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Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the
interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
study of how conclusions can be supported or undermined by premises through logical reasoning. With historical origins in
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...
,
dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
, and
rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...
, argumentation theory, includes the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue,
conversation Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...
, and persuasion. It studies rules of inference,
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...
, and procedural rules in both
artificial Artificiality (the state of being artificial or manmade) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity. Connotations Artificiality ...
and real-world settings. Argumentation includes various forms of dialogue such as deliberation and negotiation which are concerned with collaborative decision-making procedures. It also encompasses eristic dialog, the branch of social debate in which victory over an opponent is the primary goal, and didactic dialogue used for teaching. This discipline also studies the means by which people can express and rationally resolve or at least manage their disagreements. Argumentation is a daily occurrence, such as in public debate,
science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...
, and law. For example in law, in courts by the judge, the parties and the
prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...
, in presenting and testing the validity of evidences. Also, argumentation scholars study the ''post hoc'' rationalizations by which organizational actors try to justify decisions they have made irrationally. Argumentation is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, description, and narration.


Key components of argumentation

Some key components of argumentation are: * Understanding and identifying arguments, either explicit or implied, and the goals of the participants in the different types of dialogue. * Identifying the premises from which conclusions are derived. * Establishing the " burden of proof" – determining who made the initial claim and is thus responsible for providing evidence why his/her position merits acceptance. * For the one carrying the "burden of proof", the advocate, to marshal evidence for his/her position in order to convince or force the opponent's acceptance. The method by which this is accomplished is producing valid, sound, and
cogent The CoGeNT experiment has searched for dark matter. It uses a single germanium crystal (~100 grams) as a cryogenic detector for WIMP particles. CoGeNT has operated in the Soudan Underground Laboratory since 2009. Results Their first announc ...
arguments, devoid of weaknesses, and not easily attacked. * In a debate, fulfillment of the burden of proof creates a burden of rejoinder. One must try to identify faulty reasoning in the opponent's argument, to attack the reasons/premises of the argument, to provide counterexamples if possible, to identify any fallacies, and to show why a valid conclusion cannot be derived from the reasons provided for his/her argument. For example, consider the following exchange, illustrated by the No true Scotsman fallacy: : Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." : Reply: "But my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge." : Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." In this dialogue, the proposer first offers a premise, the premise is challenged by the interlocutor, and finally the proposer offers a modification of the premise. This exchange could be part of a larger discussion, for example a murder trial, in which the defendant is a Scotsman, and it had been established earlier that the murderer was eating sugared porridge when he or she committed the murder.


Internal structure of arguments

Typically an argument has an internal structure, comprising the following: # a set of assumptions or premises, # a method of reasoning or deduction, and # a conclusion or point. An argument has one or more premises and one conclusion. Often classical logic is used as the method of reasoning so that the conclusion follows logically from the assumptions or support. One challenge is that if the set of assumptions is inconsistent then anything can follow logically from inconsistency. Therefore, it is common to insist that the set of assumptions be consistent. It is also good practice to require the set of assumptions to be the minimal set, with respect to set inclusion, necessary to infer the consequent. Such arguments are called MINCON arguments, short for minimal consistent. Such argumentation has been applied to the fields of law and medicine. A non-classical approach to argumentation investigates abstract arguments, where 'argument' is considered a primitive term, so no internal structure of arguments is taken into account.


Types of dialogue

In its most common form, argumentation involves an individual and an interlocutor or opponent engaged in dialogue, each contending differing positions and trying to persuade each other, but there are various types of dialogue: * Persuasion dialogue aims to resolve conflicting points of view of different positions. * Negotiation aims to resolve conflicts of interests by cooperation and dealmaking. *
Inquiry An inquiry (also spelled as enquiry in British English) is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ...
aims to resolve general ignorance by the growth of knowledge. * Deliberation aims to resolve a need to take action by reaching a decision. * Information seeking aims to reduce one party's ignorance by requesting information from another party that is in a position to know something. * Eristic aims to resolve a situation of antagonism through verbal fighting.


