¿Are Conspiracy Theories Epistemically Justified? An Approach from Contemporary Externalism

Abstract

In this article I present the two essential conceptions of conspiracy theories (descriptivist and constructivist), offering reasons for working from the point of view of the second one. Next, I introduce the debate between internalism and externalism of justification and, following the most contemporary perspectives, I focus on the political and social applicability of the second one, for which I use the srinivasian concept of “bad ideology case”. This new perspective allows me to interpret the conspiracy theories in function of this debate and show their lack of epistemic justification. Finally, I analyse the epistemic trust phenomenon, an opposed model to conspiracy theories, answering affirmatively to the two essential questions of its epistemic justification and its criticality.