory’ remains a loaded and controversial one. By revisiting the conspiracy theorising worldview, this study seeks to reframe our understanding of conspiracies as a competing blik that makes sense of the world in contest with other bliks.

3. The explorers, the garden, and the celestial cityFootnote ⁸

Antony Flew drew on John Wisdom's Reference Wisdom1944 tale in his article, ‘Gods’, to tell the following parable:

Flew's characterisation of the Believer accords well with Barkun's description of the conspiracy theorising worldview discussed above which sees “a universe governed by design rather than by randomness”. Again, just as the conspiracy theorist has a worldview that nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and that everything is connected, so too does Flew's Believer.

Interestingly, the original tale is of “[t]wo people return[ing] to their long-neglected garden” (Wisdom Reference Wisdom1944: 191) and Wisdom insightfully portrays the consequence of the differing worldviews of the Sceptic and Believer as follows:

Although Wisdom suggests that both worldviews are “reasonable”, Flew takes us in a different direction, focusing on the epistemic vices of the Believer who, like the conspiracy theorist, is said to rely too much on errant data and makes claims that cannot be falsified. Just as Popper's astrologer and Marxist move the goal posts in order to escape refutation and testability, so too does Flew's Believer and, by extension, the conspiracy theorist, so that their original hypothesis “may thus be killed by inches, the death by a thousand qualifications” (Flew cited in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001).

Flew himself accepts that it is not only religious believers who rationalise their belief in God by this “process of qualification”, but that it occurs in other walks of life. Following Popper, it is clear that conspiracy theorists are similarly charged “Sceptics” of irrationally holding on to their beliefs in the face of ‘official’ or ‘mainstream’ evidence, such as 9/11 truthers. As Flew (in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001) concludes: “Now it often seems to people who are not religious as if there was no conceivable event or series of events the occurrence of which would be admitted by sophisticated religious people to be a sufficient reason for conceding ‘there wasn't a God after all.’” Again, one can simply replace “religious people” with “conspiracy theorists” and make the similar charge that no evidence would be admitted for conceding “there wasn't a conspiracy after all”.

However, those more sympathetic to the conspiracy theorising worldview can immediately point to the ambiguity in the parable as Wisdom himself did in the original tale where the gardeners find both weeds and a “a few of the old plants surprisingly vigorous”. Drawing on Hick's characterisation of the universe as “religiously ambiguous” (Hick Reference Hick2004: 240; Hick Reference Hick2018), we may move away from Flew's conclusions and suggest that so too history has shown us that events are “conspiratorially ambiguous”. This is not only to say that history is interpreted in different ways from a variety of worldviews and perspectives but that we should concede that sometimes one may never really find out what the truth is. As Hick himself described religious truths as beyond human capability to “see it is as it fully is”, so too does Ferguson (Reference Ferguson2017: 9), himself a critic of conspiracy theories, concede that historians studying secret networks and conspiracies “struggle with the problem that networks rarely maintain readily accessible archives” and so the gatekeepers of knowledge may well hamper our ability to get to the truth. In both matters of religion and conspiracy therefore, we can see an “epistemic distance”, as Hick (Reference Hick2007: 281) calls it, that separates us from the truth we are seeking.

In contrast to Flew's scepticism, Hick offered his own ‘Parable of the Celestial City’:

In religious terms, only the Believer may rely on what Hick (Reference Hick1988: 177–8) calls “eschatological verification” as he turns the last corner and moves on to the next world.Footnote ⁹ Similarly, the conspiracy theorist may argue that without full transparency and open access to all the evidence, it is a reasonable stance to be sceptical of the official story, as Coady argues:

Of course, totalitarian regimes hide much from the public to help secure their hold onto power. Yet even the most transparent of democratic governments require secrecy in the interests of national security, inevitably creating an “epistemic distance” between the people and the truth. The conspiracy theorist may therefore also rely on “eschatological verification” when the current power structures give way or where access to the truth is somehow gained, perhaps by an insider leak or the opening of archives: think Watergate or the downfall of Saddam Hussein. For such reasons, Lee Basham concludes that:

