Basham, Lee. "The Need for Accountable Witnesses: A Reply to Dentith". Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, Vol.5, No.7 (2016): 6-13.

Basham, Lee. "The Need for Accountable Witnesses: A Reply to Dentith". Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, Vol.5, No.7 (2016): 6-13.

This paper is written as a response to a 2016 article by Matthew Dentith entitled 'When Inferring to a Conspiracy might be the Best Explanation'. The original article can be found here.

• Dr. Dentith challenges those who would dismiss conspiracy theories, demonstrating that 'generalists' who will dismiss conspiracy theories because they are conspiracy theories hold an untenable epistemological position (6).
• Despite this, the academic community still largely refuses to accept conspiracy theories as potentially legitimate explanations of key political events. This refusal stems from an unwillingness to acknowledge that conspiracies exist and could be created under democratic conditions (7).
• The essential  claims of most academic regarding conspiracy theories boil down to an assertion that democratically elected leaders would not engage in conspiracy, and a belief that popular media and official information networks would undercover such a conspiracy, not leave that discovery to conspiracy theorists (7-8).
• These explanations are totally flawed, not only do democratic leaders engage in conspiracy, but official sources of information cannot be trusted to report on conspiracies they are involved in. Moreover, there are numerous historical examples of public media not uncovering conspiracies, such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident or fallout on civilian populations from nuclear tests in Nevada (8-9).
• Conspiracy theories are a core part of human history and politics. The history of the Nazi regime, the Stalinist purges, or Cold War American politics cannot be adequately explained without reference to conspiracies. This historical records shows that clearly conspiracy theories are not de facto unlikely (10).
• The track record of conspiracy theories not only undermines those who would pathologize and alienate conspiracy theorists, but suggests that conspiracy theorists can form a core part of the network of information necessary for Western democracies to function appropriately. Having more sources of information asking more questions only decreases the likelihood of conspiracies being successfully realized (11).