Psychological studies on fictional persuasion demonstrate that being engaged with fiction systematically affects our beliefs about the real world, in ways that seem insensitive to the truth. This threatens to undermine the widely accepted view that beliefs are essentially regulated in ways that tend to ensure their truth, and may tempt various non-doxastic interpretations of the belief-seeming attitudes we form as a result of engaging with fiction. I evaluate this threat, and argue that it is benign. Even if (...) the relevant attitudes are best seen as genuine beliefs, as I think they often are, their lack of appropriate sensitivity to the truth does not undermine the essential tie between belief and truth. To this end, I shall consider what I take to be the three most plausible models of the cognitive mechanisms underlying fictional persuasion, and argue that on none of these models does fictional persuasion undermine the essential truth-tie. (shrink)

In this chapter we argue that some beliefs present a problem for the truth-aim teleological account of belief, according to which it is constitutive of belief that it is aimed at truth. We draw on empirical literature which shows that subjects form beliefs about the real world when they read fictional narratives, even when those narratives are presented as fiction, and subjects are warned that the narratives may contain falsehoods. We consider Nishi Shah’s teleologist’s dilemma and a response (...) to it from Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen which appeals to weak truth regulation as a feature common to all belief. We argue that beliefs from fiction indicate that there is not a basic level of truth regulation common to all beliefs, and thus the teleologist’s dilemma remains. We consider two objections to our argument. First, that the attitudes gained through reading fiction are not beliefs, and thus teleologists are not required to account for them in their theory. We respond to this concern by defending a doxastic account of the attitudes gained from fiction. Second, that these beliefs are in fact appropriately truth-aimed, insofar as readers form beliefs upon what they take to be author testimony. We respond to this concern by suggesting that the conditions under which one can form justified beliefs upon testimony are not met in the cases we discuss. Lastly, we gesture towards a teleological account grounded in biological function, which is not vulnerable to our argument. We conclude that beliefs from fiction present a problem for the truth-aim teleological account of belief. (shrink)

Video news releases (VNRs) have been criticized when they are used within a newscast without source disclosure because they violate ethical codes related to transparency and consumers' “right to be informed” by whom they are being persuaded. In an experiment, we show how increased persuasion knowledge about VNRs is positively related to beliefs in news commercialization, beliefs in VNR inappropriateness without disclosure, and support for disclosure of VNR material. We suggest that increased knowledge about VNRs without source disclosure (...) measures might harm messages that are not employing the tactic (“false positives”) and lead to a general distrust of all media. (shrink)

Persuasion is an important and yet complex aspect of human intelligence. When undertaken through dialogue, the deployment of good arguments, and therefore counterarguments, clearly has a significant effect on the ability to be successful in persuasion. Two key dimensions for determining whether an argument is “good” in a particular dialogue are the degree to which the intended audience believes the argument and counterarguments, and the impact that the argument has on the concerns of the intended audience. In this paper, we (...) present a framework for modelling persuadees in terms of their beliefs and concerns, and for harnessing these models in optimizing the choice of move in persuasion dialogues. Our approach is based on the Monte Carlo Tree Search which allows optimization in real-time. We provide empirical results of a study with human participants that compares an automated persuasion system based on this technology with a baseline system that does not take the beliefs and concerns into account in its strategy. (shrink)

This text aims to provide a contribution to the analysis of beliefs and, through the elaboration of the notion of good reasons, to make a significant contribution to the theory of rationality. It examines the main theories that have been used in the social sciences and psychology for the explanation of beliefs. The author develops a particular model which enables him to show that people often have good reasons to believe in false ideas. The central idea of this (...) model is that people often draw controversial conclusions from valid arguments because they introduce implicit statements which they do not perceive, since they treat them - with good reasons - as self-evident. Hence they can hold doubtful, or even false, conclusions and regard them as solidly grounded. Boudon shows that this model can be used to reinterpret many findings from the sociology of religion and the sociology of knowledge, as well as from cognitive psychology. (shrink)

Is contemporary media society still interested in truth? This paper will try to unravel the vaguely suspicious epistemic relationship between information marketers and information consumers in today's society. There seems to have been forged a feeling of quasi-omniscience within the private and public spheres wherein people, due to the sheer volume of inforntation readily accessible for viewing at any time, become predisposed to exhibit an intriguingly relaxed relationship with knowledge. If the current systems of information seem to trivialize the question (...) of truth or falsehood, and since the public is apparently just interested in spectacles, then how must we view epistemologically the status of contemporary media discourse? Does it still reveal truth or is it simply empry talk? To address this question, the paper explores a possible parallelism between Plato's critique of rhetoric in his dialogue, Gorgias, and Jean Baudrillard's critique of contemporary media society. (shrink)