Argumentation and the grounds of knowledge

Argumentation theory had its origins in foundationalism, a theory of knowledge (
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
) in the field of
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
. It sought to find the grounds for claims in the forms (logic) and materials (factual laws) of a universal system of knowledge. The
dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
al method was made famous by
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
and his use of
Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no t ...
critically questioning various characters and historical figures. But argument scholars gradually rejected
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
's systematic philosophy and the
idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ...
in Plato and Kant. They questioned and ultimately discarded the idea that argument premises take their soundness from formal philosophical systems. The field thus broadened. One of the original contributors to this trend was the philosopher Chaim Perelman, who together with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca introduced the French term ''la nouvelle rhetorique'' in 1958 to describe an approach to argument which is not reduced to application of formal rules of inference. Perelman's view of argumentation is much closer to a juridical one, in which rules for presenting evidence and rebuttals play an important role. Karl R. Wallace's seminal essay, "The Substance of Rhetoric: Good Reasons" in the ''Quarterly Journal of Speech'' (1963) 44, led many scholars to study "marketplace argumentation" – the ordinary arguments of ordinary people. The seminal essay on marketplace argumentation is Ray Lynn Anderson's and C. David Mortensen's "Logic and Marketplace Argumentation" ''Quarterly Journal of Speech'' 53 (1967): 143–150. This line of thinking led to a natural alliance with late developments in the sociology of knowledge. Some scholars drew connections with recent developments in philosophy, namely the pragmatism of John Dewey and
Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, he had strong interests and training in both the history of philosophy and in contemporary analytic ...
. Rorty has called this shift in emphasis "the linguistic turn". In this new hybrid approach argumentation is used with or without empirical evidence to establish convincing conclusions about issues which are moral, scientific, epistemic, or of a nature in which science alone cannot answer. Out of pragmatism and many intellectual developments in the humanities and social sciences, "non-philosophical" argumentation theories grew which located the formal and material grounds of arguments in particular intellectual fields. These theories include informal logic, social epistemology, ethnomethodology, speech acts, the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of science, and
social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...
. These new theories are not non-logical or anti-logical. They find logical coherence in most communities of discourse. These theories are thus often labeled "sociological" in that they focus on the social grounds of knowledge.


Approaches to argumentation in communication and informal logic

In general, the label "argumentation" is used by communication scholars such as (to name only a few) Wayne E. Brockriede, Douglas Ehninger, Joseph W. Wenzel, Richard Rieke, Gordon Mitchell, Carol Winkler, Eric Gander, Dennis S. Gouran,
Daniel J. O'Keefe Daniel J. O'Keefe (born 1950) is an American communication and argumentation theory scholar. He is the Owen L. Coon Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His research concerns persuasion and argumentat ...
, Mark Aakhus, Bruce Gronbeck, James Klumpp,
G. Thomas Goodnight G. Thomas Goodnight is an American argumentation and rhetorical scholar. Early life and education Goodnight was born in 1948 in Houston, Texas. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in political science from the University of Houston, in 1971 ...
, Robin Rowland, Dale Hample, C. Scott Jacobs, Sally Jackson, David Zarefsky, and Charles Arthur Willard, while the term " informal logic" is preferred by philosophers, stemming from University of Windsor philosophers
Ralph H. Johnson Ralph Henry Johnson (January 11, 1949 – March 5, 1968) was a United States Marine who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroism in March 1968 during the Vietnam War. When a hand grenade was thrown into his fighting hole, he immediate ...
and J. Anthony Blair.
Harald Wohlrapp Harald R. Wohlrapp (born June 6, 1944 in Hildesheim, Germany) is a German philosopher. His main focus is argumentation theory. Philosophy Harald Rüdiger Wohlrapp was a student of the German philosophers Wilhelm Kamlah and Paul Lorenzen (Meth ...
developed a criterion for ''validness'' (Geltung, Gültigkeit) as ''freedom of objections''.
Trudy Govier Trudy Rose Govier (born August 3, 1944) is a Canadian philosopher known for her work in informal logic and argumentation. She is the author of the influential text ''A Practical Study of Argument''. She has also been a frequent commentator in Ca ...
, Douglas N. Walton, Michael Gilbert, Harvey Seigal,
Michael Scriven Michael John Scriven (; born 1928) is a British-born Australian polymath and academic philosopher, best known for his contributions to the theory and practice of evaluation. Biography Scriven was born in the UK and grew up in Melbourne, Austr ...
, and John Woods (to name only a few) are other prominent authors in this tradition. Over the past thirty years, however, scholars from several disciplines have co-mingled at international conferences such as that hosted by the
University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...
(the Netherlands) and the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA). Other international conferences are the biannual conference held at Alta, Utah sponsored by the (US) National Communication Association and American Forensics Association and conferences sponsored by the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA). Some scholars (such as Ralph H. Johnson) construe the term "argument" narrowly, as exclusively written discourse or even discourse in which all premises are explicit. Others (such as Michael Gilbert) construe the term "argument" broadly, to include spoken and even nonverbal discourse, for instance the degree to which a war memorial or propaganda poster can be said to argue or "make arguments". The philosopher
Stephen Toulmin Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought ...
has said that an argument is a claim on our attention and belief, a view that would seem to authorize treating, say, propaganda posters as arguments. The dispute between broad and narrow theorists is of long standing and is unlikely to be settled. The views of the majority of argumentation theorists and analysts fall somewhere between these two extremes.


