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Against Irrationalism in the Theory of Propaganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2022

MEGAN HYSKA Open the ORCID record for MEGAN HYSKA [Opens in a new window]
MEGAN HYSKA*
Affiliation:
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
*
megan.hyska@northwestern.edu
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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.

Keywords

propagandarationalityauthoritarianismanarchismH. P. Grice
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 2023 , pp. 303 - 317
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

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Footnotes

This essay has greatly benefited from the feedback of many people, including Cory Wimberly, Jennifer Lackey, Aidan Gray, Rachel Goodman, David Hilbert, and others in the colloquium audience at the University of Illinois Chicago philosophy department, where I was fortunate to present an early draft. I am also grateful to the participants at the 2021 Workshop on Propaganda and Legitimate Political Persuasion, and particularly to the workshop's organizers, Gloria Origgi and Amelia Godber.

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