an insomniac puzzle

Rather than lie sleeplessly in bed, I thought I would instead share the source of my insomniac puzzlement here:

 

Let's say that concepts or categories (I will use the terms interchangeably) have instances, and, moreover, that the instances of a concept can be good or bad instances, that is, instances can exemplify to a greater or lesser degree the excellences that would belong to a paradigm exemplar instance of the category. (There can be instances of pencils. These instances might be more or less worthy as the sorts of writing instruments which pencils will ideally be. Some pencils are dull, or have points which break easily, or are too light; other pencils are sharp, and keep their point tolerably well, and leave an appropriately dark mark on the paper. The former sorts of pencils are good/better examples of pencils, the latter are bad/worse examples.) We can, in other words, distinguish bad from good (or better from worse) instances of a category. If you reflectively introspect, you will find that the ground of this distinction is given in nothing but the very category itself. (To judge our dull, easily-broken pencil as a bad pencil, we do not need to appeal to any idea other than the idea of a pencil itself.) It appears, then, that a category can get inside of itself for the purpose of making sub-distinctions / sub-categorizations, as between good or bad instances of itself. How is this possible?

 

(The problem would go away if we said, for example, that the bad instances of a category are not really instances of that category. But I don't think this move is really open to us, as convenient as it would nevertheless be; on reflection, you will not be able to shake the impression that bad pencils are still, for all that they are bad, nevertheless pencils.)

 

will someone read this and give me a report?

This article (found while browsing SSRN) looks interesting, but I am too busy (job-hunting, among other things) to read it at the moment. Maybe someone out there will summarize it for me? From the abstract:

Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.

(Also, if anyone out there has any leads to any hot jobs, please drop me a line!)