Category: Epistemology

During the last pandemic, Americans who chose to forgo vaccination were hard hit by COVID. In response, some self-medicated with ivermectin. While this drug is best known as a horse de-wormer, it is also used to treat humans for a variety of conditions and many medications are used to treat conditions they were not originally intended to treat. Viagra is a famous example of this. As such, the idea of re-purposing a medication is not itself foolish. But there are obvious problems with taking ivermectin to treat COVID. The most obvious one is that there is not a good reason to believe that the drug is effective; people would be better off seeking established treatment. Another problem is the matter of dosing as the drug can have serious side-effects even at the correct dosage. Since I am not a medical doctor, my main concern is not with the medical aspects of the drug, but with epistemology. That is, I am interested in why people believed they should take the drug when there is credible evidence it would work. Though the analysis will focus on ivermectin, the same mechanisms work broadly in belief formation.

Those who were most likely to use the drug were people in areas hit hard by COVID and subject to anti-vaccine and anti-mask messages from politicians and pundits. These two factors are related: when people do not get vaccinated and do not take precautions against infection, then they are more likely to get infected. This is why there was such a clear correlation between COVID infection rates and the level of Trump support in an area. Republican political thought embraces authoritarianism and rejects of expertise. Conservatives also want to “own the libs” by rejecting their beliefs and making liberals mad. Many liberals wanted people to get vaccinated and wear masks, so “owning the libs” put a person at greater risk for COVID. Once a person got infected, they needed treatment. But why did they chose ivermectin over proven methods? This seems to be the result of how the right’s base forms their beliefs.

The right’s base seems especially vulnerable to grifters and thus inclined to believe what grifters tell them. This is not because they are less intelligent or less capable than liberals; rather it seems to result from two main factors. The first is that the American right tends to be more authoritarian and thus more inclined to believe when an authority figure tells them to believe. The second is that the American right has long waged war on critical thinking and expertise. Hence people on the right are less inclined to use critical thinking tools effectively in certain contexts and are likely to dismiss experts who they do not regard as trusted authority figures.

While ivermectin was studied scientifically, there is currently no evidence that it can effectively treat COVID. But a small and growing industry arose for providing people with unproven or discredited treatments for COVID. While some might be well-intentioned, much of it is grifting at the expense of those who have been systematically misled. As such, people believe ivermectin can help them because authority figures have told them they should believe it. But, of course, there is the question of why ivermectin was chosen.

One likely reason is that ivermectin has been shown to impede the replication of the virus. Someone who is misled by wishful thinking would probably not consider the matter further; but it is important to note that this test was conducted in the laboratory using high concentrations of the drug that probably exceeded what a human could safely use. To use an analogy, this is like saying that fire is effective in killing the virus. While this is true, it does not make it an effective treatment in humans. As such, there is a bit of truth to the claim that ivermectin can affect the virus. For some reason, certain people seem to consistently reason poorly in such contexts; I am inclined to chalk this up to wishful thinking.

There is also the fact that a single, unpublished paper influenced some countries to include the drug in their treatment guidelines. However, this paper was never published because the method used to gather the data is both irregular and unreliable. The company that gathered the data, Surgisphere, is already notorious for its role in scandals involving hydroxychloroquine studies. People seem to tend to believe the first thing they hear about something, especially if they want it to be true, hence this discredited paper held considerable influence. This is like the case in which those who think vaccines are linked to autism still believe in a long discredited study by a discredited doctor.

One might attempt to respond to this by arguing that there are other papers showing the effectiveness of ivermectin. While this would be a reasonable response if these papers were based on good data, they are not. As has been shown, they suffer from serious errors. But, once again, this does not seem to matter. People such as Preston Smiles, Sidney Powell and Joe Rogan promoted the drug and, of course, Fox News personalities praised it. It was hydroxychloroquine 2.0. This takes us back to the appeal to authoritarianism fallacy: people believed because authority figures told them to believe. There is also a fallacious appeal to authority in effect. For example, Joe Rogan is a talk show host and not a doctor; yet people believe him because he is a celebrity.

People might also be motivated to accept the “evidence” of bad data and poor methods because doing so can feel rebellious. By rejecting the methodology of the experts, they can see themselves as making up their own minds…by accepting what politicians and celebrities tell them. There might also haven been a conspiracy theory element at work as well; the idea that “they” do not want people to know about ivermectin (or whatever) and hence they want to believe it works.

Ivermectin became another front in the culture war. It must be said that the left contributed to the fight by mocking those who used the drug. But when it became a political battle, the base doubled down and defended it, despite a lack of evidence. That is, they professed to believe because doing so is the stance of their tribe.

There were efforts to conduct clinical trials of the drug, but these were bizarrely been met with hostility and threats from ivermectin proponents. On the positive side, there will be some data available from the people self-medicating. Unfortunately, it will not be very good data because it will mostly be a collection of self-reported anecdotes. Once again, the culture war of the right hurt people. Although, as always, some profited.

From the standpoint of reliably forming true beliefs, this approach is the opposite of what a person should take.  Believing medical claims based on political authorities, grifters and celebrities is not a reliable way to have true beliefs. Accepting flawed studies as evidence is, by definition, a bad idea from the standpoint of believing true things. But these belief forming mechanisms do have advantages.

Politicians, celebrities, and grifters obviously benefit from their base forming beliefs this way. Those who form the beliefs also get something out of it; they can feel the pleasure of expressing their loyalty, the reassurance of wishful thinking, the warm glow of unity with their tribe, and the hot fire of angering the other tribe. And in the end, isn’t that all that really matters to some people?

As a runner, I have often imagined what it would be like to have super speed like the Flash or Quicksilver. Unfortunately for my super speed dreams, Kyle Hill has presented the fatal flaws of super speed. But while Hill did consider the problem of perception, he seems to have missed one practical problem with being a super speedster and that is how mentally exhausting (and boring) running a super speed could be. Kant can help explain this problem.

