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As I'm sure you know, the 911 attacks on the twin towers in New York were in fact secretly orchestrated by the FBI and israeli agents with the sinister objective of fomenting anti arab sentiment in the west.
Hmm.
Well, thankfully, being a listener to philosophy bites, it's unlikely you'll believe that hogwash, but a scary number of people do, or some version of it.
And Kasim Kasam of Warwick University says that's of considerable philosophical interest.
Kasim Kassam, welcome to philosophy Bites.
Hello.
The topic we're going to focus on is conspiracy theories, which is not an obvious topic for a philosopher.
What's going on here?
What are we talking about?
So, a conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain an event, usually a major political event, by reference to the activities of a group of individuals or an organization who brought the event about, but who are concealing their role in bringing it about.
So this is neutral.
A conspiracy theory could be an accurate theory, or it could be just a kind of delusional belief system.
I think that's right.
I don't want to build into the definition of a conspiracy theory that conspiracy theories are false.
There are some true ones.
So Watergate really was a conspiracy.