The very existence of society depends on the ability of its members to influence formatively the beliefs, desires, and actions of their fellows. In every sphere of social life, powerful human agents (whether individuals or institutions) tend to use coercion as a favorite shortcut to achieving their aims without taking into consideration the non-violent alternatives or the negative (unintended) consequences of their actions. This propensity for coercion is manifested in the doxastic sphere by attempts to shape people’s beliefs (...) (and doubts) while ignoring the essential characteristics of these doxastic states. I argue that evidential persuasion is a better route to influence people’s beliefs than doxastic coercion. Doxastic coercion perverts the belief-forming mechanism and undermines the epistemic and moral faculties both of coercers and coercees. It succeeds sporadically and on short-term. Moreover, its pseudo doxastic effects tend to disappear once the use of force ceases. In contrast to doxastic coercion, evidential persuasion produces lasting correct beliefs in accordance with proper standards of evidence. It helps people to reach the highest possible standards of rationality and morality. Evidential persuasion is based on the principles of symmetry and reciprocity in that it asks all persuaders to use for changing the beliefs of others only those means they used in forming their own beliefs respecting the freedom of will and assuming the standard of rationality. The arguments in favor of evidential persuasion have a firm theoretical basis that includes a conceptual clarification of the essential traits of beliefs. Belief is treated as a hypercomplex system governed by Leibniz’s law of continuity and the principle of self-organization. It appears to be a mixture consisting of a personal propositional attitude and physical objects and processes. The conceptual framework also includes a typology of believers according to the standards of evidence they assume. In this context, I present a weak version of Clifford’ ethical imperative. In the section dedicated to the prerequisites for changing beliefs, I show how doxastic agents can infuse premeditated or planned changes in the flow of endogenous changes in order to shape certain beliefs in certain desired forms. The possibility of changing some beliefs in a planned manner is correlated with a feedback doxastic (macro-mechanism) that produces a reaction when it is triggered by a stimulus. In relation with the two routes to influence beliefs, a response mechanism is worth taking into consideration – a mechanism governed to a significant extent by human conscience and human will, that appears to be complex, acquired, relatively detached from visceral or autonomic information processing, and highly variable in reactions. Knowing increasingly better this doxastic mechanism, we increase our chances to use evidential persuasion as an effective (although not time-efficient) method to mold people’s beliefs. (shrink)

Political persuasion can express moral respect. In this article, however, I rely on two psychological assumptions to argue that political persuasion is generally prima facie disrespectful: (1) that we maintain our political beliefs largely for non-epistemic, personal reasons and (2) that our political beliefs are connected to our epistemic esteem. Given those assumptions, a persuader can either ignore the relevant personal reasons, explicitly address them, or implicitly address them. Ignoring those reasons, I argue, constitutes prima facie insensitivity. Explicitly (...) addressing them constitutes a form of prima facie incivility. Finally, implicitly addressing them covertly treats those personal reasons as psychological puppet strings, constituting prima facie objectionable manipulation. This prima facie insensitivity, incivility, and manipulation are each prima facie failures of respect, either for the persuadee’s rationality or for their agency. Political persuasion can sometimes be all-things-considered justified, but these moral hazards can produce reasonable guilt, resentment, and blowback. (shrink)

Persuasion is a special aspect of our social and linguistic practices – one where an interlocutor, or an audience, is induced, to perform a certain action or to endorse a certain belief, and these episodes are not due to the force of the better reason. When we come near persuasion, it seems that, in general, we are somehow giving up factual discourse and the principles of logic, since persuading must be understood as almost different from convincing rationally. Sometimes, for example, (...) we can find persuasion a political speech that relies on our feelings, emotions and values, but we can also find a persuasive person a dodger, busy in his own questionable activities that are intentionally performed in order to mislead and manipulate other people. However, I do not want to try to define a general notion of persuasion from the beginning. I would rather start with a conception that already has a place, even if controversial, in the philosophical debate. In particular, the version that I have always found particularly provocative is that provided by Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. This peculiar version of the idea of persuasion, which is often associated with the possibility of overcoming deep disagreements, is quite famous in the literature and often understood as indicating certain intrinsic limits of our reason-giving practices. The following are Wittgenstein’s famous remarks on persuasion: -/- 608. Is it wrong for me to be guided in my actions by the propositions of physics? Am I to say I have no good ground for doing so? Isn’t precisely this what we call a ‘good ground’? -/- 609. Suppose we met people who did not regard that as a telling reason. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it? If we call this “wrong” aren’t we using our language-game as a base from which to combat theirs? -/- 611. Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic. -/- 612. I said I would ‘combat’ the other man, – but wouldn’t I give him reasons? Certainly; but how far do they go? At the end of reasons comes persuasion. (Think what happens when missionaries convert natives.) -/- This paper is not devoted, as far as possible, to focus on interpretative matters about Wittgenstein’s late philosophy. Rather, it aims to investigate whether there are problems and incompatibilities between this particular conception of persuasion and our contemporary understanding of our reason-giving practices and of our belief-revision procedures. The first part of this study will be concerned about assessing this conception of persuasion and trying to shed new light on it (and on its consequences); most of the work here is done by looking at some truisms and normative features of our practices regarding the rational updating of our beliefs. It also addresses the question: Is the resistance to reasons of Wittgenstein’s persuasion capable to avoid the strict dynamics of belief revision? The second section of this study concerns the possibility of limiting the scope of this conception of persuasion, thanks to some of our contemporary ways of understanding rational discursive practices (I will focus especially on Robert Brandom’s game of “giving and asking for reasons”). If our rational practices require at least a certain degree of epistemic responsibility, then how is it possible that one invokes the end of reasons (that would explicitly mean giving up this responsibility)? A third section is the attempt, on this basis, to try to revise our contrasting conception(s) of persuasion (with an eye open on the near doxastic territory). Are there other conceptions of persuasion which are more compatible with our rational practices and do not entail any version of the “end of reasons” that are so compatible with our individual and social epistemic responsibility? (shrink)

