Critical Thinking and Conspiracy Theories. Towards Rhetorical Virtues

Abstract

The rhetorical model that has emerged in recent years calls for a diversification of pedagogical responses to critical thinking and, particularly, to the pedagogical treatment of conspiracy theories. Rhetoric is often defined, by the rhetoricians themselves, as a neutral art of persuasive discourse, sensitive to standards of effectiveness, but independent of truth and morality. However, the sole aim of rhetoric is not to train “skillful persuaders”, without any other consideration, since at the same time it presents itself as a broader education in democratic citizenship. These orators, trained by the rhetorical technique, are never defined, however, insofar as contemporary rhetoricians have gradually abandoned the normative reflection on (good) orators that was once conducted in the rhetorical tradition. Yet conspiratorial discourse, more vividly than other pedagogical objects, implies, by its very designation, norms, and values that isolate it from other categories of discourse deemed more acceptable or less dangerous to democratic life. Faced with this observation, this article proposes a reconceptualization of rhetoric that makes explicit the normative dimension of its educational project. Defined as a discipline – and no longer as a neutral technique – the aim of rhetoric today is to train (good) orators who possess the dispositions to act (well), speak (well) and think (well) in the context of contemporary pluralist democracy and its values. These dispositions could be called, in the vocabulary of virtue ethics, “rhetorical virtues” or “speaker virtues”.

Keywords

• rhetoric
• critical thinking
• theory of argumentation
• virtue ethics