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Chapter 9

This chapter discusses the importance of credibility within argumentation and when someone is making an argument. In my opinion, credibility is one of the most important aspects of an argument because it is what makes the audience grant adherence to your claims. The amount of credibility someone has can be subjective depending on the matter.
There are different types of credibilities that are defined in this chapter: direct credibility, secondary credibility, indirect credibility. Direct credibility is a credibility that is acquired because you have a name for yourself, for example the President of the United States. Secondary credibility is using the direct credibility that someone has in your argument, for example, quoting a famous philosopher. Finally, indirect credibility is arguing in such a good way you make yourself credible to your intended audience.
I want to take a closer look at direct credibility because in my everyday life this is the type of credibility I see the most taking place around me. Whether it be celebrities or even the president making a statement, everyday I find myself hearing people talk about what a celebrity said or did, or that speech Trump gave. Without even realizing it, because we see these big names everyday on social media or the news, we directly associate them with being credible because they are famous, without actually analyzing what they are saying we give them this inherent credibility. We have seen this be a huge issue especially in this political climate because the credibility that is given to President Trump has gotten to a lot of people's heads, including his, and people can take what he says as absolute truths.

I think it is dangerous to have such a thing as direct credibility just because one is well known. Some people deserve this direct credibility, people that have earned this credibility because they are very well informed on a certain subject matter and are given this credibility when they speak on it. But in other cases such as the President of the United States, we can see direct credibility causing a bit of trouble because he could say nonsense and certain people will automatically give him credibility.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 7, 2018 at 8:50 AM

    I agree with you completely when you say that there are so many public figures today that people just accept what they're saying as fact! Trump is a great example of this, because he himself is a self-proclaimed expert in two fields, politics and business. He also like to send a large number of tweets, that should probably be monitored and edited by a team because these tweets like you were saying have a bigger effect on the country than he might even realize. Many of the people in America hang on his every word and take the meanings to be literal even when he may be joking or the comment has an inappropriate innuendo. People with as much influence and pull in the media or government (like Trump) need to be very careful because they can use this direct credibility and simply get an idea out there (agenda setting) and get people talking about it. This is possible because they view Trump himself as a credible source and they need no more investigating into the comments being discussed.

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