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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 10:2 (2019) ► pp.287–315

Epistemic and deontic authority in the argumentum ad verecundiam

 | University of Białystok
 | University of Windsor
The aim of this paper is to elaborate tools that would allow us to analyse arguments from authority and guard against fallacious uses of them. To accomplish this aim, we extend the list of existing argumentation schemes representing arguments from authority. For this purpose, we formulate a new argumentation scheme for argument from deontic authority along with a matching set of critical questions used to evaluate it. We argue that clarifying the ambiguity between arguments from epistemic and deontic authority helps building a better explanation of the informal fallacy of appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam).
Keywords: administrative (deontic) authority, fallacious argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam), argument from expert opinion, critical questioning
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Deference and respect
  • 3.The usefulness of argumentation schemes
  • 4.The two main kinds of authority
  • 5.The argumentum ad verecundiam fallacy
  • 6.Transitioning from the one type of authority to the other
  • 7.The scheme for argument from deontic authority
  • 8.Extending the list of critical questions for deontic appeals to authority
  • 9.Supplying identification conditions
  • 10.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 July 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.16051.kos
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