Against Irrationalism in the Theory of Propaganda

Journal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (2):303-317 (2023)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

According to many accounts, propaganda is a variety of politically significant signal with a distinctive connection to irrationality. This irrationality may be theoretical, or practical; it may be supposed that propaganda characteristically elicits this irrationality anew, or else that it exploits its prior existence. The view that encompasses such accounts we will call irrationalism. This essay presents two classes of propaganda that do not bear the sort of connection to irrationality posited by the irrationalist: hard propaganda and propaganda by the deed. Faced with these counterexamples, some irrationalists will offer their account of propaganda as a refinement of the folk concept rather than as an attempt to capture all of its applications. The author argues that any refinement of the concept of propaganda must allow the concept to remain essentially political, and that the irrationalist refinement fails to meet this condition.

Similar books and articles

Propaganda about Propaganda.Jason Brennan - 2017 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 29 (1):34-48.
Propaganda and Art: A Philosophical Analysis.Sheryl Tuttle Ross - 1999 - Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin - Madison
Massmedia, Propaganda and Nationalism.Marjan Malesic - 1997 - Res Publica 39 (2):245-257.
Propaganda, Non-Rational Means, and Civic Rhetoric.Ishani Maitra - 2016 - Theoria. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 31 (3):313-327.
Semantics and Ethics of Propaganda.Jay Black - 2001 - Journal of Mass Media Ethics 16 (2-3):121-137.
Propaganda.Anne Quaranto & Jason Stanley - 2021 - In Justin Khoo & Rachel Katharine Sterken (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language. pp. 125-146.
Propaganda and the Moving Image.Sheryl Tuttle Ross - 2019 - In Noël Carroll, Laura T. Di Summa & Shawn Loht (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures. Springer. pp. 757-780.
The Empire Has No Clothes.Olúfémi O. Táíwò - 2018 - Disputatio 10 (51):305-330.
German Irrationalism During Weimar.Burghard Schmidt - 1985 - Telos: Critical Theory of the Contemporary 1985 (65):87-96.
Conspiracy-baiting and Anti-rumour Campaigns as Propaganda.David Coady - 2018 - In Matthew R. X. Dentith (ed.), Taking Conspiracy Theories Seriously. Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 171-187.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-07-29

Downloads
128 (#131,884)

6 months
92 (#39,503)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Megan Hyska
Northwestern University

Citations of this work

The Politics of Language.David Beaver & Jason Stanley - 2023 - Princeton University Press.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Two Dogmas of Empiricism.Willard V. O. Quine - 1951 - Philosophical Review 60 (1):20–43.
Meaning.Herbert Paul Grice - 1957 - Philosophical Review 66 (3):377-388.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism.W. V. Quine - 1951 - Philosophical Review 60 (1):20-43.
The German Ideology.Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - 1975 - In Science and Society. International Publishers. pp. 19-581.

View all 29 references / Add more references