R.M. Hare (cited in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001) points to another crucial flaw in Flew's parable that is particularly pertinent to conspiracy theories: “The explorers do not mind about their garden; they discuss it with interest, but not with concern.” The lack of care and personal involvement of the protagonists simply doesn't match up with the concern of sincere religious believers and conspiracy theorists. If Coady is right and a conspiracy theorist is “a person who is unusually willing to investigate a conspiracy” (Coady Reference Coady2007: 195) then such people are well-known for their activism, for better or for worse. It is difficult to deny that their conspiracy theorising really does help to shape their worldview.

And it is because the conspiracy theory of society is a worldview that we may argue that just as Flew misunderstood the “grammar” of the religious believer, so too has the debate surrounding conspiracy theory misunderstood “the kind of evidence needed to settle the issue” (Phillips Reference Phillips and Davies2000: 108). For religious believers, Flew's characterisation of the Believer's position smacks of “epistemic imperialism” (Alston Reference Alston1993), applying a standard of scientific fact to a non-factual question. As D.Z. Phillips observed:

Thus when Popper and others dismiss conspiracy theorists as irrational, it may be said that they fail to realise that conspiracy theories do not share the grammar of positivists in the way that the latter talk about matters of fact. As Wittgenstein put it, they play a different ‘language game’, which philosophers would do well to examine from within the context from which they derive their meaning. It is in this spirit that we may move on to Hare's own ‘Parable of the Lunatic’ where he coins the term blik, which I argue captures the essence of the conspiracy theorising worldview.

4. The lunatic

Hare's parable also accords with Barkun's definition of the conspiracy theorising worldview: nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected. Although Flew's test would fail the “lunatic” as there is nothing the dons or his friends could do to falsify his belief, Hare shows that Flew misses the point: although unfalsifiable, the belief is still meaningful. As Hare explains, the fact that we call him a “lunatic” and ourselves “sane” shows the differing and impactful worldviews we have. Unlike the detached if curious explorers though, the lunatic, his friends and the dons have a real interest in such a belief: the lunatic refuses to go to lectures, the friends aim to provide evidence and counter-arguments, and the dons would understandably want to see the back of the lunatic who makes them feel dreadfully uncomfortable. These differing worldviews of the protagonists are bliks: meaningful if unfalsifiable beliefs about the world around us. They are the ‘mental spectacles’, to borrow Charles Dickens’ phrase in The Old Curiosity Shop, through which we view the world around us, framing what we see and how to interpret the phenomena we witness. Such bliks are therefore prescriptive in nature, as the holder “minds very much about what goes on in the garden in which I find myself” (cited in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001), impacting one's view on the reliability of the gatekeepers of knowledge and the evidence they produce. This has been witnessed in the ongoing hostile debate surrounding Brexit, which has been coloured by the widespread appeal of conspiracy theories regarding politically charged issues among the British public. Polling conducted by the YouGov-Cambridge Programme (Rogers de Waal Reference Rogers de Waal2015) indicates that 55% of the British public believe that the UK Government is hiding the truth about the number of immigrants living here and 52% fear that EU officials are seeking to take over all law-making powers in the UK. Faith in democracy seems further undermined with most of the British public (51%) thinking that, despite being officially a democracy, Britain is really run by a few people with power (Moore Reference Moore2016), suggesting a rise in support for more populist politicians on both the right and left of the political spectrum.

