The paper deals with sentence adverbials and clauses with the propositional content “no doubt can be cast on ...” and their occurrence in monological argumentative discourse. Such adverbials and clauses are regarded as illocutionary indicators of indirect directives aiming at the verbal behaviour of the reader, or, more precisely, at the omission of verbal activity on reader's part. Such attempts to influence the reader's behaviour can be both fair ones, to anticipate reader's objections, but also manipulative ones, so as (...) to suppress them. That is why some general guidelines are given how to distinguish between the discourse-organizing and the manipulative function of indirect directives in concern. (shrink)

This study applies the concept of reported speech advanced by the renowned Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin to compare the argumentative styles of Mainland China and Taiwan. These societies in question are considered by many scholars as sharing the same argumentative style. The study reports that the Mainland debaters more frequently than the Taiwanese debaters maintained the authenticity of the quotations cited from ancient Confucian sources, whereas Taiwanese debaters paraphrased more frequently. On the other hand, this difference cannot be found (...) when debaters quoted from sources other than Ancient Confucians. The findings, according to Bakhtin, imply a contrast of monologic and dialogic tendencies toward authority, which results in a style difference between Mainland and Taiwan argumentation. (shrink)

This article consists of three parts, two introductory, in which the limits and the methods of analysis of dialogues are expounded, and the major part, in which the main features of a philosophical theory of disputation are outlined.It was an essential aim of the philosophical analysis of argumentative dialogues to develop tools of substantiation for cases in which logic doesn't help any more. In the first part of this paper I show that such tools can and will be developed only (...) by analyzing argumentations (“argumentation” in the sense of a monologue in which arguments for a thesis are brought forward), and that the analysis of argumentative dialogues doesn't contribute anything to the development of such tools.The systematically first task of the philosophical analysis of dialogues consists in understanding the general practical aims of philosophically interesting types of dialogue. Only subsequently the rules of the dialogue can be reconstructed as good means for reaching these aims. Dialogical games constructed without referring to such a purpose are externally senseless and useless.The third part is an outline of a philosophical theory of disputation (“disputation” here will mean: (learned) dialogue in which the participants cooperatively though perhaps controversially attempt to find out by means of arguments and mutual criticism whether a thesis is true or false). Disputations contain argumentations, and many functions of a disputation can also be fulfilled by argumentations alone. Certifying the truth of convictions is the specific aim of disputation. This is accomplished by eliminating errors of substantiation and foundation as effectively as possible, in revising false convictions and their foundations, thereby making the remaining convictions more certain. Based on this analysis of the aim of disputation, the basic rules of disputations will be critically reconstructed: possible moves, rules of sequence, and the internal aim and ends of disputations. (shrink)

Argumentation schemes are forms of reasoning that are fallible but correctable within a self-correcting framework. Their use provides a basis for taking rational action or for reasonably accepting a conclusion as a tentative hypothesis, but they are not deductively valid. We argue that teleological reasoning can provide the basis for justifying the use of argument schemes both in monological and dialogical reasoning. We consider how such a teleological justification, besides being inspired by the aim of directing a bounded (...) cognizer to true belief and correct choices, needs to take into account the attitudes of dialogue partners as well as normative models of dialogue and communicative activity types, in particular social and cultural settings. (shrink)

To conceptualize early Chinese discourse in terms of disputation over dao, more attention should be given to the contentious heteroglossia underneath the monological surface of many texts, to the canonized masters' role as rhetorical critics of their time, and to the politics of criteria and argumentation that penetrated to the very core of their discursive practices.

This article explores a framework for analyses of what has variously been termed the ‘implied’, ‘imagined’, ‘virtual’ or ‘putative’ reader/addressee – the effect by which ostensibly ‘monologic’ texts, such as news media commentary, political pronouncements and academic essays project particular attitudes, beliefs and expectations on to the reader/addressee. The framework is demonstrated in being applied to an examination of the construal of putative addressee positioning in a selection of mass media texts concerned with the Israeli military’s invasion of Gaza in (...) 2014. The framework is novel in the way in which it mobilises the account of the options for dialogistic positioning offered by the appraisal-framework literature, combined with some insights from Toulmin’s notion of the argumentative ‘warrant’. Conclusions are offered as to how such analyses of the readers being ‘written into the text’ can extend insights into the rhetorical workings of such texts and their ideological functionality in naturalising particular value positions. (shrink)

Although in some contexts the notions of an ordinary argument’s presumption, assumption, and presupposition appear to merge into the one concept of an implicit premise, there are important differences between these three notions. It is argued that assumption and presupposition, but not presumption, are basic logical notions. A presupposition of an argument is best understood as pertaining to a propositional element (a premise or the conclusion) e of the argument, such that the presupposition is a necessary condition for the truth (...) of e or for a term in e to have a referent. In contrast, an assumption of an argument pertains to the argument as a whole in that it is integral to the reasoning or inferential structure of the argument. A logical assumption of an argument is essentially a proposition that must be true in order for the argument aside from that proposition to be fully cogent. Nothing that is both comparable and distinguishing can be said about presumptions of arguments. Rather, presumptions of arguments are distinctively conventional; they are introduced through conventional rules (e.g., those that concern how to treat promises). So not all assumptions and not all presuppositions of arguments are presumptions of those arguments, although all presumptions of arguments are either assumptions or presuppositions of those arguments. This account avoids making the (monological) notion of presumption vacuous and dissolving the distinction between assumption and presumption, which is a vulnerability of alternative views such as Hansen’s and Bermejo-Luque’s, as is shown. (shrink)