Our good dead friend Kant argued that time is not a thing that exists in the world, rather it is a form in which objects appear to us. It is for him, the “form of inner sense” because our mental events must occur in temporal sequence. Or, rather, must occur to us in that way. He does bring up a very interesting point, namely that other beings could experience time differently than humans. For example, God might experience all time simultaneously.  If God does this, it can account for both omniscience and free will: God knows what you will do because from his perspective you done did it, are doing it, and will do it. Other beings might have a similar inner sense, but with a different perceived speed. This takes us to speedsters.

While humans can operate fast moving vehicles like jets and rockets using our merely human perceptions, a super speedster would need to perceive the world and make decisions at super speed. Consider a simple comparison. With adequate training, I could pilot a plane going 500 mph. But imagine that I could run 500 mph, but my brain operated normally. If I tried to run a winding trail in the woods, for example, I would slam into trees because my running speed would vastly exceed my ability to perceive the trail and decide when to turn. But if my mental processes were also fast, then I would be able to run “normally” on the trail: from my perspective, I would have plenty of time to make decisions and avoid collisions. My “form of inner sense” would match up with my movement speed, so I would be fine. Mostly. But there would be a problem if I wanted to use my super speed to save on travel expenses.

Suppose I wanted to visit my family in Maine. My sister’s house is about 1500 miles from my house in Florida. If I could run 500 mph, I could be there in three hours. Being an experienced marathoner, I know that running for three hours is no big deal for me and it would be well worth it to save the cost and annoyance of flying. But travelling in this way would be more complicated than just running for three hours. For people watching me and by my watch, it would be three hours of running. But remember, my mind would be significantly sped up to enable it to handle my physical speed.

To keep the math simple, suppose my normal human running speed is 10 mph. So, my super speed would be fifty times that (500 mph). Suppose that my perception and decision-making speed was equally increased. While this might seem amazing, it would entail that from my perspective the three-hour run would take 150 hours (6.25 days). Even ignoring concerns about sleep and endurance, that would be an extremely unpleasant run. After all, I would experience it as if I were running there at normal human speed (although other people and things would seem to be moving very slowly). For me, it would not be worth it to spend 150 (mental) hours running even if it saved me the price of a plane ticket. After all, I could do that now—and I do not.

One could, of course, tweak the numbers a bit. Perhaps I could safely run at 500 mph while my mind operated at slower than 50 times normal speed. But it would still need to operate much faster than normal, otherwise I would keep running into things and doing a lot of damage. So, super speed would generally not be great for long distance travel.

One could, of course, do some comic book stuff and come up with workarounds to avoid the boredom problem. Perhaps a speedster would have multiple levels of awareness—a fast navigating subconscious awareness that guides them safely and a slower conscious mind to avoid the boredom. Going back to Kant, this would involve having two different forms of inner sense operating in the same mind, which is obviously not even very weird in philosophical terms. In that case, super speed would be a great way to travel.

In epistemology, the problem of other minds is the challenge of proving that other beings have thoughts and feelings analogous to my own. A practical version of the problem is how to tell when someone is honest: how do I know their words match what they believe? But the version I am concerned with here is the problem of racist minds. That is, how do I know when someone is a racist? Racism, like dishonesty, comes in degrees. Just as everyone is a bit dishonest, everyone is a bit racist. But a person should not be labeled a liar unless they are significantly dishonest. The same applies to being a racist and a person should not be labeled as a racist unless their racism is significant. There is, of course, no exact boundary line defining when a person should be considered a liar or a racist. Fortunately, we can get by with imprecise standards and accept the existence of grey areas. To demand a precise line would, of course, fall for the line drawing fallacy.

It is important to distinguish racists from people who seem racist. One reason is that an accusation of racism can have serious consequences, and such claims should not be made lightly. Another reason is that racists should be exposed for what they are. What is needed are reliable tests for sorting out racists from non-racists.

The need for a test also arises in the classic problem of other minds. Descartes proposed a language-based test to solve the problem in the context of animals. Roughly put, if something uses true language, then it has a mind and thinks. Turing created his own variation on this test, one that is more famous than Descartes’ test. In the case of testing for racism, it is assumed that people have minds and that problem is bypassed (or ignored) for practical reasons.

It might be wondered why tests are needed. After all, many assume the only true racists are the blatant racists: they burn crosses, have Swastika tattoos, and openly use racist language. While these racists are easy to spot, there are more subtle racists who work at avoiding detection. In fact, coded racism has been a strategy in the United States for decades, most famously explained by Lee Atwater:

 

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

 

This illustrates the challenge of determining whether a person is racist: there are coded words and phrases used by racists that are not openly racist in their normal meaning, and they have many uses. First, they allow a racist plausible deniability: they can claim to be using the word or phrase in a non-racist manner. Second, it allows racists to recruit non-racists. People who are, for example, concerned about welfare fraud can be drawn into racism through that gateway. Third, it allows racists to signal each other while making the “normies” think critics are crazy. As an illustration, when I have tried to explain various code phrases used by racists to “normies” they often think I am either making it up or I accept a wacky woke conspiracy theory. So how does one pierce the veil and solve the problem of racist minds? Here are two useful guides.

As noted above, there code words and phrases used by racists that have non-racist surface meanings. One example is the use of “China virus” by Trump and his fellows during the last pandemic. On the face of it, this seems non-racist: they are referencing where the virus comes from. As I have argued in earlier essays, this use of “China virus” is racist. It makes use of the well-worn racist trope of foreigners bringing disease and Trump’s followers got the message: anti-Asian violence increased dramatically. But one might say, surely there are many people who use such words and phrases without racist intent. That is true and is what gives the racists cover and an opportunity for plausible denial. If only racists used a phrase or word, it would be dead giveaway.

So how does one know when a person is using such words and phrases in a racist manner and when they are not? One easy test is to see how they react to being informed of the racist connotation of the word or phrase. For example, if someone uses “China virus”, then one can inform them it has racist implications and is used by racists. If the person persists in using it despite being aware of its implications, then it is reasonable to conclude they are being racist. It might be objected that a non-racist might want to persist in using the term to “own the libs” or because they refuse to be “politically correct.” While this has some appeal, it can also be a strategy for concealing racism. It is, after all, reasonable to infer that a person who is dedicated to “owning the libs” in this manner is a racist.