Crucially, as Hare goes on to observe, one cannot counter a blik, an unfalsifiable belief about the world, with facts or evidence. Bliks frame how we see the world and “without a blik there can be no explanation; for it is by our bliks that we decide what is and what is not an explanation”. This is true whether we have a blik that God exists or does not exist or, indeed, if we have a conspiracy theorising worldview or not. As Norman Malcolm suggests, we will not be able to understand religious beliefs by thinking that a belief in God's existence is expressed on the basis of evidence. On the contrary, Wittgenstein observed that, “Doubt comes after belief” (cited in Malcolm Reference Malcolm and Davies2000: 115). Rather, it is something believers say to capture how they view the world and themselves in a certain way formed by “groundless beliefs” (in Malcolm Reference Malcolm and Davies2000: 115). This presents another enhancement on Flew's parable of the explorers as both the Sceptic and Believer are holding fast to their beliefs despite the apparent “religious ambiguity”. So too, bliks take into account the ‘conspiratorial ambiguity’ and so provide an understandable rationale for why people are disposed to differing bliks.

In terms of conspiracy theories, Coady (Reference Coady2007) provides a spectrum of worldviews, or what we may now call bliks, that frame one's approach towards explaining world events. From conspiracy theorists at one end of the spectrum to ‘coincidence theorists’ at the other, who fail or are unwilling to connect the dots, no matter how suggestive an underlying pattern of the unfolding events. There are also ‘institutional theorists’, who point to structural forces, such as government and the market, steering events. Simply put, one cannot view the world without an a priori structure, a blik, which itself has a dogmatic element. Yet all three bliks have the potential to suffer from epistemic vices, with each side invariably labelling the other as “naïve”, for example. Yet the specific issue at hand may well determine which blik is reasonable or sane. As many commentators on conspiracy theories have noted, there is no clear point of demarcation. Amidst such difficulties, Keeley conceded that there are conspiracy theories which, despite having the characteristics of unwarranted conspiracy theories (UCTs),Footnote ¹⁰ are still warranted. For Keeley, the philosophical difficulty of conspiracy theories is that “[t]here is no criterion or set of criteria that provide a priori grounds for distinguishing warranted conspiracy theories from UCTs” (Keeley Reference Keeley1999: 118). For example, “[b]oth Watergate and the Iran-Contra Affair meet all of these criteria, yet belief in these conspiracies seem prima facie warranted” (Keeley Reference Keeley1999: 118), and ultimately turned out to be true. UCTs, therefore, should “warrant a degree of scepticism, rather than outright dismissal” (Keeley Reference Keeley1999: 118).

For such reasons, Keeley highlights the “difficulties for finding analytic criteria for distinguishing good from bad conspiracy theories” (Keeley Reference Keeley1999: 112). As Goertzel puts it:

From the unwarranted conspiracy theorists of Holocaust deniers and flat earth theorists on one end of the spectrum to the validated Watergate and Iran-Contra conspiracy theorists on the other, there is no a priori stance we may take that can rule in or rule out every conspiracy claim. At a deeper level, Hare points out, no amount of evidence will remove a person's blik regarding conspiracy theories as long as one's blik “is compatible with any finite number of such tests” (cited in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001).Footnote ¹¹

We may draw on the contrast Wittgenstein makes in his ‘Lectures on Religious Belief’ (Reference Wittgenstein1938) between two people debating whether they had heard an aeroplane and another disagreement on whether there will be a Last Judgement. In the former, the disputants are in the same ‘language game’ and so “fairly near” in that they can simply settle the matter on which they are contradicting each other, perhaps through some investigation. Yet on the Last Judgement, the disputants are “on an entirely different plane” as they have different “world pictures” and so one would be missing the point entirely to say that they are simply disagreeing about a future point of fact. Rather, they are playing a different ‘language game’ and so there is an “enormous gulf” between them. As they converse, they are offering “reminders” to each other, giving a sense of a different world picture. Thus, discussing the facts, the ‘surface grammar’ of the claim made, avoids the real issue at stake here. As Wittgenstein (Reference Wittgenstein1938) writes: “Asking him [the believer] is not enough. He will probably say he has proof. But he has what you might call an unshakeable belief. It will show, not by reasoning or by appeal to ordinary grounds for belief, but rather by regulating for all in his life.” So too, for those who “profess not to believe in any sort of religion”, Hare (cited in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001) argues, “[t]he reason why they find it so easy to think that they are not religious, is that they have never got into the frame of mind of one who suffers from the doubts to which religion is the answer”. Although we may not go so far to suggest that conspiracies regulate all in the conspiracy theorist's life as religion does for the believer, nevertheless, the conspiracy theorising worldview creates a different ‘form of life’ and serves a real function for him, whether in terms of his politics, relationships and approach to authority. A person's blik shapes his interpretation of the world and the events occurring within it. As Wittgenstein put it:

Similarly, in explaining how bliks provide our foundational knowledge about the world, Hare offers the following example, which certainly fits in with the worldview of Coady's ‘coincidence theorist’, albeit in religious terms:

Thus rather than justifying differing ‘forms of life’, we need to understand what is distinctive about them. Having a different world picture of conspiracies, such as an institutional or coincidental theorist, in Coady's terms, means they have no shared ground to dispute as they are all playing different language games and so live a different ‘form of life’. Their contrasting bliks of ‘depth grammars’ lead them to alternative – though not necessarily contradictory – approaches to conspiracy theories. They are simply playing different games.

Wittgenstein's approach laid him open to the attack of fideism, that religions cannot be examined and criticised externally. Such criticism is often laid at the door of conspiracy theories too. Indeed, Hare offers no insight into how we may counter an “insane” blik, although some people obviously do change their worldview. Rather, he humorously defers to David Hume who turned to backgammon “to take his mind off the problem” (cited in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001). This is because one's bliks, acting as ‘mental spectacles’, are the foundational pillars of one's outlook on life, whether religious or conspiratorial: “as Hume saw, without a blik there can be no explanation; for it is by our blik that we decide what is and what is not an explanation”. As Hare suggests, the fideism canard regarding conspiracy theories, like Flew's attack on religion, misses the point: Wittgenstein is observing how people think about ‘forms of life’ just as we may observe how people think about conspiracy theories and the different language games being played.

Even so, Phillips does offer a way forward:

Religious worldviews, just like conspiracy theorising ones, cannot live in a vacuum. If one's blik is “insane” in light of such human experiences, we will – perhaps – turn away from it. Bliks are not invitations to stop thinking, rather they sharpen our thoughts and help us recognise the paradigm in which we think. In terms of conspiracy theories, we can now make the link between the conspiracy theorist mindset or blik and the specific conspiracy theory at hand. Due to ‘conspiratorial ambiguity’, it would be absurd to a priori reject the conspiracy theorising worldview. Yet this doesn't mean everything can and should be explained in terms of conspiracy. We may thus differentiate between what H.J.N. Horsburgh (Reference Horsburgh1956) called “pure bliks” which serve as a broad framework for understanding how the world functions, and “impure bliks”, which are narrow claims about specific phenomena. On the one hand, Horsburgh accepts that the former is “absolutely unfalsifiable” (Horsburgh Reference Horsburgh1956: 257) as the claim made cannot be proved or disproved. For example, there is enough ‘conspiratorial ambiguity’ to allow for the continued debate between the ‘conspiracy theory of society’ and ‘the cock-up theory of society’. On the other hand, Horsburgh argues that impure bliks are only “artificially unfalsifiable” for although the claim can be contradicted, it is the believer who won't allow his blik to be falsified, twisting the facts and relying on qualifications and auxiliary hypotheses. Thus whatever evidence we produce, the lunatic will change his story to fit in with his hypothesis that the dons are out to kill him. He therefore falls into Popper's falsification trap, much in the same way that astrologers and Marxists are said to. In turn, as “pure bliks”, even sceptics, such as Keeley, accept that a simple dismissal of conspiracy theories would be naïve in the extreme:

Quite simply, some conspiracy theories have turned out to be true and others false. And so, based on the historical evidence, Pigden has argued that, “it is perfectly reasonable to look for conspiracies in the explanation of events … Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. It is a case of suck it and see” (Pigden Reference Pigden and Coady2006: 19).