In a theoretical first part we attempt to articulate the notions of concession, refutation and negation for monological linguistic activity, on the basis among other things of Mœschler's work on conversation. We distinguish the illocutionary act of refutation and the complex intervention of refutation, concession-invention, concession-repetition and concession-quotation. In a second part we analyze the place and role of (descriptive) negation in counter-argumentative texts written by 8- to 12-year-old pupils and adults in an artificial situation. We consider phenomena observed (...) by certain “contradictory” properties of negation in the context of the task in question: namely potential help in generating content by mechanisms of the argumentative law of negation extended to predicates, negation takes the risk polyphonically of argumentative drift. This may explain the fact that it is so rare. (shrink)

Feeling that they must aim for certainty in their claims, each side presents its version of reality, monologically, simply for acceptance or rejection by the other. In this form of argumentation, one individualistically formulated, systematic, finished version is pitted (in an essentially Neo-Darwinian struggle) against another. By its very nature, such a form of rational argumentation prevents the construction of a shared version of things; it is not dialogical. In attempting to recover what has been rendered ’rationally-invisible‘ by (...) our modern modes of (monological) reasoning, I first explore the "structures of passion and feeling" (Raymond Williams) embodied in the ways in which people in a community interrelate themselves. Attention to such structures illuminates the nature of argument in a novel, dialogical, light: those who share in such structures do not share in a system of foundational principles or a logical framework, but in a "living tradition" (MacIntyre) or "living ideology" (Billig et al.). Bakhtin‘s concept of the utterance is then explored as the basic unit for understand dialogical communication and argument within such living traditions. (shrink)

Traditionally, in media studies research, the direct address or aside, i.e., a construction in which a speaker communicates a message directly to the audience breaking the continuity of the narrative flow, has been investigated mainly for its dramaturgical function. The present study aims to consider the direct address as a research object of the social psychology of communication to increase our understanding of this technique by going beyond the analysis of its dramaturgical function. In particular, the direct address will be (...) examined through an integrated approach based on argumentative and conversational tools to highlight its less known polydimensional structure, i.e., diegetic and extra-diegetic dimensions and their interactions, and psychosocial functions, i.e., connecting the characters among each other within the show as well as with the audience. This objective will be achieved by analyzing two different direct addresses from the American TV series House of Cards. The analysis showed that the direct address performs its dramaturgical function by impacting both diegetic and extradiegetic levels. In the first case, as considered in previous studies, these plans are activated in parallel, aiming to build what we have defined as the “strategic subjectivity” of the character who employs this technique. Instead, in the second case—which comprises two direct addresses produced by two different characters—this technique involves the creation of what we will call “platforms of intersubjectivity.” In this occurrence, the dramaturgical action establishes a “bridge” between the diegetic and extradiegetic plans that act synergistically. In conclusion, the present study shows how an integrated approach based on argumentative and conversational tools of analysis permits to enlarge the traditional media studies perspective, highlighting the less investigated polydimensional structure and analyzing the psychosocial functions of the direct address, here considered as a research object of the social psychology of communication examined in its diegetic and extra-diegetic dimensions. The integration of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation with the interlocutory logic theory has brought to light a new modality of use of the direct address that can be termed “intersubjective aside,” a type of aside that can be added to the three already known, i.e., aside ad spectatores, monological aside, and dialogical aside. (shrink)

The paper's argumentation is for the conception of mind as an open, although internally structured system. Mind, however, is not just an actualization of dispositions, but also the accommodation and cultivation of the latter in the process of a continuous interaction with the intelligible structures of the other minds as well as with the products of the historical development of culture.The author's presupposition is, that the language as the most important product of the semiotic activity became an accelerator of (...) the evolution of culture, the basic code of human way of being. Expanding and enriching of the communication nests led to the rise of a new world, which has transcended the natural world and changed the human nature. The science investigating the human mind, which ignores the existence of the semiotic activity cuts off the substantial aspects leading to its understanding. Therefore, the author suggests the dialogue as a basic method of the examination of mind. It is the dialogue, through which the minds overcome the isolatedness of their beings and through which an intersubjectively valid knowledge is created. The dialogical method is compatible with its substance, as the mind is seen not as a monological, but rather as a dialogical entity. (shrink)

In this essay Walter Okshevsky addresses the question of whether a certain form of dialogically derived agreement can function as an epistemic criterion of moral judgment and ground of moral authority. Okshevsky examines arguments for and against in the literature of educational philosophy and develops Jürgen Habermas's affirmative answer as presented in his discourse theory of morality. Habermas's position is articulated as a moral epistemology and is developed through his critique of the “monologism” of certain aspects of Immanuel Kant's moral (...) theory. Okshevsky concludes with a consideration of some educational implications of Habermas's position. (shrink)