Many of us hold false beliefs about matters that are relevant to public policy such as climate change and the safety of vaccines. What can be done to rectify this situation? This question can be read in two ways. According to the descriptive reading, it concerns which methods will be effective in persuading people that their beliefs are false. According to the normative reading, it concerns which methods we are permitted to use in the service of persuading people. (...) Some effective methods—a programme of brainwashing, say—would not be permissible. In this paper I compare “methods of rational persuasion” with what you might call “marketing methods” such as how one frames the problem of climate change. My aim is to show that “marketing methods” are preferable to “methods of rational persuasion”. My argument has two parts. First, I argue that the evidence suggests that “marketing methods” are more effective in persuading people to change their minds. Second, I argue that “marketing methods” are an acceptable response to the normative question. (shrink)

This paper aims at resolving a puzzle about the persuasiveness of bootstrapping. On the one hand, bootstrapping is not a persuasive method of settling questions about the reliability of a source. On the other hand, our beliefs that our sense apparatus is reliable is based on other empirically formed beliefs, that is, they are acquired via a presumably complex bootstrapping process. I will argue that when we doubt the reliability of a source, bootstrapping is not a (...) class='Hi'>persuasive method for coming to believe that the source is reliable. However, when being initially unaware of a source and its reliability, as in the case of forming beliefs about our sense apparatus, bootstrapping can be eventually persuasive. (shrink)

Publicity may be considered “covert marketing” when the audience believes the message was created by an independent source rather than the product marketer. We focus on one form of publicity—video news releases —which are packaged video segments created and provided for free by a third party to the news organization. VNRs are usually shown without source disclosure. In study one, viewers’ beliefs about and perceptions of credibility in a news story are altered when they acquire persuasion knowledge about VNRs (...) and learn that the source of the story was an unedited VNR. Study two results show similar patterns despite the fact that source disclosure of the story was provided on screen. Importantly, the perceived ethics of VNRs impact perceptions of credibility. (shrink)

In Plato’s Laws, the Athenian Stranger maintains that law should consist of both persuasion (πειθώ) and compulsion (βία) (IV.711c, IV.718b-d, and IV.722b). Persuasion can be achieved by prefacing the laws with preludes (προοίμια), which make the citizens more eager to obey the laws. Although scholars disagree on how to interpret the preludes’ persuasion, they agree that the preludes instill true beliefs and give citizens good reasons for obeying the laws. In this paper I refine this account of the preludes (...) by arguing that the primary purpose of the preludes is to motivate correct action, and that for citizens who lack rational-governance this is achieved via useful false beliefs. That is to say, in many cases, the prelude functions as a “noble lie” (γενναῖον ψεῦδος). (shrink)

Political persuasion can express moral respect. In this article, however, I rely on two psychological assumptions to argue that political persuasion is prima facie disrespectful: (1) that we maintain our political beliefs largely for non-epistemic, personal reasons and (2) that our political beliefs are connected to our epistemic esteem. Given those assumptions, a persuader can either ignore the relevant personal reasons, explicitly address them, or implicitly address them. Ignoring those reasons, I argue, constitutes prima facie insensitivity. Explicitly addressing (...) them constitutes a form of prima facie incivility. Finally, implicitly addressing them covertly treats those personal reasons as psychological puppet strings, constituting prima facie objectionable manipulation. This prima facie insensitivity, incivility, and manipulation are each prima facie failures of respect, either for the persuadee’s rationality or for their agency. Political persuasion can sometimes be all-things-considered justified, but these moral hazards can produce reasonable guilt, resentment, and blowback. (shrink)

Interpretations of Kant’s account of the forms of “taking-to-be-true” (Fürwahrhalten) have generally focused on three such forms: opinion (Meinung), belief (Glaube), and knowledge (Wissen). A second distinction that has received comparatively less attention is that between conviction (Überzeugung) and persuasion (Überredung). Kant appears to use the distinction between the subjective and the objective sufficiency of a taking-to-be-true to characterize all of these forms. However, it is impossible to account for the differences between them by relying on this latter distinction alone. (...) In turn, this makes it difficult to fit all of these forms into a single classification of taking-to-be-true. In this chapter, I propose a new approach to conviction and persuasion that dissolves these problems. Conviction and persuasion are not single forms of taking-to-be-true with distinctive characteristics, yet it is not useful to treat them as “classes” of taking-to-be-true either. Rather, they are “operators” that determine whether a taking-to-be-true is apt or inapt, depending on whether it rests on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. (shrink)

Two experiments are reported which investigate the factors that influence how persuaded mathematicians are by visual arguments. We demonstrate that if a visual argument is accompanied by a passage of text which describes the image, both research-active mathematicians and successful undergraduate mathematics students perceive it to be significantly more persuasive than if no text is given. We suggest that mathematicians’ epistemological concerns about supporting a claim using visual images are less prominent when the image is described in words. Finally (...) we suggest that empirical studies can make a useful contribution to our understanding of mathematical practice. (shrink)

Socrates does not use the Laws' Speech in the Crito principally to persuade Crito to accept his coming execution. It is used instead to persuade Crito to examine and work on his inadequate view of justice. Crito's view of justice fails to coordinate one's duties to friends and those to the law. The Laws' Speech accomplishes this persuasive goal by accompanying Crito’s earlier speech. Both start from the same view of justice, one that Crito accepts, but reach opposing conclusions. (...) Crito cannot judge between the two appealing speeches. His understanding of justice is too confused for him to decide well how to help Socrates. His need to explain what happened the morning he visited Socrates will prompt him and others to examine this indeterminate view of justice. Socrates foregoes direct refutation because Crito will not abide that usual way of interrogation. Engaging in short question-and-answer conversation is not the only way to bring a person to aporia and the intention to examine oneself. Socrates does not here undermine his assertions in the Apology about his ignorance, lack of interest in teaching, constant philosophizing, and his belief that what he does is question, examine, and test those he talks to. (shrink)