To use an analogy, imagine someone who likes setting off fireworks in their backyard. They learn their neighbor has PTSD because they lost an arm, an eye, and friends to IEDs in Iraq and the fireworks really bother her. If they persist in setting of the fireworks despite this knowledge, it would be reasonable to believe they are an ass. After all, a decent person would not do that, even if they believed they had the right to do so. Likewise, a person who persists in using words and phrases that are racist code in contexts where the code is racist would provide evidence they are a racist. Or an ass.

 As the Atwater quote also notes, racism is often coded into policies and their justifications.  Migration provides a good example of this sort of coding. Only the most blatant racists would openly say that they want to keep non-whites out of the United States because of white supremacy. As such, racists have adopted the approach of arguing for restrictions that focus on non-whites using justifications that are not openly racist. The stock reasons given are that migrants are coming here to commit crimes, steal jobs, steal social services and that migrants are bringing diseases.

On the face of it, these are not racist reasons: the arguments for restricting immigration use economic and safety concerns. It just happens that these restrictions target non-white migrants. So how does one distinguish between racists and non-racists who advance such arguments? After all, racists have worked hard to recruit non-racists into using their arguments and they can have considerable appeal. A sensible person would, after all, be concerned if migrants were committing crimes, stealing jobs, and spreading disease.

In most cases where the racists advance coded arguments, they are also making untrue or misleading claims.  This allows for an effective test. Using the migration example, the claims that migrants are stealing jobs, committing crimes and so on are either false or presented in a misleading manner.

If a person is a non-racist and supports, for example, restrictions on migration because they believe these claims, then proving that these claims are false would change their mind. So, if Sally supports restrictions on migration because of her concerns that migrants are doing all those terrible things she is told they do but she learns that these claims are not true or greatly exaggerated, then her position should change. If Sally is a racist, then these are not her real reasons—so she will not change her mind and will persist in lying and exaggerating. As such, a good general test is to find cases where a person claims to believe something that is coded racism and not supported by evidence. If the person is not a racist, they should be amendable to changing their views when the reasons they profess for accepting their views are disproven.

It can be countered that people can become very invested in beliefs and double-down in the face of disproof. Might there not be cases in which a non-racist simply refuses to accept disproof about, for example, claims about migrants? This is certainly possible, but one must wonder why they would be so committed to holding to a disproven view. It makes sense for a racist to do this since their belief is based on racism. But a non-racist would be irrational to do this; although it must be admitted that people are often irrational. As such, the test would not be able to reliably distinguish between racists and people with an irrational commitment to such views.

But, going back to the fireworks analogy, this would seem to be like a person who insists they are not an ass, they just refuse to believe that their neighbor is bothered by the fireworks despite all the overwhelming evidence. This is logically possible, but the better explanation would be that they are, in fact, an ass.

In epistemology the problem of the external world is the challenge of proving that I know that entities exist other than me. Even if it is assumed that there is an external world, there remains the problem of other minds: the challenge of proving that I can know that there is at least one other being that has a mind. A common version of this problem tends to assume other beings exist, and the challenge is to prove that I can know that these other beings have (or lack) minds. Our good dead friend Descartes offered the best-known effort to solve the problem of the external world and in trying to solve this problem he also, perhaps unintentionally, attempted to solve the problem of other minds.

In his Meditations Descartes set out to create an infallible foundation of knowledge starting with his method of doubting his beliefs until he found a belief he could not doubt.  As part of this project, he hoped to solve the problem of the external world. After his doubting spree in the first Meditation, he took his belief that he thinks and the belief that he exists to both be certain and indubitable.  In trying to prove that something exists other than him, Descartes attempts to prove that God exists. And so, he attempted to solve the problem of the external world by solving a version of the problem of other minds. Proving that God exists would prove that another mind exists and that something exists other than him, thus solving a limited version of each problem.

While Descartes grinds through a plethora of proofs, his key reasoning for the purposes of this essay is his notion that the cause of a belief must contain as much reality as the belief itself. Roughly put, you can think of this reasoning as analogous to inferring that whatever charged a mobile phone battery must have at least as much power as in in the battery (assuming the battery charged from zero). Descartes based this reasoning on the principle that something cannot arise from nothing.

Roughly put, Descartes claimed that his idea of God is such that he could not be the cause of this idea—it had to be caused by something external to him. For example, Descartes notes that God is perfect and argues that he could not get the idea of a perfect being from his imperfect self. As another example, Descartes claims that God is infinite and that he (Descartes) could not create the idea of infinity from himself. From this he infers that God exists. He then goes on to argue that since God is perfect it follows that God is not a deceiver. Descartes then concludes that since God created us, we can generally trust our senses and thus we can infer that there is an external world. While this does not address the common version of the problem of other minds, it does offer a solution to the narrowest version: it does attempt to show that Descartes is not the only mind. In philosophical terms, success would refute solipsism. That is the philosophical view that I am the only being in existence. Or, alternatively, it could be taken as the view that I am the only mind (thinking being) that exists. While I think that Descartes’ efforts failed, his attempted solution to the problem of other minds provides a model that I will steal. My goal is modest: I am not trying to prove that other people have minds, I am just endeavoring to show that there is at least one other mind. I will do this with an aesthetic argument that was inspired by the combination of watching Wandavision and teaching Epistemology via Zoom during the last pandemic.

While teaching my Epistemology class at squares on Zoom I mentioned Wandavision as an example and had the realization that the quality of the show could be used to argue for the existence of other minds. While Descartes argued that the cause of an idea must equal or exceed the reality of the idea, I will replace this with the principle that the cause of an idea must equal or exceed the quality of the idea in terms of creativity. As such, to show that something exists other than me, I just need to find an idea (or ideas) whose content exceeds my own creativity. That is, I need to find ideas that I could not create. This is extremely easy.

