Suchergebnisse

The argument of this article is that persuasion is a topic largely neglected by anthropologists, who prefer to see human behavior as conforming to cultural rules or driven by social forces. Drawing on his experience in the advertising business in Japan, the author examines persuasion in light of cultural heuristics available to would-be persuaders striving to create different types of social relationships.

In familiar accounts of power, if agent i can induce j to change their beliefs then i has power over j to induce belief change. Does that mean that all deliberation is simply a power game? This article examines two connected 'reliability conditions' that distinguish when such persuasion is coercive or manipulative: common reason and the intentions of the persuader. It considers three problems, (1) testimony, (2) authority, (3) trust, and why these do not belie the account. While the conditions are strict and perhaps no actual deliberation or persuasion fully abides by them, they constitute normative conditions for making judgements about the degree of manipulation in any deliberation. I also briefly consider the power of discourse as an activity in itself.