In June 21, 1990, the Joneses, an African-American family living in the mainly white and working-class neighbourhood of St. Paul in Minnesota, saw a small white cross burning in their yard. By placing the burning cross on the yard, the Minnesota Supreme Court argued that one of the accused, Robert A Viktora, had engaged in ‘fighting words’. However, the US Supreme Court reversed this decision, arguing that the local authority in St Paul only legally banned certain ‘fighting words’, but not (...) others. Judith Butler explores this legal case, R.A.V. v. St. Paul. Judith Butler argues in her earlier work that the Supreme Court in effect represented the burning cross as being non-performative and simply a vehicle of expression rather than a historical symbol of hate speech towards African-Americans. In this paper, I look again at the R.A.V. case. But I do so by both drawing on what Butler explicitly says about the case in her early work and integrating this with her later work on the ethics of grief, state hegemony and public assemblies. Furthermore, I also incorporate some of the insights of the Bakhtin Circle into Butler’s work to strengthen her arguments. The paper then revisits R.A.V. v. St. Paul and shows how Reaganite state hegemony effectively transformed issues of racism surrounding this free speech case into ‘monologic’ and ‘ungrievable’ public matters of concern. The paper concludes by briefly discussing counter-hegemonic politics of free speech. (shrink)

The “philosophy of conscience” is the fundamental paradigm of modern philosophy from Descartes to Kant. Such paradigm has been the object of continuous criticism starting with the so call “philosophy of suspicion” and latter on by the “linguistic turn”, which in this article is considered from the perspective of the discursive ethics of Habermas. Although these criticisms force us to abandon the primacy and the monologism of the “philosophy of conscience”, we should not forget the value of the moral conscience (...) itself in spite of all its resituations. This is what I try to claim in this work, following the arguments of Wellmer, Muguerza, Bilbeny or Renaut, among other critics, revisiting, from this perspective, the confrontation between Kant and Hegel, which has been brought up again by the liberal/communitarian debate, leading finally my discussion to the relation between individualism and cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

