The Epistemology Of Conspiracy Theories

Political power can be a very nuanced thing.  Sometimes power is held in seemingly unlikely places.  Sometimes, however, power might be held exactly where it seems to be.  The goal of conspiracy theories is to persuade people that the true political "elite" is out of sight, dictating policies and events from shadows that only a select few can see past.  While it is not logically impossible for certain conspiracy theories to ultimately be true, it is logically impossible to verify if many of them are true.  Given the way these conspiracies are defined, they tend to fall into the territory of the unverifiable and unfalsifiable.

Conspiracy theories are often not rooted in actual evidence, as they are instead usually formed when someone interprets events in a fallacious way by making assumptions about what is truly happening.  Perhaps they feel special due to having such "knowledge" that is supposedly too esoteric for the common person to be capable of understanding, or perhaps their ideas about an alleged conspiracy let them feel a desired sense of urgency.  Perhaps they are simply irrational enough to believe in random ideas as long as the ideas are subjectively enthralling.

Whatever their motivations, conspiracy theorists are usually the victim of their own stupidity.  It is not that it is logically impossible for an unseen political cabal to be in place, but that the very fact that such a cabal would be invisible from the perspectives of most (or all) outsiders that undermines almost all attempts to argue for a conspiracy.  The very conditions that would hide a conspiracy from the public eye, if it indeed exists, would likely prevent it from being knowable.

A conspiracy is almost never embraced on the basis of evidence--and a conspiracy could never be logically proven, only supported with mere evidence at best.  The very fact that a conspiracy remains in the shadows puts it in a negative epistemological light: you can't support a conspiracy theory by appealing to things that by nature are concealed from anyone who investigates it!  A conspiracy theorist usually argues from a default position of unverifiability.

As with all other unverifiable claims, there is no basis or justification for believing in an elusive conspiracy that is by definition concealed.  A person with a sound epistemology only embraces that which can be established by reason.  If reason can establish that an idea is true, a rational person regards it as true.  If reason can establish that an idea is reinforced be evidence, a rational person believes that it can be reinforced by evidence--which is still distinct from believing it is true.  Conspiracy theories are neither logically verifiable nor, in most cases, supportable with evidence.