An Interdisciplinary Drama: Conspiracist Philosophers versus Conspiring Social Scientists?

This article reconstructs the debate on conspiracy theories hosted by the SERRC since 2016, sparked by the Le Monde statement of a group of social scientists and by the reply of Basham, Dentith and other social epistemologists, up to its revival by Scott Hill. Focusing on the problem of defining 'conspiracy theory', the article reads the controversy as a case study in interdisciplinary miscommunication: scholars anchored to the categories of their own disciplines failed to register each other's concessions. The distinction between conspiracy theories and conspiracy beliefs proposed by Duetz and Dentith is identified as the turning point that reallocates the objects of research among disciplines. The article concludes by proposing a sociological development: what appears as dispositional conspiracism may be produced by a situational factor, the crisis of epistemic authorities, or crisis of competence, affecting Western democracies.