This thesis justifies the need for and develops a new integrated model of practical reasoning and argumentation. After framing the work in terms of what is reasonable rather than what is rational (chapter 1), I apply the model for practical argumentation analysis and evaluation provided by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) to a paradigm case of unreasonable individual practical argumentation provided by mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik (chapter 2). The application shows that by following the model, Breivik is relatively easily able (...) to conclude that his reasoning to mass murder is reasonable – which is understood to be an unacceptable result. Causes for the model to allow such a conclusion are identified as conceptual confusions ingrained in the model, a tension in how values function within the model, and a lack of creativity from Breivik. Distinguishing between dialectical and dialogical, reasoning and argumentation, for individual and multiple participants, chapter 3 addresses these conceptual confusions and helps lay the foundation for the design of a new integrated model for practical reasoning and argumentation (chapter 4). After laying out the theoretical aspects of the new model, it is then used to re-test Breivik’s reasoning in light of a developed discussion regarding the motivation for the new place and role of moral considerations (chapter 5). The application of the new model shows ways that Breivik could have been able to conclude that his practical argumentation was unreasonable and is thus argued to have improved upon the Fairclough and Fairclough model. It is acknowledged, however, that since the model cannot guarantee a reasonable conclusion, improving the critical creative capacity of the individual using it is also of paramount importance (chapter 6). The thesis concludes by discussing the contemporary importance of improving practical reasoning and by pointing to areas for further research (chapter 7). (shrink)

This paper concerns the character of argumentation in inner dialogue, i.e. dialogue that an individual keeps to herself in her own mind. The problem of inner dialogue research is the methodological difficulty connected with its externalization. In the text, the activity of crisis diary-writing is suggested as a way of naturally externalizing inner decision-making. By adopting a pragma-dialectic approach to argumentation, the text attempts to characterize crisis diary-writing as an argumentative activity type. The argumentative characterization of crisis diary-writing involves identifying (...) the institutional point and implemented genre as well as distinguishing the empirical counterparts of the four stages of critical discussion. For illustration, the paper draws its examples from Anne Frank’s Diary. As a result of the characterization achieved in the paper, it is concluded that crisis diary-writing is a conventionalized deliberative activity type preconditioned by implicit norms governing the conduct of argumentation. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is the acknowledgement that individual reasoning, understood as inner dialogue, and social argumentation, albeit they are two different phenomena, share some similarities. On this basis, this paper sets out to apply instruments from argumentation theory to inner dialogue in order to better explain it. Within this framework, some limitations to the study of inner dialogue are also discussed; and methodological suggestions are provided in order to grasp what could be considered data on “inner dialogue” (...) starting from social research interviews. The ultimate aim is to go beyond a mere recognition of a similarity between inner dialogue and argumentation and start analysing inner dialogue empirically using tools from argumentation theory. The findings show that the analytic overview help shed light on how inner dialogue within processes of individual decision-making develops and what it means to have an internal difference of opinion, in which one and the same person adopts opposing standpoints and argues for them. On the opposite, it is shown that the notion of strategic manoeuvring per se cannot be applied to inner dialogue. (shrink)

Within three of the most well-known contemporary approaches to argumentation, the notions of solo argumentation and arguing with one’s self are given little attention and are typically argued to be able to be subsumed within the dialectical aspects of the approach being propounded. Challenging these claims, this paper has two main aims. The first is to argue that while dialogical argumentation may be most common, there exists individual dialectical argumentation, which is not so easily subsumed within these theories. Second, in (...) order characterize this type of argumentation the paper also offers distinctions between the interrelated notions of dialectical, dialogical, and quasi-dialogical, reasoning and argumentation, within an individual or between multiple participants, which I hope provide useful precision for the field. (shrink)

This paper explores the trajectories of food and how culinary practices evolve over time in relation to a migrant’s experience. Our focus is on international mothers adjusting to life in London. We identify a connection between eating practices and evolving identities. In line with a stream of research in cultural psychology, we consider food as a symbolic resource mobilized by migrants to provide some material support to their processes of adaptation to a new country. In this respect, we introduce the (...) notion of malleable symbolic resource in order to highlight the ductility of food in relation to an individual’s evolving personal culture. On this basis, we propose to describe ductile trajectories of food in relation to three important steps: where food and eating practices come from; with whom food is consumed and for what goal it is chosen. (shrink)

Argumentation is generally conceived of as a dialogic activity between two or more participants. Nonetheless, it operates also at an intrapersonal level, in a soliloquy where protagonist and antagonist of the critical discussion are embodied in the same person. We argue this case by analyzing journalists’ argumentation about linguistic choices in newswriting processes. Empirically, we draw on data generated with progression analysis, in particular with cue-based retrospective verbal protocols. The data was produced by the journalists under investigation when they, while (...) watching video recordings of their text production processes, reconstructed and verbalized their decisions. In the detail analysis, we focus on one editorial by an experienced journalist of Corriere del Ticino, the main Italian-language newspaper in Switzerland. (shrink)