On June 6, 2016, the newspaper Le Monde published a collective opinion piece criticizing the French government for not being effective in combating “conspiracy theories.” The piece conveyed the impression that any narrative touching upon a conspiracy qualified as fallacious disinformation (Bronner et al. 2016). Against such an attitude, Matthew R.X. Dentith prescribes rigorous logico-epistemological scrutiny: in its light, conspiracy theories turn out to be not so irrational after all, and we discover that the very reference to “conspiracy theories” as a monolithic subset of narratives is misleading. This, in a few words, is the spirit that breathes through the pages of Taking Conspiracy Theories Seriously, a collection of essays on conspiracy theory theory (i.e., the theory of conspiracy theory) written by the editor and eight other contributors from the fields of philosophy, psychology, and sociology.
Taking Conspiracy Theories Seriously. By Matthew R.X. Dentith, Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018. ISBN: 9781786608284. 251 pp. Softcover, $34.95.
We discover that the very reference to “conspiracy theories” as a monolithic subset of narratives is misleading.