Politicians tend to express themselves indirectly. Sometimes they do so because they live in a totalitarian society, in which free expression is prohibited. Political crisis and war or severe economic crisis also affect directness and explicitness of political rhetoric. Politicians in prosperous democratic society, however, also see advantages in indirect or non-literal linguistic strategies. Commercialization of society, media, and politics reinforce this trend. Floating voters form an increasing segment of the electorate and politicians want to attract these voters by means of indirect statements with limited political content.
Metaphors are a form of indirect communication that has many advantages for politicians who know how to use them and when. Why is it that metaphors are essential to political rhetoric and mass communication? What does metaphorical reasoning include? How do politicians use metaphorical reasoning? How do social scientists deal with the study of metaphors in politics?

1. Metaphorical Reasoning and Cognitive Blending
Contemporary theory and research in cognitive science have widened scientific interest in metaphors, a literary device with ancient roots. Cognitive schema theory suggests that the mind generates virtual simulations, similar to computer software programs that interpret the physical world. Appropriate external stimuli activate these internal schemata, which help us understand and react. Human action and reaction are thus mediated by schema-driven cognition. Metaphors reflect and drive these schemata. Metaphor is thus both a facet of language and a dimension of cognition.
According to traditional Aristotelian theory, metaphors were linguistic phenomena that included the substitution of one word for another. The Oxford English Dictionary seems to follow this path when it defines metaphor as “the figure of speech in which a name or descriptive term is transferred to some object of different form, but analogous to, that to which it is properly applicable” (OED 2).
Going beyond this, modern metaphorical theory has created terminology to denominate elements of the metaphorical expression. In this lexicon,(A) is the topic, tenor, or target, the ground, which is the actual subject of discussion; (B) is the source or vehicle, which is an idea from a different sphere of life, which is literally used to describe the subject (A); between (A) and (B) exists a blended space producing tension (C). The interaction between these two ideas (A) and (B) generates a new, figurative, blended meaning (C), and a new view upon the subject. Older theories of metaphorical comparison and substitution neglect (C), the value added by the fusion of (A) and (B), which is at the core of the interaction theory (Turner and Fauconnier, 1995; Lakoff and Turner 1989; Ortony, 1984).
Metaphorical reasoning involves a kind of analogical thinking, as in the following simile: “A” is like “B,” it begins; therefore, it continues, “C” follows. “All men are mortal,” one classic syllogism begins. “Socrates is a man; Socrates is mortal.” This syllogism is not, strictly speaking metaphorical. In it, Socrates is not like a man; he is a man. Nevertheless, the form is similar, analogically wrapping one pattern, Socrates, into another, man. Other forms of reasoning follow similar analog dynamics (Beer, 1993).

Such interaction theory allows for a less normative perspective of metaphors than has been traditional. In the traditional perspective metaphors were not appropriate for scientific discourse. Scientific reasoning was fundamentally different – a simple, logical, linear, systematic – kind of cognitive process. Scientific discourse, as a consequence, consisted of analytic language. Scientific and logical reasoning was expressed through logical argumentation dealing with the relation of arguments to the probandum. Metaphors, in this view, belonged not to science but to practice, to pragmatic argumentation and reasoning. Pragmatic reasoning and argumentation look at subjective reactions of the audience. The relation between the arguing person and the addressee is an essential part of pragmatical argumentation (Weinberger, 1995: 37-39, 52). Emotion plays a dominant role in the relation between the arguing person and the addressee. Logical reasoning and argumentation, to the contrary, solely rely upon ratio and cognition. According to interaction theory, however, the metaphor generates a new meaning (C). The juxtaposition of two separate domains of knowledge, like European unification (A) and bicycle (B), can be energising. One has to ride a bicycle in order to keep it moving. Jacques Chirac, the French president, used this metaphor in an interview with the newspaper Figaro to defend his view upon the political unification of Europe. The mixing of the issue in question, the European Union, with an issue completely strange to the context, bicycle, generates new meaning for the issue in question. The European integration should progress in order not to abolish former results.

Not only persuasive communication and creative arts, but also science profit from this extraordinary interactive dimension.
Case-based reasoning is at the heart of the Anglo-American legal tradition. In case-based reasoning, a current case is interpreted in the light of a previous one. An abortion case comes before the United States Supreme Court; it is understood in terms of the Court’s earlier decision in Roe v. Wade. In rule-based reasoning, the current case is compared with a body of rules or laws. Continental European jurisprudence, for example, tends to be based less on precedents from prior cases than on principles derived from central legal codes. Finally model-based reasoning found in the social sciences, uses mathematical models as core schemata for interpreting social behavior. Rational choice models are one example of the application of such templates to various social phenomena (Beer,1985; Sylvan and Voss, 1998).
There are, of course, famous philosophical figures of speech Plato’s cave, Hobbes Leviathan. The law, according to the American Jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, was a jealous mistress. According to one account, one core image of Einstein’s theory of relativity came from a trolley ride around the Ring in Vienna (Feuer, 1974).
Beyond such specific images, however, metaphorical processes are central to reasoning. Contemporary social scientists consider metaphors to be much more than a linguistic phenomenon. Philosophers beginning with Vico have challenged the standard linguistic perspective. Instead of seeing metaphor as an embroidery of the facts, such thinkers viewed it as a way of experiencing facts. Metaphor is a form of non-literary or figurative language which was thought to precede, historically or logically, the concretised meanings of literal or scientific discourse, a secondary development (Gresson, 1987: 184-185). Metaphor is thus an important element of both literary style and cognitive process.

Metaphors are also a critical dimension of political style and process, finding their clearest expression in political rhetoric. Metaphor is, indeed, most often used because the speaker or writer estimates this opportune in relation to the audience. Metaphors are brief, implicit interactive comparisons. Insinuation has proved to be more persuasive than direct statements. Metaphors are expressed in words, but they include much more than metaphorical language; these express a (metaphorical) thinking process. Metaphor is part of symbolic style, which can be opposed to logical style. The meaning it represents draws upon our real-world experience; metaphors are connected to language use and to context; these are style figures that transgress or manipulate grammar. Because we do not have metaphorical words but metaphorical wordgroups or expressions, metaphors do not belong to the field of grammar (De Landtsheer 1994, 1998; Ortony, 1984 Fraser, 1984; Dudley, 1984; Lepschy, 1976; Lasswell, 1949).
It is quite difficult to explain what metaphors are, how they work, and how to identify them. It is, however, as Saint Augustine suggested, rather easy to recognise metaphors. Regardless of language or nationality, people show a natural ability to identify metaphors, even in a foreign language. The reason seems to be that metaphors are absurd or meaningless when taken literally. One has to interpret the metaphor, one has to take into account the context of the metaphor, in order to understand the message. Metaphor introduces a conflict in a sentence, as the sphere where to it refers is obviously incompatible with the sphere of the utterance in general.
Resolution of this conflict results in interpretation of the metaphor, in a sense similar to that intended by the speaker or writer. Mother and war belong to different, conflicting spheres of life. Mother embraces you and offers love, comfort protection and warmth. War is death and killing. Saddam Hussein nevertheless named the Gulf War the “mother of all wars”. A sentence containing a descriptive statement referring to the issue in question, the Gulf war, is injected with emotion, the reference to a personal issue like mother. Metaphor uses a procedure that introduces duality, contradiction, or even conflict into a sentence. To picture the ruling government as the Titanic or as a metro wagon that has lost its way surprises and excites the mind. Metaphors are strange elements, unexpected in a particular context. Shifting between schemata dynamises content and catches attention.
We are used to thinking of metaphors in connection with literary similes, allegories, and parables. When a man tells a woman that she is a rose, for example, he offers and invites a schema for appreciating her. When the woman’s jealous stepsister responds that the rose is infected with aphids, the stepsister simultaneously extends the metaphor and transforms its meaning. She reshapes the original cognitive schema. In the former example, the rose is infected with aphids makes an effective metaphor, as it is full of suggestion.
Metaphors can be considered as a comparison statements with parts left out, or as compressed similes. “You are a rose” would be less effective when formulated as a simile, an explicit comparison between two unlike things, saying that you are like a rose. Even less effective is a literal comparison, such as you are like your stepsister in which two similar things are explicitly compared, or an analogy. You are to your stepsister like a rose to an aphid is an analogy, for which four terms are needed (Miller, 1984). The sentence “purple turns into black and blue after a while” can be viewed as having strictly literal meaning in a family context, in which a boy felt himself a bruise on his leg. This sentence becomes metaphorical when pronounced in a television interview by the opponent of the Dutch purple coalition between socialdemocrats (red) and conservatives (blue).

The classical rhetorical arsenal includes pre-formatted categories. A brief listing and selective definition of some of these suggests their heavy dependence on explicit or implicit metaphorical processes:
Allegory – an extended or continued metaphor;
Metonymy – substituting for the name of a thing the name of an attribute;
Parable – comparison, allegory;
Synecdoche – substituting a whole for a part or a part for a whole;
Topos –
Trope – use of a word or phrase in a sense other than is proper to it.

A restricted metaphorical concept includes only the last kind of figurative language, the trope, which is based on direct transfer of name because of similarity. Metaphors in a broad sense include also most of the other forms of non-literary language use. Experience teaches us that most definitions still allow for a slightly different personal interpretation, even when specifications are given. The reason is that metaphors can be placed on a continuum, ranging from the living metaphors to dead metaphors. Awareness of metaphors differs both personally and culturally. Living metaphors are creative and original vehicles which illuminate the mind. Like a new pair of shoes these catch our attention during a long walk as they appear to small and look nice; dead metaphors are like an old pair of shoes: these are unspectacular and so often used and comfortable that one is no longer aware wearing these. Dead metaphors are no longer considered to be metaphors. The stronger the reference to the literary meaning, the more significant the conflict that the metaphor causes within a sentence. Commonly used metaphors generate weak references to literary meaning; these references may even disappear over time (De Landtsheer, 1998; Mooij, 1976).

2. Metaphorical Rhetoric – Emotion, Visualization, and Personality
The traditional formulation of rhetoric, with similar Aristotelian roots, distinguishes between three major sorts of rhetorical appeals – logos, ethos, and pathos. We have already discussed the metaphorical dependence of reason on prior models of reasoning. These ordered forms of rationality provide an implied metaphorical template for the kinds of reasons that are rhetorically given. The concept of “logos” should not be confused with formal logic. It means simply that the speaker should give a more or less coherent argumentation.
Arguments can be of various origin: personal history, religion, culture. These should, however meet the criterion that they are plausible, or seem reasonable to the audience.
Ethos, in a similar way, relies more directly and heavily on pre-existing patterns of customs and norms. “Ethos” depends upon the status of the speaker; the higher the position, the better his or her reputation, the more ethical rhetoric is perceived. Pathos, finally, is effective precisely because of its explicitly metaphorical invocation of prior experiences from a wide spectrum of collective life. Pathos is not the least important aspect of rhetoric. The speaker uses high doses of emotion in his speech in order to persuade the audiences of his or her point of view (Windt, 1987: xvii, xviii).

Pathos suggests a dimension of politics that many analytic and scientific observers find very disturbing. On many occasions, emotion dominates reason. The speaker’s main objective is audience support. Most election campaigns are full of emotion-dominated rhetoric. After the elections, the corpses have fallen out of the closet, Karel van Miert, the present European commissioner used to say while he was an opposition party-leader of the Belgian social-democrats (ethos). His metaphor (pathos) argued that the governing parties deed not keep their promises made during election campaign (logos). This refined metaphor was a powerful mixture of reason and emotion. Metaphors are the politicians’ keys to citizens’ emotions. The powerful suggestion mechanism activated by metaphor triggers underlying emotions.
The distinction made by Ricoeur between emotion and feelings seems relevant to understand politicians’ handling of metaphors in order to trigger emotions. Emotion is what we consider an irrational, non-cognitive, strictly physiological event. Emotion is a first order experience that can be contrasted with feeling, a second order experience. In other words, emotions are general and feelings are attached to specific objects (Dobrzynska, 1995: 597; Ricoeur, 1975). Politicians intentionally and cognitively produce metaphors, because they feel that arousing emotions in the audience is a good way to persuade the audience.
In spite of their common human foundations, reason and emotion have traditionally been viewed dualistically, as opposing forces. Because of its emotional content, classical philosophy opposed itself to rhetoric: Rhetoric was philosophy’s evil twin (Farrell, 1974}. Reason and emotion are, nevertheless, very compatible and have a delicate relationship one to another. We have already suggested the metaphorical dimension of reason itself, as abstract models of reason are applied in the world. It is also worth noting that reason itself involves emotion: The passion for reason can be as powerful and productive, misleading and counter-productive, as other emotions. As we have noted, metaphors activate conscious and sub-conscious, rational and emotional responses.

