James H. Fetzer


James Henry Fetzer is a former professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a conspiracy theorist. In the late 1970s, Fetzer worked on assessing and clarifying the forms and foundations of scientific explanation, probability in science, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of cognitive science, especially artificial intelligence and computer science.
In the early 1990s, Fetzer began to promote John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, later 9/11 conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories regarding the 2002 death of Senator Paul Wellstone and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories since the multiple fatalities in 2012. He cofounded Scholars for 9/11 Truth in 2005, and claims that the United States government, Israeli government and Israeli Mossad are involved in these and other conspiracies. Fetzer's allegations and speculations have drawn strong criticism. In October 2019, a Wisconsin court ordered Fetzer to pay the father of a Sandy Hook victim $450,000 in a defamation case.

Early life

Fetzer was born in Pasadena, California, on December 6, 1940, to a father who worked as an accountant in a welfare office in Los Angeles County, and grew up in a neighboring city, Altadena.
After his parents' divorce, Fetzer moved to La Habra Heights, California, with his brother, mother, and stepfather. His mother died from suicide when he was 11, and he went to live with his father and stepmother.
Following Fetzer's graduation from South Pasadena High School, he studied philosophy at Princeton University and graduated magna cum laude in 1962 where his undergraduate thesis, under the supervision of Carl G Hempel, won The Dickinson Prize. He then joined the United States Marine Corps, and was second lieutenant in an artillery unit. In the early 1960s, he was stationed at Okinawa, Japan. During military service in the 1960s, Fetzer married, and divorced four years later, after having a son. He remarried in the 1970s while teaching at the University of Kentucky.
In 1966, soon after promotion to captain, he resigned to enter graduate school. Having attained a master's degree from Indiana University, he studied at Columbia University for a year, then returned to Indiana University and in 1970 gained a PhD in history of science and philosophy of science.

Career

He became an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky in 1970, and received the University of Kentucky Student Government's first Distinguished Teaching Award in 1973. He was denied tenure at Kentucky in 1977, and spent the next ten years in visiting positions at the University of Virginia, University of Cincinnati, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and University of South Florida. After ten years without a tenure-track position, in 1987 he was hired as a tenured full professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth. In 1996 Fetzer received a Distinguished McKnight University Professorship from the University of Minnesota, a title that recipients retain until they retire from the University. He retired in 2006.
In the late 1970s, Fetzer received a National Science Foundation fellowship, and contributed a chapter to a book on Hans Reichenbach. In 1990, Fetzer received the Medal of the University of Helsinki. He assisted theorists in computer science, and joined the debate over proper types of inference in computing. In the late 1990s, Fetzer was called to organize a symposium on philosophy of mind, and authored textbooks on cognitive science and artificial intelligence. He is an expert on philosopher Carl G. Hempel.
Fetzer published over 100 articles and 20 books on philosophy of science and philosophy of cognitive science, especially of artificial intelligence and computer science. In 2002, Fetzer wrote Consciousness Evolving, a collection of studies on the past, the present, and the future of consciousness. The book is divided into three sections: how and why consciousness evolved, special consciousness capacities such as language, creativity, and mentality, and the prospects for artificial consciousness. He founded the international journal Minds and Machines, which he edited for 11 years, and founded the academic library Studies in Cognitive Systems, of which he was series editor. He founded the Society for Machines & Mentality. Near and after retirement, Fetzer remained a contributor to as well as cited or republished in philosophy of science and cognitive science volumes and encyclopedias.

Promotion of conspiracy theories

Fetzer alleges government conspiracies include an involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy. He believes Kennedy's assassination was "a government hit job" and "the Zapruder film is a fake". With Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs, Fetzer claimed that the 2002 airplane crash that killed US Senator Paul Wellstone was an assassination "by an out-of-control Republican cabal under the direction of" Karl Rove.
Fetzer has alleged the 9/11 attacks were treasonable, and called for the military overthrow of President George W. Bush. He has asserted that the World Trade Center buildings collapsed by controlled demolitions or by high-tech weaponry, although his speculative assertions have drawn further critical attention. In 2005, with Steven E. Jones, Fetzer co-founded Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Jovian Byford criticized Fetzer's speculations that Jews or Israel were involved in a conspiracy to commit the 9/11 attacks as "a contemporary variant of the old, antisemitic conspiracist canard about the disloyalty of Jews and their usurpation of power in the name of communal interests and the accumulation of wealth."
An article by Fetzer published by Iranian state-run Press TV and conspiracy theory and fake news website Veterans Today titled "Did Mossad death squads slaughter American children at Sandy Hook?" was described in January 2013 by Oliver Kamm in The Jewish Chronicle as "monstrous, calumnious, demented bilge" that "violates all bounds of decency". Fetzer was a member of the Advisory Board of Veterans Today in 2013. In 2015, Fetzer published a book titled Nobody Died at Sandy Hook: It Was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control. Leonard Pozner, father of Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner, sued Fetzer and his co-author, Mike Palacek, for defamation in a Dane County, Wisconsin court. In June 2019, circuit judge Frank Remington found that Fetzer and Palacek had defamed the Pozners, with damages to be awarded at an October 2019 trial. On October 16, 2019, a jury in Wisconsin awarded Leonard Pozner $450,000 for defamation. Pozner’s son Noah, 6, was the youngest person killed during the mass shooting that left 26 people dead, including 20 children around Noah’s age. The book's publisher, Moon Rock Books, personally apologized to the Pozners and agreed to take the book out of circulation.
Fetzer contributed the foreword for a book entitled Breaking The Spell by Nicholas Kollerstrom, a work of Holocaust denial. Fetzer himself has said of the Holocaust: "My research on the Holocaust narrative suggests that it is not only untrue but probably false and not remotely scientifically sustainable."
In 2013, officials of the University of Minnesota said that "Fetzer has the right to express his views, but he also has the responsibility to make clear he's not speaking for the university." He is retired and no longer employed by the university.