The pace of change in the world is accelerating, yet educational institutions have not kept pace. Indeed, schools have historically been the most static of social institutions, uncritically passing down from generation to generation outmoded didactic, lecture-and-drill-based, models of instruction. Predictable results follow. Students, on the whole, do not learn how to work by, or think for, themselves. They do not learn how to gather, analyze, synthesize and assess information. They do not learn how to analyze the diverse logic of (...) the questions and problems they face and hence how to adjust their thinking to those problems. They do not learn how to enter sympathetically into the thinking of others, nor how to deal rationally with conflicting points of view. They do not learn to become critical readers, writers, speakers and listeners. They do not learn how to use their native languages clearly, precisely, or persuasively. They do not, therefore, become ‘literate’, in the proper sense of the word. Neither do they gain much in the way of genuine knowledge since, for the most part, they could not explain the basis for what they believe. They would be hard pressed to explain, for example, which of their beliefs were based on rational assent and which on simple conformity to what they have been told. They have little sense as to how they might critically analyze their own experience, or identify national or group bias in their own thinking. They are much more apt to learn on the basis of irrational than rational modes of thought. They lack the traits of mind of a genuinely educated person: intellectual humility, courage, integrity, perseverance, and faith in reason.Happily, there is a movement in education today striving to address these problems in a global way, with strategies and materials for the modification of instruction at all levels of education. At its foundation is an emerging new theory of knowledge, learning, and literacy, one which recognizes the centrality of independent critical thinking to all substantial learning, one which recognizes that higher-order, multilogical thinking is as important to childhood as to adult learning, and as important to foundational learning in monological as in multilogical disciplines. This educational reform movement is not proposing an educational miracle cure, for its leading proponents recognize that many social and historical forces must come together before the ideals of the critical thinking movement will become a full academic reality. Schools do not exist in a social vacuum. To the extent that the broader society is uncritical so, on the whole, will be society's schools. Nevertheless, the social conditions necessary for fundamental changes in schooling are increasingly apparent. The pressure for fundamental change is growing. Whether and to what extent these needed basic changes will be delayed or side-tracked, thus requiring new periodic resurgences of this movement, with new, more elaborate articulations of its ideals, goals, and methods — only time will tell. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 568-569 [Access article in PDF] James P. Scanlan. Dostoevsky the Thinker. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 251. Cloth, $29.95. Important works on Dostoevsky's life and thought abound, but James Scanlan offers the first comprehensive treatment and evaluation of Dostoevsky as a philosophical thinker. Scanlan uses Dostoevsky's thousands of letters, essays, and "capacious notebooks" (3), as well as (...) his literary work, to analyze systematically Dostoevsky's philosophical worldview and to argue for its coherence. Scanlan's commitment to careful scholarship is apparent throughout, including his translations of the texts. A philosopher himself, Scanlan contextualizes Dostoevsky's work in relation to traditional philosophers, including Descartes, Kant, and Kierkegaard. The result is a balanced, rich, and provocative treatment that also suggests new interpretations of some of Dostoevsky's literary works.If Bakhtin is right to describe Dostoevsky's novels as "polyphonic," how does one ascertain their author's position? Scanlan grants the challenges of approaching Dostoevsky as a philosopher. Nineteenth-century Russian thinkers rarely identified with particular philosophical schools, and Dostoevsky never thought of himself as a philosopher. Yet Dostoevsky was intensely interested in philosophy, and Scanlan argues that Dostoevsky's characters serve as surrogates for competing philosophical positions. Scanlan also reminds readers of Dostoevsky's often-neglected nonfiction works and weaves masterfully the nonfiction and the literature to support his argument.Echoing Bakhtin, Scanlan labels Dostoevsky's methodology "dialogical in style, monological in substance" (4). Doing so effectively rejects critical perspectives that suggest the author held contradictory positions. For Scanlan, Dostoevsky's dialectical method resulted from his preoccupation with combating others' ideas, implied by his frequent use of reductio ad absurdum arguments. Dostoevsky "sought to establish his own positions by demonstrating the failure of their antitheses" (231). Not only does Scanlan persuasively demonstrate the consistency of Dostoevsky's philosophical commitments, he also challenges the appropriation of Dostoevsky by existentialists as an "irrationalist," despite Dostoevsky's "convincing portrayals of human irrationality" and skepticism concerning rationality's powers (5).Scanlan examines Dostoevsky's vision of Christianity that included a strict binary of matter and spirit, and a rejection of rational egoism and mechanism (termed "nihilism"). Dostoevsky's positive deontologism, his "law of love" (with Christ as exemplar) was, for Dostoevsky, necessary to overcome the "law of personality," and conscience grounded in Christian love was the basis for salvation. Scanlan persuasively argues that Dostoevsky, if irrationalist, belongs more with Kant than Kierkegaard in viewing rationality as limited but not to be rejected wholesale. Scanlan uses this analysis to ground a provocative new reading of Notes from Underground.Scanlan also explores the connectedness of Dostoevsky's ethics and aesthetics in Dostoevsky's insistence that artists should create moral beauty beyond the purely aesthetic or cognitive. Much has been written about Dostoevsky's aesthetics, but Scanlan exposes its logical grounding in Dostoevsky's rejection of the subjective utilitarian aesthetics of Chernyshevsky and the radical materialism of Dobrolyubov. For Dostoevsky, the need for [End Page 568] beauty and creativity is intrinsic to human nature, and art serves an epistemological function that gestures toward reality, not as a "mindless photographer" (140) but as a cognitive vision penetrating "the core of his subject" (141). Dostoevsky also justified his use of the anomalous, noting that the exceptional might be "an avenue of access to the universal" (143).Dostoevsky's "dream of a community of perfect Christian brotherhood and love" (160) grounds Scanlan's examination of Dostoevsky's sociopolitical philosophy and his rejection of the critical view that Dostoevsky's politics radically changed over time. Though Scanlan agrees with biographers that Dostoevsky despised the "moral blight" (169) of serfdom, he argues that Dostoevsky's vision of Christian society permitted social stratification so long as service to masters was voluntary, cooperative, and rational. This analysis makes clear the distance between Dostoevsky and Western liberal political theorists.For Dostoevsky, society based on universal Christian love is the only acceptable "socialism," and the last part of Scanlan's work analyzes Dostoevsky's nationalism and its relation to his attacks on socialism. In addition to... (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo do presente trabalho é defender a uma perspectiva de ensino de filosofia baseada na compreensão pragmatista da prática intersubjetiva da argumentação racional, temperada por outro lado com a ênfase deleuziana na diferenciação e na singularidade das situações problemáticas, tomadas como situações que motivam as argumentações e discussões capazes de promover transformações políticas do mundo social. Na primeira seção introduzimos nossa perspectiva através da comparação de duas propostas mais diretamente vinculadas à questão da educação e do ensino de (...) filosofia, inspiradas, respectivamente, na tradição pragmatista e no pensamento de Deleuze e Guattari: a proposta do pensamento crítico e reflexivo desenvolvida por Matthew Lipman e a das experiências de pensamento apresentada por Silvio Gallo. Ainda na primeira seção, procuramos esclarecer nossa perspectiva estabelecendo algumas relações entre a filosofia da diferença de Deleuze e as filosofias da unidade de Kant e Habermas. Nas seções seguintes, procuramos defender nossa perspectiva por meio de análises das diferenças entre a unidade monológica e fixa de Kant e a unidade dialógica e passível de diferenciação da perspectiva pragmatista de Habermas. Palavras-chave: Pensamento Reflexivo; Pragmatismo; Argumentação; Habermas; Filosofia da Diferença Philosophy of Difference and Pragmatism: workshops on philosophical concepts as tools for the intersubjective practice of reasonable discussion Abstract: The objective of the present work is to defend a philosophy teaching perspective based on the pragmatist understanding of the intersubjective practice of rational argumentation, tempered on the other hand with the Deleuzian emphasis on the differentiation and singularity of problematic situations, taken as situations that motivate arguments and discussions capable of promoting political transformations in the social world. In the first section we introduce our perspective through the comparison of two proposals more directly linked to the issue of education and the teaching of philosophy, inspired, respectively, by the pragmatist tradition and the thought of Deleuze and Guattari: the proposal of critical and reflective thinking developed by Matthew Lipman and that of thought experiments presented by Silvio Gallo. Still in the first section, we seek to clarify our perspective by establishing some relationships between Deleuze's philosophy of difference and Kant's and Habermas' philosophies of unity. In the following sections, we seek to defend our perspective through analyzes of the differences between Kant's monological and fixed unity and the dialogical and differentiated unity of Habermas' pragmatist perspective. Keywords: Reflective Thinking; Pragmatism; Argumentation; Habermas; Philosophy of Difference Filosofía de la Diferencia y Pragmatismo: talleres sobre conceptos filosóficos como herramientas para la práctica intersubjetiva de la discusión razonable Resumen: El objetivo del presente trabajo es defender una perspectiva de enseñanza de la filosofía basada en la comprensión pragmatista de la práctica intersubjetiva de la argumentación racional, atemperada por otro lado con el énfasis deleuziano en la diferenciación y singularidad de las situaciones problemáticas, tomadas como situaciones que motivan argumentos. y discusiones capaces de promover transformaciones políticas en el mundo social. En el primer apartado introducimos nuestra perspectiva a través de la comparación de dos propuestas más directamente vinculadas a la cuestión de la educación y la enseñanza de la filosofía, inspiradas, respectivamente, en la tradición pragmatista y en el pensamiento de Deleuze y Guattari: la propuesta de pensamiento crítico y reflexivo desarrollada por Matthew Lipman y el de experimentos de pensamiento presentados por Silvio Gallo. Aún en la primera sección, buscamos aclarar nuestra perspectiva estableciendo algunas relaciones entre la filosofía de la diferencia de Deleuze y las filosofías de la unidad de Kant y Habermas. En las siguientes secciones, buscamos defender nuestra perspectiva a través de análisis de las diferencias entre la unidad monológica y fija de Kant y la unidad dialógica y diferenciada de la perspectiva pragmatista de Habermas. Palabras Clave: Pensamiento Reflexivo; Pragmatismo; Argumentación; Habermas; Filosofía de la diferencia Data de registro: 03/02/2024 Data de aceite: 12/06/2024. (shrink)

