ABSTRACT
Many philosophers and other commentators take the purported prevalence of conspiracy theories to be among the most troubling dynamics of contemporary political belief. In this chapter, we ask how to define “conspiracy theory” and whether conspiracy theories are necessarily irrational. In the most basic sense, whether theorizing about conspiracies is rational seems to depend on what one knows about whether powerful people in their vicinity have conspiratorial tendencies. Thus, most epistemologists who have investigated the subject have come to the conclusion that there is no good way to challenge the rationality of conspiracy theories wholesale. I close the chapter by offering a novel argument to the effect that theories of ideology tend to be conspiracy theories.
