The Argument Form "Appeal to Galileo": A Critical Appreciation of Doury’s Account

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2-2015

Publication Title

Informal Logic

Volume

35

Issue

3

First page number:

221

Last page number:

272

Abstract

Following a linguistic-descriptivist approach, Marianne Doury has studied debates about “parasciences” (e.g. astrology), discovering that “parascientists” frequently argue by “appeal to Galileo” (i.e., defend their views by comparing themselves to Galileo and their opponents to the Inquisition); opponents object by criticizing the analogy, charging fallacy, and appealing to counter-examples. I argue that Galilean appeals are much more widely used, by creationists, global-warming skeptics, advocates of “settled science”, great scientists, and great philosophers. Moreover, several subtypes should be distinguished; critiques questioning the analogy are proper; fallacy charges are problematic; and appeals to counter-examples are really indirect critiques of the analogy.

Keywords

Analogy; Appeal to Galileo, Appeal to unpopularity; Benveniste; Marianne Doury; Einstein; Galileo; Hume; Parasciences; Precedent

Disciplines

Philosophy | Rhetoric and Composition

Language

English

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