These different kinds of appeals exist in an uneasy tension. Political rhetoric uses all the dimensions of metaphors in its persuasive quest. Metaphors are a mountain full of wild flowers; these evoke non-linguistic primary processes that have powerful effects.
The symbolic or imaginative language (metaphors are a mountain of wild flowers) is synthetic and exists along with the linguistic, analytic, rational expression (metaphors evoke non-linguistic primary processes that have powerful effects) (Paivio, 1979, Bateson, 1972).
Persuasive effects of metaphors can be explained by means of a modular theory of the mind. According to this theory, left brain hemispheric (linguistic) messages are interpreted literally, while images are processed in the right brain hemisphere. Metaphor often creates in the mind of the audience a visual image as well as a verbal meaning. The fact that metaphors are processed both literally and imagically produces more retention and persuasive effect; metaphors increase the degree of attitude change and memorisation of the audience (Opfer & Anderson, 1992: 5-7). Metaphors thus mobilise broader potentials for human communication. The mobilisation of public opinion is considered to be an irrational process, just like collective human behaviour itself. This view by political psychologists and anthropologists clearly differs from the notion of rationality as posited by Aristotelian and Cartesian philosophy and epistemology (Haskell, 1987: 91; Bateson, 1972: 464; Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1967: 273).
Personality variables may affect metaphoric communication. Political psychology suggests that the strong drive felt by politicians to establish a firm sense of self may positively affect their symbolic capacities. The compensation hypothesis suggests that some politicians may have poor self-integration. Poorly integrated individuals seem to lack adequate boundaries between self and other, between feeling and thought, and between fantasy and reality. Both the creative activity of producing metaphors and the interpretation of metaphors may reduce anxiety (Feldman, 1994; Haskell, 141-162; Billow, Rossman, Lewis, Goldman, Kraemer, and Ross, 1987: 154-156; Lasswell, 1948).
The interpretation of metaphors, stimulates personal and emotional; interpretation and may also make anxiety more painful. Psychiatry considers the handling of metaphor as one of the most striking aspects of schizophrenic language. Metaphors have tremendous effects upon subjects with non-integrated personalities. The seriously disturbed seem to get emotionally upset by metaphors. The metaphorical utterances of other are responded to as if they are literal communications. In less disturbed subjects moderate anxiety levels may also heighten creativity, which is necessary for the production of metaphors (Bateson, 1972; Billow, Rossman, Lewis, Goldman, Kraemer and Ross, 1987: 151-156).

Clinical experiences teach that one should distinguish between purer metaphors and similar forms of figurative speech such as metonymy, similarity metaphors, proportional metaphors and proverbs. In the case of purer metaphors, the schizophrenic individual will feel the need to disturb communication by inaccurate, autistic, and/or literal responses. This is most often not the case when other forms of figurative language are used. New and powerful metaphors may generate even more effects than dead metaphors. Reasons may lay in the fact that the interpretation of new metaphors relies upon the context, while other forms depend upon learned associations (Mahler, 1968). It can be concluded that a main rhetorical effect of metaphorical communication is a broadening of the emotional dimension of cognition.

3. Metaphorical politics – Complexity, Diversity and Drama
Metaphorical reasoning and metaphorical rhetoric are central components of politics. Metaphors are part of political speech in all its forms: rhetoric by politicians, politicians’ discourse mediated by mass media, political texts written by journalists, philosophers, and literary authors. Nowadays, sound bites have proved to be more often quoted by mass media than other expressions by politicians.
Sound bites are usually metaphors (Opfer and Anderson, 1992). The power to impose metaphor is also the power to impose a form of political reasoning – and also a form of political order. Metaphors thus reflect, interpret, and construct politics.
Metaphors in politics seem to differ strongly from other metaphors, used in religion, advertising, journalism and sports though they may include elements from these other domains (Dirven, 1989: 22-38). A notion of community with individual identities is an aim formulated by both US and European policy-makers. The use of a mosaic metaphor that recognizes individual communities as part of the whole within a shared framework seems more appropriate than the melting pot or rainbow metaphor (Etzioni, 1997: 21-32). The “War on Drugs” metaphor used by the US government directs attention to restrictive measures, while driving attention away from treatment, prevention and curing (McGaw, 1991: 57-74). Italian politicians nowadays use horticultural metaphors in order to forget about past scandals and to give a “rosy” description of current affairs (Ferrarotti, 1996). The populist discourse by the right-wing Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi shows a preference for metaphors from the domains of football, war and the bible (Semina and Masci, 1996: 243-269). Sports metaphors were used in a distinct way by former US presidents Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. Johnson’s rhetoric used the “starting line” metaphor to describe the need to establish equal competitive conditions. Reagan emphasised the “runners” idea in stressing that competitors need to rely on athletic character (Walk, 1995: 36-55). Defeated presidential candidates seem to share the same pattern in metaphor use (Corcoran, 1994).

Crisis situations of diverse origin and restrictions upon individuals generate public speech that is highly metaphorical. Metaphors belong to ornamental and symbolic style (contrary to sign-oriented or factual style), which is assumed to “infect” political discourse during severe political or economic crises. Style is simply the order and movement politicians give to their thought (Lasswell, 1949: 21). An acceptable explanation for this is that the need for “emotion” dominates crisis), and that metaphors predominantly belong to the emotive component of language (as far as this component can be divided from the cognitive). Speech by political leaders may thus be less cognitively, but more metaphorically and emotionally, powerful during crisis situations. At the same time, leaders may wish to conceal how things really are, both for the population and for the enemy in times of war (Dobrzynska, 1995; Lackner, 1995; De Landtsheer, 1994; Gaus, 1982; Ricoeur, 1975; De Sola Pool, 1956)
Culture, ideology, and gender affect the content of metaphors. Navigation metaphors are commonly used in The Netherlands, while French politicians prefer culinary metaphors and Chinese politicians use poetic ones. Marxism-Leninism uses construction metaphors, while capitalist society produces nature metaphors.
Several studies indicate that extremist political discourse both from the left and from the right differs from discourse by other ideological groups in using more metaphors. The extreme right seems to use relatively more cleaning and illness metaphors than other ideological groups. Female political discourse seems less metaphorical than male political speech. In times of prosperity, metaphors resemble everyday life and everyday-life speech, because they, for instance, include many proverbs and biblical expressions (De Landtsheer, 1998: 129-144; Karvonen, 1994: 441-452; Edelman, 1977: 35; Koeller, 1975: 222; Mooy, 1976: 16).
One of the major emotive functions of metaphors can be to reassure the audience. Metaphors picture reality and life as simple, they simplify complex situations and thereby give the audience a sense of confidence. Everyday life and nature metaphors are particularly fitted for democracy, prosperity and democratic politicians.
Different family models seem to affect underlying conservative (paternal model) and liberal (nurturing parent model) metaphorical models (Lakoff, 1995: 177-213). One should not allow people to become rich while sleeping, said the Dutch social-democratic prime minister Wim Kok before winning the 1998 Dutch elections. Kok thereby explained to his citizens-electors that his policy aimed at protecting working people.

Metaphors also allow people to escape from realty. Therefore they even sometimes refer to drama, music, film and games. I would love to have an African rhythm in Belgian politics, answered a Belgian politician when was asked whether he would accept a certain colleague that had gone to Africa to start a new career in his party. Metaphors, thus, relax the audience, sometimes even by reflecting repressed aggressive or psychotic feelings.
Different metaphors reflect and enhance power in different contexts. Current theory and research suggest that some metaphors are more important than others. According to one body of thought, there exists a deep metaphorical structure, a generative metaphorical grammar, resting on the common human experience of embodiment.
In other words, our bodies provide a fundamental “source” schema for much of our relation to the world (Johnson, 1990; Lakoff and Johnson, 1983). It is obvious that the metaphor of the body underlies a good deal of contemporary political discourse.
Traditional political philosophy relied heavily on the implied metaphor of the “body politic,” giving a corporeal form to an abstract, intangible entity, the state. The metaphor of the “state as person” is very much alive and well today. Using this metaphor, some analysts have generated elaborate scripts for the Gulf War, with frames for different settings and slots for various characters (Lakoff, 1991; Beer and Balleck, 1997). Though they may also have indirect bodily referents, other metaphors are important in their own right.
In a seminal, though now neglected work late in his career, the distinguished political scientist Karl Deutsch (1966) suggested that machines had provided a powerful modern template for political life. The Newtonian expansion of celestial mechanics thus found its political counterpart in the checks and balances of the American Constitution. Deutsch also imagined a third, emerging model for politics, the network. Modelled on the proto-science of cybernetics in vogue during the middle of the 20th century, the network concept has considerable resonance in the communications revolution at century’s end.

Beyond these core metaphors of body, machine, and network, nature, war and game there is enormous diversity and variety in political metaphors. Metaphors for politics and political community include a variety of terms. Some of these are presented in Table I.
These metaphorical shifters create a blended, hybrid space where the metaphorical sources and political targets coexist in a dynamic relationship (Turner and Fauconnier, 1995). The variety of choice, the richness of this metaphorical menu provides political actors and observers with an infinite inventory of rhetorical resources.

Table 1. Metaphorical Sources for Political Targets

4. Metaphorical Meaning and Metaphorical Power-Leaders, Elites and Citizens
Metaphors are political language, social life, and political life in a nutshell. The statement by some scholars that political language is interchangeable with politics also holds for metaphors. Political metaphors are condensed politics. The use and understanding of metaphors is interwoven with political life and with political culture.
This is what makes studying political metaphors so rewarding for social scientists. Metaphors adapt to circumstances of war and peace, prosperity and crisis, dictatorship and democracy. Metaphors always keep their charm, persuasive power and attractiveness, regardless of their content, regardless of the person who uses them, regardless of the medium that “distributes” them. Political metaphors exist in all ages and all places. The content and form of political rhetoric’s provides important information about public beliefs and values. Audiences participate in constructing political discourse.
The politician searches for the best possible arguments to support a position. A final selection is made on the basis of audience appeal. The same holds for the style that politicians choose (more or less formal, dialect or not, what kind of metaphors,…). Political metaphors are always a function of the context and of the needs and interests of the audience involved. The audience is always incorporated in the chosen rhetorical style and metaphors. This is especially the case when political speech is what Windt calls “expressive”. Politicians, or demagogues in this case, try to clarify their positions on issues in which the audience is interested, they adjust their language to meet the culture of their audience. The metaphors used by demagogues thus provide particular insights for social scientists. Doctrinaire politicians, on the other hand, focus on ideas and disregard the audience; their language is “impressive language”, which focuses on pure ideas. Democratic rhetoric should balance between impressiveness and expressiveness (Windt, 1987: xvii, xix). For the above reasons, social scientists undertake content analysis of metaphors as a form of political analysis. Metaphorical analysis shows that De Klerck and his party managed to give an international impression of a “new” South Africa” while preserving their privileges (wa-Mwachofi, 1995: 331-352), or that despite obvious differences, election speeches by political opponents in New Zealand share underlying assumptions (Lyons, Stephens, Morgan, Praat, Tuffin, 1996: 77-90).

