ABSTRACTS
Mette Bengtsson: Framing the Political Debate – What Are the Consequences?
In my paper I claim that framing is only acceptable as long as it is not harmful to the basic rules of a good public debate. I present some examples of framing strategies used by politicians in debates on Danish television and discuss how and why these strategies sometimes hinder good debating.
In the light of this discussion I query George Lakoff’s
propositions about effective framing strategies and claim that his thoughts
could benefit from a rhetorical, ethical understanding.
***
Patrick Bondy: Some Critical Reflections on Truth as a Criterion for Argument Evaluation
In Manifest Rationality, Ralph Johnson argues for four evaluative criteria for the illative core of arguments: relevance, acceptability, sufficiency, and truth. I argue in this paper that truth is not a necessary criterion for a good argument, by arguing that the other three criteria do the job on their own, and that when the truth criterion comes into conflict with the acceptability criterion, to side with truth rather than acceptability violates Johnson’s requirement that an argument be manifestly rational. I give a discussion of the implications Johnson’s view that a premise is acceptable if it is rational to accept (p.194), and I argue that it follows from that conception of acceptability that a manifestly rational discourse always adheres to acceptability, even when it conflicts with truth.
I also attempt to answer Johnson’s argument that even theorists who try to dispense with talk of truth still employ the concept of truth in employing concepts that are defined partly in terms of truth in their evaluative kits. My case on this point rests on distinguishing between using a concept evaluatively and explanatorily, and showing that to explain a concept in terms of another is not to use that other also as an evaluative concept.
***
Alex Gibson: Computational Approach to Identifying Formal Fallacies
In this paper I attempt to lay the groundwork for a computational method of identifying fallacy. We introduce the concept of a fairly simple approach to dealing with identifying traditional formal fallacies computationally and briefly discuss possible future extensions that could be made to such a system once implemented. An example is provided of how one may approach the identification of the fallacy of Affirming the Consequent in a computational setting.
***
Sophie H. Madsen: Humanitarian Aid Appeals – a Rhetoric of Balances
Natural and man-made disasters make 250 million people dependent on humanitarian aid every year. When humanitarian organizations appeal for donations, the constant need for aid is one of the biggest constraints of their rhetorical situation. They have to navigate in and balance between desperation and hope, guilt and redemption, powerlessness and the ability to make a difference. What is a fitting response to such a constant rhetorical situation, which rises from a constant need for aid?
In my paper I will examine and discuss a selection of examples of argumentation strategies used by humanitarian organizations in their rhetorical efforts to motivate people to contribute to the humanitarian aid work.
***
Andrei Moldovan: Meaning in Argumentation
In this essay I will compare Christopher Tindale’s account of the meaning of an utterance and Paul Grice’s account of the utterer’s meaning, and the reasons that stand behind these conceptions. I will go on to show that Grice argues that there must be a meaning independent of specific contexts of use, and that this meaning must be known by the speakers for communication to be possible. So meaning has to be conceived of as being attached to sentences, as not only to individual utterances. That is why I think that, if understanding is one of the goals of argumentation, as Tindale argues, and as I will argue, it can only be in the sense that meaning is developed, but not formed anew in argumentation. In the last part of the essay I will argue that understanding is indeed developed in argumentation in the process of contrasting one’s position with alternative positions that exclude each other.
***
Dana Phillips: Investigating the Shared Background Required for Argument: A Critique of Fogelin’s Thesis on Deep Disagreement
In his article ‘The Logic of Deep Disagreements,’ Robert Fogelin claims that interlocutors must share a certain framework of background beliefs and commitments in order to fruitfully pursue argument. In part by appealing to the weakness of his examples, I attempt to demonstrate that Fogelin’s thesis is problematically vague and likely exaggerates the common background required for argument. I go on to suggest that Fogelin does, however, touch upon important features of argument that demand further attention. In particular, his paper brings out the need for a more thorough investigation concerning the precise nature and extent of the shared commitments presupposed by argumentative exchanges. Upon taking up this investigation, I find that the shared commitments required for argument consist not in any common beliefs, values or preferences about the topic at hand, but rather in certain shared procedural commitments and competencies with respect to the argumentative exchange itself. For instance, productive argument requires that interlocutors communicate transparently, be willing to subject challenged beliefs to rational discussion, and take a rational stance towards the evidence with which they are presented. It also requires that they be able to find the source(s) of their disagreement. I then suggest that Fogelin and his supporters mistakenly view shared beliefs as part of the required background for argument simply because these procedural commitments become more difficult to maintain in situations where people’s beliefs diverge widely with respect to the topic at hand. I conclude that being conscious of the procedural barriers to argument and working to overcome them is a crucial step to enhancing the power of argument in our world.
***
Rasmus Rønlev: The Contextual Tier of Argumentation in Public Debate
When analysing and evaluating argumentation, argumentation theorists such as pragma-dialecticians, informal logicians and rhetoricians seem to agree that we should study two things: First of all the arguments in themselves and secondly how the persons arguing relate to each other and each other’s arguments. In my paper I will argue that when it comes to argumentation in mediated public debates – e.g. debates on television, on the radio or in newspapers – these two foci are not enough to ensure an adequate analysis and especially an appropriate evaluation of the argumentation. In such cases we have to consider how the context of the debate – i.e. the way the debate has been set up by journalists – is fused into the argumentation and the likely perception of it. We have to consider what I propose could be called the contextual tier of the argumentation. If we fail to do this, we are likely to neglect the important role journalists often play when it comes to the argumentation in such debates. To back up my claim, I will present examples from a debate from Danish television between three members of the Danish parliament and the secretary general of the Danish part of the International Save the Children Alliance about what should be done to asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected but who refuse to leave Denmark.
***
Paul Simard-Smith: Varieties of Deductivism
Discussions on deductivism have an uneven history in the informal logic literature. I propose to distinguish between two broad categories of deductivism, normative deductivism—the view that all good arguments are deductively valid—and reconstructive deductivism— the view that all arguments that are not transparently deductively valid should be turned into arguments that are transparently deductively valid. Normative deductivism is often described as the view that all arguments are ‘deductive or defective’. Reconstructive deductivism, on the other hand, does not take a position on whether or not an argument is defective until after the argument has been reconstructed as deductively valid. I attempt to give clear definitions of normative and reconstructive deductivism.
After making these distinctions I will look at different justifications for normative and reconstructive deductivism. For normative deductivism we will examine a psychological justification and an ontological justification. For reconstructive deductivism we will examine four potential justifications: a psychological justification, an ontological justification, a pragmatic justification, and a normative justification.