Rhetoric

In his review of Chris Daly’s book Philosophical Methods, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa debates with Daly over the value of using the word “tension,” which Daly describes as a weasel word. Ichikawa disagrees. I raise a worry that Ichikawa’s response will not convince Daly and try to help Ichikawa out. Then I outline a traditional empiricist objection to Daly.

In this paper, I expand my upon earlier linguistic research (Lian, 2023), which delved into the genre of abstracts from Western philosophical papers. I engage with the philosophical ramifications emanating from the guidelines established for crafting philosophy paper abstracts (Lian, 2023) and underscore their significance in the domain of academic philosophical writing. A pivotal focus of this research is to navigate the intricate philosophical challenges posed by cross-disciplinary investigations bridging applied linguistic statistics with philosophical paper composition, specifically, the nuanced interpretation (...) of linguistic findings in a manner palatable to philosophers. My exploration probes into the dynamics of various concepts within Inter-Disciplinary Research (IDR), highlighting the complexities in reconciling semantic intuitions related to the notions of "Method (M)" and "Conclusion (C)". I delineate three philosophical stances: (1) deferring to scientific authority, (2) recognizing domain-specific terminologies, and (3) interrogating peripheral scientific theories. I posit that these stances significantly influence the ways philosophers engage with and resolve the cross-disciplinary semantic and theoretical contentions stemming from the rhetorical structures of "Method (M)" and "Conclusion (C)". This work proposes avenues to attain either "theoretical coherence" or "disciplinary synthesis", thereby fostering enhanced cross-disciplinary collaboration and fortifying academic discourse across diverse fields. -/- Keywords: Inter-Disciplinary Research (IDR), Applied linguistics, Philosophical writing, Genre Analysis, Rhetorical Moves 本研究將先介紹筆者的語言學碩士論文（連，2023），如何分析《東吳哲學學報》2017年至2021年西方哲學論文摘要語體的修辭語步特徵與提供寫作建議，並試圖從哲學圈內人的角度，對連（2023）的哲學寫作 建議進行批判性的反思，探討哲學教師或新手哲學家可以如何看待華文哲學論文摘要的寫作建議。接著，筆者將問題聚焦在跨領域學科（應用語言學統計結果與哲學論文寫作）之間的哲學問題，即——哲學家應如何看待語言學家 針對哲學論文的研究結果。筆者將考慮領域間研究（IDR）的語言與詞語概念關係。而藉由討論上述跨領域研究中語義直覺分歧的問題，筆者提出了三種可能的哲學態度：(1)服從科學權威、(2)尊重特定領域用詞、(3 )質疑邊緣科學理論。筆者認為，上述三種態度對於哲學家如何看待「方法(M)」和「結論(C)」這兩項跨領域語義概念分歧和可能理論分歧有著重要的影響。筆者希冀藉由提出相關解決方案來尋求「理論統一」或「領域整 合」的可行性，最終得以促進跨領域合作與跨學門間良好學術交流的互動成長。 -/- 關鍵詞：領域間研究（IDR）、應用語言學、哲學寫作、語體分析、修辭語步 . (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze and discuss Schopenhauer’s n-term diagrams for eristic dialectics from a graph-theoretical perspective. Unlike logic, eristic dialectics does not examine the validity of an isolated argument, but the progression and persuasiveness of an argument in the context of a dialogue or even controversy. To represent these dialogue situations, Schopenhauer created large maps with concepts and Euler-type diagrams, which from today’s perspective are a specific form of graphs. We first present the original method with Euler-type diagrams, then (...) give the most important graph-theoretical definitions, then discuss Schopenhauer’s diagrams graph-theoretically and finally give an example of how the graphs or diagrams can be used to analyze dialogues. (shrink)

Virtue theories of argumentation (VTA) emphasize the roles arguers play in the conduct and evaluation of arguments, and lay particular stress on arguers’ acquired dispositions of character, that is, virtues and vices. The inspiration for VTA lies in virtue epistemology and virtue ethics, the latter being a modern revival of Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle is also, of course, the father of Western logic and argumentation. This paper asks to what degree Aristotle may thereby be claimed as a forefather by VTA.

