Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

I was all prepared to write about some historical context here. To spend an hour or so working on a brief history of the German states until their unification in 1871. I was going to talk about how it may seem weird to the reader that Weishaupt could flee Bavaria for the next town over and be in a completely different legal jurisdiction, but that's only because we view Germany as a single entity now. This week's selection begins with a new chapter titled, "The German Union;" so I assumed that we were going to talk about Germany. Instead, we're still reading about the Illuminati.  What I have to discuss, is a meta-problem with conspiracy theories in general. The problem can be indicated by Robison's words, " Weishaupt said, on good grounds, that 'if the Order should be discovered and suppressed, he would restore it with tenfold energy in a twelvemonth.'" I need to dispense with something right away, Robison is claiming that Weishaupt said this...

 Robison's big worry is that women will no longer have the same place in society that they do in his time (18th century) if the Illuminati take over. He frames this as a concern that their place will get worse. Though I'm very puzzled as to how this would be possible. Short of making women literal slaves, there is not much "down" it can get. He's worried about their modesty, and how the French women are showing their arms (and presumably shoulders) at the opera.  This entire section reminds me of Charlotte Perkins Gillman's book Herland. The book portrays three men who stumble upon a civilization of only women (they reproduce via magic--it's sci-fi the author gets to break one rule). The narrator is the "good" one, who thinks women are people; but the other two (Jeff and Terry) are misogynists. Terry is the obvious one, he thinks that women are incapable of doing the work that went into building the civilization, and he tries to force himself on ...

We ended last week with Robison's very long and circular fallacy of the appeal to false authority. To recap, he lauds Newton--as he should--but then claims that because Newton believed in god we all should too. In fact, all of the smart people in his time believed in god, so therefore...that belief is what made them smart. It's a long fallacy that is seeking to discredit Weishaupt on intellectual grounds because it looks like that is what he was doing. It's a sleight of hand trick that works in person, but when we read this kind of trick it is more confusing than anything else. As I wrote, and repeatedly said, "why are we talking about Laplace again?"  By this point in the work, we are aware that Robison does not like the Illuminati and he's laid out their case of Deism/atheism. In the 18th century that should be enough, so this roundabout tactic is unnecessary. It's especially redundant because Robison can trade on his name if he wants. It is the only rea...

 Now we deal with Newton. Sir Isaac Newton, to be more specific. This is going to be a very interesting section for the reason that I'm a bit familiar with Newton's natural philosophy (re: science). Yes, of course, we are all familiar with his mechanics and gravitational theory. Newton also believed in the aether, committing to the claim that, in the words of Greek Philosopher Parmenides, that which is not, is not, and cannot be. Newton means that the void is impossible. There cannot be space that is truly empty, there always must be something that fills it, to provide the action at a distance of gravity. The Earth and the Moon are locked in a gravitational dance, but the force of gravity has to work through something. That something is the quintessential ether (that's a word joke as "quintessential" means "fifth element").  Robison has just come off a long rant about how the Illuminati was going to refrain from teaching the truth of religion (he means C...

I've long claimed that Robison's complaint is that the world is changing around him and he wants to blame the Illuminati for it. Finally, he comes to a summary about the Illuminati itself: " The objects, the undoubted objects of this Association, are surely dangerous and detestable; viz. to overturn the present constitutions of the European States, in order to introduce a chimera which the history of mankind shows to be contrary to the nature of man." This brings to mind the writing of Thomas Hobbes who, on the day the Spanish Armada was set to invade England was born. Hobbes claimed that it was his mother's hearing of the alarm bells that began her delivery, "my mother gave birth to two things that night, myself and fear."  He was fun at parties. Anyway, the political writings of Hobbes claim that human beings need order and without an order force life will be (in his most famous quip) "nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes' philosophy claims...