Forms
The argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) can take several forms. As a statistical syllogism, the argument has the following basic structure:
- Most of what authority A has to say on subject matter S is correct.
- A says P about subject matter S.
- Therefore, P is correct.
The strength of this authoritative argument depends upon two factors:
- The authority is a legitimate expert on the subject.
- There exists consensus among legitimate experts in the subject matter under discussion.
The two factors — legitimate expertise and expert consensus — can be incorporated to the structure of the statistical syllogism, in which case, the argument from authority can be structured thus:
- X holds that A is true.
- X is a legitimate expert on the subject matter.
- The consensus of subject-matter experts agrees with X.
- Therefore, there exists a presumption that A is true.
Read more about this topic: Argument From Authority
Famous quotes containing the word forms:
“A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Psychoanalysis can unravel some of the forms of madness; it remains a stranger to the sovereign enterprise of unreason. It can neither limit nor transcribe, nor most certainly explain, what is essential in this enterprise.”
—Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
“I am prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, where all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)