Eristic has been studied more and more intensively in recent years in philosophy, law, communication theory, logic, proof theory, and A.I. Nevertheless, the modern origins of eristic, which almost all current researchers see in the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, are considered to be a theory of the illegitimate use of logical and rhetorical devices. Thus, eristic seems to violate the norms of discourse ethics. In this paper, I argue that this interpretation of eristic is based on prejudices that contradict the original (...) intention of modern eristic. Eristic is not an art of being right or winning an argument, but an art of protecting oneself from the one who deliberately violates norms of discourse ethics to gain argumentative acceptance. For this reason, eristic must be seen as a discipline of Enlightenment philosophy and a correlate of discourse ethics. Especially in the age of alternative facts and post-factual politics, this makes eristic a valuable discipline. (shrink)

In the Fragment on Evil, Hume announces that he “shall not employ any rhetoric in a philosophical argument, where reason alone ought to be hearkened to.” To employ the rhetorical strategy, in the context of the Fragment, just is to “enumerate all the evils, incident to human life, and display them, with eloquence, in their proper colours.” However, in Part 11 of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume employs precisely this rhetorical strategy. I discuss three interpretations that might account for (...) Hume’s decision to employ the strategy in the Dialogues but not the Fragment. The heart of this discussion concerns the relationship between reason and rhetoric. The Dialogues can be understood as part of the education of Pamphilus. Consequently, the three interpretations align with three ways of understanding the roles that reason and rhetoric play in Hume’s views on pedagogy and education (or more specifically, Philo’s attitude towards the education of Pamphilus). (shrink)

In the Fragment on Evil, Hume announces that he “shall not employ any rhetoric in a philosophical argument, where reason alone ought to be hearkened to.” To employ the rhetorical strategy, in the context of the Fragment, just is to “enumerate all the evils, incident to human life, and display them, with eloquence, in their proper colours.” However, in Part 11 of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume employs precisely this rhetorical strategy. I discuss three interpretations that might account for (...) Hume’s decision to employ the strategy in the Dialogues but not the Fragment. The heart of this discussion concerns the relationship between reason and rhetoric. The Dialogues can be understood as part of the education of Pamphilus. Consequently, the three interpretations align with three ways of understanding the roles that reason and rhetoric play in Hume’s views on pedagogy and education (or more specifically, Philo’s attitude towards the education of Pamphilus). (shrink)

In the time of Coronavirus, it is perhaps as good a time as any to comment on the use and abuse of metaphors. One of the worst instances of metaphor abuse-especially given the recent epidemiological crisis-is Lynne Tirrell's notion of toxic speech. In the foregoing reply piece, I analyze Tirrell's metaphor and reveal how it blinds us to the liberating power of public speech. Lynne Tirrell argues that some speech is, borrowing from field of Epidemiology, toxic in the sense that (...) it harms vulnerable listeners. In this response piece, I summarize the main points of Tirrell's toxic speech argument, map the underlying conceptual metaphor and pose three objections. (shrink)

In the literature, the pragmatic dimension of metaphors has been clearly acknowledged. Metaphors are regarded as having different possible uses, especially pursuing persuasion. However, an analysis of the specific conversational purposes that they can be aimed at achieving in a dialogue and their adequacy thereto is still missing. In this chapter, we will address this issue focusing on the classical distinction between the explanatory and persuasive uses of metaphors, which is, however, complex to draw at an analytical level and often (...) blurred and controversial also from a theoretical point of view. Building on the analysis of explanation in different theories and fields of study, we show how it can be conceived as characterized by a cognitive and a pragmatic dimension, where the transference of understanding is used pragmatically for different dialogical goals - such as informing, making a joint decision, and most importantly persuading. In this sense, the cognitive effects of understanding are not incompatible with a persuasive dialogical purpose. This theoretical proposal will be applied to examples drawn from the medical context, to show how a pragmatic approach to explanation can account for the complexity of the cases that can be found in actual dialogical contexts. (shrink)