Metaphorical reasoning lies at the heart of political analysis, communication, and decision. Understanding the metaphorical construction of politics reveals previously hidden dimensions of political communities and previously hidden meanings of political discourse. It suggests new solutions to long-standing political conflicts and new areas for political co-operation. In our globalized, multicultural society, metaphors tap primary human experiences and cross boundaries. They can encourage greater mutual understanding and advance the search for peace. Metaphorical rhetoric is often successfully used by national political elites during severe political, military and economic crises. Metaphors, as these elites know, reassure and comfort their citizen audiences. Metaphors may help people to face periods of misery. During more prosperous times, political elites are aware that metaphors widen their voter audiences.
Metaphorical soundbites have considerable persuasive and mnemonic effects. Bright metaphors bring politics closer to the citizen.
Metaphors increase political participation, and further democracy.

Metaphors, however, may also carry stereotypes, deceit, and manipulation, in the various forms in which they are “distributed”, from traditional storytelling to Web pages. They may tranquilize people, and they may promote war, crime and civil disturbance; they may euphemize torture and state terrorism (Jones, Gwyneth, 1997; Crelinstein, 1991; Ping-Lin Liu, 1965). Metaphors can be instruments of propaganda. The impact they have on schizophrenics show that they can influence segments of the population in a powerful way. The master in metaphors dominates his or her environment, regardless of its scale. And he or she always can deny what metaphors imply. Metaphors are crucial devices in maintaining and shifting meaning. If politics is a game, then every political-X means an element in game-Y.” If political community is a family, then every element of political life is interpreted in terms of the categories and roles that family life provides. Metaphorical power flows directly from metaphorical capability to maintain and shift meaning. Metaphorical politics are about the power of meaning and the meaning of power. What political metaphors really mean are patterns of human political life.

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1. Introduction
Quite a few American inventions have become a worldwide success: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is one of them. This policy instrument was introduced in 1970 by President Nixon, through the National Environmental Policy Act. Today, EIAs are applied in almost every country in the world.
An EIA is carried out before work is started on a major project, such as the construction of a railroad, highway or airport. The purpose of an EIA is to rationalize the decision-making process involved with such a project. In order to achieve that purpose, the parties involved are obliged to follow certain rules when exchanging information. These rules can be seen as a code of conduct: they specify the rights and obligations of the project proponent, the competent authority that has to decide on the project, and the citizens and interest groups that make use of the possibility of public participation (Wood 1995, Robinson 1992).

What Environmental Impact Assessment comes down to is that the decision-making process is divided into two successive discussions.
In the first discussion, the main role is played by the project proponent, who has to draft a public document – an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). An example of an EIS that was written in the United States is the one about a controversial plan to transform the top of Mount Graham, Arizona, into a so-called astrophysical area studded with telescopes (United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 1988). A Dutch EIS about a very controversial project is that concerning the extension of Schiphol Airport by means of adding an extra runway (Project Mainport en Milieu Schiphol, 1993a). In documents such as these, the project proponent has to explain his plans and indicate any reasonable alternative options for the proposed activity. Furthermore, he has to forecast and evaluate the effects of the project and of the alternative options. The project proponent’s forecasts and value judgements are not taken for granted: they have to be substantiated by arguments which support the accuracy of the predictions and the acceptability of the value judgements.
The EIS serves as the input for the second discussion, in which the competent authority takes the lead. The competent authority has to decide whether or not the project may be carried out and, if so, in what way. This means that the competent authority has to choose between the alternative options described in the EIS. The final decision is then made public in a so-called Record of Decision (ROD), which has to be supported by argumentation showing that the information provided by the EIS played an important role in the decision-making process. This argumentation is also required so that opponents of the project may challenge the decision in a court of law; to be able to criticize a decision successfully, it is necessary to know the grounds for the decision (Wood 1995: 183).

2. This paper
The pragma-dialectical argumentation theory developed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992) provides an instrument for analysing and evaluating discussions. This instrument consists of an ideal model for a critical discussion, that indicates which moves have to be made by participants who are trying to resolve a difference of opinion in a reasonable way. The ideal model may serve as a framework for the analysis and evaluation of real-life discussions.
As we will demonstrate in this paper, there is a striking resemblance between this pragma-dialectical ideal model and the first discussion in the procedure of Environmental Impact Assessment, dealing with alternatives and their consequences. However, the second discussion, in which the competent authority justifies the decision, clearly deviates from the model. The difference between these discussions is already evident from the size of the documents: the output of the first discussion – the EIS – is usually much more voluminous than that of the second discussion – the ROD. But, of course, size as such is not the issue. The issue is that the competent authority’s obligations in the second discussion are poorly defined, which is not very beneficial to the rationality of the decision-making process about major projects. This observation is not just a theoretical one. The analysis of Dutch RODs shows that the argumentation in these documents often has important shortcomings. This means that there is a need for guidelines for improving the quality of the argumentation in an ROD. That is what we focus on in this paper.

3. Evaluating argumentation systematically and critically
The pragma-dialectical ideal model makes clear that parties who want to resolve a difference of opinion as reasonably as possible have to pass through four stages (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992: 35):
1. the confrontation stage, in which it becomes clear that there is a difference of opinion;
2. the opening stage, in which the parties agree on certain rules for the discussion they are about to undertake; for instance, agreement has to be reached on the criteria that will be used for evaluating the argumentation put forward;
3. the argumentation stage, in which argumentation is put forward and evaluated, not on an ad hoc basis but using the mutually agreed criteria from the opening stage as starting point;
4. the concluding stage, in which the parties jointly establish the result of the discussion.

In the case of an Environmental Impact Assessment, the first discussion focuses on the questions: what does the plan amount to? What are the alternative options? And what about the effects of the plan and of the alternative options?
The way in which this discussion is organized has striking similarities with the ideal model. The most convincing example is that the argumentation the project proponent puts forward in support of his factual claims and value judgements is not evaluated ad hoc: it is systematically tested, using criteria agreed upon at an earlier stage of the discussion. What is the case? The procedure of Environmental Impact Assessment includes a stage in which so-called guidelines for the Environmental Impact Statement are laid down (in EIS jargon, ‘the scoping stage’) before the writing of the EIS has actually started. It is these guidelines that are indicative for the evaluation of the information presented in an EIS. So, the evaluation of an EIS can be called ‘systematic’, just like the evaluation of argumentation in a critical discussion, since it is based on criteria that the parties have agreed on beforehand.

The evaluation of an EIS is also critical. In Reconstructing Argumentative  Discourse, van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jacob’s and Jackson have clearly and convincingly outlined that the pragma-dialectical ideal model presupposes all kinds of conditions that are not always met in practice (van Eemeren et al. 1993: 30-34); for instance, the condition that the parties involved have no interest in a specific outcome of the discussion, that they are open-minded and (e.g.) that a proponent who defends a standpoint is absolutely willing to be open to any criticism of his argumentation.
In the case of an EIA, one cannot make the assumption that the parties involved are open-minded: the project proponent wants to have it his way and very often the competent authority also has an interest in the implementation of the project. So, in the case of an EIA, important conditions for a rational procedure are usually not met.
However – as van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jacobs and Jackson have pointed out – the very purpose of institutionalized rules is to deal with such unfavourable circumstances. And that is what happens in the procedure of EIA, at least in the Dutch and the Canadian procedure. To guarantee that the EIS is not only systematically but also critically tested, in these countries the evaluation of this document is left to a committee of independent experts, who have no interest at all in the implementation of the project (Commission for Environmental Impact Assessment 1998, Ross 1987).
All in all, reaching agreement about the relevant evaluation criteria beforehand, together with a systematic and critical testing afterwards, results in a rational development of the first discussion in a procedure of EIA. It also justifies a certain confidence in the accuracy and acceptability of the forecasts and evaluations of effects presented in the concluding chapter of an EIS. In this chapter, the effects are usually presented in a matrix, with the alternative options on one axis and the relevant criteria on the other axis, and the criteria scores in the cells of the matrix.

4. Record of Decision
In the second discussion, the competent authority has, as already mentioned, the duty to make a decision and to justify this decision in a so-called Record of Decision. In almost every country that applies Environmental Impact Assessment, the obligation to justify the decision is laid down by law. However, concrete requirements for the ROD have not been formulated in any of these countries. The American regulations, for instance, only mention the requirement that an ROD should contain the following elements (Wood 1995: 185):
1. a statement explaining the decision;
2. an explanation of the alternatives considered;
3. the social, economic and environmental factors considered by the agency in making its decision.

So, it is obvious that the decision on a project has to be justified, but it is not clear how that should be done. Contrary to the project proponent who writes the EIS, the competent authority is not committed to any rules. Freedom in itself is of great value, of course, but in the case of decision-making on major projects that same freedom results in RODs that vary considerably from case to case and often raise many questions.
What lies at the heart of the problem? As to an ROD, one could say: something goes in, and something comes out. The matrix in the EIS can be seen as the input, and the outcome is the final decision; that is, the choice of one of the alternatives described in the EIS (among which is the no-action alternative, which means that the project will not be implemented at all). If we take a close look at Dutch RODs, it appears that in general the input as well as the outcome are quite clearly presented. However, the problem does not concern input or output, but the ‘missing link’ in between: the process of balancing, of weighing the effects of the options. In this respect, the ROD about the expansion of Schiphol Airport is a clear example.
In this ROD, the Dutch government justifies its choice to expand Schiphol Airport by building a fifth runway. This option is compared with “a more environmentally friendly alternative”. Including such an alternative in an EIS is a legal obligation in the Netherlands. The expansion of the airport has a twofold objective: firstly, it should enable the airport to develop into a so-called mainport; secondly, it should improve the environmental quality of the surroundings, which means for example that it has to lead to noise reduction and a reduction of the safety risks posed by plane crashes. The ROD refers to this twofold objective as “the core of the balancing process”; however, it adds that “criteria in terms of spatial quality and costs” are also part of the balancing process (Project Mainport en Milieu Schiphol, 1993b: 9).

Both the fifth runway and the ‘environmental alternative’ turn out to meet the mainport objective, which means that the choice depends on the environmental effects and on the – apparently also relevant – spatial and financial effects of the options. The striking thing here is that the government’s preferred option fails to meet the safety standard: instead of reducing safety risks, it will increase them. According to the government, this requires “supplementary policy”; however, the government does not clarify what it means by that. Moreover, it is explicitly stated that the environmental alternative is better for the environmental quality than the preferred alternative.
Then why not choose the environmental alternative? The justification is extraordinarily short: “The government considers the spatial and financial consequences to be not acceptable” (Project Mainport en Milieu Schiphol, 1993b: 9-10). Criteria that do not belong to the “core of the balancing process” have apparently been decisive. But why? What part have the spatial and financial consequences played in the decision-making process? And where exactly can one draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable? These questions remain unanswered.

5. What to do?
We confine ourselves here to providing only one example illustrating the problems in Dutch RODs: as a rule, the input (facts and values with regard to alternative options) and the output (the decision) are crystal clear; the balancing process in between, however, is a black box. All in all, there is a remarkable discrepancy between the project proponent’s obligation to provide full and fair disclosure in the first discussion and the competent authority’s freedom in dealing with a crucial step in the second discussion.
The final question is: is there a way to justify a decision more rationally? The answer to this is yes, and inspiration can be drawn from the pragma-dialectical ideal model for a critical discussion. As explained before, the first discussion (about alternatives and effects) is rational because the evaluation of the argumentation presented by the project proponent in an EIS is not ad hoc, but based on criteria the parties have mutually agreed upon beforehand. This concept could also be applied to enhance the rationality of RODs in the second discussion.

In 1990 a Dutch quality newspaper published an interview with the Canadian philosopher and fallacy expert John Woods about fallacies (NRC Handelsblad, 19 June 1990). The title of the article was taken from a remark Woods made about his sister: Women are bad drivers. Look at my sister.
The first part serves as a standpoint; this standpoint is supported by the second part, the argumentation. The connection between the two is made by the unexpressed premise, that in everyday conversation is usually left implicit. The missing premise here is: what goes for my sister, goes for women in general. This premise makes clear what argumentation scheme has been applied; in this case the scheme of ‘reasoning by example’.
If one wants to evaluate the argumentation, it is not enough to evaluate the standpoint and the argument separately; the unexpressed premise also has to be evaluated (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992: 94-102). For the evaluation of this premise, two questions are relevant:
1. Is it acceptable to justify a general statement with an example?
2. If so, is the example used in this specific case an appropriate one?

