The public must make assessments of a range of health-related issues. However, these assessments require scientific know-ledge which is often lacking or ineffectively utilized by the public. Lay people must use whatever cognitive resources are at their disposal to come to judgement on these issues. It will be contended that a group of arguments—so-called informal fallacies—are a valuable cognitive resource in this regard. These arguments serve as cognitive heuristics which facilitate reasoning when knowledge is limited or beyond the grasp of (...) reasoners. The results of an investigation into the use of these arguments by the public are reported. (shrink)

Norms—that is, specifications of what we ought to do—play a critical role in the study of informal argumentation, as they do in studies of judgment, decision-making and reasoning more generally. Specifically, they guide a recurring theme: are people rational? Though rules and standards have been central to the study of reasoning, and behavior more generally, there has been little discussion within psychology about why (or indeed if) they should be considered normative despite the considerable philosophical literature that bears on this (...) topic. In the current paper, we ask what makes something a norm, with consideration both of norms in general and a specific example: norms for informal argumentation. We conclude that it is both possible and desirable to invoke norms for rational argument, and that a Bayesian approach provides solid normative principles with which to do so. (shrink)

Much of what we believe we know, we know through the testimony of others. While there has been long-standing evidence that people are sensitive to the characteristics of the sources of testimony, for example in the context of persuasion, researchers have only recently begun to explore the wider implications of source reliability considerations for the nature of our beliefs. Likewise, much remains to be established concerning what factors influence source reliability. In this paper, we examine, both theoretically and empirically, the (...) implications of using message content as a cue to source reliability. We present a set of experiments examining the relationship between source information and message content in people's responses to simple communications. The results show that people spontaneously revise their beliefs in the reliability of the source on the basis of the expectedness of a source's claim and, conversely, adjust message impact by perceived reliability; hence source reliability and message content have a bi-directional relationship. The implications are discussed for a variety of psychological, philosophical and political issues such as belief polarization and dual-route models of persuasion. (shrink)

I would like to thank Christoph Lumer for his illuminating comments on my paper “The question of truth” published in this journal (Botting 2010) and would like to exercise my right of reply on a few of the issues that he raises.

By explaining the argument from ignorance in terms of the presumption of innocence, many textbooks in argumentation theory suggest that some arguments from ignorance might share essential features with some types of presumptive reasoning. The stronger version of this view, suggesting that arguments from ignorance and presumptive reasoning are almost indistinguishable, is occasionally proposed by Douglas Walton. This paper explores the nature and limits of the stronger proposal and argues that initial presumptions and arguments from ignorance are not closely connected. (...) There are three main reasons. First, the argument from ignorance, unlike typical presumptive reasoning, is a negative kind of inference. Second, the typical initial presumption is sensitive to a broader set of defeaters and thus assumes a higher standard of acceptability. Third, in dialectical terms, initial presumption and argument from ignorance bring different attacking rights and obligations. I conclude that Waltonian intuition is unsupported or, at best, is limited only to practical presumptions and practical arguments from ignorance. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the way that web documents seeking to persuade readers of certain science claims provide information about the sources of the arguments. Our quantitative analysis reveals that web documents in our sample include hundreds of examples in which the reader is provided information regarding the trustworthiness of sources. The web documents also contain a large number of examples in which the reader is provided with information about how many individuals hold a particular belief. We discuss ad (...) hominem, ad verecundiam, and ad populum arguments, and the way that the examples found in our sample of documents are related to these argumentation schemes. (shrink)

This paper provides a thorough analysis of two often informally stated claims. First, successful argumentation in the sense of persuasive argumentation requires agreement between the interlocutors about the rationality of arguments. Second, a general agreement about rationality of arguments cannot itself be established via argumentation, since such an attempt leads to an infinite meta‐regress. Hence, agreement about the rationality of arguments is a precondition for successful argumentation. As the paper argues, these plausible claims hold under the assumption that interlocutors are (...) subjectively rational and follow their own standards of rationality when engaging in argumentation. (shrink)