A revolutionary approach to rhetoric that asks why audiences need persuading. What is persuasion? For some, it is the ideal alternative to violence. For others, persuasion is simply a neutral instrumentality—a valued source of soft power. Both positions rest on a fundamental belief: persuasion is a power that resides in a speaker acting on an audience. Loving the World Appropriately asks a different, more fundamental, question: why does an audience need persuasion? In shifting our focus, James Kastely delivers a provocative (...) new history of rhetoric and philosophy, one that describes rhetoric as more than a matter of effective communication and recasts persuasion as a philosophical concern central to notions of human subjectivity. Ultimately, Kastely insists, persuasion enables us to love the world appropriately. (shrink)

Narrative persuasion, i.e. the impact of narratives on beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, and the mechanisms underpinning endorsement of conspiracy theories have both drawn substantial attention from social scientists. Yet, to date these two fields have evolved separately, and to our knowledge no study has empirically examined the impact of conspiracy narratives on real-world conspiracy beliefs. In a first study, we exposed a group of participants (n = 37) to an X-Files episode before asking them to fill in a (...) questionnaire related to their narrative experience and conspiracy beliefs. A control group (n = 41) had to answer the conspiracy beliefs items before watching the episode. Based on past findings of both the aforementioned lines of research, we hypothesized that the experimental group would show greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, an effect expected to be mediated by identification to the episodes’ characters. We furthermore hypothesized that identification would be associated with cognitive elaboration of the narrative information. The first two hypotheses were disproved since no narrative persuasion effect was observed. In a second study, we sought to replicate these results in a larger sample (n = 166). No persuasive effect was found in the new data and a bayesian meta-analysis of the two studies strongly supports the absence of a positive effect of exposure to narrative material on endorsement of conspiracy theories. In both studies, a significant relation between conspiracy mentality and enjoyment was observed. In the second study, this relation was fully mediated by two dimensions of perceived realism, i.e., plausibility and narrative consistency. We discuss our results, based on theoretical models of narrative persuasion and compare our studies with previous narrative persuasion studies. Implications of these results for future research are also discussed. (shrink)

The primacy in modern medical ethics of the principle of respect for autonomy has led to the widespread assumption that it is unethical to change someone’s beliefs, because doing so would constitute coercion or paternalism., In this Viewpoint we suggest that persuasion is not necessarily paternalistic and is an essential component of modern medical practice.

The author argues that the persuasive process is articulated within a dynamic linking beliefs and emotions. The different possible states of equilibrium balancing these two aspects define a persuasive process as more inherently rational or more inherently rhetorical. This latter, being marked by an immediate emotional participation, functions within a social context of the community type. It is dominated by an aesthetic form of communication, where epistemic belief proceeds out of a conformist adherence to the ethos of (...) the group. Its extreme form is represented by the discourse of propaganda. Linked to the epistemic structure of the rhetorical discourse there corresponds a moral structure of resentment and an authoritarian social structure. Although rational elements and emotional elements still coexist within concrete discourses, the possibility of distinguishing them in terms of autonomous functionalities represents the specific adjunct brought by philosophical reflection to the determination of the epistemic structure of persuasion. (shrink)

This study investigated patient preferences for various types of physician persuasion strategies. Four types of persuasion strategies were utilized which involved combination of high and low levels of affectivity and information. In addition, patient variables, receiver apprehension and health beliefs were introduced to predict preference choices by patients. Results indicated that patients are influenced in their decision-making (preferences) by the type of persuasive strategy employed. Further, patients with different characteristics and predispositions prefer different persuasive strategies. The results (...) of this study suggest that the success of physician persuasiveness is dependent upon the type of strategy used and the type of patient being persuaded. (shrink)

The rhetorical power of emotions came to philosophers’ attention early on in the Western tradition: emotions can exert a powerful effect on what an audience comes to believe or decides to do. It is has been surprisingly neglected since, despite abundant philosophical literature on the emotions. This paper focuses on the mechanisms and propriety of emotional persuasion. Our central focus is an apparent tension between two claims. Persuasion should succeed by getting people convinced on grounds that contribute to justifying their (...) inclination to favour what the speaker proposes; and It is not required that persuasion's methods be dispassionate. They seem in tension, and yet dropping either seems unattractive. In particular, dropping ‘ANTI-AUSTERITY’ could commit us to a position that tends to elevate further in public deliberation the contributions of already privileged voices, and to marginalise the less privileged. This paper highlights what we would need to believe, in order to hold these two claims together. In order for emotions to contribute to justification, I argue, they must be capable themselves of being epistemically justified, and of transmitting that epistemic justification to the beliefs to which they help give rise. This in turn requires that emotions have representational contents, involve the subject's accepting those contents as true, be candidates for epistemic justification, and be such that their contents can properly feature as premises in inferences that justify the subject in believing their conclusions. Such are the striking philosophical implications of some everyday observations about the persuasive use of emotions. (shrink)

The main goal of this study is to develop a conceptual framework meant (a) to present the essential traits of persuasion, (b) to explain resistance to persuasion (mainly when the persuader tries to shape, reinforce, or change an attitudinal response), and (c) to provide a feasible strategy to overcome the coping behaviors associated with resistance to persuasion. Defined as the communication process in which “someone makes other people believe or decide to do something, especially by giving them reasons why they (...) should do it, or asking them many times to do it”, persuasion ensures a noncoercive social control by shaping, reinforcing, or changing target audience’s cognitions, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Persuasion involves volitional behaviors (that are inextricably intertwined with spontaneous, impulsive, mindless, or compulsive behaviors) and a significant cognitive load. Even if persuasion does not elicit negative feelings like various shortcuts to compliance (coercion, bribery, deception, manipulation of the dominant instincts, etc.), it generates ipso facto resistance to persuasion. Public relations specialists and other communication professionals can reduce or cope with resistance to persuasion by creating a low-pressure persuasion context, using evidential reasons, and following evidential rules. (shrink)

