Concept
Persuasion
Overview
Persuasion is the act of influencing a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behavior. Research on persuasion and its affects is of interest to many fields, and is a frequent topic in the specialty of social psychology. Persuasion usually affects the decision making of an individual, and it is aimed at a variety of groups, including consumers, voters, and others.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Persuasion is discussed.
Persuasion, accordingly, cannot be subjectively distinguished from conviction, that is, so long as the subject views its judgement simply as a phenomenon of its own mind. But if we inquire whether the grounds of our judgement, which are valid for us, produce the same effect on the reason of others as on our own, we have then the means, though only subjective means, not, indeed, of…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
It is what men think that determines how they act; and though the persuasions and convictions of average men are in a much greater degree determined by their personal position than by reason, no little power is exercised over them by the persuasions and convictions of those whose personal position is different, and by the united authority of the instructed. When, therefore, the instructed in general can be brought…
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government
names the idea; opens on it
1. Having spoken of the powers and acts of the mind, both cognitive and motive, considered in every man by _himself, without relation to others_; it will fall fitly into _this_ chapter, to speak of the effects of the same power _one upon another_; which effects are also the signs, by which one taketh notice what another conceiveth and intendeth. Of these signs, _some_ are such as _cannot_ easily be _counterfeited_…
Thomas Hobbes, The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04
states what it is; author linked in the graph
When you try to persuade your scholars of the duty of obedience, you add to this so-called persuasion compulsion and threats, or still worse, flattery and bribes. Attracted by selfishness or constrained by force, they pretend to be convinced by reason. They see as soon as you do that obedience is to their advantage and disobedience to their disadvantage.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile
opens on it; names the idea
For though management and persuasion are always the easiest and safest instruments of government as force and violence are the worst and the most dangerous; yet such, it seems, is the natural insolence of man, that he almost always disdains to use the good instrument, except when he cannot or dare not use the bad one. The French government could and durst use force, and therefore disdained to use management and…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Persuasion
Related ideas
- Belief
- Immanuel Kant
- Individualism
- Propaganda
- Motivation
- Rhetoric
- Socrates
- Social psychology
- Thomas Hobbes
- Aristotle
- Logos
- Attitude (psychology)
- Inductive reasoning
- Intention
- Syllogism
- Behavior
- Social organization
- Enthymeme
- Classics
- Fallacy
- Ancient Greece
Place in the tradition
Part of Free will.