Citing an epistemic or cognitive asymmetry between experts and the public, it is easy to view the relation between scientists and citizens as primarily based on trust, rather than on the content of expert argumentation. In criticism of this claim, four theses are defended: Empirical studies suggest that content matters, while trust boasts persuasiveness. In social policy controversies, genuine expert-solutions are normally not available; if trust is important here, then a clear role for cognitive asymmetry is wanting. Social policy controversies (...) pivot on values, so that biases and ideologies may explain participant behavior. Few experts communicate perfectly; rather than cognitive ones, one might cite social differences. (shrink)

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)

This volume reflects the development and theoretical foundation of a new paradigm for critical thinking based on inquiry. The field of critical thinking, as manifested in the Informal Logic movement, developed primarily as a response to the inadequacies of formalism to represent actual argumentative practice and to provide useful argumentative skills to students. Because of this, the primary focus of the field has been on informal arguments rather than formal reasoning. Yet the formalist history of the field is still evident (...) in its emphasis, with respect to both theory and pedagogy, on the structure and evaluation of individual, de-contextualized arguments. It is our view that such a view of critical thinking is excessively narrow and limited, failing to provide an understanding of argumentation as largely a matter of comparative evaluation of a variety of contending positions and arguments with the goal of reaching a reasoned judgment on an issue. As a consequence, traditional critical thinking instruction is problematic in failing to provide the reasoning skills that students need in order to accomplish this goal. Instead, the goal of critical thinking instruction has been seen largely as a defensive one: of learning to not fall prey to invalid, inadequate, or fallacious arguments. (shrink)

An ad hominem fallacy is committed when an individual employs an irrelevant personal attack against an opponent instead of addressing that opponent’s argument. Many discussions of such fallacies discuss judgments of relevance about such personal attacks, and consider how we might distinguish those that are relevant from those that are not. This paper will argue that the literature on bias and testimony can helpfully contribute to that analysis. This will highlight ways in which biases, particularly unconscious biases, can make ad (...) hominem fallacies seem effective, even when the irrelevance is recognized. (shrink)

As part of a research project on confrontational maneuvering in the spokespersons’ argumentative replies at the regular press conferences of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2015 and 2018, this article analyzes, within the framework of Pragma-Dialectics, how the spokespersons declare a standpoint at issue unallowed or indisputable in order to avoid having to resolve a difference of opinion as it is, according to the questioning journalist, presented by their immediate opponents. Starting from the various rationales the spokespersons presuppose to (...) be understood and regarded acceptable by the questioning journalist and the international general public, three subtypes of declaring a standpoint unallowed or indisputable are differentiated: the “Necessity Rationale” subtype, the “Desirability Rationale” subtype, and the “Feasibility Rationale” subtype. The confrontational maneuvering by declaring a standpoint unallowed or indisputable carried out by the spokespersons is directed both at the immediate opponent and at the international general public. However, it is the international general public that the spokespersons primarily intend to convince. For this purpose, they make in all three subtypes of the unallowed or indisputable declaration an effort to adapt their response to their primary audience’s demand by making strategic choices from the available topical potential and the available presentational devices. (shrink)

This article explains the design and development of the pragma-dialectical approach to fallacies. In this approach fallacies are viewed as violations of the standards for critical discussion that are expressed in a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse. After the problem-solving validity in resolving differences of opinion of the rules of this code has been discussed, their conventional validity for real-life arguers is demonstrated. Starting from the extended version of the theory in which the strategic maneuvering taking place in (...) argumentative discourse is included, the article explains that the violations of the rules that are committed in the fallacies involve derailments of strategic maneuvering. This culminates in a discussion of the exploitation of hidden fallaciousness as an unreasonable way of increasing the effectiveness of argumentative discourse – a vital topic of research in present-day pragma-dialectics. (shrink)

In ‘The making of argumentation theory’ van Eemeren and van Haaften describe the contributions made to the five components of a full-fledged research program of argumentation theory by four prominent approaches to the discipline: formal dialectics, rhetoric/pragmalinguistics, informal logic, and pragma-dialectics. Most of these approaches do not contribute to all components, but to some in particular. Starting from the pragma-dialectical view of the relationship between dialectical reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness – the crucial issue in argumentation theory – van Eemeren and (...) van Haaften explain the positions taken by representatives from the approaches discussed and indicate where they differ from the pragma-dialectical approach. It transpires that approaches focusing on dialectical reasonableness are, next to pragma-dialectics, formal dialectics and informal logic; approaches focusing on rhetorical effectiveness are, next to pragma-dialectics, rhetoric and pragmalinguistics, and the informal logician Tindale. When it comes to the relationship between dialectical reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness, some interest in it is shown in rhetoric and pragmalinguistics, but only in pragma-dialectics and in Tindale’s work is it a real focus. The main difference between Tindale’s view and the pragma-dialectical view is that in pragma-dialectics the decisive role in deciding about reasonableness is assigned to a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse and in Tindale’s approach this role is assigned to Tindale’s interpretation of the Perelmanian universal audience. (shrink)