This study analyzes the relation between cognitive and affective components of theory of mind in school-aged children and persuasion abilities. One-hundred forty-three normotypical school children aged 6 to 12 were administered cognitive and affective ToM tasks and one persuasion production task. A set of regression models showed that only the affective ToM component can predict both the persuasion total scores and all its indicators' scores. Children with a greater ability to attribute emotional mental states do not only produce a wider (...) variety of persuasive arguments but also arguments focused on the persuadee and those with mental-related content. Both Hidden Emotion and Belief-Emotion tasks have been predictive of persuasion total scores. This study provides data on specific contribution of cognitive ToM and affective ToM on indicators of variety and quality of persuasive arguments independently. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to show how methods rooted in formal logic may be used to analyze socially important processes of persuasion. A formal approach to the theory of persuasion enables us to thoroughly research issues crucial in everyday life such as: how we argue, why we quarrel, where we are efficient in persuasion, when do we win a negotiation, how we influence others’ decisions, and the kinds of argumentative strategies that are apt to yield more accurate (...) class='Hi'>beliefs for all parties involved.I concentrate on three aspects of persuasion practice: nature, success and cognitive value of argumentation process. From a logical perspective, I understand argumentation as reasoning which, after initiation through the opponent’s disagreement, is deployed by the proponent in order to persuade the audience to believe his thesis. Furthermore, I attempt to determine the ways in which we succeed in persuading others. Lastly, I try to specify when an argument is cognitively valuable and when it is reliable, in the sense that it helps us to track the truth. In order to analyze these matters, I investigate argumentation on two independent levels. The subjective level of people’s beliefs is the essential foundation of all persuasion -- every time we aim to make the audience believe our opinions and /or change their decisions. The second level is the objective field of truthfulness, where we consider whether a given argumentation will lead us to true or false conclusions. (shrink)

As a part of religious discourse, Christian sermons are a “…persuasive discourse par excellence”. This is more pronounced in the Christian Prosperity Gospel, a system of thought and belief in which preachers The word preacher and speaker are used interchangeably in this paper. attempt to convince audiences to donate to their churches with the expectation that God will reward them with health and wealth. Previous research shows that the use of metaphors and metonymies pervade CPG sermons but an explanation (...) on the mechanisms through which they persuade is rarer. With this in mind and viewing CPG sermons from their persuasive angle; this paper sets out to investigate how metaphors and metonymies are used for persuasion purposes in televised sermons presented in the Gĩkũyũ language Gĩkũyũ is the language of the Agĩkũyũ who are largely found in central Kenya as well as in some other parts of the country. It is a Bantu language classified as a Zone E language by Guthrie. According to the 2019, Population and Housing Census, the gĩkũyũ is the largest tribe in Kenya at 8,148,668 individuals. The community has dominated in televangelism but the position is changing due to the proliferation of many vernacular television stations.. The data is drawn from authentic televised sermons. The findings indicate that metaphors and metonymies engender persuasion in sermons by affecting the perceived altruism and trustworthiness of a speaker in a sermon. This is done by means of manipulating various forms of distance suggested in the Media Proximization Approach. Metaphor is found to affect the axiological, epistemic, temporal and emotional distances while metonymy affects the axiological and spatial distances to activate certain pragmatic presuppositions which make them persuasive in a covert way. (shrink)

What does Gorgias has to say about religious speech considered as a form of rhetorical speech directed at persuasion? Or more precisely, what does his rhetoric teach us about the nature and origin of the persuasiveness of religious speech? Now, to properly understand how, according to Gorgias, from a rhetorical perspective religious beliefs arise, this article shall first deal with his conception of the connection between language, thinking and being. And for this purpose, it will consider his treatise On (...) the Non-Existent or On Nature—after which it shall engage with his rhetorical interpretation of religious speech in the Helen. In this way it becomes clear wherein lies the power of religious speech and what it means for the way in which people are religiously convinced and come to religious faith. (shrink)

As an illustration of what Phillips called the "heterogeneity of sense," this essay concentrates on differences in what is meant by a "reason for belief." Sometimes saying that a belief is reasonable simply commends the belief's unquestioned acceptance as a part of what we understand as a sensible outlook. Here the standard picture of justifying truth claims on evidential grounds breaks down; and it also breaks down in cases of fundamental moral and religious disagreement, where the basic beliefs that (...) we hold affect our conception of what counts as a reliable ground of judgment. Phillips accepts the resultant variations in our conceptions of rational judgment as a part of logic, just as Wittgenstein did. All objective means of determining the truth or falsity of an assertion presume some underlying conceptual agreement about what counts as good judgment. This means that the possibility of objective justification is limited. But no pernicious relativism results from this view, for as Wittgenstein said, "After reason comes persuasion." There is, moreover, a non-objective criterion of sorts in the moral and religious requirement that one be able to live with one's commitments. In such cases, good judgment is still possible, but it differs markedly from the standard model of making rational inferences. (shrink)