In other words, for the evaluation of the argumentation here, two questions are relevant:
1. Is it acceptable to apply this argumentation scheme?
2. If so, has the scheme been applied correctly?

For the argumentation to be valid, the applied argumentation scheme must be acceptable and have been applied correctly in this specific argumentation. Whether or not this is the case can be tested by the commitments the participants made at the opening stage of the discussion.

Argumentation in an ROD could be evaluated in a similar way. The decision functions as a standpoint, and this standpoint is supported by the facts and values from the matrix, serving as arguments. The connection can be made through the method that is used in the decision-making process and is left implicit here. In decision theories, this method is referred to as a ‘decision rule’. The missing link here, i.e. the decision rule, has much in common with the unexpressed premise in a single argumentation. So, for the evaluation of the support of the decision and the missing link here, similar questions could be asked:
1. Is it acceptable to apply decision rule X?
2. If so, has decision rule X been applied correctly?

The first question suggests that decision makers may choose from a whole set of decision rules. And that in fact is the case. Much research on decision rules has been done by researchers in such disciplines as psychology, economics and sociology. Descriptive as well as normative research has provided insight into a number of issues: what decision rules are available? How do people use them? And how should they be used in specific situations? There are also researchers – for instance, the Dutch sociologists Gallhofer and Saris – who, through textual analysis, made a reconstruction of decision rules that were applied in specific political situations.

Two examples of rules that are often applied in decision-making about major projects are the following.
First of all: the conjunctive rule, or as Gallhofer and Saris – with reference to Herbert Simon – call it: ‘Simon’s rule’ (Gallhofer & Saris 1996: 36-38). This rule entails that for certain effects or aspects minimum requirements or critical values are set. The strategy that leads only to satisfactory outcomes, will be selected. In the Schiphol case this rule was intended to be applied: the chosen measure would have to meet two requirements, i.e. that of the mainport and that of the environment.

The second example is a rule known as ‘maximizing number of attributes with greater attractiveness’. Montgomery and Svenson provide the following definition: “This rule implies that the alternative with the greater number of favorable attributes is chosen. That is, if one alternative is more attractive than another alternative on a greater number of attributes, then the former alternative should be chosen” (Montgomery & Svenson 1976: 286).
Decision makers have several decision rules at their disposal, but they usually fail to make clear in their RODs which rule they have applied. This is problematic, because if the decision rule itself remains unclear, it will not be possible to evaluate the acceptability of the rule or to check its application. In other words: the balancing process remains a black box. A solution would be to select one rule and make it compulsory for all major projects, but that is not a very realistic idea. The best thing to do is to demand that it is clearly explained in an ROD what decision rule has been taken as a starting point and why. That is what readers need to know and what decision makers should pay attention to.

6. Concluding remarks
Environmental Impact Assessment is supposed to rationalize the decision-making process. As we have seen, this policy instrument achieves this purpose as far as the input of the decision-making is concerned. But at the same time, the instrument is remarkably ‘liberal’ with regard to the discussion in which the competent authority has to justify its decision. Further improvement of the rationality of decision-making processes requires that more attention be paid to these RODs, and especially to ‘the missing link’, the bridge between input and outcome.
This can be achieved by obliging a competent authority to divide its ROD into three parts:
1. input (with reference to the main conclusions of the EIS)
2. balancing
2.1 explanation and justification of the decision rule that is applied
2.2 application of the chosen decision rule to the case at hand
3. decision: given 1 and 2, what is the best alternative?

RODs that are structured in this way create better opportunities for a critical evaluation, because two crucial choices of a competent authority are made explicit: the selection of the appropriate decision rule and its application. This makes it easier to debate the final decision in an orderly fashion – which, in the end, is what RODs are all about.
On top of that, a starting point for rationality is that arguments and criteria for evaluating those arguments precede a conclusion. In the case of major projects, one often suspects that it is the other way around: the conclusion comes first – “We want that fifth runway, period” – and the arguments are ‘collected’ afterwards. This is possible because there are no prior commitments a competent authority has to deal with while justifying a decision. Decisions about major projects may, however, result in private citizens and the environment suffering significant damage. Therefore, at an early stage of the second discussion agreement should preferably be reached on how to balance the pros and cons of alternative options. The opening stage of the ideal model for a critical discussion is obviously present when the project proponent writes the EIS. It would definitely be beneficial to a systematic and critical evaluation of the argumentation in an ROD to oblige the competent authority to make certain commitments in advance. It should at least commit itself at an early stage to the use of a particular decision rule. Together with the application of the three-part structure we have provided, this commitment would certainly improve the quality of Records of Decision.

REFERENCES
Eemeren, F.H. van and R. Grootendorst (1992). Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies; A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Eemeren, F.H. van, R. Grootendorst, S. Jackson and S. Jacobs (1993). Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press.
Commission for Environmental Impact Assessment (1998). New Experiences on EIA in The Netherlands; Process, Methodology, Case Studies.Utrecht: Commission for EIA.
Gallhofer, I.N. and W.E. Saris (1996). Foreign Policy Decision-making; A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Political Argumentation. Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger.
Montgomery, H. and O. Svenson (1976). On decision rules and information processing strategies for choices among multiattribute alternatives. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 17, 283-291.
Project Mainport en Milieu Schiphol (1993a). Planologische Kernbeslissing Schiphol en omgeving, deel 1, Ontwerp Planologische Kernbeslissing. Den Haag: SDU-DOP.
Project Mainport en Milieu Schiphol (1993b). Integraal Milieu-effectrapport Schiphol en Omgeving. Den Haag: Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat.
Robinson, N.A. (1992). International Trends in Environmental Impact Assessment. Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 19, 3, 591-621.
Ross, W.A. (1987). Evaluating Environmental Impact Statements. Journal of Environmental Management 25, 137-147.
United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (1988). Final Environmental Impact Statement, Proposed Mt. Graham Astrophysical Area, Pinaleno Mountains, Coronado National Forest. Tucson.
Wood, C. (1995). Environmental Impact Assessment; A Comparative Review. London: Longman Scientific & Technical.

1. Introduction
This paper is about argumentation involving expertise with not all discussants being experts. This type of debate is very relevant for a field like Science & Society (which can be defined as the analysis and evaluation of the social consequences of the development and use of scientific and technological knowledge).
In the field of Science & Society, one is often confronted with argumentation patterns that would not be considered adequate in more orthodox argumentation studies. In an earlier study on discussions about the consequences and acceptability of biotechnology, my colleague Rob Pranger and I noted a number of fundamental ambiguities (Birrer, Pranger,1995). We showed that many of these ambiguities could be related to a two by two matrix of four different worldviews. The matrix was taken from cultural bias theory(i), a theory that suggests that standpoints on e.g. risk tend to cluster in four types, each with a different way of interpreting the same data; although in many cases one would say that a balance of the various aspects would be most appropriate, worldviews tend toward polarisation rather than mutual understanding and compromise. We also showed how these different, worldviewbased interpretations, and the resulting ambiguities in communication between adherents of different worldviews, could be related to different views on where the burden of proof should be put.
In the present paper, discussion between participants with unequal relevant expertise will be subjected to a more theoretical analysis. We will trace some fundamental difficulties that such discussions are facing. The conditions under which dialogue and argumentation with unequal expertise are conducted are in some respects crucially different from cases where there is no such inequality. Consequentially, the rules of the game must be different too. We will examine the way in which expert statements are treated in the literature, in particular the work of Douglas Walton(ii), and suggest some extensions of the category systems that can be found there.

2. The model of information seeking dialogue
The exchange between expert and non-expert is characterised by Walton at various places as an ‘information seeking dialogue’ (e.g. Walton,1995; Walton,Krabbe,1995). The non-expert asks the expert for certain information, and the expert provides this information. In this type of dialogue, there is a basic asymmetry between the participants (Walton,1995: 113).
Let us test this characterisation as ‘information seeking dialogue’ on a simple case of expert advise: that of a single client and a single expert adviser. The client has a problem, and in order to be able to deal with this problem in the most adequate way, the client needs advice from an expert. Let us say that the client wonders whether a computer might be helpful in his(her) situation, and wants to know what would be the most useful hardware and software in this situation. The client turns to a computer expert for advice. The expert will now inquire about the nature of the practices of the client that might be relevant. Since the expert does not have direct access to this information, the expert is dependent upon the information that is selected by the client. But the client is not by itself able to make a fully adequate selection, for what is and is not relevant depends upon the technical options, and the client has no knowledge about that.
One could say that the client and the expert are experiencing the difficulties of distributed processing: each actor has relevant information for the other, but they cannot directly access each others relevance criteria. To use a computer metaphor, if the expert’s knowledge could in some simple way be fused with the mind of the client into one big database, it would present no fundamental problem to find the best solution given the available knowledge; but since the relevant knowledge is distributed over two databases, connected only by a low capacity communication channel, effective combination of the two sources is much more difficult. This is of course not to say that expert advice is impossible; we know from experience that it is possible, and when expert and client take enough time to communicate it may work well. The point is that there can be no analytic guarantee that it will work, no guarantee that the expert indeed will find the best solution for the client. It is always possible that the expert, despite serious efforts, still does not have a correct idea of the problem of the client, and this need not be due to faults by either the expert or the client.

To what extent can we say that this dialogue between expert and client is an ‘information seeking dialogue’? It is not quite information as such that the client gets from the expert. The client gets information that is selected, interpreted and translated by the expert – on behalf of the client, that is, acting, as much as the expert is able to, upon the values, preferences etc. of the client. The ‘information’ is, so to say, impregnated with the client’s normative and subjective attitudes, it not information in a general sense, it is personalised information. But what makes the exchange between expert and non-expert categorically different is that there is a selection, interpretation and translation process that is outside of the control of the client, and that the client is unable to check. This is different from a situation where someone inquires about the time, or about the location of the nearest post office. In such cases, the information requested can be specified by the information seeker. It can be that the information given is incorrect, but the information seeker will probably find out sooner or later, or at least is able to find out independently. It can happen that the first answer does not satisfy the information seeker, and that the seeker will have to respecify the question, but still the specification is under control of the information seeker only. For expert advice, that need not be the case; often, the client cannot specify precisely which information is needed from the expert, but only indicate a global objective the expert is supposed to support. Similar remarks can be made about the model of expert systems (Walton,1990). For a viable expert system, the competency of the advice seeker to specify the questions (with the help of the menu of the expert system) must simply be assumed; actually, expert systems are often designed to be used by semi-experts. So there seems reason to make a distinction between two types of dialogue: one of straightforward information seeking dialogue, where the information seeker is able to more or less fully specify the information needed; and one of expert advice seeking dialogue, where the advice seeking person is not able to do so.

3. Expert advice in societal discussions: The ideal case
So far the expert adviser had to reckon with the wishes and interests of one client only. We now move to a more complex setting, where expert advice is needed in a matter that involves more than one party. Let us take as an example a discussion about the risks posed by the use of a certain new technology, e.g. the manufacture of certain genetically modified organisms.
Risks posed by new technologies often are hard to assess, since much about them is not known yet. Generally, fault trees are used for such analysis, that is, every possible chain of events that leads to harm is assigned a probability, mostly by multiplying the (estimated) probabilities of the individual links in that chain. This results in an estimate of the probability that a certain harm will occur.
But this probability estimate is itself very uncertain. So with only this single estimate, the expert’s judgement is represented in a poor, and in fact misleading way. For suppose the expert picks out a certain probability as the most likely probability of a certain harm, but, given all uncertainties, he thinks it not much less likely that the harm probability is a hundred times higher, then the latter judgement is obviously far more decisive than the first. So what the expert ideally would have to do is to specify a double probability distribution: for each estimate of the harm probability, there should also be a specification of the probability that that particular estimate is the right one. Of course this is not a feasible solution. First, one might ask how good experts can perform this difficult task. But even if the outcomes would make sense, such a double probability distribution would not be very helpful in a public discussion, for the information is too complex to be handled by most non-experts.