Wandavision, the show that inspired this argument, exceeds my creative abilities as I lack the skill and talent to write such a series. I can obviously say the same about many other movies, books, and stories since they are beyond my skill to create. As a writer, I am aware of the limits of my abilities and can safely draw these conclusions. I can also add other art, such as music and drawing. I know my skills at music (none) and drawing (very limited) and know that I lack the ability to create most works I have heard or seen. Since I could not create such works, there must be at least one other mind that is creating them. There might be only one other mind and it could be electing to create works of varying degrees. Or there might be many other minds creating these works. This does not, of course, show that there is an external world of the sort I think exists. It could be (as Descartes considered) just me and one other being who is causing all these ideas in my mind. While I would condemn the deception, I must thank them for the high-quality work they create for me. As such, I can infer that at least one other mind exists and that I am not alone. But there are, as always, counter arguments.

One obvious counter argument is that I have an unknown talent or skill that allows me to create without being aware I am doing so. That is, I cannot consciously create things of such quality but can somehow do so without being aware I am doing it. One could point to dreams as an obvious example of how this might work: the best explanation for dreams is that their content comes from me although I (usually) lack conscious control. My reply is to point out that my dreams do not match the quality of the works I encounter in the waking world in terms of the stories. Any art I see or music I hear in my dreams are always mere copies from when I am awake (or think I am awake) or of low quality. As such, I would seem to lack such a hidden and unknown faculty of creativity. I do agree it is not a logical impossibility that I have such a faculty, but there is no evidence for its existing beyond explaining my aesthetic experiences without any other mind existing, which would be ad hoc.

A second obvious counter is to allow that something exists other than me, but this is not another mind. That is, the aesthetic experiences are created in a “mechanical” way without the sort of thinking that would be done by a mind. To use an analogy, this would be like having an AI creating content without having a mind. There are two responses to this. The first is that this would still entail that I was not the only being in existence as there would also be this creator entity. The second is that such a high degree of creativity would seem to require a mind. It would pass tests analogous to the Turing test and thus it would be reasonable to infer there is at least one other mind behind these creative works.

In closing, there are two main possibilities. The first is that I alone exist, and I have an unknown faculty of creativity that vastly exceeds my known skills and talents (and I can never consciously use these hidden abilities). The second is that at least one other being exists and is creating these works that are beyond my skill.

Trump is infamous for spewing lies and his supporters are known for believing his claims. As noted in previous essays, one of the many things that is striking about supporters professing belief in Trump’s claims is that they accept claims that are logically inconsistent or even contradictory. Two claims are inconsistent when they both cannot be true but they both could be false. This is different from two claims being contradictory: if one claims contradicts another, one must be true and the other false.

The last pandemic provides a horrific example of the ability of Trump supporters to profess belief in inconsistent claims.  Many Trump supporters claimed to believe that COVID-19 was a hoax, that it was no worse than the flu, that it was a Chinese bioweapon, that Trump did a great job with the pandemic and that Trump should get credit for the vaccine.   When Bob Woodward released tapes proving that Trump acknowledged the danger of the virus in February, many Trump supporters accepted Trump’s claim that he wanted to play down the virus to avoid a panic. His supporters defended him, claiming that great leaders have and should lie to prevent panic in the face of terrible danger. If Trump was right to lie to play down the deadly danger of the virus, then this is inconsistent with the claim that it is like the flu and inconsistent with the claim that it is a hoax. If he was right to lie because of the danger, then it is not like the flu nor is it a hoax. But if it is like the flu or a hoax, then he would not need to lie about the danger. One way to explain Trump supporters professing inconsistent beliefs is that some of them are accomplices. Another is that they are victims. I will begin with the accomplice explanation.

It is possible, even likely, that some of Trump’s supporters are aware when he is lying and perhaps even recognize when they make inconsistent claims. In this case, the inconsistency can easily be explained: they are accomplices to his lies and are repeating them. There is no inconsistency in their beliefs because they do not believe what they are claiming. There are various reasons for people to serve as his accomplices. They might want to express their allegiance to him, they might find his lies advantageous in their own grifts, they might be trolls, or they might gain some other advantage by professing belief in his lies. Not believing inconsistent claims does not make the claims consistent; it is just that the accomplices do not have inconsistent beliefs in this context.

As would be suspected, it can be difficult to prove that a supporter is an accomplice of Trump rather than a victim. While Trump pulls the curtain back and reveals things (like how Republicans want to make it harder to vote), it is unlikely that one of his accomplices would end a social media post professing belief in Trump’s claims by revealing that they do not believe the lies they just professed to believe. Sorting out the accomplices from the victims would require access to such things as private emails and recordings, things that would be difficult and perhaps illegal to acquire. In general, the accomplices are not very interesting from an epistemic standpoint since they are lying. About the only thing interesting is the epistemic problem of discerning the accomplices from the victims. Now, on to the victims.

In this context, the victims of Trump are supporters who believe his lies. These victims can be further divided into those who would change their view of Trump if they realized he was lying and those who would still support him (that is, would become accomplices). Given that Trump lies badly and blatantly even when his lies are easily exposed, my main explanation as to why these victims believe him is that they are often basing their beliefs on an appeal to authoritarian. This fallacious reasoning has the following form:

 

Premise 1: Authoritarian leader L makes claim c.

Conclusion: Claim C is true.

 

The fact that an authoritarian leader makes a claim does not provide evidence or a logical reason that supports the claim. It also does not disprove the claim because accepting or rejecting a claim because it comes from an authoritarian would both be errors. The authoritarian could be right about the claim but, as with any fallacy, the error lies in the reasoning.

A silly math example illustrates why this is bad logic:

 

Premise 1: The dear leader claims that 2+2 =7.

Conclusion: The dear leader is right.

 

Since this is bad logic, it gets its power from psychological rather than logical factors. In this case, these factors are the psychological features of authoritarian personalities. An authoritarian leader is characterized by the belief that they have a special status as a leader. At the extreme, the authoritarian leader believes that they are the voice of their followers and that they alone can lead. Or, as Trump put it, “I alone can fix it.” Underlying this is the (false) belief that they possess exceptional skills, knowledge and ability. This causes them to make false claims and mistakes.

Since the authoritarian leader is reluctant to admit errors and limits, they must be dishonest to the degree they are not delusional and delusional to the degree they are not dishonest. Trump exemplifies this with his constant barrage of untruths and incessant bragging. These claims are embraced as true by his supporters who are victims.