Argument is often taken to deal with conflicting opinion or belief, while negotiation deals with conflicting goals or interests. It is widely accepted that argument ought to comply with some principles or norms. On the other hand, negotiation and bargaining involve concession exchange and tactical use of power, which may be contrasted with attempts to convince others through argument. However, there are cases where it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between bargaining and argument: notably cases where negotiators persuade (...) others through `framing' and cases where the aims of negotiation have to do with public assertion and acceptance. Those cases suggest that the distinction between negotiation and argument is not absolute, and this raises the question whether rules about what is acceptable in argument and rules about what is acceptable in negotiation can all be viewed as instances of more general common norms about human interaction. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two types of persuasive force arguments can have in terms of two different connections between arguments and inferences. First, borrowing from Pinto, an arguer's invitation to inference directly persuades an addressee if the addressee performs an inference that the arguer invites. This raises the question of how invited inferences are determined by an invitation to inference. Second, borrowing from Sorenson, an arguer's invitation to inference indirectly persuades an addressee if the addressee performs an inference guided (...) by the argument even though it is uninvited. This raises the question of how an invitation to inference can guide inferences that the arguer does not use the argument to invite. Focusing on belief-inducing inference, the primary aims here are to clarify what is necessary for an addressee's belief-inducing inference to be invited by an argument used as an instrument of persuasion; and to highlight the capacity of arguments to guide such inferences. The paper moves beyond Pinto's discussion by using Boghossian's Taking Condition in service of and in way that illustrates how epistemically bad arguments can rationally persuade addressees of their conclusions. (shrink)

Public health communications often attempt to persuade their audience to adopt a particular belief or pursue a particular course of action. To a large extent, the ethical defensibility of persuasion appears to be assumed by public health practitioners; however, a handful of academic treatments have called into question the ethical defensibility of persuasive risk- and health communication. In addition, the widespread use of persuasive tactics in public health communications warrants a close look at their ethical status, irrespective of (...) previous critiques. In this article, we review some ethical objections previously advanced against the use of persuasion in public health communications, and also consider some novel but potentially relevant objections. We conclude that persuasion is ethically problematic in some circumstances and attempt to clarify what these circumstances are. However, whereas persuasion may be ethically problematic in some circumstances, it need not be viewed as intrinsically problematic. (shrink)

Drawing from the study of human reasoning, Argumentation describes different types of arguments and explains how they influence beliefs and behaviour. Raymond Nickerson identifies many of the fallacies, biases, and other flaws often found in arguments as well as 'stratagems' that people regularly use to persuade others. Much attention is given to the evaluation of arguments. Readers will learn a new schematic for evaluating arguments based on cognitive science. As a source for understanding and evaluating arguments in decision-making, it (...) is ideal for courses on cognition, reasoning, and psychology. (shrink)

Following Robert Fogelin’s work, philosophers have traditionally analysed deep disagreements in Wittgenstein’s thought through the lens of “On Certainty.” This paper explores another fruitful avenue for understanding Wittgenstein’s views on deep disagreements: this avenue lies in examining the form of disagreement that arises between believers and non-believers, as documented in his “Lectures on Religious Belief”. Drawing on this text and others, I will try to demonstrate how deep disagreement, starting from a situation of incompatibility and mutual non-persuasiveness between the parties, (...) can, through the intermediary stage of mutual partial emotive understanding, lead sometimes to an extreme form of resolution: the conversion of one’s own way of seeing things to that of the other party. This conversion, however, does not rely on an appeal to explanations, reasons, or rationality. Instead, it appeals to the overcoming of a blockage by the will. This concept of a complete reorientation of one’s own perspective is central to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and may even be considered the ultimate goal of his mature work. (shrink)

The most important questions in life are questions about what we should do and what we should believe. The first kind of question has received considerable attention by normative ethicists, who search for a complete systematic account of right action. This book is about the second kind of question. Right Belief and True Belief starts by defining a new field of inquiry named 'normative epistemology' that mirrors normative ethics in searching for a systematic account of right belief. The book then (...) lays out and defends a deeply truth-centric account of right belief called `truth-loving epistemic consequentialism.' Truth-loving epistemic consequentialists say that what we should believe (and what credences we should have) can be understood in terms of what conduces to us having the most accurate beliefs (credences). The view straight-forwardly vindicates the popular intuition that epistemic norms are about getting true beliefs and avoiding false beliefs, and it coheres well with how scientists, engineers, and statisticians think about what we should believe. Many epistemologists have rejected similar views in response to several persuasive objections, most famously including trade-off and counting-blades-of-grass objections. Right Belief and True Belief shows how a simple truth-based consequentialist account of epistemic norms can avoid these objections and argues that truth-loving epistemic consequentialism can undergird a general truth-centric approach to many questions in epistemology. (shrink)

