Appeal to Popular OpinionPenn State Press, 1999 - 289 páginas Arguments from popular opinion have long been regarded with suspicion, and in most logic textbooks the ad populum argument is classified as a fallacy. Douglas Walton now asks whether this negative evaluation is always justified, particularly in a democratic system where decisions are based on majority opinion. In this insightful book, Walton maintains that there is a genuine type of argumentation based on commonly accepted opinions and presumptions that should represent a standard of rational decision-making on important issues, especially those of a personal and political nature. He shows how to judge arguments based on appeals to popular opinion in a more balanced way, identifying eleven subtypes of the ad populum argument and providing a pragmatic method to evaluate each of these types. Walton has examined dozens of logic texts and drawn on a wide range of literature to reveal the many uses and misuses of popular opinion. He contrasts the traditional discussion of ad populum in Greek rhetoric with recent textbook treatment, then contrasts these contemporary views with his own dialectical perspective in order to clarify often confused appeals to prejudice and appeals to common knowledge. Although appeal to popular opinion has long been a powerful argumentative tactic, this is the first book to systematically describe and evaluate it as a well-defined type of argument with its own special characteristics. It enables us to deal with these often deceptive arguments in a critically balanced way and makes an original contribution to an important strand of rhetoric. |
Contenido
16 19 22 24 26 2 2 2 2 27 | 10 |
Chapter One PUBLIC AND POPULAR OPINION | 10 |
Public Opinion Polls | 10 |
Why Do Public Opinion Polls Look Accurate? | 10 |
Push Polling | 10 |
The Tyranny of the Majority in American Democracy | 11 |
Worries of the Logic Textbooks | 13 |
Public Perceptions as Premises | 16 |
Chapter Six THE NEW DIALECTIC | 169 |
Persuasion Dialogue | 171 |
The Inquiry | 175 |
Negotiations and Quarrels | 178 |
InformationSeeking Dialogue | 182 |
Deliberation | 184 |
Dialectical Relevance | 186 |
Relevance of Ad Populum Arguments | 188 |
The Meaning of Public Opinion | 19 |
The Meaning of Popular Opinion | 22 |
The Difference Between Public and Popular Opinion | 24 |
The Problem with Arguments Based on Popular Opinion | 27 |
Chapter Two INFERENCES AND FALLACIES | 33 |
The Gore Vidal Case | 34 |
The Jury Deliberation Case | 36 |
The Golden Rule Case | 37 |
The Falling Objects Case | 43 |
The Inquisition Case | 45 |
The Mark Antony Case | 48 |
Inflammatory Language | 51 |
How the Ad Populum Is Used to Manipulate Opinions | 54 |
Appeal to Expert Opinion | 56 |
Chapter Three THE STANDARD TREATMENT | 61 |
Origins of the Ad Populum | 62 |
Early Modern Textbooks | 65 |
19351959 | 68 |
19611968 | 72 |
Cracks in the Surface 6 Broadening the Ad Populum | 77 |
The Dual Approach | 85 |
33 | 88 |
The Unifying Form | 91 |
Summary of Developments | 94 |
Chapter Four PRESUMPTIONS COMMON STARTING POINTS AND PUBLIC JUDGMENT | 97 |
Bandwagon and MobAppeal Arguments | 98 |
Are Ad Populum Arguments Fallacious? | 100 |
Premise Adequacy of Dialectical Arguments | 103 |
Conflicts with Expert Opinion | 106 |
Common Starting Points | 109 |
The Status of Presumptions | 112 |
Presumptive Reasoning in Dialectical Arguments | 116 |
Popular Opinion and Common Knowledge | 119 |
Chapter Five THE OLD DIALECTIC | 129 |
Platonic Dialectic | 130 |
Aristotelian Dialectic | 133 |
Endoxic Premises | 138 |
Seneca on Ad Populum Arguments | 144 |
Eikotic Arguments | 148 |
The Medieval Period | 152 |
The Shift Away from Dialectic | 155 |
Consensus Gentium Arguments | 158 |
The Antiskeptical Dilemma and Pascals Wager | 161 |
Toward a New Dialectic | 166 |
Persuasion Dialogue and Public Policy | 191 |
The New Perspective on Evaluation | 193 |
Chapter Seven AD POPULUM SUBTYPES | 195 |
The MobAppeal Subtype | 196 |
The Pop Scheme | 199 |
Position to Know | 201 |
Informed Deliberation | 205 |
Moral Justification | 207 |
Popular Sentiments | 209 |
Mass Opinion and Public Judgment 10 The Two Faces of the Ad Populum 54 56 | 212 |
The Rhetoric of Belonging | 217 |
Structure of the MobAppeal Subtype | 220 |
Summary of Subtypes | 223 |
Chapter Eight A NEW BASIS FOR EVALUATION | 229 |
Evaluation as Contextual | 230 |
to | 231 |
Evaluation as Dependent on Identification | 232 |
Bolstering and Critical Questions | 234 |
Seeking a Basis for Acceptance in Persuasion Dialogue | 236 |
The Maxim of Nondisputativeness | 238 |
Dialectical Bias in Argumentation | 241 |
Mob Rhetoric and Mass Enthusiasm | 243 |
Appeal to Snobbery and Vanity | 247 |
Identification and Analysis | 249 |
The Four Steps of an Evaluation | 250 |
Chapter Nine WHEN IS IT A FALLACY? | 253 |
Public Opinion Polls and Fallacies | 257 |
Ad Populum Appeals in Commercial Ads | 261 |
34 | 263 |
Two Explanations of the Fallacy | 265 |
Hastily Jumping to a Conclusion | 267 |
Evaluating the Golden Rule Case | 269 |
Divisive Rhetoric in MobAppeal Arguments | 271 |
Three Types of Ad Populum Fallacy | 273 |
Evaluation for Fallaciousness | 274 |
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