Commentary on Scott Aikin, “A Modest Defense of Fallacy Theory”

Two Forms of the Straw Man

The authors identify and offer an analysis of a new form of the Straw Man fallacy, and then explore the implications of the prevalence of this fallacy for contemporary political discourse.

A Self-Defeat Problem for the Rhetorical Theory of Argument

The rhetorical theory of argument, if held as the conclusion of an argument, is self-defeating. There are two arguments that it is. First is the quick and dirty argument: the rhetorical theory is that argument quality is adjudged by eliciting conviction, but the case for the theory is not convincing. Second is the process argument: if one has the view that one’s reasons are arranged with the so...

The Semantics of the Goodness and the Ugly

  There are different views concerning the meanings of the most important ethical concepts such as the goodness and the ugly. The author of this article while classifying various views and explaining them, tries to make a critical study of those views as well. Accordingly, first he goes on to examine critically the theory of emotionalists as one of the most important non-cognitive theories. Th...

Making Research Matter; Comment on “Public Spending on Health Service and Policy Research in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States: A Modest Proposal”

We offer a UK-based commentary on the recent “Perspective” published in IJHPM by Thakkar and Sullivan. We are sympathetic to the authors’ call for increased funding for health service and policy research (HSPR). However, we point out that increasing that investment – in any of the three countries they compare: Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom– will ipso facto not necessarily lea...

Explanation of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Crisis Based on Disinformation Theory: A commentary