An authoritarian leader like Trump desires followers and fortunately for him, there are those of the authoritarian follower type. While Trump’s accomplices make use of him and assist him, they know he is lying. The authoritarian follower believes that their leader is special, that the leader alone can fix things. Thus, the followers must buy into the leaders’ delusions and lies, convincing themselves despite the evidence to the contrary. Trump’s devoted supporters incorrectly believe him to be honest and competent.

Since Trump has failed often and catastrophically, his victims must accept the deceitful explanations put forth to account for them. This requires rejecting facts and logic.  These victims embrace lies and conspiracy theories—whatever supports the narrative of Trump’s greatness and success Those who do not agree with Trump are not merely wrong but are enemies.  The claims of those who disagree are rejected out of hand, and often with hostility and insults. Thus, the followers tend to isolate themselves epistemically—which is a fancy way of saying that nothing that goes against their view of the leader ever gets in. While this explains, in part, their belief in Trump’s lies it also helps explain how they can believe inconsistent (even contradictory) claims.

Someone who forms beliefs based on the appeal to authoritarian will accept what the authoritarian tells them as true. What justifies these beliefs in the minds of the victims is that the authoritarian made them. As such, they have no reason to consider other evidence and are effectively immune to arguments against these beliefs. After all, if the justification of a belief is a matter of it being a claim made by the authoritarian, then any other evidence or argument against that claim cannot impact its justification. The only things that could undermine the belief would be if the authoritarian told their followers to accept a new belief in place of the old (for example, the authoritarian saying that a once trusted minion is now an enemy) or if the victim stopped accepting the authoritarian for some reason.  So how does this enable inconsistent beliefs?

The answer is that it does so very easily. If the victim believes a claim because the authoritarian makes the claim and other factors are irrelevant, then consistency will not matter to that victim. These beliefs are not accepted because they are backed by evidence, and they are not subject to critical assessment. As such, it would not even occur to the victim to check the claims made by the authoritarian against each other to see if they are consistent or not: these claims are simply believed, and they are believed because the authoritarian makes them. In the case of Trump supporters who are victims, this seems to be what they are doing: they believe what Trump says because Trump says it and that is good enough. It must be; if they engaged in a honest assessment and searched for the truth, they would not believe Trump’s lies. While they might bring up “evidence” and “argue” when responding to critics of Trump, these are not good faith efforts since they do not believe based on evidence (because there is none) and they will refuse all evidence and arguments that go against these beliefs. Trump’s victims believing his lies about the election and insisting there is evidence of widespread fraud is an excellent example of this. The lack of evidence has no impact on their beliefs nor does the inconsistency of some of their beliefs because all that matters is what Trump says. This, of course, is a terrible epistemic system, although it is the foundation of authoritarianism (which is what Trumpism is, at least in part).

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with theories of knowledge. The name is derived from the Greek terms for episteme (knowledge) and logos (explanation). Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution, patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in defined populations. While the names of the two fields sound alike, they are obviously different. But I propose a subbranch of epistemology that could be called “epistemic epidemiology” or perhaps given a silly name like “epistidemology.” This subbranch would not be focused on the epistemic features of epidemiology (which would also be interesting). It would not be about knowledge of diseases but about diseases of knowledge.

These diseases of knowledge can include corruption or infection of normally healthy epistemic systems as well as epistemic systems that are fundamentally pathological in nature. One goal of this subbranch would be to work out descriptive accounts of various epistemic diseases as well as theories of how such diseases arise, spread, and do damage. There would also be descriptive accounts of epistemic systems that are inherently pathological. Of special interest would be the nature and causes of epistemepidemics which are widespread epistemic pathologies in populations.

This subbranch, I propose, should be more than descriptive. Like ethics (and medicine) it should also be prescriptive: epistemic pathologies should be analyzed with the aim of curing (or replacing) them, so that people can have healthy belief forming systems. As would be expected, doing prescriptive epistemology will involve disputes and controversies like those in ethics and arguments will be needed to defend claims about which epistemic systems are pathological and how they might be treated. Fortunately, there are already two established areas of thought that will be useful here.

One area is what epistemologists call the ethics of belief (thanks to William Clifford). This area deals with such matters as the moral obligations we might have when forming beliefs. In fact, it could be argued that there is no need for epistemic epidemiology since the ethics of belief already covers the normative aspects of epistemology. While this view is reasonable, while epistemic epidemiology includes normative components it also covers non-normative areas that are not covered by the ethics of belief. An obvious example is that the ethics of belief does not address questions of why pathological epistemologies can be so widespread. So, just as medical ethics and medical epidemiology are distinct, the same holds for the ethics of belief and epistemic epidemiology.

A second area is the realm of logic, with special attention on critical thinking methods. While people can engage in endless debates about epistemic theories, what counts as defective (even pathological) reasoning is well established. Someone who insists on forming beliefs based solely on rhetoric would be in error; someone who insists on forming beliefs based on fallacies would seem to be pathological (pun intended). As such, logic provides an excellent toolkit, much like medical techniques provide an excellent tool kit for medical epidemiologists.

There would certainly seem to be important roles in this field for findings from neuroscience, psychiatry, and psychology. For example, delusional disorder is a serious mental illness that has a profound impact on a person’s epistemic systems: they claim to have knowledge of something that is not true and will persist even in the face of evidence that should logically undermine their false belief. This is not to claim that all or even most false beliefs or epistemic flaws arise from mental illness but that the science of how such epistemically connected illnesses (might) work would be especially useful to addressing epistemic issues in general. Naturally, this matter must be addressed with due sensitivity and there is the obvious worry that the unscrupulous might weaponize claims about mental illness. Example of this sort of thing include when critics of President Trump are accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome or when Trump supporters are accused of being mentally ill because of their support for Trump. This is, of course, analogous to how people use claims of disease to demonize migrants.

