Persuasion in Specialized Discourse

To encounter a conspiracy theory is to enter a dark world where normal rules do not apply. To reason with an upholder of that theory is to come against a force-field which intensifies at every push, rendering ordinary persuasive strategies counter-productive. In place of such strategies, I appeal to the underlying linguistic structure of moves in a language game as providing a way out from the closed system of a conspiracy theory. This approach constitutes an application of what may be called pr