SHARON BAILIN (Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University)

"Is Argument for Conservatives?"

In this paper I will address Rorty's claim that argument is inherently conservative and that philosophical progress comes about not through argument but rather through the offering of "sparkling new ideas." I will argue that this claim is based on an untenable opposition between the generation and the evaluation of ideas, with argument being viewed as falling entirely within the domain of evaluation. Since evaluation is seen, on this view, as logical, rule-bound, and non-creative (hence 'conservative'), the generation of "sparkling new ideas" must be non-logical, unconstrained by the criteria which govern evaluation. I will argue, on the contrary, that 'sparkling new ideas,' if they are to contribute to progress, (i.e., they are not simply novel but also of value) will arise from critical reflection on problems posed by the tradition and their generation will be constrained by the very same criteria which govern evaluation. In addition, the thinking which is directed primarily toward the criticism and evaluation of ideas or products is not algorithmic but has a generative, creative component Arriving at an overall assessment in any complex circumstance requires constructing a new view derived from the questioning, weighing, rejecting, reconciling, and integrating of numerous divergent points of view. Thus the process of argumentation can issue in ideas which are new, and perhaps even sparkling.

MAURICE A. FINOCCHIARO (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy; University of Nevada-Las Vegas)

"Dialectics, Evaluation, and Argument"

My paper is part of a project designed to explore the nature of the dialectical approach in the theory of argument, its relationship to other approaches, and its methodological fruitfulness. The main underlying motivation stems from the fact that the dialectical approach has become the dominant one and whenever a given approach in any field becomes dominant, there is always the danger that it will lead to the neglect or loss of insights which are easily discernible from other orientations; this in turn may even prevent the dominant approach from being developed to its fullest as a result of the competition with other approaches. In short, it is desirable to have a critical dialogue about the role of dialogue.

In a previous paper (1995), I undertook a critical examination of two leading examples of the dialectical approach: the one advanced by Else Barth and Erik Krabbe in 1982, and the one put forth by James Freeman in 1991. In a subsequent paper (1999), I examined a 1992 example of the "pragma-dialectical" by Francisca Snoeck Henkeman, as well as a 1996 work by Douglas Walton. I have thus been led to formulate the following working hypotheses: the first is that if one takes the point of view of formal dialectics, the formal dialogical approach is not essentially different from the monological approach, but rather the two are primarily different ways of talking about the same thing; the second working hypothesis is that perhaps there are two versions of the informal dialectical approach, depending on whether one emphasizes the resolution of disagreements or their clarification; the third working hypothesis is that the informal dialectical approach is fundamentally a way of emphasizing evaluation, a way of elaborating the evaluative aspects of argumentation.

This paper aims to pursue this project by further refining or testing such hypotheses and examining other examples of the dialectical approach that are more recent or have not been previously examined.

ALVIN GOLDMAN (Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University)

"Informal Logic and Social Epistemology"

What is the relationship between informal logic and argumentation theory and the following other subjects: formal logic, philosophy of language, and social epistemology? Focusing on social epistemology, are proper norms of argumentation more readily traceable to the epistemic desideratum of knowledge (including truth) or to the epistemic desideratum of justified belief?