Beyond Belief

On Disinformation and Manipulation

Bibliographic Data

ID21461640
AuthorsKeith Raymond Harris (0000-0002-2278-9028, Ruhr University Bochum, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume90
Issue2
Pages483-503
Publication date2025-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueErkenntnis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-0106 • E-ISSN: 1572-8420
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10670-023-00710-6
OpenAlexW4382752644
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited67

Existing analyses of disinformation tend to embrace the view that disinformation is intended or otherwise functions to mislead its audience, that is, to produce false beliefs. I argue that this view is doubly mistaken. First, while paradigmatic disinformation campaigns aim to produce false beliefs in an audience, disinformation may in some cases be intended only to prevent its audience from forming true beliefs. Second, purveyors of disinformation need not intend to have any effect at all on their audience’s beliefs, aiming instead to manipulate an audience’s behavior through alteration of sub-doxastic states. Ultimately, I argue that attention to such non-paradigmatic forms of disinformation is essential to understanding the threat disinformation poses and why this threat is so difficult to counter

Disinformation · Epistemology · Internet privacy · Ontology · Political science · Social media · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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Open DOIOpen Access