There is another possibility. One might ask the advice seeking persons to specify a certain (probability) level that marks the borderline of what they still find acceptable and what not. Then the expert can formulate an opinion on whether this one particular level will be exceeded or not (this single yes-or-no statement combines the probability estimates with how likely the expert thinks each of these estimates to be the right one). But in a societal discussion about risks, participants usually have different views on what is acceptable or not. So the expert has to deal with a heterogeneous group of clients, and each of them has a different question. Moreover, levels of acceptability will be the subject of a negotiation process. Not only will the various parties involved not want to show their ultimate bid on beforehand, they will also want to know what the result is when the acceptability level is shifted.
So we must conclude that even an ideal expert, who is trying to be as cooperative and helpful as possible, is facing a difficult task: the expert can only communicate judgements on the basis of normative judgements made on behalf of a particular client (the choice of the acceptability level), and even for that single client this information may not be enough. Again we see that much more is at stake than a simple exchange of information; whereas in the earlier example of the computer expert the main emphasis was on getting the client’s problem in an undistorted form to the expert, here the emphasis is more on how to transmit all relevant information from the expert to the non-expert, in a form that the non-expert can handle.

4. Negotiation and the reliability of experts: Source reasoning
What we just analyzed was still an ideal case: we assumed that the expert was unquestionably dedicated to the questions and interests of any particular client. For advice in actual societal discussions this is a problematic assumption: even if the expert is a professional of high quality, and of the most sincere dedication, the question is on what grounds the advised persons could be convinced of that.
Non-experts are unable to check whether the judgement given by the expert is really based on their particular norms. Judgements on risk are themselves already highly uncertain. When conflicting interests are involved, the uncertainties and lack of transparency make the question whether or not to rely on a certain expert judgement a very crucial one.
This reliability issue can only be solved by reasoning about the source. This kind of reasoning is familiar in the area of law, with respect to the credibility of witnesses (Walton,1996). A witness may be considered of higher or lower reliability on the basis of indications concerning circumstances (was the witness really able to see that well in the dark) or personal character (a well-known criminal might be considered less trustworthy than a citizen of irreproachable reputation).

In what way would it be appropriate to question the source of certain expert judgements in societal discussions? Only rarely an expert will be of such a manifestly bad character that this reason alone is enough to cast reasonable doubt on the expert’s statements. Usually, the indications are more circumstantial. For instance, one would not like the expert to have considerable direct personal interests in the matter at stake. It is also relevant whether the expert has direct ties to a particular party in the discussion. Formulated in a more general way, one would consider the checks and balances that control the expert’s work. To what degree can one expect hidden biases to be exposed and countered? Of course flaws in the checks and balances can never be proof that the source’s statements must be wrong. Nor should arguments concerning the context of checks and balances in any way be mixed up with an attack on the integrity of a person. Serious source questioning refers to the socio-organisational context, it evaluates the risks of accepting judgements from the source – on the basis of that context.

Walton distinguishes three types of ‘source indicators reasoning’ (Walton,1995: 152ff):
1. ethotic argument (the speaker is suggested to have a bad, unreliable character)
2. argument from bias (it is suggested that the speaker is less likely to take all sides into account, or that the speaker fails critical doubt)
3. argument from popular opinion (acceptance by a large majority is advanced as an argument for something to be accepted by anyone).

The first and third type of argument are not so interesting in the case of expert advisers in societal discussion: it was already argued that not many experts have such a manifestly bad character that the first argument has a serious chance, and the third type does not apply at all. The second type seems the more appropriate for our case.
Walton’s elaboration of this category suggests that is mainly conceived as personal disposition. The problem with this psychological interpretation is that it makes an accusation of bias very hard to prove. It seems a rather unfair distribution of the burden of proof to demand that it is not only shown that there are insufficient checks
and balances to counter certain biases, but also that the particular person who is in that situation will actually fail to meet his/her responsibility(iii).

I therefore propose to extend the typology above with a fourth category:
4. argument from socio-organisational environment, which includes arguments that refer not to the individual spokes person, but to the environment in which that person operates, and in particular the checks and balances to which the spokesperson is subject to, and the degree to which those checks and balances can be expected to prevent and counter the utterance of biased statements.
This category seems relevant not just when experts are concerned, but for source indicators reasoning in general, e.g. also when one has to depend upon a source for simple factual information that cannot be independently checked.

Similar remarks can be made with respect to Walton’s ‘characteristics of a credible arguers’ (Walton,1996: 244ff), and the ‘characteristics of dialectical bias’ (Walton,1996: 249ff); here too the characteristics relate to the arguer only, not to the environment in which the arguer operates. Even when an example is discussed of a member of the board of directors of coal company saying that reports on the extent of the acid rain problem are greatly exaggerated, Walton sees the problem in the board member not immediately making clear that she had that position, not in the position itself (Walton,1989). With respect to ‘bias in science’, Walton refers to straight-forward scientific fraud (Walton,1996: 226); but in areas where there are not yet clearly established scientific truths, there is much interpretive flexibility (Birrer, Pranger,1995).

What about ‘ad hominem’ which seems so close to source indicators reasoning? In recent work, Walton distinguishes three main types of ad hominem:
1. direct/abusive (bad character)
2. circumstantial (contradiction between claims and personal circumstances)
3. bias (failure of critical balance) (Walton,1995).

The first and third are very similar to type one and two discussed above for source indicators reasoning. The second looks relevant for source indicators reasoning also, but is not included there. This category of ‘circumstantial’ is, however, limited to manifest contradictions, so adding this category to the source indicators reasoning categories is not enough, for it still asks for positive indications of misbehaviour.
It seems questionable whether a broader category of sociological argument as suggested for the source indicator reasoning would make sense for the analysis of ad hominem arguments as well. As was emphasised earlier, that category was not meant to include attack on a person. There might be cases where a person can be blamed for making statements from a position that lacks sufficient checks and balances, but as far as I can see that can be a reasonable argument only if the situation of that person was hidden (like in Walton’s example of the coal board director), and in that case it can be accommodated in the category ad hominem circumstantial as described by Walton.

5. Conclusions
Societal debates involving expert judgements are an interesting field for the study of argumentation. We have examined argumentation involving expert judgements, and confronted it with the categorisations developed by Walton at various places. This has resulted in two suggestions:
1. Expert consultation is so different from straightforward information seeking, that they should not be put under the same heading without additional qualification. Either the category of ‘information seeking dialogue’ should be split, or a separate category should be introduced. Confusion raised by the term ‘information seeking dialogue’ (which might be taken to suggest that straightforward information seeking is the paradigmatic model here), can be avoided by using a term like ‘consultative dialogue’ for the general category.
2. The source reasoning categories also need extension with a category which referring to socio-organisational (sociological) factors.
The first suggestion is specifically related to the analysis of the role of expert statements; the second, however, seems relevant to source reasoning in general.

NOTES
i. A good introduction to cultural bias theory is (Schwarz,Thompson,1990); a more extensive theoretical elaboration can be found in (Thompson,Ellis,Wildavsky,1995).
ii. Very recently, Walton published a book called Appeal to expert opinion. Arguments from authority (Pennsylvania University Press); it was not possible to include this in the analysis presented here.
iii. In Informal logic, Walton occasionally mentions one example in which context plays a role: the relevance of the financial interests of an expert’s financial who appears in a court case; but in the following critical questions for the appeal to expert opinion, sociological context is again not mentioned.

REFERENCES
Birrer, Frans A.J. & Rob Pranger (1995). Complex intertwinements in argumentation: Some cases from discussions on biotechnology and their implications for argumentation studies. In Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, J. Anthony Blair, Charles A. Willard (Eds.), Special fields and cases, Volume IV of the Proceedings of the Third ISSA Conference on Argumentation, Amsterdam: SicSat/International Centre for the Study of Argumentation.
Schwarz, Michiel & Michael Thompson (1990). Divided we stand. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Thompson, Michael & Ron Ellis &  Aaron Wildavsky (1990). Cultural theory. Boulder: Westview.
Walton, Douglas N. (1989). Informal logic. A handbook for critical argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Walton, Douglas N. (1990). Practical reasoning. Goal-driven, knowledge-based action-guiding argumentation. Savage (Maryland): Rowman & Littlefield.
Walton, Douglas N. (1995). A pragmatic theory of fallacy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Walton, Douglas N. & Erik C.W. Krabbe (1995). Commitment in dialogue. Basic concepts of interpersonal reasoning. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Walton, Douglas (1996). Fallacies arising from ambiguity. Amsterdam: Kluwer (Applied Logic Series, volume 1)

1. Introduction: Walton’s account
In this paper I first sketch Douglas Walton’s account of argument schemes for presumptive reasoning (Walton, 1996). Then I outline some of what I think is missing from the account as presented by Walton. Last, I propose ways of filling in some (not all) of those missing pieces. The sketch of Walton’s account will occupy the rest of this introductory section. I should make it clear at the outset that what inspires this paper is admiration for Walton’s project. Although I think his account is incomplete, and I disagree with some details, I believe that the study of argumentation schemes is important, and that Walton’s approach is fruitful and suggestive. In the book under examination (Walton, 1996), Walton restricts his discussion to argument schemes found in presumptive reasoning. He takes presumptive reasoning to be typified by the pragmatic, “rough and ready generalizations,” of practical reasoning (reasoning about what to do); it is the “plausible reasoning” for which Rescher provided a calculus in his Plausible Reasoning (1976). A model for presumptive reasoning is default or non-monotonic reasoning discussed in computer science.

Central to Walton’s account is his analysis of presumption. He presents presumption as related to, but distinct from, burden of proof. On his analysis, it is that move in a dialogue which lies between assertion (which incurs the burden of proof) and assumption (which carries no burden whatever). A presumption so conceived has practical value by way of advancing the argumentation, and, in accepting something as a presumption, the interlocutor assumes the burden of rebutting it. Thus a presumption shifts the burden of proof, and this function is at the heart of Walton’s analysis. Presumptions come into play in the absence of firm evidence or knowledge, which is why they are typically found in practical reasoning. Presumptive reasoning, in sum, “is neither deductive nor inductive in nature, but represents a third distinct type . . ., an inherently tentative kind of reasoning subject to defeat by the special circumstances (not defined inductively or statistically) of a particular case” (Walton 1996, 43).
For Walton, argument schemes are structures or “forms” of argument which are “normatively binding kinds of reasoning” and are “best seen as moves, or speech acts” in dialogues (Walton 1996, 28). They are normatively binding in the sense that in accepting premises organized in a “genuine” scheme “appropriate” to the type of dialogue in process, one is bound (in some way) to accept the conclusion drawn from them, provided the “critical questions” that are “appropriate to” that scheme are answered satisfactorily (Walton 1996, 10).
Walton postulates that the validity of an argument scheme is contextual: a function of the context of dialogue in which it is used in a given case. Remember that the aim of argument in presumptive or plausible reasoning is to shift the burden of proof in a dialogue (not to prove a proposition with a given degree of probability or plausibility). Whether a scheme succeeds in shifting the burden of proof depends on whether the scheme is valid (for the occasion of its use) and on whether the members of a set of “critical questions” associated with it either have been answered affirmatively earlier in the dialogue or can be later if they are raised.

To this distinction between an argument scheme and its associated critical questions there corresponds, in Walton’s theoretical structure, a distinction between two (of three) levels of argument criticism. At the “local” level the scheme itself may be invalid, or the argument may fail to conform to its scheme’s requirements, or its premises may lack needed support. The critical questions associated with an argument scheme normally lead to further arguments, when and as their answers are provided and supported, so that the occurrence of a scheme in a dialogue effectively introduces a sequence of exchanges, which Walton labels an “argumentation theme.” These argumentation themes form the backdrop for the second level of argument criticism: questioning the relevance of an argument at a given point in a dialogical exchange. The idea seems to be that what makes an argument relevant is the appropriateness of its placement in the sequences of questions and answers that constitute the argumentation theme of the dialogue at that point. (The third level of criticism is to question the appropriateness of the dialogue type being used.)
So a presumptive argument scheme is the pattern of a unit of local reasoning that is a move in an argumentative dialogue aiming to provide sufficient grounds to shift the burden of proof with respect to the assertion that is its conclusion.