As we have seen in the transition form Part I to Part II of this book, the inductive riskiness of doxastic methods applied in testimonial uptake or prescribed as exemplary of religious faith, helpfully operationalizes the broader social scientific, philosophical, moral, and theological interest that people may have with problems of religious luck. Accordingly, we will now speak less about luck, but more about the manner in which highly risky cognitive strategies are correlated with psychological studies of bias studies and (...) human cognitive ecology. Chapter Four is concerned with connections between psychological study of biases and heuristics, and the comparative study of fundamentalism. The first section looks at work by psychologists and philosophers on our bias blind spot. Later sections ask, ‘In what ways might biases and heuristics play a special role in aiding our understanding of, and response to, fundamentalist orientation?’. The judgments we make in ignorance of our own biases Montaigne calls our importunate presumptions, and he suggests a host of practical factors that make them appealing. Montaigne, as I discuss in the first section, associates many of our errors with one or another kind of presumption, often about our similarity or differences from others, or from God. Our obvious psychographic diversity, and the polemical ground dynamics involved in our ‘culture wars’ are compounded on the agential side by the invisibility of our biases to ourselves. A number of person and social biases are described that plausibly affect all of our beliefs in domains of controversial views, religious views included. The second section continues to study of how etiological symmetry (similar patterns of belief-uptake) gives rise to religious contrariety (diverse narratives and theologies) in testimonial faith traditions, and what the implications of this are for philosophy of religion, generally, and for an improved comparative study of fundamentalism, in particular. Utilizing the work of philosophers such as Rachel Fraser and psychologists such as Emily Pronin and her co-authors, I offer a four-step genealogical account for how etiological symmetry so easily gives rise to religious contrariety. This account begins with the narrative nature of testimony in the Abrahamic family of religions, and how narrative content confounds our “source monitoring.” My genealogy also introduces what I term biased-closure inferences (BCI) as one of the key enablers of religious exclusivism and absolutism. These are the seemingly ‘logical’ but actually very self-serving inferences people often make, inferences from their own belief being true, to any belief contrary to it being false. Those who claim unique truth, epistemic access, and/or virtue and religious value for the home religion are no exception to the broad pertinence of bias studies across domains of controversial view. The proximate causes of belief are all that we can study, and in these there may be significant etiological symmetries. Yet those groups themselves, especially to the extent that they are exclusivist, are tunnel-visioned on claims of doctrinal uniqueness: on content differences of a theological sort. Comparative philosophy is met with the puzzlement that symmetric or essentially similar doxastic strategies should give rise not just to cognitive diversity, but to what we can call polarized or polemical contrariety, contrariety of a kind where each view adamantly rejects all others. Arguably, the more that theologies offer explanations of a counter-inductive sort, or profess counter-inductive thinking as exemplary of faith, the better evidential ground there for inferring that bias involved in the acquisition or maintenance of beliefs. This provides more substance to the question of when censure, and etiological challenges to faith-based beliefs are philosophically well-motivated. (shrink)

Here we examine qualities of what would be thought of as inanimate beings that lend evidence to the position that J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional universe is animistic. Arda is full of life, and natural things in it, such as mountains and rivers, are often alive or conscious. A close look at the qualities of the stars in particular yields further evidence in favor of animism as a foundational ontology of Arda.