‘In Context’ is aimed at giving contextualization its rightful place in the study of argumentation. First, Frans H. van Eemeren explains the crucial role of context in a reconstructive analysis of argumentative discourse. He distinguishes four levels of contextualization. Second, he situates his approach to context in the field of argumentation studies by comparing it with Walton’s approach. He emphasizes the importance of distinguishing clearly between a normatively motivated theoretical ideal model and empirically-based communicative activity types. Third, van Eemeren concentrates (...) on the ‘macro-level’ of contextualization: contextualization in institutionalized communicative activity types. He makes clear that the macro-context of a communicative activity type can be characterized argumentatively by describing the disctinctive features of the empirical counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion in the activity type concerned. Fourth, he points out what the consequences of the macrocontextualization of argumentative discourse in a certain communicative activity type are for the strategic maneuvering that may takes place and the identification of fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering. Fifth, van Eemeren draws some general conclusions regarding the role of contextualization in the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse. (shrink)

To illustrate the development of argumentation theory, the paper traces the journey of the pragma-dialectical theory as it widened its scope, step by step, from an abstract model of critical discussion to the complexities of actual argumentative discourse. It describes how, having contextualized, empiricalized and formalized their approach, pragma-dialecticians are now putting the theory’s analytical instruments to good use in identifying prototypical argumentative patterns in specific communicative activity types in the various communicative domains. This means that they can now start (...) answering the crucial question about the typical characteristics of their discourse asked by interested lawyers, politicians, academics and other practitioners of argumentation. (shrink)

How does the analysis and evaluation of argumentation depend on the dialogue type in which the argumentation has been put forward? This paper focuses on argumentative bluff in eristic discussion. Argumentation cannot be presented without conveying the pretence that it is dialectically reasonable, as well as, at least to some degree, rhetorically effective. Within eristic discussion it can be profitable to engage in bluff with respect to such claims. However, it will be argued that such bluffing is dialectically inadmissible, even (...) within an eristic discussion. (shrink)

Critical thinking has been widely regarded as an indispensable cognitive skill in the 21st century. However, its associations with the affective aspects of psychological functioning are not well understood. This study explored the interrelations between trait mindfulness, critical thinking, cognitive distortions, and psychological distress using a moderated mediation model. The sample comprised 287 senior secondary school students (57% male and 43% female) aged 14–19 from a local secondary school in Hong Kong. The results revealed that high critical thinking was significantly (...) associated with high levels of psychological distress when mindful awareness was low among adolescents. Trait mindfulness was found to moderate the indirect effects of critical thinking on psychological distress via cognitive distortions as the mediator. Specifically, in low trait mindfulness conditions, critical thinking was found to associate positively with cognitive distortions and psychological distress. Such associations were not observed in high trait mindfulness conditions. The findings reveal that though critical thinking has positive associations with cognitive functioning, its associations with affective well-being might be negative. The results also suggest that mindfulness might play an important role in preventing the possible psychological distress associated with critical thinking. Educational implications relating to the fostering of critical thinking and mindful awareness are discussed. (shrink)

While the role of discourse connectives has long been acknowledged in argumentative frameworks, these approaches often take a coarse-grained approach to connectives, treating them as a unified group having similar effects on argumentation. Based on an empirical study of the straw man fallacy, we argue that a more fine-grained approach is needed to explain the role of each connective and illustrate their specificities. We first present an original corpus study detailing the main features of four causal connectives in French that (...) speakers routinely use to attribute meaning to another speaker, which is a key element of straw man fallacies. We then assess the influence of each of these connectives in a series of controlled experiments. Our results indicate each connective has different effects for the persuasiveness of straw man fallacies, and that these effects can be explained by differences in their semantic profile, as evidenced in our corpus study. Taken together, our results demonstrate that connectives are important for argumentation but should be analyzed individually, and that the study of fallacies should include a fine-grained analysis of the linguistic elements typically used in their formulation. (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)

