Arguing that our attachment to Aristotelian modes of discourse makes a revision of their conceptual foundations long overdue, the author proposes the consideration of unacknowledged factors that play a central role in argument itself. These are in particular the subjective imprint and the dynamics of argumentation. Their inclusion in a four-dimensional framework and the focus on thesis validity allow for a more realistic view of our discourse practice. Exhaustive analyses of fascinating historical and contemporary arguments are provided. These range from (...) Columbus’s advocacy of the Western Passage to India, over the trial of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution, to today’s highly charged controversies surrounding euthanasia and embryo research. Excavating foundational issues such as the purpose of argument itself and the contested role of argument as a generator of knowledge, the book culminates in a discussion of the relationship between rationality and reasonableness and criticizes the restrictions of ‘rational’ argument relying on fixed logical, economic or cultural criteria that in reality are mutable. Here, a true, open argument requires the infusion of Paul Lorenzen’s principle of ‘transsubjectivity’, which recognizes but transcends the partiality of the individual and which can be seen in the pragmatic and expanding consensus that humanity can control itself to safeguard the future of a fragile, damaged world. (shrink)

This paper surveys the contributions to the study of argumentation in the two decades since the work of Toulmin and Perelman. Developments include Radical Argumentativism (Anscombre and Ducot), Communication and Rhetoric (American Speech Communication Theory), Informal Logic (Johnson and Blair), Formal Analyses of Fallacies (Woods and Walton), Formal Dialectics (Barth and Krabbe), and Pragma-Dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst). From the survey it is concluded that argumentation theory has been considerably enriched. If the contributions can be made to converge, a sound (...) basis will be created for developing educational methods for producing, interpreting and evaluating argumentative discourse. Thus, argumentation theory may be instrumental in improving the quality of democracy by furthering a reasonable management of differences of opinion. (shrink)

An incidental extension of the central domain of argumentation theory with non-classical ways of constructing arguments seems to automatically raise a question that is otherwise rarely posed, namely whether or not it is useful to consider the sex of the arguer. This question is usually posed with regard to argumentation by women in particular. Do women rely more, or differently than men do on non-canonical modes of reasoning stemming from the realm of the emotional, physical and intuitive, instead of the (...) logical? One may simply refer this question to folk-linguistics. One may also take the question seriously, given the findings on women's linguistic behaviour, and for various other reasons that will be explained below.Section 1 sums up the most frequently quoted differences in language use between women and men. This is followed by a non-exhaustive, interdisciplinary review of studies on male/female differences in verbal and written argumentation.Section 2 discusses the role of language and texts in generating and maintaining ideas on gender. These gender messages not only influence the actual argumentation behaviour of women and men, but also the way such behaviour is valued.Section 3 subsequently shows that our ideas on rationality are gendered, and therefore also our ideas on the proper central domain of argumentation theory.Section 4 briefly reflects on why this kind of wrong question about the reasoning of women should sometimes be addressed seriously anyway. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that much can be gained for the analysis and evaluation of arguing when fallacies are not, or not only, conceived of as flawed premise–conclusion complexes but rather as argumentative moves which distort harmfully an interaction aiming at resolving communication problems argumentatively. Starting from Normative Pragmatics and the pragma-dialectical concept of fallacy, a case study is presented to illustrate a fallacy which is termed the 'revelation argument' because it is characterized by an interactor's revealing her (...) thoughts and/or emotions to the addressees and claiming that these would have justificatory or refutatory potential with respect to the problem discussed. Although the revelation argument may not be a paradigm case of resolution- hindering moves, it is an extreme case of flawed reasoning that illustrates plainly the advantages of a communicational perspective on arguing and fallacies. (shrink)

When ‘making a case’ in court, the defense lawyer engages different arguments in a situated performance. At the same time, these arguments have developed over time in front of different audiences. In this paper I will follow the construction of arguments in an actual criminal case from preparation to the trial by focusing on the developments and refinements of the arguments that inform and shape the case.

The article introduces the concept of ‘argumentational integrity’ as the basis for developing ethical criteria by which contributions to argumentative discussions can be evaluated; the focus is on the derivation, definition, and specification of the concept. The derivation of the concept starts out from a prescriptive use of ‘argumentation’, entailing in particular the goal of a rational as well as a cooperative solution. In order to make this goal attainable, contributions to argumentative discussions must meet certain conditions. It is assumed (...) that participants are not only intuitively aware of these conditions, but in fact expect of themselves and others that they will not consciously violate the conditions. This assumption leads to the most general definition of the norm of argumentational integrity: Speakers must not knowingly violate the argumentative conditions. On the basis of an empirical study drawing upon classifications of unethical strategies in popular rhetorical texts, the general norm is then specified in the form of 11 ‘standards of fair argumentation’. (shrink)

An adequate evaluation of argumentation requires identification of the object to which the argumentation pertains: the point of view. What are the distinguishing features of this object? In the pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, the object of argumentation is referred to by means of the notion ‘standpoint’. In other theories concerned with argumentation, reasoning, convincing or persuading, notions are used such as ‘thesis’, ‘conclusion’, ‘opinion’ and ‘attitude’. This paper is a survey of the characterisations of the object of argumentation given in the (...) various theories. It discusses the pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, socio-psychological research on persuasion, cognitive research on reasoning, argumentative discourse analysis, two variants of informal logic, advocacy and debate, and the theory of communicative action. Next, it explores some relations between the notions used in these theories. Finally, it outlines some starting points for further research into the problems of identification. (shrink)

Perelman's work has been very influential in various disciplines, among them philosophy, rhetoric and law. Especially the typology of argumentative schemes which he developed together with L. Olbrechts-Tyteca has been considered as an excellent classification of arguments in natural language. There are, however, some weaknesses of this typology which make its application to empirical research quite difficult, namely, the lack of explicitness and the absence of clear criteria of demarcation. Still, the typology is highly relevant for empirical research, if these (...) weaknesses are removed. This is illustrated with an example: the scheme called ‘the division of the whole into its parts’ by Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca is described explicitly and then applied to the analysis of a sample of everyday arguments (mostly taken from newspapers). (shrink)

This paper is concerned with argumentation in legal proceedings, namely in criminal cases. My interest is to explore how in the legal realm different argumentation fields interact, the juridical field being just one of them. The paper lays out an approach of studying argumentation in the legal realm in the framework of an ethnographic methodology by identifying the “topical rules” the participants in criminal trials adhere to. Suggesting the notion of field-dependence as a good starting point for the analysis of (...) legal argumentation, I will give several examples of different fields of argumentation interacting in criminal proceedings. The examination of what counts as a good reason and how arguments are employed, negotiated, and evaluated within a criminal proceeding might shed light on the practice of constructing facts and arriving at decisions in court. It can furthermore point at the constitution of legal rationality and how it is produced in criminal trials. I argue that rationality in criminal proceedings is interactively accomplished by negotiating different standards of validity. (shrink)

According to an everyday concept of 'argumentation' the presence of authority rules out the possibility for argumentation. However, in the case of appeal to authority, e.g., argumentation and authority coexist. The analysis of teacher-and-student interactions shows that a teacher's utterances are critically evaluated by the students, although these may lack relevant knowledge for adequate evaluation. The teacher cannot rely upon his authority alone; if the students accept what she says, the acceptance can be said to be the positive result of (...) a critical evaluation based on the students' knowledge about the subject. Therefore, a dialogical concept of argument acceptability, related to a conception of a genuine argumentativity of language use, is introduced which 1) states that acceptability is connected to the knowledge/information available to an addressee, and 2) can account for why appeals to authority are accepted as rational arguments. (shrink)