Kinds of argumentation


Conversational argumentation

The study of naturally occurring conversation arose from the field of sociolinguistics. It is usually called ''conversation analysis'' (CA). Inspired by ethnomethodology, it was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by the sociologist
Harvey Sacks Harvey Sacks (July 19, 1935 – November 14, 1975) was an American sociologist influenced by the ethnomethodology tradition. He pioneered extremely detailed studies of the way people use language in everyday life. Despite his early death in ...
and, among others, his close associates
Emanuel Schegloff Emanuel Abraham Schegloff (born 1937 in New York) is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. Along with his collaborators Harvey Sacks and Gail Jefferson, Schegloff is regarded as the creator of t ...
and Gail Jefferson. Sacks died early in his career, but his work was championed by others in his field, and CA has now become an established force in sociology, anthropology, linguistics, speech-communication and psychology. It is particularly influential in
interactional sociolinguistics Interactional sociolinguistics is a subdiscipline of linguistics that uses discourse analysis to study how language users create meaning via social interaction. Tannen, Deborah (2006). Language and culture. In R.W. Fasold and J. Connor Linton (ed ...
, discourse analysis and discursive psychology, as well as being a coherent discipline in its own right. Recently CA techniques of sequential analysis have been employed by phoneticians to explore the fine
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
details of speech. Empirical studies and theoretical formulations by Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs, and several generations of their students, have described argumentation as a form of managing conversational disagreement within communication contexts and systems that naturally prefer agreement.


Mathematical argumentation

The basis of mathematical truth has been the subject of long debate.
Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic p ...
in particular sought to demonstrate (see Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, 1884, and ''
Begriffsschrift ''Begriffsschrift'' (German for, roughly, "concept-script") is a book on logic by Gottlob Frege, published in 1879, and the formal system set out in that book. ''Begriffsschrift'' is usually translated as ''concept writing'' or ''concept nota ...
'', 1879) that arithmetical truths can be derived from purely logical axioms and therefore are, in the end, logical truths. The project was developed by Russell and Whitehead in their '' Principia Mathematica''. If an argument can be cast in the form of sentences in
symbolic logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...
, then it can be tested by the application of accepted proof procedures. This was carried out for arithmetic using Peano axioms, and the foundation most commonly used for most modern mathematics is Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, with or without the
Axiom of Choice In mathematics, the axiom of choice, or AC, is an axiom of set theory equivalent to the statement that ''a Cartesian product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty''. Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection ...
. Be that as it may, an argument in mathematics, as in any other discipline, can be considered valid only if it can be shown that it cannot have true premises and a false conclusion.


Scientific argumentation

Perhaps the most radical statement of the social grounds of scientific knowledge appears in Alan G.Gross's ''The Rhetoric of Science'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). Gross holds that science is rhetorical "without remainder", meaning that scientific knowledge itself cannot be seen as an idealized ground of knowledge. Scientific knowledge is produced rhetorically, meaning that it has special epistemic authority only insofar as its communal methods of verification are trustworthy. This thinking represents an almost complete rejection of the foundationalism on which argumentation was first based.


Interpretive argumentation

Interpretive argumentation is a dialogical process in which participants
explore Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
and/or
resolve Resolve may refer to: * ''Resolve'' (Lagwagon album) * ''Resolve'' (Last Tuesday album) * "Resolve" (song), by the Foo Fighters *''The Resolve'', a 1915 American silent short drama film * "Resolve" (''One Tree Hill'' episode) *''Resolve'', a Briti ...
interpretations often of a text of any medium containing significant
ambiguity Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement ...
in meaning. Interpretive argumentation is pertinent to the humanities,
hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate ...
,
literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mor ...
,
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
,
semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
,
pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
,
semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
,
analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...
and
aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
. Topics in conceptual interpretation include
aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
, judicial, logical and religious interpretation. Topics in scientific interpretation include scientific modeling.