This paper presents a model of persuasion in terms of goals and beliefs. Among the various ways to influence people, that is, to raise or lower the likelihood for them to pursue some goal, ranging from threat to suggestion, persuasion is viewed as a case of communicative non-coercive goal hooking. A persuader leads a persuadee to pursue some goal out of a free choice, i.e., by convincing him/her that the proposed goal is useful for some other goal that the (...) persuadee already has. It is argued that the Aristotelian persuasive strategies of logos, ethos and pathos (rational argumentation, the speaker¿s credibility and reliability, and the appeal to emotion) are always present in every persuasive discourse, and that they are exploited to raise the value of the goal proposed and to strengthen the believability of the link between it and the persuadee¿s previous goals. The paper proposes an analysis of discourse in terms of a hierarchy of goals as a tool to single out these strategies within the discourse structure. By applying this model to different kinds of persuasive messages (political discourse, advertising, dialogues in the health domain), it shows how, in the fragments presented, this kind of analysis allows to clarify the relationships between the persuader¿s and the persuadee¿s goals and to elucidate how much and how directly the persuader appeals to logos, ethos and pathos in his/her discourse. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article addresses two related questions about belief, inquiry, and persuasion. The first is a question about the nature of epistemic paternalism, which is, roughly, the activity of interfering in other people’s inquiry, for their own epistemic benefit. The second question is about rational persuasion, and whether it can ever be paternalistic, or (better) whether it can be disrespectful and prima facie wrong in the same way that at least some cases of paternalism are disrespectful and prima facie wrong. (...) The article argues that if rational persuasion is paternalistic, it is epistemically paternalistic. It then considers how best to characterize epistemic paternalism and answers a challenge to its justifiability. Finally, the article responds to George Tsai’s view that rational persuasion can be problematically paternalistic, arguing that Tsai’s central case falls short of the ideal of rational persuasion. (shrink)

The study aims to conduct a conceptual analysis of the terms persuasion, advocacy, propaganda, and propagation within the field of political science in Azerbaijan. Each term is examined individually to explore their usage areas and specific functions, highlighting the differences and similarities. In this context, propaganda is defined as the systematic and biased communication activity that manipulates the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of masses to serve the interests of a particular political subject. Propagation refers to verbal or written activities (...) aimed at disseminating and deepening any theory, idea, or knowledge among the masses. Agitation involves verbal or written activities aimed at influencing and motivating people to perform a specific task and exerting political influence over large populations. Persuasion, on the other hand, is the activity of influencing an individual's will and psyche to accept a certain idea, belief, or emotion. The article demonstrates that propaganda encompasses a broader and more complex scope, integrating the components of persuasion, propagation, and agitation. Consequently, in the field of political science in Azerbaijan, each of these terms has its unique functions and areas of usage. However, propaganda is a more comprehensive term that includes these concepts and combines manipulative strategies and methods to influence masses. Therefore, it is crucial to accurately and conceptually articulate the term propaganda in the field of political science in Azerbaijan. This is essential for expressing complex political technologies and ensuring the proper use of the term propaganda in international academic and practical applications. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proof and Persuasion in Black Athena:: The Case of K. O. MüllerJosine H. BlokNon tali auxilio.Virgil, Aeneid II, 521When in 1824 the German classical scholar Karl Otfried Müller (1797–1840) set down to write a review of Champollion’s first Letter to M. Dacier (1822), he was profoundly interested. 1 For several years he had been working on Egypt, and as he told his parents in 1820, “I have come to (...) love Egyptian antiquity so much, that, if I were not constricted by the schedule of my classes, I would have set myself to the decipherment of the hieroglyphs, which I would not deem impossible by the clues I have found.” 2 During the same years (1820–25) that he wrote his early books on ancient Greece, he [End Page 705] reviewed sixteen studies on Egypt alone. 3 In his review of the Letter, then, he wanted to draw “the attention of [the] readers to this, certainly not unfounded, discovery,” 4 though he feared the author was inclined to jump to conclusions. But in August 1824 he reviewed Champollion’s more complete publication of his findings of the same year and, recalling his previous anxiety, commented:Now, however, the reading of the present work has totally convinced me, that the usage of hieroglyphs to indicate sounds is as ancient as this writing system itself. [... This discovery should also mean that...] the history of Egyptian religion and state will be reconstructed and expanded. 5From that moment he sided unequivocally with Champollion, politely but clearly reminding German colleagues who still stumbled on with decipherments of their own, that this would not do. 6With these facts in mind, Martin Bernal’s rendering in his Black Athena, volume I, is bound to surprise: “[U]nlike Humboldt, Niebuhr and Bunsen [Müller] disregarded the sensational scholarly developments between 1815 and 1830. There is no indication that he paid any attention to Champollion’s decipherment” (316). The contradiction between Bernal’s statements and the sources on Müller’s life and work turns out not to be an incidental error but part of a larger pattern. To understand this pattern and its objectives, let me first summarize Bernal’s argument and my own.In his challenging book Bernal argues that the ancient Greek world was founded on the colonization of Greece by Phoenicians and Egyptians in the second millennium bc. 7 The material which is to prove his thesis is offered in volume II, though volume I includes a summary. In this first volume Bernal observes that from late antiquity until the eighteenth century, awareness of the Afroasiatic roots of ancient civilization had been retained as the heritage of ancient Greece itself. Hence Bernal labels this perception underlying Western classical scholarship of the early modern period the “Ancient Model.” By or soon after the 1820s, however, it was replaced by the “Aryan Model,” which took Greek civilization to be partly autochthonous and partly [End Page 706] shaped by invasions coming from the North. To reveal that the fall of the Ancient Model was not the result of internal developments in classical scholarship but of externalist influences, notably the belief in progress, the defense of Christianity, Romanticism, and most importantly racism, is the core theme of volume I. Bernal sustains his argument by contending that historical source criticism was not really or entirely an internal development but created to serve the external ends, and by presenting Müller as the embodiment of Romanticist racism, who was responsible for overthrowing the Ancient Model and inaugurating its Aryan successor. Hence, by thus designating Müller as the axis around which the overall turn of classical scholarship revolved, he wants to prove that the fall of the Ancient Model was unjustified in terms of scholarship but only occurred due to dishonorable ideologies.Through a limited number of representative issues I want to argue that Bernal’s rendering of Müller and the context of his work is untenable in the light of the source material and that Bernal’s explanation of the fall of the Ancient Model is untenable as well. My aim is not just to clear Müller’s name... (shrink)

I want to discuss the puzzling, but, in some ways, persuasive view that I have a familiar and unproblematic kind of freedom with respect to my beliefs.

