APPLY TV Series 1 Episode 6
Weaknesses of the popularity argument in political deliberation
APPLY TV is a new series of online talks organised by the COST Action project CA17132: European Network for Argumentation and Public Policy Analysis (APPLY). Its main theme is public argumentation investigated from any of the theoretical perspectives present in the Action: philosophy, linguistics, communication, discourse analysis, computer science, psychology. Each speaker presents her or his most recent work on argumentation in compact episodes of 1hr, with 30 min dedicated to the presentation and 30 min to discussion.
Season 1
Episode 6
Wendesday 02/06/2021 16:00 CET
Weaknesses of the popularity argument in political deliberation
It is generally agreed upon that epistemic use of the appeal to popular opinion is fallacious. In contrast, its use in political deliberation is often judged as potentially acceptable, for the reason that majority opinion is an important principle of democratic decision-making. I will oppose this latter idea by discussing several false presuppositions that underlie a ‘deliberative’ popularity argument. I conclude that this argument acts merely as a trump card, creating a false impression about democracy and avoiding engagement in real debate and substantive reasons.
Speaker: Henrike Jansen
Hosted by Sandrine Roginsky
Join the session by registering HERE
The talk will be streamed via the APPLY TV YouTube channel, and will be available on demand, just below.
The Q&A session following the talk will not be streamed, but will be recorded. Please take this information into account, for data protection matters. (You can turn off your camera, should you prefer).