Legal argumentation


By lawyers

Legal arguments are spoken presentations to a judge or
appellate court A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...
by a
lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicit ...
, or parties when representing themselves of the legal reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also advance the argument of each party in the legal dispute. A closing argument, or summation, is the concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important arguments for the trier of fact, often the jury, in a court case. A closing argument occurs after the presentation of evidence.


By judges

A judicial opinion or legal opinion is in certain
jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...
s a written explanation by a judge or group of judges that accompanies an order or ruling in a case, laying out the rationale (justification) and legal principles for the ruling. It cites the
decision Decision may refer to: Law and politics *Judgment (law), as the outcome of a legal case *Landmark decision, the outcome of a case that sets a legal precedent * ''Per curiam'' decision, by a court with multiple judges Books * ''Decision'' (novel ...
reached to
resolve Resolve may refer to: * ''Resolve'' (Lagwagon album) * ''Resolve'' (Last Tuesday album) * "Resolve" (song), by the Foo Fighters *''The Resolve'', a 1915 American silent short drama film * "Resolve" (''One Tree Hill'' episode) *''Resolve'', a Briti ...
the dispute. A judicial opinion usually includes the
reasons In the most general terms, a reason is a consideration which justifies or explains an action, a belief, an attitude, or a fact. ''Normative reasons'' are what people appeal to when making arguments about what people should do or believe. For exam ...
behind the decision. Where there are three or more judges, it may take the form of a majority opinion, minority opinion or a concurring opinion.


Political argumentation

Political arguments are used by academics, media pundits, candidates for political office and government officials. Political arguments are also used by citizens in ordinary interactions to comment about and understand political events. The rationality of the public is a major question in this line of research. Political scientist Samuel L. Popkin coined the expression " low information voters" to describe most voters who know very little about politics or the world in general. In practice, a " low information voter" may not be aware of legislation that their representative has sponsored in Congress. A low-information voter may base their ballot box decision on a media sound-bite, or a flier received in the mail. It is possible for a media sound-bite or campaign flier to present a political position for the
incumbent The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position, usually in relation to an election. In an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seeking re-ele ...
candidate that completely contradicts the legislative action taken in the Capitol on behalf of the constituents. It may only take a small percentage of the overall voting group who base their decision on the inaccurate information to form a voter bloc large enough to swing an overall election result. When this happens, the constituency at large may have been duped or fooled. Nevertheless, the election result is legal and confirmed. Savvy
Political consultants Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely tele ...
will take advantage of low-information voters and sway their votes with
disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...
and fake news because it can be easier and sufficiently effective. Fact checkers have come about in recent years to help counter the effects of such campaign tactics.


Psychological aspects

Psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
has long studied the non-logical aspects of argumentation. For example, studies have shown that simple repetition of an idea is often a more effective method of argumentation than appeals to reason. Propaganda often utilizes repetition. "Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" is a law of propaganda often attributed to the
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
politician
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...
. Nazi rhetoric has been studied extensively as, inter alia, a repetition campaign. Empirical studies of communicator credibility and attractiveness, sometimes labeled ''charisma,'' have also been tied closely to empirically-occurring arguments. Such studies bring argumentation within the ambit of persuasion theory and practice. Some psychologists such as William J. McGuire believe that the
syllogism A syllogism ( grc-gre, συλλογισμός, ''syllogismos'', 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be tru ...
is the basic unit of human reasoning. They have produced a large body of empirical work around McGuire's famous title "A Syllogistic Analysis of Cognitive Relationships". A central line of this way of thinking is that logic is contaminated by psychological variables such as "wishful thinking", in which subjects confound the likelihood of predictions with the desirability of the predictions. People hear what they want to hear and see what they expect to see. If planners want something to happen they see it as likely to happen. If they hope something will not happen, they see it as unlikely to happen. Thus smokers think that they personally will avoid cancer, promiscuous people practice unsafe sex, and teenagers drive recklessly.