This work pretends to unveil the relationship between the psychosocial features grouped under the argument frame concept and the degree of discursive density that is reached by a sample of 243 older adults in the production of argumentative discourses. In order to specify the main psychosocial features of the sample’s subjects, the Hample test was employed. In order to evaluate argumentative density, all of the participants were asked for an essay about a controversial situation derived from the Dilemma of the (...) D.I.T. Questionnaire. The information crossover between both instruments allowed the establishment of a significant relationship between the way in which the older adults frame reality and the discursive products through which it is communicated. (shrink)

Abstract How do people find arguments while engaged in a discussion? Following an analogy with visual search, a mechanism that performs this task is described. It is a metarepresentational device that examines representations in a mostly serial manner until it finds a good enough argument supporting one’s position. It is argued that the mechanism described in dual process theories as ‘system 2’, or analytic reasoning fulfills these requirements. This provides support for the hypothesis that reasoning serves an argumentative function. Content (...) Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10503-011-9256-1 Authors Hugo Mercier, Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program, University of Pennsylvania, 313 Cohen Hall, 249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA Journal Argumentation Online ISSN 1572-8374 Print ISSN 0920-427X. (shrink)

Both questions as abstract objects and the speech acts, here called requests, by which we ask them play an enormous role in all argumentative practices. Nonetheless, there is hardly a proper systematic treatment of questions and requests in current argumentation theories. This paper is a first attempt at providing such a systematic treatment. This is achieved by following the ideal model of a critical discussion as elaborated over the years by the Amsterdam school of pragma-dialectics. After introducing the distinction between (...) questions and requests, the paper sets forth and illustrates the norms of questioning which implicitly underlie the four stages of a critical discussion in the standard order: confrontation, opening, argumentation, and conclusion. Among other things, it is shown that crucial insights of pragma-dialectics are illuminated by the questioning perspective, in particular the distinction between single and multiple differences of opinion, the duties of the antagonist and protagonist roles, the precise character of the argumentation stage, and the different ways in which a disagreement can be resolved. (shrink)

The paper relates two different fields of research: the historiography of generative linguistics and argumentation theory, a central topic of which is the investigation of fallacies. Relating the two fields is a challenge: Since fallacies seem to be at the heart of the historiography of generative linguistics, any thorough evaluation of its present state of the art also involves accounting for fallacies. The paper applies Kertész and Rákosi’s p-model of plausible argumentation to a case study on heated discussions in the (...) historiography of generative linguistics. As a result, basic properties of fallacious argumentation are revealed and delimited from plausible argumentation in linguistic historiography. In addition, the paper also draws generalizable conclusions that may affect the historiography of other human sciences as well. (shrink)

Článek se věnuje argumentu kluzkého svahu a otázce, jak jej identifikovat a hodnotit. Argument kluzkého svahu je využíván v rámci praktického uvažování a v dialogu, svou strukturou odpovídá negativnímu argumentu z důsledku, má v zásadě defeasibilní povahu a je často účinný při snaze přenést důkazní břemeno na stranu oponenta. Hodnocení argumentu kluzkého svahu je založeno na kontextu dialogu spíše než na hodnocení jeho deduktivní či induktivní správnosti.V příspěvku jsou představeny čtyři typy argumentu. Zaprvé argument kluzkého svahu typu sorites, jehož označení (...) odkazuje k paradoxu sorites neboli paradoxu hromady. Argument kluzkého svahu typu sorites je ve své podstatě kombinací argumentu ad absurdum a sofismatu polyzeteseos. Zadruhé kauzální argument kluzkého svahu, který se zakládá na předpovědi série událostí. Tento typ argumentu je často označován jako teorie domina či dominový efekt. Nicméně, ať už jej pojmenujeme jakkoli, zásadní pro jeho identifikaci, analýzu a hodnocení je fakt, že se jedná o předpověď budoucího stavu věcí. Předpověď více či méně pravděpodobnou, zakládající se na slabých či silných předpokladech. Zatřetí precedentální argument kluzkého svahu, který se objevuje v diskuzích o možnosti změny současného pravidla či platné normy. Argumenty založené na precedentu obecně souvisí s usuzováním na základě konkrétního případu. Precedentální argument kluzkého svahu využívá podobnosti mezi případy, a je tedy založen na analogii. A posledním, čtvrtým typem argumentu kluzkého svahu, kterému se příspěvek věnuje, je tzv. plný argument kluzkého svahu či kombinovaný argument kluzkého svahu. (shrink)