Reviews the book, Relational being: Beyond self and community by Kenneth J. Gergen . The primary plea of the book is that psychology consider a relational rather than individual conception of its phenomena. Gergen encourages us to "treat what we take to be the individual units as derivative of relational process" . This notion of a fundamentally relational subject is one that the reader is invited to explore and to test against other, more traditional, ways of constructing being. It is (...) a proposition entertained and evaluated in terms of its implications but it is not presented as the real, true, or most factual account of human experience. Throughout the text, Gergen attempts to replace the individual or monological expositional style with a more dialogical, plural kind of textual negotiation. The book is constantly questioning and coming to terms with itself, its critics, and its limitations. The book is, as Bakhtin might have it, multivocal. Gergen invokes his own authorial voice, but also his voice as an embedded, historical being. Each chapter is peppered with anecdotes and personal reflections woven into the overall narrative as concrete counterpoint to the abstractions of theoretical argument. In the process, Gergen is surprisingly intimate, personal, and generous with his private life and history. The book also becomes something more human, narrative, and funny than is usual in theoretical exegesis. This style is quite inviting, partly because it is rooted in everyday life but also because it explicitly invites, and even voices, the critic, the question, and the doubt. Ultimately, what is compelling in the pages of Relational Being is what is fundamentally compelling about relationalism itself—namely, the way that it displaces abstract system as the core of meaning and replaces it with embodied relation. This displacement has the potential to redress some of the essential distortions at the heart of Enlightenment reason—particularly that venerable tradition of riding one’s chosen theoretical hobby horse into the face of concrete, lived experience . Relational practice moves us away from the distortions that inevitably come when we make everything we encounter instrumental to some idea that we cherish . Relational practice asks us, instead, to continually return to the lived relation and so continually rupture and remake the narratives by which we understand it. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This article aims at theorizing a creative and processual theory of non-heterosexual identity. It will be argued that, so far, scholars have tended to theorize non-heterosexual identity from a monologic perspective, which establishes one-sidedly a casual and/or unproblematic relation between the emergence of forms of psychological suffering and the development of a non-heterosexual identity. Although it must be recognized that such a claim is important at a political level, at a subjective level, it leaves non-heterosexual people destined to be flooded (...) by distressing and painful emotional states. To counter monologism within theorisations of non-heterosexual identity development, without ignoring the negative impacts of heteronormativity, it will be argued that non-heterosexual identity needs to be theorized 1) as part of a creative process situated in a specific sociohistorical context marked by heteronormativity, 2) as part of a situated process that produces and never ceases to produce multiple effects (self-states), which are unified to create an identity, and 3) as part of a situated process of creation that can be artificially transformed through art. These are the three claims that will move forward the argument of this article. (shrink)

Agent-centered morality has been a serious challenge to ethical theories based on agent-neutral morality in defining what is the moral point of view. In this paper, my concern is to examine whether arguments for agent-centered morality, in particular, arguments for agent-centered option, can be justified. -/- After critically examining three main arguments for agent-centered morality, I will contend that although there is a ring of truth in the demands of agent-centered morality, agent-centered morality is more problematic than agent-neutral morality. Nevertheless, (...) we need to take seriously the challenges to agent-neutral morality by finding a way to reflect the insight of agent-centered morality within the framework of agent-neutral morality without collapsing it into agent-centered morality. As a way of doing so, I suggest that we need to integrate the situated, rather than transcendental, nonideal, rather than idealized, and dialogical, rather than monological, perspectives developed in feminist ethics, into agent-neutral morality. (shrink)