Theories


Argument fields

Stephen Toulmin Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought ...
and Charles Arthur Willard have championed the idea of argument fields, the former drawing upon Ludwig Wittgenstein's notion of
language games A language game (also called a cant, secret language, ludling, or argot) is a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to an untrained listener. Language games are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their c ...
, (Sprachspiel) the latter drawing from communication and argumentation theory, sociology, political science, and social epistemology. For Toulmin, the term "field" designates discourses within which arguments and factual claims are grounded. For Willard, the term "field" is interchangeable with "community", "audience", or "readership". Similarly, G. Thomas Goodnight has studied "spheres" of argument and sparked a large literature created by younger scholars responding to or using his ideas. The general tenor of these field theories is that the premises of arguments take their meaning from social communities.


Stephen E. Toulmin's contributions

The most influential theorist has been
Stephen Toulmin Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought ...
, the
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
educated philosopher and educator, best known for his Toulmin model of argument. What follows below is a sketch of his ideas.


An alternative to absolutism and relativism


Toulmin model of argument


The evolution of knowledge


Pragma-dialectics

Scholars at the
University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...
in the Netherlands have pioneered a rigorous modern version of
dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
under the name ''pragma-dialectics''. The intuitive idea is to formulate clear-cut rules that, if followed, will yield reasonable discussion and sound conclusions.
Frans H. van Eemeren Frans Hendrik van Eemeren (born 7 April 1946, Helmond) is a Dutch scholar, professor in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam. He is noted for his Pragma-dialectics theory, an arg ...
, the late
Rob Grootendorst Rob Grootendorst (11 February 1944 in Schiedam – 23 February 2000 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch communication and argumentation theory scholar. He was professor for Dutch speech communication at the University of Amsterdam. His contributions to the a ...
, and many of their students and co-authors have produced a large body of work expounding this idea. The dialectical conception of reasonableness is given by ten rules for critical discussion, all being instrumental for achieving a resolution of the difference of opinion (from Van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 182-183). The theory postulates this as an ideal model, and not something one expects to find as an empirical fact. The model can however serve as an important
heuristic A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate ...
and critical tool for testing how reality approximates this ideal and point to where discourse goes wrong, that is, when the rules are violated. Any such violation will constitute a fallacy. Albeit not primarily focused on fallacies, pragma-dialectics provides a systematic approach to deal with them in a coherent way. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst identified four stages of argumentative dialogue. These stages can be regarded as an argument protocol. In a somewhat loose interpretation, the stages are as follows: * Confrontation stage: Presentation of the difference of opinion, such as a debate question or a political disagreement. * Opening stage: Agreement on material and procedural starting points, the mutually acceptable common ground of facts and beliefs, and the rules to be followed during the discussion (such as, how evidence is to be presented, and determination of closing conditions). * Argumentation stage: Presentation of reasons for and against the standpoint(s) at issue, through application of logical and common-sense principles according to the agreed-upon rules * Concluding stage: Determining whether the standpoint has withstood reasonable criticism, and accepting it is justified. This occurs when the termination conditions are met (Among these could be, for example, a time limitation or the determination of an arbiter.) Van Eemeren and Grootendorst provide a detailed list of rules that must be applied at each stage of the protocol. Moreover, in the account of argumentation given by these authors, there are specified roles of protagonist and antagonist in the protocol which are determined by the conditions which set up the need for argument.


Walton's logical argumentation method

Douglas N. Walton developed a distinctive philosophical theory of logical argumentation built around a set of practical methods to help a user identify, analyze and evaluate arguments in everyday conversational discourse and in more structured areas such as debate, law and scientific fields. There are four main components: argumentation schemes, dialogue structures, argument mapping tools, and formal argumentation systems. The method uses the notion of commitment in dialogue as the fundamental tool for the analysis and evaluation of argumentation rather than the notion of belief. Commitments are statements that the agent has expressed or formulated, and has pledged to carry out, or has publicly asserted. According to the commitment model, agents interact with each other in a dialogue in which each takes its turn to contribute speech acts. The dialogue framework uses critical questioning as a way of testing plausible explanations and finding weak points in an argument that raise doubt concerning the acceptability of the argument. Walton's logical argumentation model took a view of proof and justification different from
analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...
's dominant
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
, which was based on a
justified true belief Definitions of knowledge try to determine the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philos ...
framework. In the logical argumentation approach, knowledge is seen as form of belief commitment firmly fixed by an argumentation procedure that tests the evidence on both sides, and uses standards of proof to determine whether a proposition qualifies as knowledge. In this evidence-based approach, knowledge must be seen as defeasible.


