Topical Themes in Argumentation Theory brings together twenty exploratory studies on important subjects of research in contemporary argumentation theory. The essays are based on papers that were presented at the 7th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation in Amsterdam in June 2010. They give an impression of the nature and the variety of the kind of research that has recently been carried out in the study of argumentation. The volume starts with three essays that provide stimulating (...) theoretical perspectives on argumentation. Subsequently, some views are explained on the intriguing topics of ‘dissensus’ and ‘deep disagreement’. After a discussion of three different approaches to the treatment of types of argumentation some classical themes from antique argumentation theory are revisited. The new research area of visual argumentation is explored in the next part. The volume concludes with three reports of experimental studies concerning argumentative discourse. The volume starts with three essays that provide stimulating theoretical perspectives on argumentation. Subsequently, some views are explained on the intriguing topics of ‘dissensus’ and ‘deep disagreement’. After a discussion of three different approaches to the treatment of types of argumentation some classical themes from antique argumentation theory are revisited. The new research area of visual argumentation is explored in the next part. The volume concludes with three reports of experimental studies concerning argumentative discourse. The volume starts with three essays that provide stimulating theoretical perspectives on argumentation. Subsequently, some views are explained on the intriguing topics of ‘dissensus’ and ‘deep disagreement’. After a discussion of three different approaches to the treatment of types of argumentation some classical themes from antique argumentation theory are revisited. The new research area of visual argumentation is explored in the next part. The volume concludes with three reports of experimental studies concerning argumentative discourse. (shrink)

Cyber harassment can have harmful effects on social media users, such as emotional distress and, consequently, withdrawal from social network sites or even life itself. At the same time, users are often upset when network providers intervene and deem such an intrusion an unjust occurrence. This article analyzes how decisions to intervene can be communicated in such a way that users consider them adequate and acceptable. A first experiment shows that informational justice perceptions of social network users depend on the (...) format in which network providers present the decision to intervene. More specifically, if a decision to intervene is presented in the form of a story, as opposed to an analytical rendering of facts and arguments, decisions to intervene prompt more positive informational justice perceptions. A second experiment reveals that when users relate the experience to themselves, narrative transportation increases, which positively affects perceptions of the justice of decisions to intervene. (shrink)

Can argumentation schemes play a part in the critical processing of argumentation by lay people? In a qualitative study, participants were invited to come up with strong and weak arguments for a given claim and were subsequently interviewed for why they thought the strong argument was stronger than the weak one. Next, they were presented with a list of arguments and asked to rank these arguments from strongest to weakest, upon which they were asked to motivate their judgments in an (...) interview. In order to assess whether lay people apply argument scheme specific criteria when performing these tasks, five different argumentation schemes were included in this study: argumentation from authority, from example, from analogy, from cause to effect, and from consequences. Laypeople’s use of criteria for argument quality was inferred from interview protocols. The results revealed that participants combined general criteria from informal logic and scheme-specific criteria. The results supported the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical argument scheme rule in a strong sense and provided a more fine-grained view of central processing in the Elaboration Likelihood Model. (shrink)

The paper provides a classification of argumentation schemes used in German jurisprudence in accordance with recent developments in argumentation theory and legal methodology.

Although argumentation plays an essential role in our lives, there is no integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation. Instead research on argumentation is conducted in a number of separate research communities that are spread across disciplines and have only limited interaction. With a view to bridging these different strands, we first distinguish between three meanings of the word ?argument?: argument as a reason, argument as a structured sequence of reasons and claims, and argument as a social exchange. (...) All three meanings are integral to a complete understanding of human reasoning and cognition. Cognitive psychological research on argumentation has focused mostly on the first and second of these meanings, so we present perspectives on argumentation from outside of cognitive psychology, which focus on the second and third. Specifically, we give anoverview of the methods, goals, and disciplinary backgrounds of research on the production, the analysis, and the evaluation of arguments. Finally, inintroducing the experimental studies included in this special issue, which were conducted by researchers from a range of theoretical backgrounds, weunderline the breadth of argumentation research as well as stress opportunities for mutual awareness and integration. (shrink)

Argument quality has consistently been shown to have strong and lasting persuasive effects. The question is what criteria people use to distinguish strong from weak arguments and how these criteria relate to the ones proposed in normative argumentation theory. In an experiment 235 participants without training in argumentation theory rated the acceptance of 30 claims about the desirability of a consequence that were supported by either an argument from analogy, from authority, or from consequences. The supporting arguments were systematically manipulated (...) to violate argument type specific criteria. Participants proved sensitive to the violation of most, but not all, argument type specific criteria. From a normative perspective these findings suggest that people act in a fairly adequate way. These findings also enable a more precise description of what people may do when critically appraising arguments, which has important implications for the use of argument quality as a methodological tool in persuasion research. (shrink)

High-quality arguments have strong and lasting persuasive effects, suggesting that people can distinguish high- from low-quality arguments. However, we know little of what norms people employ to make that distinction. Some studies have shown that, in evaluating arguments from consequences, people are more sensitive to differences with respect to the desirability of these consequences than to differences in the likelihood that these consequences will occur. This raises the question of whether people lack the criteria to distinguish high-quality from low-quality arguments (...) in support of such claims. In an experiment, 196 participants without any training in argument theory rated their acceptance of 30 claims about the likelihood that a certain outcome would result from a certain action. These claims were supported by an argument from authority, or from cause to effect, or from example. Arguments were systematically manipulated to violate nine specific criteria. For seven out of the nine criteria violation decreased acceptance of the claim supported. These findings show that people can use argument type specific criteria to distinguish high- from low-quality arguments. (shrink)

Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...) analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)