Are conspiracy theorists prone to conspiracy thinking because they have a flawed “intellectual character”?  The philosopher Quassim Cassam argues that they are. In a piece at Aeon, Cassam proposes that the “key to what they end up believing is how they interpret and respond to the vast quantities of relevant information at their disposal.” Rather than being a product of a particular environment or lacking sufficient information, he claims that the problem arises as a “result of the peculiarities of his intellectual constitution – in a word, of his intellectual character.” I think Cassam’s proposal is a welcome counter to the purely situationalist theory. But I think it is better seen as a complement to the situationalist explanation rather than a replacement for it. Read the entire article at:

Intellectual character of conspiracy theorists – Quassim Cassam – Aeon.