While it is essential to guard against weaponizing epistemic epidemiology, it is also important to be willing to apply it to outbreaks of epistemic pathologies. To use a terrifying analogy, can you imagine what would happen if the response to a medical pandemic were hijacked by political ideology and the scientific response was derailed?  As with disease outbreaks, the appropriate approach is to not engage in demonizing those impacted but by taking an objective approach aimed at analyzing and (if possible) recommending treatments. While there have long been widespread epistemic pathologies, the rise of mass media and social media have enabled these pathologies to become pandemics, and some are global in nature. National and global conspiracy theories provide excellent examples of the likely presence of pathological epistemic systems, though it is worth considering that even healthy epistemic systems can generate many false beliefs.

As with addressing medical pandemics, addressing epistemic pandemics is essential for the health, safety, and well-being of humanity. While philosophers have long struggled to help inoculate people with good logic, we must accept that a global effort is needed to address what is now a global problem. The first step is the easiest, which is the creation of this subbranch of epistemology. 

Prior to Trump’s first victory mainstream Republicans attacked and criticized. His victory not only silenced almost all his conservative critics most became fawning Trump loyalists. Lindsey Graham provides an excellent example of Trump’s transformative power: he was polymorphed from a savage attacker to Trump’s attack dog. Few dared oppose him during his first term, such as John McCain and Mitt Romney. But the Republicans in congress now act in accord with his will and whims. There are a few surviving conservative critics of Trump, but they have proven politically irrelevant. This does make sense, as Trump is the logical result of decades of GOP strategies and efforts. If the Republican party were a Pokemon, Trump would be the final evolution of the party.

The surrender and assimilation of the Republican leadership was not surprising; the party focused on winning and holding power rather than developing and advancing meaningful policy goals. Whatever ideology once defined the party has become a devotion to power for the sake of power and profit. Under Trump, all talk of a balanced budget, all worries about deficits and have ceased.  What is more interesting is the impact Trump has had on his followers.

When Joe Walsh  made a futile effort to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination. During his effort, he asked Trump supporters if Trump has every lied. They said that he had not. Walsh brought up Trump’s criticism of Obama playing golf and Trump’s claim that he would be too busy as president to play golf. While most people did not care about, some insisted Trump had never played golf as president. His supporters also believed that hundreds of miles of the wall had been built and paid for by Mexico and that the Democrats in congress are treasonous liars.  Walsh closed by noting that he “…realized once and for all that nobody can beat Trump in a Republican primary. Not just because it’s become his party, but because it has become a cult, and he’s a cult leader. He doesn’t have supporters; he has followers. And in their eyes, he can do no wrong.” This raised some interesting philosophical concerns.

Some might respond by saying “what about the Democrats?” and accuse them of being a cult. While one could debate political cults, this “what about” would (as always) be irrelevant. Even if the Democrats were a cult, this would prove or disprove nothing about Republicans. My concern is with looking at the epistemology and thinking of the voters Walsh encountered.

One possible explanation is that Trump voters have normal epistemic abilities and hold to true beliefs but are lying in this case. They believe that Trump lies, that the wall was not paid for by Mexico and so on. People often lie in support of people they like, especially when they think those people are being attacked. This is a matter of ethics: believing that it is right to lie in defense of someone you support especially when speaking their opponent. While subject to moral assessment, this need not be cultish. After all, people will lie to defend their friends.

A second explanation is that these voters’ epistemic abilities and critical thinking skills have always been defective and they are unusually bad at forming true beliefs and critically assessing claims. This could be due to various biases and the usual reasons people fall victim to fallacies and rhetoric. But this need not be cultish since believing false things because of epistemic defects or failures in critical thinking is a common occurrence. On this explanation, Trump supporters are wrong, but they are not wrong because of being cultists. Rather, they are following Trump because they are wrong.

A third explanation is that these voters’ epistemic abilities and critical thinking skills have been corrupted by Trump’s influence. That is, they reject the rational methods of forming beliefs and critical thinking in favor of believing in Trump because Trump tells them to believe in him. They are wrong because they are following Trump. In this case, they might be cultists. They would be accepting a “Trump command theory” in what Trump says is true is true because Trump says so and what Trump says is false because Trump says so. If this explanation is correct, Trump is shaping the perceived reality of his followers. They are not lying to defend him or themselves, they are true believers in Trump’s false description of the world. That is, they are a cult with a charismatic leader.

 

In philosophy, there are many varieties of skepticism which are distinguished mainly by their degree of doubt. A relatively mild case of skepticism usually involves doubts about metaphysical claims. A rabid skeptic would doubt everything, even their own existence.

While philosophers have attempted to defeat skepticism, these attempts seem to have failed. This is not surprising as skepticism seems unbreakable. The arguments for skepticism have an ancient pedigree and can be distilled into two simple arguments.

The first addresses the possibility of justifying a belief and attacks the view that knowledge requires a belief that is true and justified. If a standard of justification is presented, then there is the question of what justifies this standard. If an answer is given, the question can be raised to infinity and beyond. If no justification is offered, then there is no reason to accept the standard. Either way, skepticism remains undefeated.

The second argument is that any reasonable argument that we can have knowledge can be countered by an equally reasonable argument against it.  Some folks, such as Chisholm, have contended we should assume we have knowledge and begin epistemology from that point. However, this seems to be on par with grabbing the first-place trophy without bothering to compete. But perhaps he is right and the only way to “beat” the skeptic is to assume they are wrong.

Like most philosophers, I tend to follow David Hume’s approach to skepticism in the normal parts of my life. I am not a skeptic when I am doing my taxes, suffering through a committee meeting, or eating pizza. However, like a useless friend, skepticism shows up when it is not needed. It would be nice if skepticism could be defeated or a least rendered irrelevant.

Our good dead friend John Locke has an interesting approach to skepticism. While, like Descartes, he wanted certainty, he settled for a practical approach to skepticism. After acknowledging that our faculties cannot provide certainty, he asserted that what matters is being able to use our faculties for our preservation and wellbeing.

Jokingly, he challenges “the dreamer” to put his hand into a furnace. This would, he claims, wake him “to a certainty greater than he could wish.” More seriously, Locke contends that our concern is not with achieving epistemic certainty. Rather, what matters is our happiness and misery. While Locke can be accused of taking an easy out rather than engaging the skeptic in a battle of certainty or death, his approach is appealing. As I have accumulated numerous injuries that I feel while running, I will use them to illustrate my view.

