Review of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, Conspiracy and Contingency: How to Deal with Fake Necessities By Carole Cusack and thorsten botz-bornstein

https://www.academia.edu/167651714/Review_of_Thorsten_Botz_Bornstein_Conspiracy_and_Contingency_How_to_Deal_with_Fake_Necessities?email_work_card=title Thorsten Botz-Bornstein proposes that conspiracist worldviews are often adopted due to the “the desire to find apparently reasonable explanations for phenomena that are purely random and contingent” (p. 1). His philosophical analysis focuses on contingency and necessity. There is evidence that human evolutionary psychology seeks causes for effects and is distressed by epistemic uncertainty. Botz-Bornstein notes that conspiracy is a problematic term, and includes both warranted and unwarranted theories, and in fact conspiracist thinking has an aesthetic dimension which means many adopt them “simply because they like them” (p. 4). Because philosophy does not proceed on a case-by-case basis, it is possible to see “groundless conspiracy theories as something more akin to art” (p. 16). Botz-Bornstein is therefore interested in the people who adopt them and promote them. An important aesthetic preference for the conspiracy mindset is “contingency refusal” (p. 24). The author’s refusal to consider the content of conspiracy theories works; to say the earth is flat is false but to ask why people hold flat-earther beliefs is more interesting. ...