Develops a logical analysis of dialogue in which two or more parties attempt to advance their own interests. It includes a classification of the major types of dialogues and a discussion of several important informal fallacies.

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since "argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced," says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will achieve (...) the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite." Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes facts and reasonableness and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres-forensic, deliberative, and epideictic-is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. Epideictic oratory, Perelman argues, has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds." These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience.". (shrink)

This book identifies 25 argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning and matches a set of critical questions to each.

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since “argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced,” says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will achieve (...) the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, "in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite.” Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes "facts" and "reasonableness" and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. /// The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres–forensic, deliberative, and epideictic–is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. "Epideictic oratory," Perelman argues, "has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds.” These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to "establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience.”. (shrink)

This paper discusses the fundamental sense in which the components of an argument should be relevant to the intended audience. In particular, the evidence advanced should be relevant to the facts and assumptions that are manifest in the cognitive environment of the audience. A version of Sperber and Wilson's concept of the cognitive environment is applied to argumentative concerns, and from this certain features of audience-relevance are explored: that the relevance of a premise can vary with the audience; that irrelevant (...) premises can be made relevant; that evidence can be relevant by degrees; and that this notion of relevance will assist the argumentation analyst in the identification and assessment of hidden premises. (shrink)

Walton's book is a study of several fallacies in informal logic. Focusing on question-answer dialogues, and committed to a pragmatic rather than a semantic approach, he attempts to generate criteria for evaluating good and bad questions and answers. The book contains a discussion of such well-recognized fallacies as many questions, black-or-white questions, loaded questions, circular arguments, question-begging assertions and epithets, ad hominem and tu quoque arguments, ignoratio elenchi, and replying to a question with a question. In addition, Walton develops several (...) artificial dialogue games and has an excellent discussion of burden of proof in nonlegal contexts. The discussion is for the most part nontechnical and does not presuppose any training in formal logic. It is illustrated with many (sometimes overlong) examples of fallacies drawn from real life--mostly debates in the Canadian House of Commons. . . . Walton's book breaks new ground on a number of issues. Choice This first full-length study of logical fallacies, errors, faults, illicit attacks, blunders, and other critical deficiencies in interrogation and reply has been written in the tradition of informal fallacies in logic. It is especially valuable, readable, and interesting because of the 139 case studies it presents, many of these case studies come from political debates and some from interviews, legal cross-examinations, and other sources. Walton uses these challenging examples of tricky, aggressive, argumentative, or fallacious questions to develop coherent and pragmatic guidelines for criticizing questionable questions (and in some cases their replies) on logical grounds. Among the types of problematic questions analyzed are: the traditional so-called fallacy of many questions, illustrated by the famous Have you stopped beating your wife?; black and white questions; terminologically loaded questions; and questions containing personal attacks. These and other types of problematic questions as well as evasive replies and replying to a question with a question are studied. Critical errors of reasoning are identified and analyzed by developing context-based, normative models of reasonable dialogue in which a questioner must have freedom to ask informative and probing questions, and the respondent must be constrained to give reasonably direct, not overly evasive answers. In this era of negative and evasive political campaigning, with candidates employing skillful tactics of manipulating public opinion to assure election rather than taking clear stands and seriously debating issues in an informed and sincere manner, Question-Reply Argumentation is especially relevant reading for those who take democracy seriously. The methods used reflect a significant shift from earlier semantically based theories to current pragmatic, dialogue-based models, and will be of interest to logicians and linguists. The volume's conclusions should challenge some current preconceptions. Recommended reading for courses in logic, speech communications, linguistics, philosophy of language, areas of political science relating to political discourse and debate, courses on questioning in cognitive psychology, and courses on critical thinking in education. (shrink)

After critiquing the arguments against using formal logic to teach critical thinking, this paper argues that for theoretical, practical, and empirical reasons, instruction in the fundamentals of formal logic is essential for critical thinking, and so should be included in every class that purports to teach critical thinking.

Natural dialogue does not proceed haphazardly; it has an easily recognized “episodic” structure and coherence which conform to a well developed set of conventions. This paper represents these conventions formally in terms related to speech act theory and to a theory of action.The major formal unit, the dialogue game, specifies aspects of the communication of both participants in a dialogue. We define the formal notion of dialogue games, and describe some of the important games of English. Dialogue games are conventions (...) of interactive goal pursuit. Using them, each participant pursues his own goals in a way which sometimes serves the goals of the other. The idea of dialogue games can thus be seen as a part of a broader theoretical perspective which characterizes virtually all communication as goal pursuit activity.We also define and exemplify the property of Motivational Coherence of dialogues. Motivational Coherence can be used as an interpretive principle in explaining language comprehension.Actual dialogue games have a kind of causal connectedness which is not a consequence of their formal properties. This is explained in terms of a theory of action, which is also seen to explain a similar attribute of speech acts. (shrink)

The research discussed in this paper concerns an investigation of logical dialogue games as a vehicle for enhanced human-computer communication. The need for a dialogue capability in computer systems is argued, and a prima facie case made for dialogue games, in particular Mackenzie's "DC", as a suitable dialogue model. Empirical work concerning DC is outlined, and strategies for adoption by the computer are presented. A user interface, software architecture and conceptualised example are discussed. The hope is that the paper will (...) help bring together two groups of workers-philosophers of dialogue and designers of computer systems-to the mutual benefit of each. (shrink)