Starting from a concept of reasonableness as well-consideredness, it is discussed in what way science could serve as a model for reasonable argumentation. It turns out that in order to be reasonable two requirements have to be fulfilled. The argumentation should comply with rules which are both problem-valid and intersubjectively valid. Geometrical and anthropological perspectives don't meet these criteria, but a critical perspective does. It is explained that a pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation which agrees with this critical perspective is indeed (...) problem-valid and that strong pragmatic and utilitarian arguments can be given for its intersubjective validity. Thus, conventional validity is promoted for a code of conduct for discussants who want to resolve their disputes reasonably by way of a critical discussion. (shrink)

The book offers a compact but comprehensive introductory overview of the crucial components of argumentation theory. In presenting this overview, argumentation is consistently approached from a pragma-dialectical perspective by viewing it pragmatically as a goal-directed communicative activity and dialectically as part of a regulated critical exchange aimed at resolving a difference of opinion. As a result, the book also systematically explains how the constitutive parts of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which are discussed in a number of separate publications, hang (...) together. The following crucial topics are discussed: argumentation theory as a discipline; the meta-theoretical principles of pragma-dialectics; the model of a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion; fallacies as violations of a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse; descriptive research of argumentative reality; analysis as theoretically-motivated reconstruction; strategic manoeuvring aimed at combining achieving effectiveness with maintaining reasonableness; the conventionalization of argumentative practices; prototypical argumentative patterns; pragma-dialectics amidst other approaches. Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective is clearly written and makes argumentation theory understandable to all scholars and advanced students interested in argumentation research. (shrink)

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.

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.

The study of argumentation is prospering. After its brilliant start in Antiquity, highlighted in the classical works of Aristotle, after an alternation of ups and downs during the following millennia, in the post-Renaissance period its gradual decline set in. Revitalization took place only after Toulmin and Perelman published in the same year their landmark works The Uses of Argument and La nouvelle rhétorique. The model of argumentation presented by Toulmin and Perelman’s inventory of argumentation techniques inspired a great many scholars (...) in various ways to take up the study of argumentation in a serious manner. Nowadays there are well-established logical approaches to argumentation, but also social and socio-psychological, linguistic, juridical and other approaches. In most of these approaches traces can be found of the influence of the classical and neo-classical argumentation theories just mentioned. (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)

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.

In Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness, Frans H. van Eemeren, Bart Garssen and Bert Meuffels report on their systematic empirical research of the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical discussion rules. The experimental studies they carried out during more than ten years start from the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation developed at the University of Amsterdam, their home university. In these studies they test methodically the intersubjective acceptability of the rules for critical discussion proposed in this theory by confronting ordinary arguers who (...) have not received any special education in argumentation and fallacies with discussion fragments containing both fallacious and non-fallacious argumentative moves. The research covers a wide range of informal fallacies. In this way, the authors create a basis for comparing the theoretical reasonableness conception of pragma-dialectics with the norms for judging argumentative moves prevailing in argumentative practice. Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness provides a unique insight into the relationship between theoretical and practical conceptions of reasonableness, supported by extensive empirical material gained by means of sophisticated experimental research. (shrink)

The study of argumentation is prospering. After its brilliant start in Antiquity, highlighted in the classical works of Aristotle, after an alternation of ups and downs during the following millennia, in the post-Renaissance period its gradual decline set in. Revitalization took place only after Toulmin and Perelman published in the same year their landmark works The Uses of Argument and La nouvelle rhétorique. The model of argumentation presented by Toulmin and Perelman’s inventory of argumentation techniques inspired a great many scholars (...) in various ways to take up the study of argumentation in a serious manner. Nowadays there are well-established logical approaches to argumentation, but also social and socio-psychological, linguistic, juridical and other approaches. In most of these approaches traces can be found of the influence of the classical and neo-classical argumentation theories just mentioned. (shrink)

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.

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)

This article reacts against the undesirable ideological separation between dialectical and rhetorical approaches to argumentative discourse. It argues that a sound evaluation of argumentation requires an analysis that reveals all aspects of the discourse pertinent to critical testing. To explain the rationale of the various moves made in the discourse and the strategic patterns behind them, not only the interlocutors' dialectical goals must be taken into account, but also their rhetorical goals. After explaining how rhetorical insight can be instrumental in (...) deepening and justifying a dialectical analysis, an integrated analysis is made of the rhetorical strategies that are brought to bear in an advertorial published by the oil company Shell. (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.