The main aim of the French logician and philosopher Petrus Ramus was to provide a method of teaching the liberal arts enabling the completion of the undergraduate program of studies in 7 years. This method was based on a new logic, in which the complex structure of Aristotle’s Organon and of the Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain is reduced to two main doctrines: the invention of arguments, by which it is possible to find the notions for reasoning and disputing (...) in any discipline, and the disposition of arguments in judgment, i.e., in propositions and syllogisms. Since this logic applies both to demonstrative and to probable reasoning, Ramus and Rudolph Agricola, who first introduced it, labeled it as dialectic. Ramus completed this twofold dialectic with a method, according to which disciplines have to be taught by providing general definitions, to be explained by subsequent dichotomous divisions. According to Ramus, this method ensures a well-ordered hierarchy and division of disciplines, and an efficient means to teach them in a shorter time than in the pedagogical programs of Juan Luis Vivès, Johann Sturm, and Philipp Melanchthon. This method had its main diffusion in the pre-university institutions such as the German gymnasia and gymnasia illustria (e.g., of Herborn), while in Reformed and Catholic universities the acceptance of Ramism was hindered by the predominance of the Aristotelian curriculum. (shrink)

One of the crucial problems of argumentation schemes as illustrated in (Walton, Reed & Macagno 2008) is their practical use for the purpose of analyzing texts and producing arguments. The high number and the lack of a classification criterion make this instrument extremely difficult to apply practically. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structure of argumentation schemes and outline a possible criterion of classification based on alternative and mutually-exclusive possibilities. Such a criterion is based not on what (...) an argument is, but how it can be understood and interpreted. The schemes are grouped according to an end-means principle, which is strictly bound to the ontological structure of the conclusion and the premises. On this view, a scheme can be selected according to the intended or reconstructed purpose of an argument and the possible strategies that can be used to achieve it. (shrink)

The representation and classification of the structure of natural arguments has been one of the most important aspects of Aristotelian and medieval dialectical and rhetorical theories. This traditional approach is represented nowadays in models of argumentation schemes. The purpose of this article is to show how arguments are characterized by a complex combination of two levels of abstraction, namely, semantic relations and types of reasoning, and to provide an effective and comprehensive classification system for this matrix of semantic and quasilogical (...) connections. To this purpose, we propose a dichotomous criterion of classification, transcending both levels of abstraction and representing not what an argument is but how it is understood and interpreted. The schemes are grouped according to an end-means criterion, which is strictly bound to the ontological structure of the conclusion and the premises. On this view, a scheme can be selected according to the intended or reconstructed purpose of an argument and the possible strategies that can be used to achieve it. (shrink)

Este artigo empreende uma discussão acerca da noção de fórmula discursiva nos trabalhos de Krieg-Planque e de um possível diálogo com o trabalho desenvolvido por Foucault, sobretudo, a partir do modo como o filósofo percebe o discurso, uma vez que ambos pertencem a uma tradição epistemológica francesa. Dessa forma, vamos adentrar pelo percurso de lapidação da noção de fórmula, tomando, para isso, a entrevista que Krieg-Planque concedeu a Philippe Schepens do Laboratoire de Sémio-linguistique, didatique e informatique (LASELDI) e do livro (...) A noção de fórmula em análise do discurso: quadro teórico e metodológico, trabalhos que representam para nós brasileiros uma espécie de introdução à discussão sobre a noção de fórmula proposta por Krieg-Planque no campo da Escola Francesa de Análise do Discurso (AD). Nessa discussão, vamos perceber que toda fórmula discursiva traz consigo uma densidade histórica apoiada em pré-construídos que estão voltados para as novas construções, tal qual propunha Foucault acerca das práticas e das materialidades discursivas em sua arqueologia do saber e em sua genealogia do poder. (shrink)

This book analyzes the uses of emotive language and redefinitions from pragmatic, dialectical, epistemic and rhetorical perspectives, investigating the relationship between emotions, persuasion and meaning, and focusing on the implicit dimension of the use of a word and its dialectical effects. It offers a method for evaluating the persuasive and manipulative uses of emotive language in ordinary and political discourse. Through the analysis of political speeches and legal arguments, the book offers a systematic study of emotive language in argumentation, rhetoric, (...) communication, political science and public speaking. (shrink)

