Pseudophilosophy and Epistemic Unconsciousness

[Edited to ignore criticisms of academics tossed out without providing evidence for claimed errors.]

"There are many kinds of pseudosciences: astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx. These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to be scientific and usually appear to comment on the same kind of things that science does. However, upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is revealed to be bullshit: it is indifferent to the truth." ... Pseudoscientific beliefs are deficient because "they’re formed in an epistemically unconscientious way. That’s to say, these beliefs are made from culpably confused and uninformed reasoning."

Problematically, "most of us are lacking in epistemic conscientiousness, at least sometimes and to some extent. ... A good rule of thumb for being conscientious is to keep an eye out for classical fallacies such as ad hominem, straw man, false dilemma and cherry-picking. Such fallacies occur in all kinds of contexts, but in pseudoscience they occur more systematically.

However, propounding distorted beliefs doesn’t necessarily presuppose insincerity or charlatanry. A charlatan is someone who has a hidden, usually profit-seeking, agenda and who is fundamentally indifferent to whether their beliefs are true. Often bullshit is produced without such insincerity, however, since one can care about the truth of one’s beliefs without taking care with respect to it.

Analogous to pseudoscience, is pseudophilosophy, in which someone makes claims with philosophical pretensions which on closer inspection turn out to be bullshit.

Roughly speaking, the difference between scientific and philosophical issues is that the latter aren’t in any straightforward way resolvable via empirical investigation. Whether there is a God, for example, or whether there are objective moral truths, are questions that have to be answered largely via a priori reflection, if at all.

There are two kinds of pseudophilosophy, one mostly harmless and the other insidious. The first variety is usually found in popular scientific contexts. This is where writers, typically with a background in the natural sciences, walk self-confidently into philosophical territory without realising it, and without conscientious attention to relevant philosophical distinctions and arguments. Often implicit empiricist assumptions in epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of language are relied upon as if they were self-evident, and without awareness of the threat that those very assumptions pose to the author’s own reasoning. We can call this phenomenon scientistic pseudophilosophy."

"While pseudoscience is particularly prone to causal fallacies and cherry-picking of data, the most common fallacy in obscurantist pseudophilosophy is equivocation. This fallacy exploits ambiguities in certain key terms, where plausible but trivial claims lend apparent credibility to interesting but controversial ones. When challenged, the obscurantist will typically retreat to the safe house provided by the trivial interpretation of his claims, only to reoccupy the controversial ground once the critic has left the scene."

https://psyche.co/ideas/pseudophilosophy-encourages-confused-self-indulgent-thinking .