The goal of argumentation is to make a case so forceful (note the metaphor) that skeptics are coerced into believing itthey are powerless to deny it while still claiming to be rational. In principle, it is the ideas themselves that are, as we say, compelling, but their champions are not always averse to helping the ideas along with tactics of verbal dominance, among them intimidation (Clearly ...), threat (It would be unscientific to ...), authority (As Popper showed ...), insult (This work lacks the necessary rigor for ...), and belittling (Few people today seriously believe that ...). Perhaps this is why H. L. Mencken wrote that college football would be more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students.
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About Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker was a contemporary American american psycholinguist. Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Power — The dynamics of influence, authority, and leadership