When I set out on a run, I can feel all the damage I’ve accumulated over the years. While I cannot be certain that I have a body with a spine and nerves, no amount of skeptical doubt makes the pain go away. In terms of feeling the pain, it does not matter whether I am a pained brain in a philosophical vat, being deceived by a demon, stuck in the Matrix or really a runner in the real world. In all these scenarios, I would be in pain, and this is what matters. I also enjoy running; the pain is mild and fades quickly.

When I run, it seems I am moving in a three-dimensional world. Since I live in Florida (or what seems to be Florida) I usually feel warm and get that Florida feel on the run. I will also eventually be thirsty and some fatigue. Once again, it does not seem to matter much if this is real. Whether I am really bathed in sweat or a brain bathed in some sort of nutrient fluid, the run will feel the same to me. As I run, I take pains to avoid cars, trees and debris. While I do not know if they are real, I have experienced what it is like to be hit by a car (or as if I was hit by a car) and experience involving falling (or the appearance of falling). In terms of navigating through my runs, it does not matter whether it was real. If I knew for sure that my run was really real for real that would not change the run. If I somehow knew it was all an illusion that I could never escape, I would still run for the sake of the experience of running. After all, even in the Matrix I would still have time to fill. As such, while skepticism cannot be defeated, it does not matter in terms of how I would live my life.

My view that skepticism does not matter might seem a odd. After all, when the hero (or victim) of a story finds out that they are in a virtual reality what usually follows is disillusionment and despair. Intuitively, it does matter whether the skeptic is right because if what I do is not real, it does not matter.

One way to support this view is to use the illustration of a dream: if I dream that I won a gold medal in the Olympics, this means nothing. I have not really won, and it would be bizarre to brag about winning a medal in a dream. They would refute my prideful boasting with the obvious counter: you did not win for real.

As another illustration, imagine that I am see a baby being swept away in a flood. I rush into the water and save the baby, only to find out that it is a realistic plastic doll. While I could be said to have acted bravely (albeit in ignorance), if I claimed I saved a child, I would be dismissed. Retrieving the plastic might make me an eco-hero, but it would not make me a hero because the “baby” was not real.

So, if my life is not real, everything I do is like that Olympic dream and all my good deeds are like rescuing that piece of plastic. So, the skeptic must be defeated if life is to have any meaning. This, shows that it does matter whether skepticism is right. While this objection is formidable, there is a reasonable reply.

My view of what matters in life has been shaped by years of gaming. These include tabletop games (BattleTech, Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, etc.) and video games (Zork, Doom, Starcraft, Warcraft, Destiny, Halo, Diablo, etc.). When I am pretending to be a paladin, the Master Chief, or a Guardian, I know I am doing something that is not really real for real. However, the game can be enjoyable or unpleasant. This enjoyment or suffering is as real as enjoyment or suffering caused by what is supposed to be really real for real—though I believe these are just games game. Knowing that I am “just” playing games does not diminish the value of the experience, although I concede that what I do in a game does not make me heroic or a “winner” in the “real” world.

If I knew that I was trapped in an inescapable virtual reality, then I would simply keep playing the game as gaming is what I do. It would get boring if I stopped playing. If I somehow knew that I was in the really real world for real, I would obviously just keep doing what I am doing.

 Since I might be trapped in a virtual reality or I might not, the rational thing to do is keep playing as if it is really real for real. That is the most sensible option in this dilemma. In practical terms, the reality of the world I think I exist in does not matter. The skeptic does not need to be refuted for life to be meaningful. After all, gaming can be meaningful. The play, as they say, is the thing.

Some of Trump’s followers claim divine intervention saved him during the shooting in which Corey Comperatore died protecting his family. Trump initially credited himself, explaining he had turned his head to look at a chart and thus narrowly avoided death. He soon embraced the narrative that God had saved him. While there are psychological and theological issues here, my focus will be on the philosophical aspects of the issue of whether God saved Trump.

Looked at philosophically, three of the domains of concern are epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. A key epistemic issue is how one would know whether God saved Trump. The metaphysical challenge is sorting out the mechanics of reality and divine intervention. The ethical aspect is the classic problem of evil or, in this case, the problem of good. I will start with epistemology.

The details of the shooting have been reconstructed in detail,  but the key facts are that Trump suffered a minor wound to his ear, Corey Comperatore was fatally wounded, and David Dutch and James Copenhaver were both critically wounded. Assuming the shooter was trying to hit Trump, Trump was lucky to escape with only a minor injury. That is, he survived as a matter of chance. Some of his followers are denying that it was chance and are claiming that God saved Trump. Some are even taking this as a sign that Trump is the chosen of God. From an epistemic standpoint, the key question here is: how do we know that God saved Trump? That is, what evidence is available that would prove divine intervention as opposed to alternative explanations, such as chance? I am asking these as serious epistemic questions.

One approach is to attribute the knowledge to some special epistemic ability possessed by some of Trump’s followers that enabled them to somehow know that God saved Trump.  They cannot point to any empirical evidence in the shooting that would prove this, but they know. They could appeal to divine revelation or other avenues of knowledge. The problem is, of course, that there is no way for anyone other than his epistemically special followers to have such knowledge. Which is certainly adequate for Trump’s purposes. On this view, the way divine intervention is determined is via a special epistemic capacity possessed only by dedicated followers of Trump. But what about everyone else? They would need to rely on more mundane means of discerning divine intervention.

I will assume that evidence of divine intervention would require something unusual that could not be better explained by alternatives. To illustrate this, I will present a few examples of how this process might work. They will also involve shootings.

Imagine that Margorie is at the range and sees that a shooter has set up some cans. The shooter aims at a Diet Coke can. One shot grazes the can and other shots hit nearby cans. Margorie tells you that God intervened to save the Diet Coke can. At first you think she is joking, but she is serious and starts talking about the can being the chosen of God. On the face of it, her claim would be absurd. We know that people often miss what they aim for, and these results are not unusual. They can be explained in purely mundane terms and there is no need to posit divine intervention.

