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)

This paper highlights the difference between Lilian Bermejo-Luque’s account of warrants with the quite different accounts of warrants offered by Toulmin, Hitchcock, and myself, and lays out some of the reasons why I think a “Toulminesque” account of warrants captures crucial aspects of arguing more adequately than her account does.

A variety of theoretical and epistemological perspectives on the notion of argument has contributed towards the development of numerous text analysis systems in contemporary argumentation research, making the selection of an analytic model for the description and evaluation of arguments in natural language contexts a complex task for researchers. Not surprisingly, Western scholars have overwhelmingly relied on Anglo- and Euro-centric models of argumentation as normative references of argument structure and quality in a variety of research contexts, disregarding plurality of practice (...) within socio-cultural contexts. I will discuss how the findings of my own research, in which I examine the rhetorical styles of Australian and Japanese students’ academic writing in English, have led me to suggest an approach towards argument analysis that accommodates the variety of rhetorical styles found in my studies of academic writing and contributes towards a useful account of the functions and structures of academic argument in contemporary tertiary texts. (shrink)

The paper presents a historical overview of some characteristic differences between rhetoric and dialectic in the pre-modern tradition. In the light of this historical analysis, some current approaches to dialectic are characterized, with special attention to Ralph Johnson's concept of dialectical tier.

If dialogue is a necessary condition for argument, argumentation in oratory becomes questionable, since rhetoric is not a dialogically structured activity. If special norms apply to the ‘solo’ performances of rhetoric, the orator’s activity may be more appropriately described as reasoning than as arguing. By analyzing in what respect rhetorical texts can be interpreted as dialogue-based and subject to criteria of Informal Logic, the virtues of rhetorical argumentation in contrast to logic and dialectic emerge.

The aim of this paper is to articulate the relationship between ‘critical rhetoric’ and Stephen Toulmin’s conception of practical reasoning. Among students of rhetoric, particularly those who work in communication departments in American universities, the project of reason, once cherished as central to the 20th century Renaissance of argument, seems to have become outdated and irrelevant. With the recent ‘critical turn,’ reason was especially given a bad name in the field of rhetoric. Some rhetoricians have even joined reason’s Other, dissociating (...) themselves from the project of reason as much as possible. The paper contends that the difference between critical reasoners and rhetoricians is not so substantial as it may look. It boils down to a question of emphasis, not substance, in our practice of practical discourse. Drawing on Toulmin’s idea of ‘modernity,’ ‘reasonableness,’ and ‘warrant-establishing,’ the paper call argument and rhetorical scholars’ attention to the assumptions that Toulmin’s project shares with critical rhetoric and argues for their ‘solidarity,’ a much needed intellectual project of Reason when the ‘reasonable’ is to be given equal weight to the ‘rational.’. (shrink)

This paper explores the possible rapprochement between Marxism and argumentation attempted in Proletarian Elocution, a 1930 Japanese publication. Against a Western Marxist commonplace that “[a]s far as rhetoric is concerned,… a Marxist must be in a certain sense a Platonist”, the paper discusses how this work seeks to takes advantage of the inquiry and advocacy dimensions of argumentation for the Marxian strategy of “agitprop” and rearticulate it as part of civic virtues.

The present paper’s aim is to outline a definition of “analyticity” through assuming a framework whose basic concepts are taken from rhetoric. Thus, assuming particular examples from the history of analytic philosophy – i.e. philosophers that are commonly considered “analytic” - the author shows how many shared patterns are recognisable within their argumentations, explanations, beginnings and conclusions. A previous extensional definition of “analytical philosophy” is not assumed; hence the concluded remarks can be taken as features of any analytic philosopher.