The theory of recognition arises within Hegel's confrontation with epistemological skepticism and aims at responding to the questions raised by modern skepticism concerning the accessibility of the external world, of other minds, and of one's own mind. This is possible to the extent that the theory of recognition is the guiding thread of a critique of the modern foundational theory of knowledge and, at the same time, the point of departure for an alternative approach. In this article I will dwell (...) on six stages of the evolution of Hegel's thought prior to the Phenomenology (1797-1806),stages shed great light on the direction taken by his argumentative strategy. Synthetically, the stages are as follows: 1. Hegel naturalizes the epistemological questions; 2. to do so he critiques foundationalism qua theory of empirical knowledge; 3. and qua theory of epistemic justification; 4. the critique of foundationalism is linked to a critique of the corresponding representationalistic theory of perception; 5. this, in turn, is linked to a critique of the monological theories of self-consciousness and to the development of a model of the rise of self-conscious knowing; 6. finally, Hegel synthesizes these epistemological views in a theory of knowledge qua recognition and in a metaphilosophical theory of philosophical rationality qua self-recognition: knowledge without foundation is thus the condition of possibility of philosophy’s self-justification. (shrink)

For Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), logic as a discipline belongs to the human faculty of reason, more precisely to the faculty of language. This discipline of logic breaks down into two areas. Logic or analytics is one side of the coin; dialectic or the art of persuasion is the other. The former investigates rule-oriented and monological language. The latter investigates result-oriented language and persuasive language...

This dissertation is structured as a debate between Wittgenstein and Habermas concerning the rational implications of linguistic practices. The topic of the debate is set by Habermas's claim that the pragmatic presuppositions of everyday speech acts commit speakers to resolve differences, including differences in their linguistic and reasoning practices, through a process of rational argumentation called discourse. By contrast, Wittgenstein sees linguistic and reasoning practices as the given parameters of all argumentation, such that they themselves are not open (...) to rational criticism. ;The approach taken is to reconstruct and evaluate each of these positions in detail. After an introduction to Wittgenstein's language-game model of linguistic practices, his remarks concerning rule-following are subjected to a careful analysis. Using Kripke's interpretation as a foil, the argument is made that Wittgenstein does not seek a standard for the correct application of a rule distinct from how one actually applies it, but instead shows that such standards can ultimately be no part of the practice of following a rule. Specifically, intersubjective agreement is not needed as a standard; contrary to what is usually thought, Wittgenstein shows that monological rule-following is possible. This finding is then applied to reasoning practices, with the provisional conclusion that a practice of reasoning as a whole is also not open to rational criticism, but is instead marked by acritical certainty. ;Next Habermas's model of communicative action is reconstructed to show how it implies that given linguistic and reasoning practices must be open to rational criticism. Two arguments supporting this model are then distinguished and examined: one based on the distinction between illocution and perlocution, the other based on a pragmatic theory of meaning. Both are found insufficient to substantiate Habermas's claims against Wittgenstein. The conclusion is therefore drawn that everyday linguistic practices do not commit speakers to critical discourses. ;Against both thinkers, however, I argue that linguistic practices themselves need not license their own critical evaluation for it to be rational. Hence, rational criticism of these practices may still be possible, even where it is not required. (shrink)

