Argumentum ad populum
fallacy of claiming that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for 'appeal to the people') is an informal fallacy that asserts a claim is true, good, or correct because many people allegedly think so.
Alternative names
Other names for the fallacy include:
Description
Argumentum ad populum is a type of informal fallacy, specifically a fallacy of relevance, and is similar to an argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam). It uses an appeal to the beliefs, tastes, or values of a group of people, stating that because a certain opinion or attitude is held by a majority, or even everyone, it is therefore correct.
Appeals to popularity are common in commercial advertising that portrays products as desirable because they are used by many people or associated with popular sentiments instead of communicating the merits of the products themselves.
The inverse argument, that something that is unpopular must be flawed, is also a form of this fallacy.
The fallacy is similar in structure to certain other fallacies that involve a confusion between the "justification" of a belief and its "widespread acceptance" by a given group of people. When an argument uses the appeal to the beliefs of a group of experts, it takes on the form of an appeal to authority; if the appeal relates to the beliefs of a group of respected elders or the members of one's community over a long time, then it takes on the form of an appeal to tradition.
Scholarship
The philosopher Irving Copi defined argumentum ad populum differently from an appeal to popular opinion itself, as an attempt to rouse the "emotions and enthusiasms of the multitude".
Douglas N. Walton argues that appeals to popular opinion can be logically valid in some cases, such as in political dialogue within a democracy.
Reversals
In some circumstances, a person may argue that the fact that Y people believe X to be true implies that X is false.
“Argumentum ad populum” enters the record as fallacy of claiming that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Argumentum, populum and fallacy can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Argumentum ad populum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.