In Argument Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning (1996), Walton describes and discusses about thirty such schemes. For each scheme he supplies a description, a formulation, a set of critical questions associated with it, at least one and often several “cases,” which are actual or invented examples of the scheme in use, and a discussion of the scheme in which he typically draws attention to its salient properties, relates it to other schemes, discusses the fallacies associated with it, comments on its presumptive force, and mentions typical contexts of its use.

An example of one of the argument schemes Walton discusses will illustrate his treatment. Here is the scheme of the “argument from sign” (Walton 1996, 49):
1.
A is true in this situation. B is generally indicated as true when its sign, A, is true, in this kind of situation. Therefore, B is true in this situation.

Walton gives, among others, the following examples of arguments that instantiate the argument from sign scheme (Walton 1996, 47, 49):
2.
3.1 There are some bear tracks in the snow.
Therefore, a bear passed this way.
3.4 Bob is covered with red spots.
Therefore, Bob has the measles.
3.5 The barometer just dropped.
Therefore, we will have a storm.
3.6 Bob is biting his nails.
Therefore, Bob is worried about something.

Following Hastings (1962) Walton identifies the following two “critical questions” as associated with the scheme of the argument from sign (Walton 1996, 48):
3.
1. What is the strength of the correlation of the sign with the event signified?
2. Are there other events that would more reliably account for the sign?

Although Walton’s account is rich in detail, I believe it leaves many theoretical questions and issues unanswered and unadressed. I will list and discuss these lacunae in the next section.

2. What is missing from Walton’s account
A natural first question to ask is, “Where do argument schemes come from?” Are they in the first instance descriptions of patterns to be found in (or, that can be abstracted from) actual argumentation as social events and products? If so, then their normative force requires an explanation, for from the fact that people’s arguments happen to exhibit a particular pattern, it does not follow that the conclusions of such arguments are warranted by their premises. Or instead, are argument schemes in the first instance a priori prescriptions for cogent argumentation–patterns whose instantiations will be cogent arguments if they are used appropriately? In that case, on what principles are they formed? Where do they get their probative force? As far as I can discern, Walton does not address these questions in this book. In sum, we get the following set of questions.

Q-set 1: Are the schemes meant to be descriptive or prescriptive?
In either case, what gives them normative force?

Other questions concern the classification of the schemes. Walton’s argument from sign scheme looks like a scheme for causal reasoning, yet he also includes as a distinct scheme what he calls “the argument from cause to effect.” Does “the argument from sign” amount to “the argument from effect to cause”? And if so, are these two schemes species of a generic causal argument scheme? Or are they best classified as different types of reasoning? In any case, how is the matter to be decided?
Notice also that Walton has grouped somewhat different types of reasoning together under the label of argument from sign. The paw of a bear is necessary to make a bear track, but worry is not necessary in order to cause nail biting, nor is a storm necessary for the barometer to drop. Also, the connection between worry and nail biting is psychological, whereas that between a brewing storm and a falling barometer is physical. I do not mean to disagreeing with Walton that these four examples should be grouped as exemplifying one scheme, but it is fair to ask for an explanation of why these somewhat different contents of reasoning end up being classified as exhibiting a single argument scheme. Walton supplies no rationale for his selection of schemes, and the order in which he presents them seems to a large extent arbitrary.

Q-set 2: On what principles are schemes to be classified? How are schemes to be distinguished by type?

Perhaps related to the questions about classifications are questions about the level of generality a scheme should exhibit. It is easy to imagine schemes of different generality for one and the same example of argumentation. For example, if I am fussing about my knee aching, and June says, among other things, “If your arthritis is bothering you, take some ibuprofen–it’s what your doctor prescribed,” which of the following is the correct, or the better, scheme for her argument?

4.
D prescribed treatment T for patient P’s medical condition C.
D is an authority with respect to treatments for C-type conditions and about P’s condition. So, it is presumptively reasonable for P to take T when in C.

5.
D prescribed action A to solve problem C. D is an authority with respect to dealing with C. So, it is presumptively reasonable to do A to solve C.

Clearly scheme (4) is less general or abstract than scheme (5), yet both seem exemplified in June’s argument. What is the correct, or best, level of abstraction, and why? This issue is discussed in Kienpointer’s Alltagslogik (1992), but Walton supplies no answers in his book.

Q-set 3: How general should an argument scheme be? How is the question of the correct level of generality to be properly decided?

Another topic that is not discussed by Walton is the connection between an argument scheme and its “associated” critical questions. He simply lists a set of critical questions for each scheme, but what motivates these questions? How is it to be decided which are the correct questions, and when a list of critical questions is complete?

Q-set 4: Which are the right kind, and number, of critical questions to ask with respect to any given scheme? How is that to be decided?

I have glossed over the fact that Walton talks sometimes of schemes exhibited in arguments and sometimes of schemes exhibited in reasoning. One wants to know how these are related. I have also followed Walton’s convention of focusing on schemes in presumptive reasoning/argumentation.

Q-set 5: Are there both argument schemes and reasoning schemes, or only one, and if the latter, which one? Or is there no distinction between arguments and reasoning?

As I have noted, in the book under consideration Walton devotes his attention to argument schemes for presumptive reasoning. Are there other types of schemes as well? Walton seems clearly to concede that possibility:

We analyze only what we call presumptive argumentation schemes, . . . . Therefore, we do not include, for example, inductive arguments, part-whole arguments, or genus-species arguments, presuming that (by and large, at any rate) these types of argumentation are not presumptive in nature. (1996, 3)
Certainly the problem remains of understanding how many of the most common of these [presumptive] argumentation schemes in everyday conversation are inherently different from the usual models of deductive and inductive reasoning . . . . (1996, 3)
If there are other kinds of argumentation schemes besides those for presumptive reasoning, then it seems that a general theory of argument schemes is needed to account for them all.

Q-set 6: How are presumptive argumentation schemes related to those for inductive or deductive reasoning? What is the correct general theory of argument schemes?

Finally, I would like to question some of the details of Walton’s analyses of presumption and of argument schemes. In particular I question whether presumptive reasoning is “inherently tentative,” “inconclusive” and “provisional” (Walton 1996, 42, ix, xi). I also would like at least to mention the possibility of questioning whether a context of dialogue is essential to the function of argument schemes, or presumptive or others.

Q-set 7: Are all the details of Walton’s account of argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning correct?

To sum up, among the tasks which a more complete theory of argument schemes than is provided by Walton would have to take on are the following, each task or set of tasks corresponding to one of the above seven question sets.

T1. Explain the descriptive and prescriptive functions of argument schemes and explain the ground of the normative force of prescriptive schemes. (Q-set 1)
T2. Identify the types of argument schemes and the principle(s) of classification for argument schemes. (Q-set 2) Among other things, determine whether there are inductive and deductive as well as presumptive argument schemes. If possible, prove a general theory of argument schemes. (Q-set 6)
T3. Address the question of the correct or appropriate level of generality of argument schemes. (Q-set 3)
T4. Explain what motivates the critical questions attached to an argument scheme, and how the correct or appropriate number and formulation of these critical questions is to be established. (Q-set 4)
T5. Explain what it is that schemes are appropriately predicated of – arguments or reasoning, or both. (Q-set 5)
T6. Offer critiques of some of the details of the account. (Q-set 7)

In the next section I will address all of these tasks except T3, and, except for some comments in passing, T2. Both T2 and T3 have been discussed in detail by Kienpointner (1992), and it would take me beyond the focus on Walton’s account to examine that of Kienpointner.

3. Further developments
Argumentation and reasoning
There is by now, thanks particularly to the work of van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984, 1992), among others, general agreement among argumentation scholars that argumentation is a complex social, speech activity involving more than one party, with practical goals and subject to norms related to those goals. One cannot argue without at least an imaginary audience or interlocutor. Reasoning, on the other hand, whatever its social origins and functions, is a mental activity which can be performed privately. One can reason alone. Argumentation requires that its participants reason, so reasoning is necessary to argumentation; but one can reason without engaging in argumentation, so argumentation is not necessary to reasoning.
One type of reasoning is inferring–making the judgement that one proposition is implied by another or others (I use ‘implied’ broadly, to include “supported.”). When Walton speaks of “presumptive reasoning,” he is speaking of drawing presumptive inferences, or inferring presumptively. A person can infer without arguing (for example, you think to yourself, “I need to be alert tomorrow, so I’d better get to bed early tonight.”), but inferring is necessary to arguing, in several respects. Inferences are being made constantly by interlocutors engaged in argumentation in order to ascertain the nature of their activity and to sustain it. (For example: “Do we disagree?” “Which moves are permitted and appropriate at this point?” “Which is the best move for me at this turn?” The interlocutors must draw inferences to answer such questions.) At the heart of the activity of argumentation is the offering of and response to arguments in the more narrow sense of reasons offered in support of or against claims: the illative core of argumentation. Here the interlocutors draw inferences about what propositions imply other propositions and about what propositions the other person or the audience will likely deem to be implied by given propositions, and the arguments they offer to one another are in effect invitations to draw inferences (Pinto 1995, 276; Beardsley 1976, 5). These distinctions may be illustrated by describing selections of a generalization of a process of and argumentative dialogue.

6.
Proposition p implies proposition q. (Implication)
Person A judges that p implies q. (Reasoning)
A judges on the basis of facts (a, b and c) that interlocutor B accepts p and will accept that p implies q. (Reasoning.)
A invites B to accept q, on the grounds that p and that p implies q. (Argument)
B accepts p, but also accepts r, and judges that p and r imply not-q. (Reasoning.)
B invites A to accept not-q, on the ground that r, and that p and r imply not-q. (Argument)
A does not accept t, nor that t implies not-r, but believes on the basis of facts (d, e and f) that B accepts both. (Reasoning)
A invites B to accept not-r, on the ground that t, and that t implies not-r. (Argument)

Clearly, reasoning (that is, inferring) is integral to the use of arguments in argumentation, although as the last two moves listed above indicate, one can, in offering an argument, invite one’s interlocutor to employ reasoning that one rejects oneself. So what are the schemes to which Walton refers schemes of? Are they schemes of reasoning or of arguments?
I think the answer must be: both, but inference is more basic. Whether or not the arguer draws the inference that he or she invites the interlocutor to draw, he or she recognizes the possibility of drawing that inference. Thus the presentation of an argument presupposes a possible inference, and hence the instantiation of some possible pattern of inference. Thus, an inference scheme is logically prior to its use in any argument. Moreover, schemes that are prescriptive function to license inferences, so that is another reason for identifying them with inferences. On the other hand, in uttering an argument that invites the interlocutor to draw an inference, the arguer employs an instance of some pattern of argument, and so might be said to be employing an instance of an argument scheme. There is often no harm in shifting without notice from talk of inferences to talk of arguments, given the central role of inference in argument; but, given the difference between argument and inference, the two should not be conflated.

Walton’s classification of schemes
Classifications are made with ends in view, and since there can be many compatible purposes for classifications, there are numerous possible compatible classifications. Walton is at pains to distinguish the schemes of presumptive reasoning from those of deductive logic and inductive reasoning. His principle of classification seems to be the strength of commitment to which the reasoner is entitled, given the premises, for each type of inference. When the premises deductively entail the conclusion, one is entitled to absolute confidence in the conclusion, given the premises. In contrast, Walton thinks, when the premises presumptively support the conclusion, one is entitled to have little confidence in the conclusion, given the premises–just enough confidence to shift the onus of refutation over to anyone who would still deny the conclusion. Walton has little to say about inductive reasoning.
Walton is on the right track, I believe, but he overstates the tentative character of presumptive reasoning. To be sure, some presumptions are supported only very weakly; but others are supported so strongly that it would be no less irrational to lack confidence in their conclusions than it would be to lack confidence in conclusions strongly supported by inductive reasoning. For example, if my doctor prescribes ibuprofen for pain in my arthritic knee, and he knows the condition of my knee, having examined it arthroscopically, and he is an expert on the deterioration of, and the onset of arthritis in, knee joints with damaged cartilage, and there’s no reason to distrust his judgement in this case, and his prescription conforms with the standard medical judgement for such cases, and none of the contra indicators against taking ibuprofen apply to me at the moment, then his prescription generates an extremely strong presumption in favour of my taking ibuprofen for arthritic pain in my knee. Again, if Ann has promised to return Bob’s book on Monday, and if other things are equal, then unquestionably Ann has an obligation to return Bob’s book on Monday. There is nothing tentative or weak about these inferences.
So I would suggest a slightly different principle than degree of confidence for distinguishing these types of inference. I think the salient difference is whether the conclusion is defeasible in principle, given the premises. In the case of deductive entailments, given the premises, the conclusion is not defeasible, in principle. In the case of inductive and presumptive reasoning, it is. The defeasibility criterion has the virtue of drawing the line sharply, while at the same time allowing that presumptive and inductive inferences can be extremely strongly supported, leaving no room for reasonable doubt or tentative commitments. Granted, this criterion fails to distinguish inductive from presumptive reasoning. I do not have a solution for that problem, but perhaps it is not a serious objection that they cannot be sharply distinguished.