Now imagine that Margorie is at the coast when someone is duck hunting. The hunter shoots at some ducks, grazing one with a pellet, killing another duck and wounding two others. Margorie tells you that, once again, God has intervened. This time, He has chosen to save one duck while letting another die and two more be wounded. She insists that God has chosen the duck. This would be absurd, since the fate of the ducks is explainable in mundane ways that do not require divine intervention.

It could be objected that my examples involve objects and animals, and God does not intervene for them. Given that Aquinas argued that it is no sin to kill animals, this does have appeal.  But we can turn to countless examples of people being slightly wounded rather than killed in situations that might have resulted in their death. This happens all the time in wars but is also something that happens in everyday life with hazards such as falling, vehicle accidents, workplace accidents, falling and so on. On any given day there are probably thousands of people who could have been killed but were only slightly injured. But these are usually not presented as cases of divine intervention. And, presumably, Trump’s followers cannot attribute these cases to divine intervention. After all, if God intervenes so much, then there would be nothing special about Trump’s survival and this would not be proof that he is chosen. It is also worth thinking about people who did not suffer even a slight injury in the shooting. There were many people around Trump who were not hurt at all, yet Trump’s followers do not say that God singled them out to spare them or that they are thus marked as chosen. This is only being applied to Trump, despite their being no evidence that his survival was beyond mundane explanation. On the face of it, the best explanation is that shooters can miss their targets and it just so happened that Trump was grazed while another person died, and two others were badly injured. There seems to be no miracle here. But what would divine intervention look like?

In the bible, divine intervention is usually presented as being clearly outside of the usual workings of the world. Things like the parting of the Red Sea, walking on water, curing of blindness, raising of the dead, destroying cities, and turning people into salt are good examples of divine intervention. As such, it would seem reasonable to expect that if God intervened to save Trump, this would be done in a suitably divine manner. This might have involved turning the shooter into salt or sending an angel to smite him. But nothing like that happened. It can, of course, be countered that God now does low-key interventions that are indistinguishable from cases in which He does not intervene. But the flaw with this response is that we would have no way to distinguish cases of divine intervention and we would be engaged in wishful thinking when attributing it to any outcome. As such, there is no evidence that God intervened to save Trump.

 

Trump and his allies have claimed that the Democrats are engaged in lawfare against him and are even proposing defunding those prosecuting Trump. Republicans have also promised to investigate what they claim is the weaponization of the legal system against Trump. Trump has even claimed that Biden planned to assassinate him. For his part, Trump has publicly stated that he plans to capture the justice department and turn it against Biden and other Democrats, showing that he has no objection to the weaponization of the legal system as such. This situation presents an interesting problem in critical thinking and epistemology.

The basic question is whether the claims about lawfare, assassination and weaponization are true. While I need to rely on publicly available information, I must infer that if Trump’s supporters had access to a smoking gun, then it would be all over Fox News and similar sources.

Let us, for the sake of the discussion, imagine a world in which Trump’s claims about lawfare, the weaponization of the legal system and even the assassination attempt are true. In this alternative reality, what would we expect to see? If Biden and the Democrats were engaged in the sort of lawfare and weaponization claimed, then you would expect that Trump would not be afforded the full due process of the legal system. After all, if they are engaged in the sort of behavior being claimed by Fox News and others, they would have no reason allow Trump to hold press conferences during his trial, the trial would not have been held publicly, he would not have been able to hire his own lawyer and so on. However, Trump was afforded due process and, in fact, was probably given some of the best treatment of any defendant in the history of the legal system.

If Biden planned on assassinating Trump and the FBI was deployed to take the shot, then Trump would be dead. After all, if they were sent to Florida to kill him and he was not there (as they already knew in our reality), they would presumably be willing to travel to him to complete the mission. Unless, of course, we assume the FBI in that reality are bad at knowing where Trump is and are too lazy to try again after failing to find him.

Somewhat ironically, if you reflect even briefly on the claims being advanced by Trump and his allies, then you would need to infer that Biden and the Democrats have no compunctions against using the legal system against Trump. As such, they should be behaving like those Trump and his allies compare them to, such as the Soviet Union and various dictatorships. But they are not. To bring up the most obvious fact, Trump is still free to raise money, conduct rallies, give interviews and so on as he runs for president. That is, he and his allies disprove their claims every day.  

Given that Trump’s allies and supporters are not stupid, I can only infer that they know these claims are false while they pretend they are true. In sum, if the claims about Biden and the Democrats weaponizing the legal system were true, Trump would be in prison and not running for President. If the assassination attempt claim were true, Trump would have not been able to make it because he would have been dead. And he and his allies know this.

Continuing with our alternative reality, in a world in which Democrats were weaponizing the legal system as Trump and his allies claim, they would obviously not allow the legal system to prosecute important Democrats and would certainly not allow Hunter Biden, the president’s son, to face trial. They would also not allow Bob Menendez to be tried. However, the department of justice seems to be relatively bi-partisan in that Democrats and Republicans are both occasionally tried and convicted. But all this is true in our world, indicating that the Democrats are not doing what Trump and his allies claim. One could respond that Biden and the Democrats are so cunning and evil that they are allowing Trump to run for president and sacrificing Hunter Biden, Bob Menendez and other Democrats as part of a clever plan. But that is obviously absurd. Again, if the Democrats are as bad a Trump and his allies claim, Trump would be in prison (or dead), Hunter Biden would not have faced trial, and important Democrats would be safe from the legal system (well, safer). There is also the obvious fact that if the Democrats were willing and able to do this to Trump, they would also use the legal system against Republicans across the country. For example, Marjorie Taylor Green would presumably also be on trial for something. As such, ever day shows that these claims by Trump and his allies are lies.

As noted earlier, if we infer that Trump’s allies and supporters believe these claims, we will need to conclude that they are incapable of even the most basic inferences from the readily available evidence. As such, the best explanation is that this is political theater—they all know it is make believe, but are playing along and using it to spin narratives and raise money. Given that Trump plans to turn the Department of Justice against his opponents and enemies, this all could be a rationalization for his planned weaponization, and this is a rationalization his followers and allies could embrace to “justify” when this happens. What is probably the most ironic is that Trump being elected president in 2024 would be the most conclusive proof that he has been lying all along and this seems to be ever more likely.