5. Reflections

The value of Hare seeing religious beliefs as bliks is captured by his quote of Psalm 75: 3: “The earth is weak and all the inhabiters thereof: I bear up the pillars of it.” With some poetic licence, Hare argues that human knowledge is fragile and transient, while our bliks “bear up the pillars” of all we know and believe. Just as God is beyond falsification, so too are our bliks. Although focusing on religious faith, Hare himself extends bliks to all aspects of our thinking, including moral bliks, such as reward and punishment. This essay now employs bliks in the task of understanding the nature of conspiracy theories, recognising, as Hare (cited in Pecorino Reference Pecorino2001) argued, “that our whole commerce with the world depends upon our bliks about the world; and that differences between bliks about the world cannot be settled by observation of what happens in the world”.

Thus John Henry Newman, one of the most (in)famous of religious believers (depending on your own blik!), wrote of his faith: “I believe in design because I believe in God; not in God because I see design” (Newman Reference Newman, Dessain and Gornall1870). As Newman readily accepted, friendly ‘facts’ within the design argument for God's existence are invoked by many religious believers. However, such ‘evidence’ lacks the empirical strength to actually push one over the edge from non-belief to religious belief. This notion was echoed by Karl Barth, who similarly rejected Anselm's ontological argument as a philosophical proof of God's existence. Rather, “the whole movement of Anselm's thought takes place within the structure of belief and prayer” as Anselm's meditation on God is for the person with pre-existing faith (Williams Reference Williams1970: 142). ‘Fides quaerens intellectum’ or ‘faith seeking understanding’ as a theological method, stretches from Augustine through to Anselm and Barth. By appreciating that such ‘proofs’ of God's existence take place firmly on the believer's ground, we can identify such religious faith as bliks.Footnote ¹²

Yet Newman (Reference Newman, Dessain and Gornall1870) went further by suggesting that the focus on such evidence fails to capture the very crux of faith itself: “Design teaches me power, skill and goodness – not sanctity, not mercy, not a future judgement, which three are the essence of religion.” By reframing the epistemological foundations of conspiracy theories, we can see that much of the debate surrounding conspiracy theories and their theorisers miss the mark in a similar manner. In the spirit of Phillips's sound advice that “[t]he role of philosophy in this context is not to justify, but to understand” (Phillips Reference Phillips and Davies2000: 111), I suggest that just as Flew mischaracterised religious beliefs as assertions about facts, so too do current debates about conspiracy theorisers start out on the wrong foot.

Whether one believes that conspiracy theories are a result of “crippled epistemologies” (Sunstein and Vermeule Reference Sunstein and Vermeule2009: 204) and bad thinking (Cassam Reference Cassam2015) or, quite the reverse, that “it is intellectually vicious not to be a conspiracy theorist” (Pigden Reference Pigden, Lippert-Rasmussen, Brownlee and Coady2017: 123), such a debate is played out on the wrong plane as it misses the underlying blik or foundational knowledge which shapes a person's worldview surrounding conspiracies, whether as theoriser or sceptic. To be sure, Pigden's ecumenical understanding of conspiracy theories, that “there is nothing inherently suspect about conspiracy theories as such” (Pigden Reference Pigden, Lippert-Rasmussen, Brownlee and Coady2017: 123), is more helpful in showing the bankruptcy of “a principled scepticism about conspiracy theories per se” (Pigden Reference Pigden, Lippert-Rasmussen, Brownlee and Coady2017: 124). Nevertheless, even he is locked into the secondary, particularist debate over whether conspiracy theories are a result of epistemic vice or virtue, concluding that “the virtuous policy is to proportion belief to the evidence” (Pigden Reference Pigden, Lippert-Rasmussen, Brownlee and Coady2017: 131).

