Questions like “What does this mean?” are central to our encounters with art. “How are these signs connected?” or “how do all symbols fit into an unstated scheme?” are the foundational concerns of aesthetics. Yet, when the same concerns crop up regularly in almost any other part of life, we give a clinical, pathological name: paranoia.

These questions were the makings of ⁠Paranoia⁠, a symposium held at Verdurin in February 2025.

This episode is a recording of a talk by Justin Smith-Ruiu. Justin reflects on how conspiracy-quashing slogans like ‘trust the science’ are, in fact, only functional under very specific conditions. The procedures invoked by fact-checkers and disinformation specialists may already be in the first phase of their obsolescence.

Justin also touches on his recent dabblings in metafiction – in particular their experimentation with pseudonyms and heteronyms via his publication The Hinternet. This project proposes a way for writers to induce in readers a suspicion that the most basic anchors of a text, like the name of its author, might just be a lie.

Justin is a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the Université Paris Cité. He is the author of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is and Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason.

He has authored monographs on Leibniz and Early Modern Philosophy. He is also a contributor to The New York Times, Harper’s, n+1, and The Point.

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⁠The Paranoia programme in full⁠.

⁠More events at Verdurin⁠.

Justin's Irrationality.