Why are personal attacks so powerful? In political debates, speeches, discussions and campaigns, negative character judgments, aggressive charges and charged epithets are used for different purposes. They can block the dialogue, trigger value judgments and influence decisions; they can force the interlocutor to withdraw a viewpoint or undermine his arguments. Personal attacks are not only multifaceted dialogical moves, but also complex argumentative strategies. They can be considered as premises for further arguments based on signs, generalizations or consequences. They involve tactics (...) for arousing emotions such as fear, hate or contempt, or for ridiculing the interlocutor. The twofold level of investigation presented in this paper is aimed at distinguishing the different roles that ad hominem have in a dialogue and bringing to light their hidden dimensions. The reasoning structure of each type of attack will be distinguished from the tactics used to increase its effectiveness and conceal its weaknesses. (shrink)

The implicit dimension of enthymemes is investigated from a pragmatic perspective to show why a premise can be left unexpressed, and how it can be used strategically. The relationship between the implicit act of taking for granted and the pattern of presumptive reasoning is shown to be the cornerstone of kairos and the fallacy of straw man. By taking a proposition for granted, the speaker shifts the burden of proving its un-acceptability onto the hearer. The resemblance of the tacit premise (...) with what is commonly acceptable or has been actually stated can be used as a rhetorical strategy. (shrink)

This new book by Nathan Crick explores the integral relationship between philosophical pragmatism and rhetoric. Unlike Robert Danisch’s earlier work on the topic, Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric (University of South Carolina Press 2007), Crick’s project focuses almost exclusively on the rhetorical resources found in John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy. To trace the connections between pragmatism and rhetoric, the first obstacle the author must overcome is the time-honored tradition whereby philosophers denigrate rhetoric or sophistry because it deals only with (...) appearance and persuasion, not with truth and knowledge. The second is that Dewey wrote very little about rhetoric per se, even though he highlighted the importance of communication to democracy in The Public and Its Problems (1927) and praised eloquence in Art as Experience (1940). Still, sparking a conversation between scholars of rhetorical studies and philosophical pragmatism, particularly Dewey’s version, is among the most significant goals of the work. ‘In fact’, Crick writes in the introduction, ‘one of the core arguments of this book is that it is only by bringing rhetoric to Dewey, and by creating something new through transaction, that we can produce a novel perspective on the arts of rhetoric and of democracy’ (10). The work is organized into three main sections: i) on rhetoric and politics, ii) on rhetoric and science and iii) on rhetoric and art. Download PDF. (shrink)

This paper argues for a reinterpretation of Aristotle's concept of an enthymeme and also his wider informal logic in terms of arguments that are defeasible. They are represented by forms of argument that are called argumentation schemes, considered to be similar to forms of argument found in deductive logic, but different from the foregoing in virtue of their being defeasible. Indeed, the most interesting schemes have been put forward as a helpful way of characterizing structures of human reasoning that have (...) proved troublesome to model deductively. The paper sheds new light on Aristotle's topics and how to dene `enthymeme'. If the traditional denition of an enthymeme in logic accepted for over two thousand years is a misnomer, the question is raised whether we ought to redene it as a defeasible argumentations scheme or leave things as they are. (shrink)

Semantic essentialism holds that any scientific term that appears in a well-confirmed scientific theory has a fixed kernel of meaning. Semantic essentialism cannot make sense of the strategies scientists use to argue for their views. Newton's central optical expression "light ray" suggests a context-sensitive view of scientific language. On different occasions, Newton's expression could refer to different things depending on his particular argumentative goals - a visible beam, an irreducibly smallest section of propagating light, or a traveling particle of light. (...) Essentialist views are too crude to account for the richness and subtleties present in actual episodes of scientific debate and theory-change. (shrink)