Challenging Authority with Argumentation: The Pragmatics of Arguments from and to Authority

Authority is both a pragmatic condition of much public discourse and form argumentative appeal routinely used in it. The goal this contribution to propose new account challenging authority that benefits from the interplay resources recent speech act theory argumentation theory. Going beyond standard approaches two disciplines, paper analyzes nuanced forms establishing and, especially, discourse-related authority. Can Donald Trump advise his own scientific advisors on potential COVID-19 treatments? Addressing questions like this, identifies various paradoxes discussed literature. It then distinguishes between argument (or expert opinion) argues rearranged structure mutually schematic task better understanding critiquing discourses such as Trump’s.