This volume presents a selection of papers reflecting key theoretical issues in argumentation theory. Its six sections are devoted to specific themes, including the analysis and evaluation of argumentation, argument schemes and the contextual embedding of argumentation. The section on general perspectives on argumentation discusses the trends of empiricalization, contextualization and formalization, offers descriptions of the analytical and evaluative tools of informal logic, and highlights selected principles that argumentation theorists do and do not agree upon. In turn, the section on (...) linguistic approaches to argumentation focuses on the problem of distinguishing between explanation and argument, while also elaborating on the role of verbal indicators of argument schemes. All essays included in this volume point out notable recent developments in the study of argumentation. (shrink)

Are there arguments in mathematics? Are there explanations in mathematics? Are there any connections between argument, proof and explanation? Highly controversial answers and arguments are reviewed. The main point is that in the case of a mathematical proof, the pragmatic criterion used to make a distinction between argument and explanation is likely to be insufficient for you may grant the conclusion of a proof but keep on thinking that the proof is not explanatory.

We present how the theory of reasoning developed by Tadeusz Czeżowski, a Polish logician and a member of the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS) can be applied to the mediaeval texts which interpret the Bible, which we collectively call as Biblical exegesis (BE). In the first part of the paper, we characterise Czeżowski's theory of reasoning with some modifications based on remarks of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. On these grounds, we discuss the nature of reasoning and its different types, as well as the problem (...) of textual representation of reasoning. In the second part, we describe the analytical nature of some BE at the end of twelfth century and in the thirteenth century by referring to the examples of Stephen Langton, Robert Grosseteste, Bonaventure, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. We argue that they represented an analytical approach in BE, characterised by advanced use of logic and specific methods, including reasoning reconstruction and logical analysis. In the third part, we present selected examples to show how Czeżowski's framework helps in identifying various types of reasoning. We indicate some universal problems with the textual representation of reasoning found in the BE of the authors in question. Lastly, we point out how Czeżowski's framework enables the understanding of phenomena such as ‘Special Biblical Inference’. Thanks to this experiment, we can see how a framework as advanced as that offered by LWS representatives can be put to the test using mediaeval Biblical commentaries, yielding interesting results. (shrink)

A broad assumption in argumentation theory is that argumentation primarily regards resolving, confronting, or managing disagreement. This assumption is so fundamental that even when there does not appear to be any real disagreement, the disagreement is suggested to be present at some other level. Some have questioned this assumption (most prominently, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, and Doury), but most are reluctant to give up on the key idea that persuasion, the core of argumentation theory, can only regard disagreements. We argue here (...) that this assumption is false. Argument may be as much about strengthening or maintaining agreement as it is about disagreement. Once we see how argument is possible and manifestly enacted under conditions of agreement, then we have tools to explain otherwise curious fallacies and argumentative phenomena. (shrink)

The topic of the presence, legitimacy and epistemic worth of narrative explanations in different kinds of scientific discourse has already enjoyed several revivals within related discussions in contemporary philosophy of science. In fact, we have recently witnessed a more extensive, more unprejudiced and ambitious attention to narrative modes of making science. I think we need a systematic theoretical framework in order to categorize these different functions of narratives and understand their role in scientific explanatory and justificatory practice. My claim is (...) that some distinctions and analytic tools developed within the field of contemporary Argumentation Theory might be of help. (shrink)

Both because of the vagueness of the word ‘give’ when speaking about giving reasons, and because we lack an adequate definition of ‘reasons’, there is a harmful ambiguity in the expression ‘giving reasons’. Particularly, straightforwardly identifying argumentation with reasons giving would make of virtually any interplay a piece of argumentation. Besides, if we adopt the mainstream definition of reasons as “considerations that count in favour of doing or believing something”, then only good argumentation would count as argumentation. In this paper, (...) I defend a qualified characterization of argumentation as reasons giving that is shown to be fruitful for shedding light on the practice of giving reasons, and an inferentialist conception of reasons that makes room for speaking of “bad reasons” and, consequently, makes it possible to talk of argumentation as reasons giving even if we are talking about bad argumentation. (shrink)