The origin of schemes
Kienpointer (1992, 241) distinguishes between descriptive and normative schemata, but he is distinguishing between, respectively, schemes for arguments with descriptive premises and conclusions, and schemes for arguments with descriptive and normative premises and normative conclusions. That is not the distinction I mean to denote by the labels “descriptive” and “prescriptive.” Instead, I have in mind the distinction between, on the one hand, a scheme that conveys the pattern of reasoning that someone actually used in a particular instance of reasoning or argument “on the hoof” (to use the useful expression attributed to John Woods), which entails no endorsement of that reasoning or argument, and, on the other hand, a scheme that portrays a supposedly valid or cogent pattern of inference or argument.
But where do schemes – descriptive or prescriptive – come from? Where do Walton and others get them? And where should they come from? In the literature on schemes many schemes seems to originate from discussion of schemes – in the literature! Thus, Kienpointner (1992) cites many mediaeval and classical sources for the schemes he describes. Walton does not explain the genesis of his list. He cites examples of actual argumentation for some, and provides invented examples for others. The assumption seems to be that the reader will find his invented examples plausible because they illustrate familiar patterns of reasoning or argument. But Walton also appears to take himself to be citing schemes well-known to his readers from the logical literature. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958) find in non-philosophical writing many of the schemes they describe.

To the extent that these authors provide descriptions of schemes in use, they are giving empirical reports of patterns found in actual or possible argumentation. To the extent that they are intended to be offering prescriptions for cogent reasoning or argument, their schemes must meet an additional requirement than simply to have been used. The issue of whether there can be an a priori theory of all possible cogent inference or argument schemes is too large to be broached here. However, it will have to be enough to note for now that any such theory will have to accommodate our logical intuitions about particular cases, from which it follows that unless and until such a comprehensive theory is produced, there is no shame in generating normative schemes from particular arguments or types of arguments in actual use that seem to us to be probatively compelling.

The source of the probative force of prescriptive schemes in general
Describing the schemes that have been used, and determining their cogency, are obviously different tasks. Similarly, since people reason and argue both poorly and well, a catalogue of the schemes that have been used, and a list of cogent schemes available for use, will have only some, but not all, schemes in common. The philosophical interest in schemes relates to the grounds or source of their cogency. What is the source of the probative force of a “valid” inference or argument scheme? The short explanation, I take it, lies in the irrationality of accepting the premises but rejecting the conclusion of an inference or argument instantiating a valid scheme. Consider the three broad classes of arguments or reasoning that Walton mentions.
In the case of a deductively valid scheme, the scheme derives its normative force or cogency from the fact that the truth of the premises of such a scheme guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Thus, to accept the premises, and yet refuse to accept the conclusion, is irrational by virtue of being strongly inconsistent. In acknowledging that the scheme is deductively valid, one is committed to accepting the conclusion if one grants the premises, so in granting the premises and refusing to accept the conclusion, one contradicts oneself.
In the case of an inductively strong scheme, I take it that the scheme derives its normative force or cogency from the fact that to accept the premises and grant the inductive strength of the scheme, yet deny the probability of the conclusion, is irrational by virtue of a somewhat different kind of inconsistency. For reasoning using inductively strong schemes, given the evidence, the conclusion is more probable than any alternative; to acknowledge the inductive strength of the scheme is to admit as much, yet to deny the conclusion is to hold out for some less probable alternative. There is no self-contradiction here, since it is possible that the conclusion is false, given the evidence, for even the strongest inductive scheme. But unless the skeptic has some possible rebuttal in mind, he is holding that the less probable is the more probable.
In the case of a presumptively cogent scheme, it is plausible to understand its probative force in a similar fashion. The scheme derives its cogency from the fact that to accept the premises and grant the validity of the scheme, yet deny the plausibility of the conclusion–without suggesting that any conditions of rebuttal exist–is pragmatically inconsistent. Given a strong presumption, to refuse to accept the conclusion without denying the evidence or finding a rebutting condition, implies believing that there is some rebutting condition or circumstance for which there is no evidence. The skeptic in such a case is holding that the less plausible is the more plausible. In all three cases, the probative force of the scheme derives from one or another type of inconsistency involved, given the scheme, in accepting the premises, yet refusing to accept the conclusion.

The motivation and justification of the “critical questions” of presumptive schemes
In this connection, by the way, we can understand what motivates the critical questions that Walton and others (for instance, Hastings, 1963; Schellens, 1987; van Eemeren and Kruiger, 1987) take to be associated with presumptively cogent inference or argument schemes, and how they play the normative role they do. Given that a presumptive scheme is in principle defeasible, someone who reasons according to such a scheme wants to know how likely it is that the inference will be defeated in the given case. The so-called “critical questions” are simply information-seeking questions that inquire about the conditions or circumstances that tend to rebut inferences using that scheme. The presumption is strengthened to the extent that the answers to these questions indicate the absence of defeating or overriding conditions. That is why presumptive schemes have critical questions associated with them, and it is the reason that the probative force of a presumptive scheme is partly a function the answers to the critical questions associated with the scheme.
The role of the critical questions also explains why in some cases presumptively-supported claims care so plausible that to doubt them would be completely unwarranted. If answering all the critical questions associated with a cogent scheme reveals that none of the rebutting conditions apply in a given case, then there is simply no reason whatever to deny the conclusion.

The source of the probative force of particular schemes But whence do particular prescriptive argumentation schemes derive their authority? What, for instance, is the justification of the argument from authority, or the argument from analogy, or the argument from consequences? Why do we accept appeals to expertise, or to similar cases, or to good or bad outcomes, as cogent? The general account of the rationality of presumptive reasoning sketched above does not explain the cogency of these particular schemes, although it indicates what to look for–namely, some source of inconsistency, in that particular type of reasoning, attached to accepting the scheme and the evidence but denying the conclusion.
Consider the argument from authority, one form of which is the argument from expert opinion. Why may we rely on the authority of others? The answers lies in an analysis of authority or expertise. A necessary condition of authority is knowledge. If someone has knowledge in an area, then among other things they know a number of propositions belonging to it. But a proposition cannot be known unless it is true. So there is a connection between the expertise of an authority and the truth of at least some of the propositions for which the expert vouches. Although this account drastically oversimplifies the appeal to authority, I think it is au fond the connection between authority, knowledge and truth that authorizes inferences from what authorities or experts claim to be the case to the plausibility of those claims.
Consider another scheme, one of the many forms of the argument from analogy: the argument from a priori analogy (Govier, 1987). This is an argument for a normative claim based on the similarity of two cases and the treatment already afforded one of them. An example? “Officer, you should not give me a speeding ticket, because although I was driving faster than the speed limit, you did not give those other drivers speeding tickets, and they were going a lot faster than I was.” Why may we appeal to such analogies? I suggest that the answer lies in the norm of justice or fairness. Fairness requires treating similar cases similarly. To the extent that fairness is a good, similar cases ought to be treated similarly. The argument from a priori analogy appeals to the similarity of other cases, presupposing the norm of fairness. (It follows that a complete justification of the scheme for a priori analogy would require a justification of fairness.) Unfortunately for the speeding driver, fairness is not the only value, nor always the highest ranking value, which is why the police officer is able validly to rebut this particular argument: “There is a relevant difference between you and those other speeders,” he will say. “You are the one I caught.”
In general, I take it that for each prescriptive scheme we must be able to provide, either a general account of why schemes of that type are valid, as in the case of deductively valid schemes, or else an account of why that particular scheme is valid, as in the case of the schemes of presumptive reasoning, many groups of which are sui generis. In the latter kind of case, there must be some particular connection between the premise-set of the scheme and the conclusion which makes it in some way unreasonable in that kind of case to deny the conclusion while granting the premises, other things being equal.

4. Conclusion
It has been the aim of this paper to advance the theoretical discussion of the concept of argument or inference schemes, using the unsystematic approach of trying, first, to identify some unanswered questions that Douglas Walton’s account of argument schemes in his book, Argumentation Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning (1996) gives rise to, and second, to make some preliminary and tentative suggestions as to how to some of those questions might be answered. In that book, Walton focuses particularly on the schemes of presumptive reasoning and argument, but even within the narrower scope of his treatment, he seems to have left a number of vexing questions unanswered. I have tried to clarify the relation between argument and reasoning, in order to explain how it is possible to shift between talk of schemes for reasoning and argumentation schemes. I proposed a revision to Walton’s way of distinguishing deductive from presumptive schemes, in order to account for the fact that reasoning and arguments using presumptive schemes can be strongly compelling. Given that Walton’s list of schemes seems to drop from out of the blue, and that he seems to take their cogency for granted, I sought to account for both the origin of schemes and their probative force, both in general and in particular cases In the process, I proposed a way of explaining the motivation and justification for the critical questions Walton associates with presumptive schemes. Needless to say, I think that a philosophically complete and satisfying theory of argument and inference schemes remains to be written, although I think Walton’s book is an important step in that direction.

REFERENCES
Beardsley, M.C. (1976). Writing With Reason. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Eemeren, F.H. van & R. Grootendorst. (1984). Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions. Dordrecht: Foris.
Eemeren, F.H. van & R. Grootendorst. (1992). Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Eemeren, F.H. van & Kruiger, T. (1987). Identifying argument schemes. In: F.H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J.A. Blair &
C.A. Willard (Eds.), Argumentation: Perspectives and Approaches. Dordrecht: Foris.
Govier, T. (1987). Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation. Dordrecht: Foris.
Hastings, A.C. (1962). A Reformulation of Modes of Reasoning in Argumentation. Evanston, IL: unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University.
Kienpointner, M. (1992). Alltagslogik, Struktur und Funktion von Argumentationsmustern. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.
Perelman, Ch. & L. Olbrechts-Tyteca.(1958). La Nouvelle Rhètorique: Traité de l’Argumentation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Pinto, R.C. (1995). The relation of argument to inference. In: F.H.van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J.A. Blair, C.A. Willard (Eds.), Perspectives and Approaches, Proceedings of the Third ISSA Conference on Argumentation, Vol. I. Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Rescher, N. (1976). Plausible Reasoning. Assen-Amsterdam: Van Gorcum.
Schellens, P.J. (1987). Types of argument and the critical reader. In: F.H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J.A. Blair & C.A. Willard (Eds.), Argumentation: Analysis and Practices. Dordrecht: Foris.
Walton, D.N. (1996). Argument Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Philosophy of Religion texts are often constructed by setting out the arguments for and then the arguments against the existence of the object of theistic belief. When presented thus, the writer’s final position, if there is one, is likely to be a balancing of pro and con, an inconclusive, provisional preferring of one side to the other.
Theism is not conclusively refutable – a consistent story can be told in its terms. But neither can it be established by pure reason or by any weaker source. J.L. Mackie (1982) thought theism consistent though utterly incredible, but had to make room for it as a miraculous possibility. Some writers may even conclude with something like the position Penelhum (1971) once argued for: that both positions (theism and atheism) were internally coherent, and that there is no common ground (to use a phrase of Nagel’s) on which their conflicting claims can be rationally adjudicated: “the theoretical assumptions that they may share are not sufficient, it seems, to allow useful debate between them on the basis of agreed standards. Each must see the world differently, one as God’s world and the other as not…. No community of standards exists which would enable the kind of agreement we have argued to be possible about imagined cases, to be arrived at for the experience that the world in fact does offer. The deadlock is deepened by the fact that the believer and the unbeliever each has at his disposal, if he wishes to use them, explanatory devices for accounting for the alleged blindness or gullibility of the other” (89-90).
In this paper I want to explore a more radical approach which is not I believe frequently defended, though it might well be embra-ced by many thinkers if they were forced to choose among a variety of epistemological positions. The view is a slight extension of one expressed a good time ago by N.R. Hanson in a paper published in a memorial volume in 1967. But it seems not to have provoked much discussion.

