Chris Fleming – Networks of Accusation: Conspiracy Theory as Distributed Intelligence

Networks of Accusation: Conspiracy Theory as Distributed Intelligence 

CHRIS FLEMING WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY
PRÉSENTÉ PAR LE DÉPARTEMENT DE PHILOSOPHIE & L’ISC UQAM RÉSUMÉ DE LA CONFÉRENCE (EN ANGLAIS SEULEMENT) 

20 JUIN 2024 14H UQÀM LOCAL W-5305

The English phrase “conspiracy theorist” is one which has been with us since the late nineteenth century, although it only came into wide circulation in the 1950s. It saw another increase in the 1990s, and Ngram plots show that there are no indications that this is slowing down. In the post COVID-19 world, “conspiracy theory” is both a widely-named phenomenon and an object of thought. The models used to analyse conspiracy theory emerging out of the humanities and social sciences have often been individualistic; conspiracy theorists have been seen to embody either faulty epistemology (believing things neither true nor justified) or to suffer from psychopathology. It is as if theorists who figure things in such terms see the proper response to conspiracy theory as residing either in more courses in “critical reasoning” or in an expanded repertoire of psychiatric medications. 

In this conference, Fleming will argue that the conception of the (disordered) mind common to both is inadequate to the task, and instead that conspiracy theory is better conceived along lines supplied by the so-called “extended mind” hypothesis. However, even here, there are limitations of the model of “extended mind” which will necessitate thinking of conspiracy theorising in terms of what I call “distributed intelligence” – the way in which human judgement circulates through various technologically-mediated networks, subject to forms of contagion and reinforcement.

At stake ultimately is not simply an analysis of epistemic issues reframed in “externalist” terms, but a consideration of the ways in which certain forms and distributions of judgement entail ethical and political costs, ones which we need to be mindful of if we are to see conspiracy theory in terms more adequate to the phenomenon itself.