Some conspicuous characteristics of argumentation as we all know this phenomenon from our shared everyday experiences are in my view vital to its theoretical treatment because they should have methodological consequences for the way in which argumentation research is conducted. To start with, argumentation is in the first place a communicative act complex, which is realized by making functional verbal communicative moves.

How do Dutch people let each other know that they disagree? What do they say when they want to resolve their difference of opinion by way of an argumentative discussion? In what way do they convey that they are convinced by each other’s argumentation? How do they criticize each other’s argumentative moves? Which words and expressions do they use in these endeavors? By answering these questions this short essay provides a brief inventory of the language of argumentation in Dutch.

Philosophers deny a proposal for actions can be deduced from arguments for or against the proposal because they may be incompatible. Nevertheless, people in general, and politicians especially, make decisions and present arguments they believe are convincing. We studied politicians who made decisions in complex situations. They spoke about possible actions, their consequences, the probabilities of these consequences and their evaluations, but rarely indicated why their arguments led to their choice. We hypothesized implicit argumentation rules involved and checked whether they (...) predicted those choices. We found seven implicit informal logic rules involved. We also found a random sample of people made the same choices based on the same arguments, suggesting basic warrants by which people argue about decisions. (shrink)

The introduction of the concept of strategic maneuvering into the pragma-dialectical theory makes it possible to formulate testable hypotheses regarding the persuasiveness of argumentative moves that are made in argumentative discourse. After summarizing the standard pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, van Eemeren, Garssen, and Meuffels explain what the extension of the pragma-dialectical approach with strategic maneuvering involves and discuss the fallacies in terms of the extended pragma-dialectical approach as derailments of strategic maneuvering. Then they give an empirical interpretation of the extended (...) pragma-dialectical model in which they report the testing of three hypotheses which formulate preliminary conditions for effectiveness research within the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory and the results of the tests they consecutively carried out. (shrink)

During the past thirty years the pragma-dialectical theorizing has developed in various steps from designing an abstract ideal model for critical discussion to examining strategic manoeuvring in the various argumentative activity types in which argumentative discourse manifests itself in argumentative reality. The response to the theoretical proposals that have been made includes, next to approval, also various kinds of criticisms. This paper explores the nature and thrust of these criticisms. In doing so, a distinction is made between criticisms concerning the (...) dialectical and the pragmatic dimensions of pragma-dialectics, the scope of the theory, the rhetorical dimension and moral quality, the treatment of the fallacies, and the epistemic dimension. (shrink)

The paper discusses the place and the status of fallacies in Arnauld and Nicole’s Port-Royal Logic, which seems to be the first book to introduce a radical change from the traditional Aristotelian account of fallacies. The most striking innovation is not in the definition of a fallacy but in the publication of a new list of fallacies, dropping some Aristotelian ones and adding more than ten new ones. The first part of the paper deals with the context of the book’s (...) publication. We then show the influence of Cartesian and Augustinian/Pascalian philosophy on the whole book, especially their common critical views about logic, dialectic and their traditional academic teaching. The third part of the paper discusses the two chapters on fallacies. It focuses on their place in the book and their relation with its general orientation, before turning to their content, closely connected with some major concerns of the time. (shrink)

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)

Everyday life reasoning and argumentation is defeasible and uncertain. I present a probability logic framework to rationally reconstruct everyday life reasoning and argumentation. Coherence in the sense of de Finetti is used as the basic rationality norm. I discuss two basic classes of approaches to construct measures of argument strength. The first class imposes a probabilistic relation between the premises and the conclusion. The second class imposes a deductive relation. I argue for the second class, as the first class is (...) problematic if the arguments involve conditionals. I present a measure of argument strength that allows for dealing explicitly with uncertain conditionals in the premise set. (shrink)