Artificial intelligence

Efforts have been made within the field of
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...
to perform and analyze the act of argumentation with computers. Argumentation has been used to provide a proof-theoretic
semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
for non-monotonic logic, starting with the influential work of Dung (1995). Computational argumentation systems have found particular application in domains where formal logic and classical decision theory are unable to capture the richness of reasoning, domains such as law and medicine. In ''Elements of Argumentation'', Philippe Besnard and Anthony Hunter show how classical logic-based techniques can be used to capture key elements of practical argumentation. Within computer science, the ArgMAS workshop series (Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems), the CMNA workshop series, and now the COMMA Conference, are regular annual events attracting participants from every continent. The journal ''Argument & Computation'' is dedicated to exploring the intersection between argumentation and computer science. ArgMining is a workshop series dedicated specifically to the related
argument mining Argument mining, or argumentation mining, is a research area within the natural-language processing field. The goal of argument mining is the automatic extraction and identification of argumentative structures from natural language text with the aid ...
task.


See also

*
Argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialecti ...
* '' Argumentum a fortiori'' *
Criticism Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''"the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the good or bad q ...
* Critical thinking * Defeasible reasoning *
Dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
* Discourse ethics * Essentially contested concept * Forensics * Legal theory *
Logic and dialectic Formal scientists have attempted to combine logic and dialectic through formalisation. These attempts include pre-formal and partially formal treatises on argument and dialectic, systems based on defeasible reasoning, and systems based on game s ...
*
Logic of argumentation The logic of argumentation (LA) is a formalised description of the ways in which humans reason and argue about propositions. It is used, for example, in computer artificial intelligence systems in the fields of medical diagnosis and prognosis, a ...
* Logical reasoning *
Negotiation theory The foundations of negotiation theory are decision analysis, behavioral decision-making, game theory, and negotiation analysis. Another classification of theories distinguishes between Structural Analysis, Strategic Analysis, Process Analysis, ...
* ''Pars destruens'' and ''pars construens'' *
Public sphere The public sphere (german: Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the ...
*
Rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...
*
Rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...
* Rogerian argument * Social engineering (political science) *
Social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...
*
Sophistry A sophist ( el, σοφιστής, sophistes) was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics, and mathematics. They taught ...
*
Source criticism Source criticism (or information evaluation) is the process of evaluating an information source, i.e.: a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation, or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given p ...
* '' Straight and Crooked Thinking''