Rhetoric is at present the object of a rehabilitation on a grand scale, all the more as it overlaps the fields of literature, linguistics, and philosophy. Actually, if philosophy rejects and removes rhetoric, it is nevertheless, as a method of word, wholly impregnated with it. To investigate the complex relationship of mutual implication in which rhetoric and philosophy are involved is part and parcel of this plan of re-evaluation of rhetoric as “discourse art” with a view to a re-definition of (...) its field and functions. In this perspective, rhetoric articulates itself within, in relation to, and with Plato's dialogues in a much more subtle and complex manner than warranted by the process of “anti-rhetoricalness” initiated by philosophy against rhetoric after Plato. Going back to the origins of this conflict and recalling the system of oppositions supporting the official Platonic vulgate, this study begins to pave the way for a micr-reading of the Platonic text regarded as a paradigm of philosophic textuality. It is certainly true that the Phaedrus, the Gorgias, and the Symposium set up a system of oppositions between between rhetoric and dialectrics which are in contrast with each other in the word practices, in the rules and methods of discourse, and which are antinomic in their ends. This system of oppositions always seems to be referable to the opposition between “speaking fair” and “speaking the truth”. But the strategies and procedures set going in the Symposium, in particular in “Agathon's speech” and in “Diotima and Socrates' speech” betray a much closer connection between the supposed “bad rhetoric” revealed by Phaedrus and the “good rhetoric” which is dialectrics.The search for this connection is conducted through two types of reading of the Symposium. In actual fact, between the paronomasia on the agathoi and that on “Gorgias' head” (this Gorgon of rhetoric) there takes place a speech, Agathon's, whose parodied, exacerbated, and counterfeit rhetoric allows us to gauge Plato's own rhetoric in this artefact which distances itself, more or less openly, from Gorgian rhetoric. This “hyper-rhetoricalness” and “over-grammaticalness” cannot be there with the sole aim of serving as evidence against rhetoric. It is in fact possible to perceive through the web of the text the ends, quite rhetorical themselves, which preside over the structure of Agathon's speech, seen from the viewpoint of the figure of the antithesis.Thus, it is in the play of a “neo-rhetoricalness” where we must, in the last analysis, look for the spring allowing the philosophical discourse to overturn the rhetorical one. And while in Giorgias what clothes the discourse is actually the truth, in Plato it is the antinomy between “speaking fair” and “speaking the truth”, conveniently set up, which forms the basis of the function of diversion by which Socrates points out — in the complex network of the continuity and discontinuity existing between rhetoric and philosophy — the structures of reversal and the original upheavals which Plato imposes on the relation between rhetorical and dialectric discourse. Actually, dialectrics is found in “Socrates and Diotima's speech”, not as “anti-rhetoric”, but rather as a “transposition” of the rhetorical discourse, thus acquiring the traits of a “neo-rhetoric”. The analysis of this discourse, which constitutes the second reading exercise of the Symposium, allows us to pick out the aversion and inversion strategies that turn dialectrics in an overtuned rhetoric. The founding deed of this “inversion” (rather than “separation”) is recognizable in the alteration it introduces in the first plase in the type of discourse, which from a rhetorical, explicitly addressed, macrological, monological, and continuous discourse turns into a dialectical, brachylogous, dialogic discourse with partners and interlocutors, i.e. into a dialogue; in the second place, the subject of the discourse shifts from the locuteur, author and signer of the discourse to ever-present interlocutors who end up by making room for a talking and knowing speaker in a regime of anonymous subjectivity: this is an extreme alteration of the anthropological and epistemic subject, culminating in the scientific discourse of Euclidean geometry. Finally, the inversion is recognizable in the object of the discourse, whose prâgma slips from being the predicate of a qualified grammatical subject into a process of objectivation and substantivation, thereby moving from the rhetorical question “What is beautiful?” to the philosophical question “What is the beautiful?”.The hypothesis of a “neo-rhetoricalness” of dialectics, underlying this research, is therefore more Platonic than it appears, insofar as between rhetoric and dialectics there has been a tradition which has tried to wipe out the traces of its transmission, but where the neo-rhetoricalness of dialectics shows through quite clearly, taking advantage, without admitting it, from a more ancient rhetoric than it is itself. (A.T.). (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify (...) the schemes, outlined in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

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

To create a programming environment for contract dispute resolution, we propose an extension of assumption-based argumentation into modular assumption-based argumentation in which different modules of argumentation representing different knowledge bases for reasoning about beliefs and facts and for representation and reasoning with the legal doctrines could be built and assembled together. A distinct novel feature of modular argumentation in compare with other modular logic-based systems like Prolog is that it allows references to different semantics in the (...) same module at the same time, a feature critically important for application of argumentation in legal domains like contract dispute resolution where the outcomes of court cases often depend on whether credulous or skeptical modes of reasoning were applied by the contract parties. We apply the new framework to model the doctrines of contract breach and mutual mistake. (shrink)

Argumentation mining aims to automatically detect, classify and structure argumentation in text. Therefore, argumentation mining is an important part of a complete argumentation analyisis, i.e. understanding the content of serial arguments, their linguistic structure, the relationship between the preceding and following arguments, recognizing the underlying conceptual beliefs, and understanding within the comprehensive coherence of the specific topic. We present different methods to aid argumentation mining, starting with plain argumentation detection and moving forward to a (...) more structural analysis of the detected argumentation. Different state-of-the-art techniques on machine learning and context free grammars are applied to solve the challenges of argumentation mining. We also highlight fundamental questions found during our research and analyse different issues for future research on argumentation mining. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify (...) the schemes, outlined in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (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)

According to the Bayesian paradigm in the psychology of reasoning, the norms by which everyday human cognition is best evaluated are probabilistic rather than logical in character. Recently, the Bayesian paradigm has been applied to the domain of argumentation, where the fundamental norms are traditionally assumed to be logical. Here, we present a major generalisation of extant Bayesian approaches to argumentation that (i)utilizes a new class of Bayesian learning methods that are better suited to modelling dynamic and conditional (...) inferences than standard Bayesian conditionalization, (ii) is able to characterise the special value of logically valid argument schemes in uncertain reasoning contexts, (iii) greatly extends the range of inferences and argumentative phenomena that can be adequately described in a Bayesian framework, and (iv) undermines some influential theoretical motivations for dual function models of human cognition. We conclude that the probabilistic norms given by the Bayesian approach to rationality are not necessarily at odds with the norms given by classical logic. Rather, the Bayesian theory of argumentation can be seen as justifying and enriching the argumentative norms of classical logic. (shrink)

Media argumentation is a powerful force in our lives. From political speeches to television commercials to war propaganda, it can effectively mobilize political action, influence the public, and market products. This book presents a new and systematic way of thinking about the influence of mass media in our lives, showing the intersection of media sources with argumentation theory, informal logic, computational theory, and theories of persuasion. Using a variety of case studies that represent arguments that typically occur in (...) the mass media, Douglas Walton demonstrates how tools recently developed in argumentation theory can be usefully applied to the identification, analysis, and evaluation of media arguments. He draws upon the most recent developments in artificial intelligence, including dialogical theories of argument, which he developed, as well as speech act theory. Each chapter presents solutions to problems central to understanding, analyzing, and criticizing media argumentation. (shrink)