Since the 1980s, Christianity in Europe has undergone major changes which apply mostly to both the ritual and leadership style. The former stands for religious practices focused on evoking supernatural phenomena whose emergence aims to empower an individual to take a particular action whereas the latter concerns efficient management, based on the modus operandi typical of the corporate environment. John Wimber and Charles Peter Wagner are claimed to have been the key figures responsible for the aforementioned shift. Wimber introduced the (...) so-called Signs and Wonders Movement, followed by a world-famous preaching strategy known as power evangelism. He gave rise to the birth of the Third Wave Pentecostalism, also recognized as Neo-Pentecostalism. Wagner on the other hand, initiated the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), that is, a theological belief and movement at the same time whose core themes include transforming societies through strategic-level spiritual warfare (SLSW) and in consequence, advancing the kingdom of God. Interestingly, those two approaches complement each other what can be observed when exploring the discourse. The principal objective of this study is to investigate how the present-day Polish and Italian evangelists following the strategy of power evangelism negotiate attitudes and how it affects recipients’ self-image. Data were collected by means of participant observation, surveys as well as written and spoken text analysis. (shrink)

Political figures engage rhetoric and exalted speech to excite the imagination, stir up the emotions, and prompt their listeners to embrace and act on an ideological perspective. However, there is more to excellent public oratory than eloquence. Rational persuasion is also a key component, emphasizing facts, evidence, and reasoning. Hume acknowledges that rational persuasion alone is not terribly effective in the public arena. His corpus contains many references to eloquence. Dispassionate delivery of evidence does not have the psychological impact of (...) eloquent delivery. What explains the difference? My aim in this paper is to use Hume’s theory of belief and “the feeling of conviction” to explain his analysis of effective oratory. Furthermore, I point to the abuses of eloquence in the political arena. Given these abuses, I ask why Hume considers eloquence a virtue. Although eloquence is immediately agreeable to us (one category of virtue for Hume), it can have detrimental, even deadly, consequences. Does this make it vicious in certain cases, since it has disutility, and given that usefulness to the public is another category of virtue for Hume? I suggest that skilled and elegant oratory is pleasing, but such oratory, when used for inhumane ends, could undermine the pleasure of the oratory experience itself. (shrink)

In this paper, the author argues that literary works have distinct cognitive significance in changing their readers’ beliefs. In particular, he discusses ‘philosophical fictions’ and truthclaims that they may imply. Basing himself broadly on Aristotle’s view of the enthymeme, he argues that a work of literary fiction persuades readers of its truths by its dramatic structure, by illustrating or implying the suppressed conclusion. Further, he suggests that it is exactly this ‘literary persuasion’ which distinguishes literary works from merely didactic (...) works prone to overt ‘argumentation’ and instruction. (shrink)

Being open to persuasion can help show respect for an interlocutor. At the same time, open-mindedness about morally objectionable claims can carry moral as well as epistemic risks. Our aim in this paper is to specify when there might be duty to be open to persuasion. We distinguish two possible interpretations of openness. First, openness might refer to a kind of mental state, wherein one is willing to revise or abandon present beliefs. Second, it might refer to a deliberative (...) practice, according to which one is willing to engage with opposing reasons. We suggest these two interpretations are conceptually and empirically distinct. Once disambiguated, we suggest that different contexts may make different forms of openness appropriate as expressions of respect. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that identification and self-referencing can both function as mechanisms of narrative persuasion. However, it is not yet clear whether they are compatible and can work together in bringing about persuasive effects of narratives, or not. Therefore, this study examines both identification and self-referencing and studies their relation and effects. A 2x2 between-subjects experiment was conducted among 185 student participants, with the factors ‘perspective’ (1st vs. 3rd person) to influence identification and ‘similarity’ (young student protagonist vs. (...) older working protagonist) to influence self-referencing. Results showed that identification mediated indirect effects of perspective on story-consistent belief and self-referencing mediated indirect effects of similarity on story-consistent belief. Moreover, identification and self-referencing serially mediated indirect effects on story-consistent belief. These results indicate that identification and self-referencing are compatible processes which can work together as mechanisms of narrative persuasion. (shrink)

This is the first of four chapters on belief democracy, and discusses democratic bargaining in relation to beliefs. Disputes over beliefs sometimes get resolved through persuasion, but in the real world of democratic politics, more are resolved through negotiation; each person still believes the truth of the proposition they originally advocated, but each sees the need to ‘get on with it’, so all agree to treat certain propositions ‘as if true’, for the particular purposes at hand. The latter (...) process is what is called here ‘bargaining over beliefs’, and the aim in this chapter is to show that that is a form of bargaining, on a par with any other, in ways that economists and democratic theorists inspired by them can and should take on board. Ordinarily, many different modes of bargaining are intertwined, and the presence of the more familiar forms blinds us to the presence of less familiar ones ; in the different cases analysed in this chapter, in order to bracket out these confounding factors, the focus is on situations in which familiar forms of bargaining seem necessarily absent. Even there, however, it is shown that bargaining of a sort might still occur; moreover, the sort of ‘bargaining over beliefs’ identified in those atypical situations is not confined to them alone, since elements of it can also be perceived to be at work in more common sorts of social and political bargaining. (shrink)