For example, if we take the conspiracies surrounding climate change denial or scepticism, there is intuitive support for the idea that such conspiracy theorisers indeed suffer from bad thinking and intellectual vices such as gullibility, carelessness and close-mindedness (Cassam Reference Cassam2015). The “cures” for such “crippled epistemologies” therefore tend to focus on education as “most people lack direct or personal information about the explanations for terrible events” (Sunstein and Vermeule Reference Sunstein and Vermeule2009: 226). Kahan et al. (Reference Kahan, Peters, Wittlin, Slovic, Ouellette, Braman and Mandel2012: 732) labelled this approach the ‘science comprehension thesis’ (SCT), which holds that, “[a]s members of the public do not know what scientists know, or think the way scientists think, they predictably fail to take climate change as seriously as scientists believe they should”. Yet Kahan et al. demonstrated that climate change sceptics are no less scientifically literate than climate realists. Indeed, where the sceptic blik exists, additional “education” will only serve to reinforce such a worldview (Kahan et al. Reference Kahan, Peters, Wittlin, Slovic, Ouellette, Braman and Mandel2012: 732). Rather, the data supported the ‘cultural cognitive thesis’ (CCT), which posits that “individuals, as a result of a complex of psychological mechanisms, tend to form perceptions of societal risks that cohere with values characteristic of groups with which they identify” (Kahan et al. Reference Kahan, Peters, Wittlin, Slovic, Ouellette, Braman and Mandel2012: 732). Rather than “bad thinking”, CCT showed that the range of approaches towards climate change were intuitive, highlighting the difference between the sceptical individualistic worldview on the one hand and the congenial communitarian worldview on the other. Due to the motivated heuristic (see, for example, Chen et al. Reference Chen, Duckworth and Chaiken1999), people on both sides of the aisle will “fit their interpretations of scientific evidence to their competing cultural philosophies” and so better education will only serve to justify one's own blik.Footnote ¹³ Rather than debating how to educate for “intellectual virtues”, Kahan et al. warn that the debate can only be won at the level of worldviews or bliks as we may call them:

Note how such debates over conspiracy theories mirror the arguments of the New AtheistsFootnote ¹⁴ and their critics over religious faith. The combative atheists also sought to denigrate religious beliefs in terms of their followers’ epistemic vices in contrast to the epistemic virtues of scientific thinking. But as Jonathan Haidt (Reference Haidt2012: 291) showed in terms of religious psychology, such criticisms failed to capture the essence of religion by focusing on the narrow (and secondary) question of “false beliefs and faulty reasoning of individual believers.” Rather, Haidt (Reference Haidt2012: 291) argued, we should focus on the broader (and primary) issue of “automatic (intuitive) processes of people embedded in social groups that are striving to create a moral community”. The secondary debate is based on a misreading of religion and where it came from: whereas the New Atheist model is based on “the Platonic rationalist view of the mind”, the psychological evidence supports the “Humean view in which reason … is a servant of the intuitions.”Footnote ¹⁵ To understand religious and conspiratorial worldviews, therefore, we must discuss them at the level of our bliks, our intuitions, rather than focus on whether conspiracy theorisers are bad thinkers or not. As Haidt (Reference Haidt2012: 61) concludes: “Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.” This is why debates between sceptics and believers about the veracity of conspiracies or religious beliefs are “merely so much labour and effort lost”, in the words of Kant (Reference Kant1999: A602 / B630). Whether you take part in such a discussion or witness it being played out on Twitter or among friends, it is clear that “reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog” (Haidt Reference Haidt2012: 57). Again, Hume provided the insight into this problem:

In this vein, the very term, blik, as a catch-all and neutral neologism that captures people's unfalsifiable but meaningful beliefs, meets Coady's challenge to “come up with a single expression to cover” (Reference Coady2007: 203) the differing approaches towards conspiracy theories – irrational or not. This will not only help depoliticise the debate, but also shift the focus towards understanding the differing worldviews surrounding conspiracy theories.Footnote ¹⁶