Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte - Volume 116, Issue 1, 2024

Abstract Hyperpolitics and Political Commitment in the Twenty-First Century What do the January 6th invasion of the Capitol and the anti-racist demonstrations of mid-2020 have in common? Both birthed some of the largest protest movements in American history, but also diminished rapidly after their initial, pre-revolutionary peak. This article reads the recent political sequence through the concept of ‘hyperpolitics’. In Read More

Abstract What it means for conspiracy theories to become mainstream In debates about conspiracy theories, it is often claimed that conspiracy thinking is on the rise or has even become mainstream. In this article, I want to explore this claim conceptually, and argue that there are at least three ways to interpret the claim that ‘conspiracy thinking has become mainstream’. First, there is the individual level, where it is a matt Read More

Abstract The paradoxes of (in)tolerance in epistemic networks Does the Capitol invasion of January 2021 teach us that intolerant viewpoints have no place in public debates? This view is defensible on the basis of Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance, which states that too much tolerance will ultimately entail the demise of that very tolerance. But how are the limits of (in)tolerance to be determined? We argue that Popper’s pur Read More

Abstract Can well-informed citizens be engaged citizens? The storming of the Capitol exposes a tension between different kinds of virtues in public life, at least if we can disregard – for the sake of argument – the morally and politically unacceptable excessive violence that accompanied it. If we think about the event as an example of a powerful protest based on deep convictions, it points to a tension between two kinds of civic vi Read More

Abstract War of Ideas: On Feyerabend’s Epistemic Pluralism and the Polarising Effect of Alternative Truths Paul Feyerabend is generally known as one of science’s greatest advocates of (epistemic) pluralism. Throughout his work, Feyerabend rejects the notion of a monistic epistemology and defends various forms of pluralism. Consequently, he is sometimes reproached for being responsible for the emergence of alternative tr Read More