References


Further reading

* J. Robert Cox and Charles Arthur Willard, eds. (1982). ''Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research''. * * Bondarenko, A., Dung, P. M., Kowalski, R., and Toni, F. (1997). "An abstract, argumentation-theoretic approach to default reasoning", ''Artificial Intelligence'' 93(1-2), 63-101. * Dung, P. M., Kowalski, R., and Toni, F. (2006). "Dialectic proof procedures for assumption-based, admissible argumentation." ''Artificial Intelligence.'' 170(2), 114-159. * Frans van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, Sally Jackson, and Scott Jacobs (1993). ''Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse'' * Frans van Eemeren & Rob Grootendorst (2004). ''A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach''. * Frans van Eemeren, Bart Garssen, Erik C. W. Krabbe, A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans, Bart Verheij, & Jean H. M. Wagemans (2014). ''Handbook of Argumentation Theory'' (Revised edition). New York: Springer. * Richard H. Gaskins (1993). ''Burdens of Proof in Modern Discourse.''
Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univers ...
. * Michael A. Gilbert (1997). ''Coalescent Argumentation''. * Trudy Govier (1987). ''Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation.'' Dordrecht, Holland; Providence, RI: Foris Publications. * Trudy Govier (2014). ''A Practical Study of Argument'', 7th ed. Australia; Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. (First edition published 1985.) * Dale Hample. (1979). "Predicting belief and belief change using a cognitive theory of argument and evidence." ''Communication Monographs.'' 46, 142-146. * Dale Hample. (1978). "Are attitudes arguable?" ''Journal of Value Inquiry.'' 12, 311-312. * Dale Hample. (1978). "Predicting immediate belief change and adherence to argument claims." ''Communication Monographs,'' 45, 219-228. * Dale Hample & Judy Hample. (1978). "Evidence credibility." ''Debate Issues.'' 12, 4-5. * Dale Hample. (1977). "Testing a model of value argument and evidence." ''Communication Monographs.'' 14, 106-120. * Dale Hample. (1977). "The Toulmin model and the syllogism." ''Journal of the American Forensic Association.'' 14, 1-9. * Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs, "Structure of Conversational Argument: Pragmatic Bases for the Enthymeme." ''The Quarterly Journal of Speech''. LXVI, 251-265. *
Ralph H. Johnson Ralph Henry Johnson (January 11, 1949 – March 5, 1968) was a United States Marine who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroism in March 1968 during the Vietnam War. When a hand grenade was thrown into his fighting hole, he immediate ...
. ''Manifest Rationality: A Pragmatic Theory of Argument.'' Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000. * Ralph H. Johnson. (1996). ''The Rise of Informal Logic''. Newport News, VA: Vale Press * Ralph H. Johnson. (1999). ''The Relation Between Formal and Informal Logic''. ''Argumentation'', 13(3) 265-74. * Ralph H. Johnson. & Blair, J. Anthony. (2006). ''Logical Self-Defense.''First published, McGraw Hill Ryerson, Toronto, ON, 1997, 1983, 1993. Reprinted, New York: Idebate Press. * Ralph H. Johnson. & Blair, J. Anthony. (1987). The current state of informal logic. ''Informal Logic'' 9, 147-51. * Ralph H. Johnson. & Blair, J. Anthony. (1996). Informal logic and critical thinking. In F. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, & F. Snoeck Henkemans (Eds.), ''Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory.'' (pp. 383–86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates * Ralph H. Johnson, Ralph. H. & Blair, J. Anthony. (2000). "Informal logic: An overview." ''Informal Logic.'' 20(2): 93-99. * Ralph H. Johnson, Ralph. H. & Blair, J. Anthony. (2002). Informal logic and the reconfiguration of logic. In D. Gabbay, R. H. Johnson, H.-J. Ohlbach and J. Woods (Eds.). ''Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference: The Turn Towards the Practical''. (pp. 339–396). Elsevier: North Holland. * Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1970). ''The New Rhetoric'', Notre Dame. *
Stephen Toulmin Stephen Edelston Toulmin (; 25 March 1922 – 4 December 2009) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he sought ...
(1958). ''The Uses of Argument''. * Stephen Toulmin (1964). ''The Place of Reason in Ethics''. * Douglas N. Walton (1990). ''Practical Reasoning: Goal-Driven, Knowledge-Based, Action-Guiding Argumentation''. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. * Douglas N. Walton (1992). ''The Place of Emotion in Argument''. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. * Douglas N. Walton (1996). ''Argument Structure: A Pragmatic Theory''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. * Douglas N. Walton (2006). ''Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation''. New York: Cambridge University Press. * Douglas N. Walton (2013). ''Methods of Argumentation''. New York: Cambridge University Press. * Douglas N. Walton (2016). ''Argument Evaluation and Evidence''. Cham: Springer * Joseph W. Wenzel (1990). Three perspectives on argumentation. In R Trapp and J Scheutz, (Eds.), ''Perspectives on argumentation: Essays in honour of Wayne Brockreide'' (9-26). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. * John Woods. (1980). What Is informal logic? In J.A. Blair & R. H. Johnson (Eds.), ''Informal Logic: The First International Symposium .''(pp. 57–68). Point Reyes, CA: Edgepress. * John Woods. (2000). How Philosophical Is Informal Logic? ''Informal Logic.'' 20(2): 139-167. 2000 * Charles Arthur Willard (1982). ''Argumentation and the Social Grounds of Knowledge''. University of Alabama Press. * Charles Arthur Willard (1989). ''A Theory of Argumentation''. University of Alabama Press. * Charles Arthur Willard (1996). ''Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy.'' University of Chicago Press. *
Harald Wohlrapp Harald R. Wohlrapp (born June 6, 1944 in Hildesheim, Germany) is a German philosopher. His main focus is argumentation theory. Philosophy Harald Rüdiger Wohlrapp was a student of the German philosophers Wilhelm Kamlah and Paul Lorenzen (Meth ...
(2008). ''Der Begriff des Arguments. Über die Beziehungen zwischen Wissen, Forschen, Glaube, Subjektivität und Vernunft''. Würzburg: Königshausen u. Neumann.


Flagship journals

* ''Argumentation'' * ''Argumentation in Context'' * ''Informal Logic'' * ''Argumentation and Advocacy'' (formerly ''Journal of the American Forensic Association'') * ''Social Epistemology'' * ''Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology'' * ''Journal of Argument and Computation'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Argumentation Theory Debating Arguments Logic Legal reasoning Social epistemology