The Philosophy of Argument

Argumentation has a broad, multidisciplinary scope. Being a point of overlap of diverse spheres of knowledge and sciences makes the study of argumentation so complex an enterprise, which still seeks to determine in precise terms what its object is and how it should be addressed. This paper is meant to offer a concise overview of argumentation and its various approaches. Focus is laid on the fundamental concepts that bear some relevance to the study of argumentation. Further, attempt is made to draw a sketch of its history and an outline of its modern theoretical distinctions. L'argumentation a une portée large et multidisciplinaire. Le fait d'être un point de chevauchement de différentes sphères de connaissance et des multiple sciences rend l'étude de l'argumentation une entreprise si complexe, qui cherche encore à déterminer en termes précis ce que porte son objet et comment il devrait être abordée. Cet article vise à offrir un aperçu concis de l'argumentation et de ses différentes approches. L'accent est mis sur les concepts fondamentaux qui portent un certain intérêt pour l'étude de l'argumentation. En outre, une tentative est faite pour dessiner une esquisse de son histoire et un aperçu de ses distinctions théoriques modernes.

Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

Argumentation

Philosophy has had an intimate connection to argument since its inception in ancient times. The philosopher, after all, rarely has recourse to the tools and experiments used in the physical and social sciences. One does not usually defend a particular philosophical theory or approach by empirical research, and use of the "actual" world is most often confined to gedanken experiments. Rather, philosophers use argument to determine if a stand has flaws and weaknesses, and we expect that the loser in a philosophical argument will abandon his or her position or, (perhaps more realistically), withdraw from the field to effect repairs. Perhaps as a result of the reliance of philosophy on argumentation philosophers have always had a tremendous respect for its importance as well as a strong sense of responsibility to both its formal and informal study and its pedagogical propagation.

2001

One of the most important contributions to argumentation theory in recent years is Ralph Johnson's Manifest Rationality (Johnson 2000). The present paper is a response to the critique of deductivism it contains. In a forthcoming paper I have argued that this critique does not stand up to scrutiny. The present paper might also be construed as a defense of deductivism, but this is not my principal concern. Rather, I want to use Johnson's account of deductivism to raise some broader and more fundamental questions about the relationship between philosophy, philosophical analysis, and theories of argument.

This paper looks at philosophical accusations of talking nonsense from the perspective of argumentation theory. An accusation of this sort, when seriously meant, amounts to the claim that someone believes there is something she means by her utterance when in fact she means nothing whatsoever by it. Such accusations may indeed be peculiar to philosophy. They also involve the claim that there can be ILLUSIONS OF ARGUMENTATION, both inter- and intra-personal. The problem of how one could possibly diagnose such illusions is raised and I suggest that, if there is a way, it will require a therapeutic rather than a polemical approach. This suggestion is of course made by Wittgenstein and some of his followers but, in my view, it has remained undeveloped. It often takes the form of a comparison with psychoanalysis. I note that the more like psychoanalysis it becomes, the less like traditional argumentation, philosophical or otherwise, it will be.

Informal Logic, 2010

Argumentation Library Volume 41, 2022

This volume presents a double argumentative analysis of the debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston on the existence of God. It includes an introduction justifying the choice of text and describing the historical and philosophical background of the debate. It also provides a transcript of the debate, based in part on the original recording. The argumentative analyses occupy Parts I and II of the book. In Part I the argumentative process is analysed by means of the ideal model of critical discussion, the workhorse of pragma-dialectics. Part I shows how the two parties go through the four stages of a critical discussion. It highlights the questions raised over and beyond the presiding question of whether God exists and examines almost a hundred questions that are raised. Many are left in the air, whereas a few others give rise to sundry sub-discussions or meta-dialogues. In Part II the theoretical framework of argument dialectic is put to work: argument structures are identified by means of punctuation marks, argumentative connectors and operators, allowing to see the argumentative exchange as the collaborative construction of a macro-argument. Such a macro-argument is both a joint product of the arguers and a complex structure representing the dialectical relationships between the individual arguments combined in it. Finally, the complementarity of the two approaches is addressed. Thus the book can be described as an exercise in adversarial collaboration.

Informal Logic, 2024

'Argument' has multiple meanings and referents in contemporary argumentation theory. Theorists are well aware of this but often fail to acknowledge it in their theories. In what follows, I distinguish several senses of 'argument' and argue that some highly visible theories are largely correct about some senses of the term but not others. In doing so, I hope to show that apparent theoretical rivals are better seen as collaborators or partners, rather than rivals, in the multidisciplinary effort to understand 'argument,' arguments, and argumentation in all their varieties. I argue as well for a pluralistic approach to argument evaluation and argumentative norms, since arguments and argumentation can be legitimately evaluated along several dimensions, but urge that epistemic norms enjoy conceptual priority.