This book concentrates on argumentation as it emerges in ordinary discourse, whether the discourse is institutionalized or strictly informal. Crucial concepts from the theory of argumentation are systematically discussed and explained with the help of examples from real-life discourse and texts. The basic principles are explained that are instrumental in the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse. Methodical instruments are offered for identifying differences of opinion, analyzing and evaluating argumentation and presenting arguments in oral and written discourse. (...) In addition, the book provides a great variety of exercises and assignments to improve the students' skill in presenting argumentation. The authors begin their treatment of argumentation theory at the same juncture where argumentation also starts in practice: The difference of opinion that occasions the evolvement of the argumentation. Each chapter begins with a short summary of the essentials and ends with a number of exercises that students can use to master the material. _Argumentation_ is the first introductory textbook of this kind. It is intended as a general introduction for students who are interested in a proper conduct of argumentative discourse. Suggestions for further reading are made for each topic and several extra assignments are added to the exercises. Special features: * A concise and complete treatment of both the theoretical backgrounds and the practice of argumentation analysis and evaluation. * Crucial concepts from pragmatics presented in a non-technical way; introducing the theory of verbal communication. * Unique coverage of both oral and written presentation of arguments. * Exercises and assignments based on real-life texts from a variety of contexts. (shrink)

Meta-arguments are arguments about one or more arguments, or argumentation in general. They contrast to ground-level arguments, which are about natural phenomena, historical events, human actions, abstract entities, etc. Although meta-arguments are common in all areas of human cognitive practice, and although implicit studies of them are found in many works, and although a few explicit scholarly contributions exist, meta-argumentation has never been examined explicitly, directly, and systematically in book-length treatment. This lacuna is especially unfortunate because such treatment (...) can offer not only an understanding of a special class of arguments, but also a promising way of doing logic and argumentation theory. This is the first book that attempts a systematic treatment of meta-arguments, providing both an illustration of the meta-argumentational approach to logical theory, and an analysis of an especially rich collection of meta-arguments. First, it elaborates an empirical methodology derived partly from a critical appreciation of Stephen Toulmin's applied-logic approach, and partly from a novel application of the author's historical-textual approach. Then it examines theoretical meta-arguments, by such scholars as Tony Blair, Robert Fogelin, Alvin Goldman, Trudy Govier, David Hitchcock, Ralph Johnson, Henry Johnstone, Erik Krabbe, Frans van Eemeren, Carl Wellman, and John Woods, on such topics as defining argument, methods of criticism, deep disagreements, and conductive or pro-and-con arguments. Thirdly, it studies famous meta-arguments by such classics as John Stuart Mill, David Hume, and Galileo Galilei, on such topics as freedom of discussion, women's liberation, the existence of God and intelligent design, and the motion of the earth. (shrink)

An argumentation profile is defined as a methodological instrument for analyzing argumentative discourse considering distinct and interrelated dimensions: the types of argument used, their quality, and the emotions triggered. Walton’s theoretical contributions are developed as a coherent analytical and multifaceted toolbox for capturing these aspects. Argumentation schemes are used to detect and quantify the types of argument. Fallacy analysis and the assessment of the implicit premises retrieved through the schemes allow evaluating arguments. Finally, the frequency of emotive words (...) signals the most common emotions aroused. This method is illustrated through a corpus of argumentative tweets of three politicians. (shrink)

Rather than the art of putting forward logically valid arguments leading to Truth, argumentation is here viewed as the use of verbal means ensuring an agreement on what can be considered reasonable by a given group, on a more or less controversial matter. What is acceptable and plausible is always coconstructed by subjects engaging in verbal interaction. It is the dynamism of this exchange, realized not only in natural language, but also in a specific cultural framework, that has to (...) be accounted for. From this perspective, it is not enough to reconstruct patterns of reasoning. As logos is by definition both Reason and Language, abstract schemata have to be examined in their verbal realization in a given situation of discourse. Such an approach to arguments allows for a “thick” description taking into account their discursive and communicational aspects, as well as argumentation’s constitutive dialogism and its inscription in a set of common representations, opinions and beliefs (a doxa). This approach, exemplified by the analysis of a short text on stock options borrowed from the French newspaper Libération, is an attempt at establishing a dialogue between disciplines like argumentation theories, rhetorical criticism and discourse analysis. (shrink)

Philosophy’s adversarial argumentation style is often noted as a factor contributing to the low numbers of women in philosophy. I argue that there is a level of adversariality peculiar to philosophy that merits specific feminist examination, yet doesn’t assume controversial gender differences claims. The dominance of the argument-as-war metaphor is not warranted, since this metaphor misconstrues the epistemic role of good argument as a tool of rational persuasion. This metaphor is entangled with the persisting narrative of embattled reason, which, (...) in turn, is linked to the sexism-informed narrative of the “man of reason” continually warding off or battling “feminine” unreason. (shrink)