The position I am concerned with says that theism is simply not a contender in the epistemological stakes. There are any number of utterly groundless hypotheses that no one in their right mind would consider taking seriously in giving an account of the nature of things, and that are only entertained, if ever, in philosophical discussions of the possibility of our being brains in a vat or living in a 5-minute old universe. Theism, the view suggests, is no better than any of these. Intellectually, the Thomist God is in the same boat with the fantasies of debased “popular” belief, leprechauns or fairies.
Let me offer one example of the contrast. After hurricane Gilbert had wrecked a good part of the village I lived in, I was asked whether I thought it had been sent by God or by the Devil. Not wishing to open up the whole issue, I merely mumbled something about not thinking of either of these as responsible for the weather. For some believers, supernatural agents are among the causes that may be invoked for particular events or for explaining how things work; for the position I am examining, they simply do not arise.

This paper is an attempt to see what is involved in espousing what I am calling the Hanson position. I want to know what we are committed to if we want to say, in any particular argumentative context, that a whole way of approaching the issue can be ruled out without moving on to the sort of pro and con examination typical of the books I mentioned earlier. It is easy and tempting not to notice that we must have an account of this type of rejection, if we want to defend the rationality of our current beliefs and ways of proceeding cognitively. Working within a relatively homogeneous culture-circle, we can say, with Nagel, that “challenges to the objectivity of science can be met only by further scientific reasoning, challenges to the objectivity of history by history, and so forth” (1997: 21), but once we remember that we would not extend the same charity to astrology or Mormonism we see that we need not only to be able to account for developments within disciplines or areas of thought but also for the existence and winnowing through time of distinct “fundamental kinds of thought” (ibid.: 26).
When Quine and Ullian (1978) offer some guidance to the plain man about how to change his beliefs, the first virtue of a new hypothesis they offer is its conservatism – let it make the least disturbance to our overall picture. This might be sensible, once one is working within acceptable parameters or forms of thought, but it is not the kind of advice that would lead one to reject wholesale a type of discourse or intellectual practice.

One might wonder whether this way of putting the issue did not overemphasize a distinction between different disciplines and different stages or sub-stages of one discipline. Why not, for instance, see astrology as an aspect of astronomy, now superseded?
One reason might be that, for some people, it is not yet superseded. But another, and this is the reason for using theism as the target of this paper, is that some differences between intellectual activities do just seem sufficiently weighty to require separate classification. Theism offers a very different picture of the world and its constituents from cosmology and quantum field theory.

One point that can be made is that the possibility of such wholesale rejection in effect requires us to deny that discourse is a seamless web, that in some sense everything is on par with everything else. (I am not claiming that anyone has ever said that this is how things are, though it seems to be implicated in much Wittgensteinian thought and it sounds like something a postmodernist might say.) One exponent of a view that seems incompatible with the Hanson approach is the late Paul Feyerabend (1989). In this paper, he begins with two assumptions that lead us into trouble:
a. that the facts and procedures constituting (scientific) knowledge are the result of specific and idiosyncratic historical developments;
b. that what has been found out exists independently of the circumstances of its discovery. Feyerabend uses these claims to assert that the Greeks knew that Athena and the other gods existed and behaved in particular ways, and that there is no rationally acceptable route to a position that says we have shown that they were wrong. What they knew they knew; it can be detached from the circumstances of their asserting it.
We, as it happens, no longer assert those bits of knowledge, but it is “history, not argument, [that] undermined the gods” (397). Criteria for existence do not come first, according to Feyerabend, but rather it is our ontological commitments that generate the particular and historically changing criteria for existence that we might be tempted to invoke.
This position seems to require something like a Parmenidean view that what we speak of we know, whatever it may be. The Hanson view cannot deny that people do speak of God or the saints or Krishna or that they engage in prayers and rituals that are conceptualised in theistic ways. But just as, I presume, all societies tell stories that they know not to be intended to be true, so on Hanson’s view we must judge that some of what orthodox members of a society would classify with the pure truths are really to be put with the fairy-stories and tales of a never-never land. The principle that Feyerabend rejects – that only entities postulated by reasonable beliefs can be separated from their history – is close to the working assumption we all make in recognising a difference between ordinary names and empty ones, between real relations and intensional ones. These differences are at root ontological. The logical differences (of what inferences each type will support) flow from and follow the ontological difference, and are not as it were given in the language itself. We may not invoke transhistorical criteria of existence, but we do presume a non-linguistic difference between language that refers to and characterises an independent world and language that floats free of the cosmos to conjure up imagined worlds.
Feyerabend might agree and insist merely that in the language we use to characterise an independent world, what we say is what we know. And, anthropologically, he is of course right. But part of what is claimed in claiming knowledge is that things are thus and so not merely for us with our specific history but for anyone, whether or not they can bring themselves to acknowledge it. We recognize the gap between word and world.

So our next question could be: can we find, within the resources of a widely shared conceptualisation of things, a reason for adopting the Hanson classification of ways of speaking? Here Hanson himself seems to slide from the extreme position I have characterised above – theism simply isn’t a contender – to a much weaker one, that we can rule theism out because we have examined everything that can be said in its favour and found it all wanting. As he says, outside logic and mathematics, the best reason for supposing that X does not exist is that there is no good reason to suppose that it does, and that requires us to have examined putative reasons. But that puts God in the same intellectual position as phlogiston whereas the more extreme view, suggested by Hanson’s examples, puts God with Santa Claus. We do not argue children out of belief in Santa Claus, by pointing out its inherent absurdities; we simply let them grow out of it since we don’t think it worth arguing against. It is the more extreme position that I am interested in and wish to draw to the attention of argumentation theorists – the context in which we think there is no point to arguing.

One obvious way in which we could defend the adoption of this stance, from a particular time, is that we have in fact done the comprehensive examination of putative reasons. Nowadays, phlogiston is about as absurd as Santa Claus; it is, in our culture, the paradigm example of a non-existent and bizarre theoretical notion.
But we recognise that, in a different intellectual climate, it warranted serious investigation. One might then think that Archbishop Ussher may have had some reasons for thinking the world to have begun in 4006 BC, but no one has ever had a reason to suppose it began five minutes ago. Philosophers may find illumination in examining the latter supposition, but the absence of any positive support rules it out for serious consideration elsewhere. But once again, this would put the theistic framework back among the potentially viable contenders – since Ussher’s time, we have concluded that his reasons are baseless, but they were viable for him.
Even if, pace Feyerabend, that were historically accurate, it diminishes the interest of the Hanson position, since it becomes no more than an application of the normal procedure that once something has been established we don’t need to keep re-establishing it. The interest of the Hanson view is in seeing whether there are cases where we are justified in never taking the view seriously (or would have been if that had been our stance).

One requirement of such a position, if it is to connect with actual views rather than the deliberate fantasies of the philosophers, is the point that merely being believed by somebody, or even by a very large number of people, is in itself no reason at all in support of a belief. For all the popularity of principles of charity, that point seems quite right to me. Some sorts of common belief are indeed likely to be true, but others equally widespread have a content that gives us no reason to suppose them reliable.
What we find is a perfectly understandable deference to what people think, so some widespread beliefs are discussed respectfully while others of the same sort but socially more marginal may be mocked or simply ignored. I have characterised the position I am looking at as an extension of Hanson’s since he too adopts this respectful approach -he was writing for a Catholic journal in fact – but his comparisons suggest the extension: the question of God’s existence is compared with that of the Loch Ness monster and Shrangli-la.
To have examined the reasons offered and found them wanting is then one way, but an uninteresting one, of ruling out the continued exploration of an issue. One might, however, understand Hanson’s “no reason for” claim more positively, as it were, as claiming in effect that we can see directly that there are and could be no reasons for a certain position. In the case of theism we might want to contrast two broad contexts:
a. supernatural interventions in this world, such as some of the battles in the Iliad, or resurrection, or zombies, or some understandings of prayer or of charismatic personalities;
b. the disengagement of more theological views from any nearby portion of space-time. In the former case, there is at least something accessible to us that is being explained or accounted for. If there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in some of our philosophies, then we might wonder whether there is something very unusual that plays an explanatory role.

But to treat supernatural entities like opposing chiefs of staff is to analogize from known purposes (known virtually only from human cases, with a few animals thrown in) to purposiveness or “marks of order”. Thunderbolts and hurricanes can be traced to earlier states of affairs, if even a butterfly’s sudden escape from a predator. Destruction wrought by B52s requires a chief of staff; wind and rain doesn’t. There is no need to invoke such an analogy. There is no sign of the supposed agents, only the significance for us of the collocations of things. As agents ourselves we could imagine an agent wanting to bring such a collocation about, but in the absence of any sign of their independent existence we have, speaking now for the educated minority, given up invoking them. We might also note that the gross ego-centricity (or species-centricity) of many theistic explanations is sufficient to rule them out of court by a kind of “golden rule” – if we suppose God is on our side, our opponents have exactly the same reason to suppose the opposite.
In the case of (b), where nothing close by is to be accounted for in its particularity, we can ask not merely ‘would X explain or fit with Y?’ but ‘is there any independent reason to suppose X and its links with things that would explain or fit with Y?’ This seems close to the version of Occam’s Razor that Russell so frequently espoused: can we get by without X? A different but related query would be ‘is there anything to be explained here?’ Much theistic discourse can seem unmotivated narrative. The form of argument I am suggesting here has a link with the mode of argument Mackie (1977: 36) extracted from moral relativity. Not, different moral systems show the subjectivity of morality, but rather: what is needed to explain the different moral systems? If moral truths are otiose, then scrap them. Another take on this approach is Dawkins’ (1993) suggestion that we can see the etiology of intellectual viruses as distinguishing them from intellectually benign conceptions.

There is also another Mackean point that can be made. Mackie objected to the queerness of supposedly objective evaluative properties. Looking at the kinds of entity we use to account for the universe as we now know it, we can surely add that the type of being characteristic of theism is a remarkably unmotivated and odd kind of entity. In this we could follow Bernard Williams’ old argument that Christianity at any rate cannot escape ultimately unintelligible claims in linking humanity and godhead in its distinctive way (1955). Of course, more needs to be said to articulate the way in which a theistic god differs too much from the fields and forces of contemporary physics. But one point is that theism invokes a type of explanation of occurrences that is radically different from those of dynamics – by appeal to will or intention rather than prior conditions. We are happy to use appeals to will in the narrow context of human action, while not understanding exactly how they mesh with the physicalist story we think can also be told, but once again we have no reason to extend the range of events to be thus explained to the whole unfolding of the cosmos.
I have suggested, then, that we might be able to offer an account of what is going on when we assume that a particular claim is a non-starter. It has nothing going for it; it invokes bizarre and idle oddities. If these characterizations are true, then the suggestion is that we are indeed justified in not bothering to open the argument, not countering the case that believers put up.
Of course, as a matter of history, we have not hitherto treated religion so derisively. It may seem farfetched to argue that we should have done so, and given the complexity and ingenuity of theistic argumentation I am certainly not convinced in my own mind that that is the proper attitude to adopt towards theism, though I wish it were. But perhaps I may make a pragmatic point here also: it seems to me that we need more argument than we are usually offered for equating what theistic argument is meant to give us positively with the objects of actual theistic belief. One can see “natural theology” as changing the question as much as a route to defend some existing system of belief. A decent life has little to fear from natural theologians; it has perhaps quite a lot to fear from actual religions.

Looking at religion sociologically (epidemiologically) it is evident that the way of life comes first, ideology issues from practice and may later influence it. In many spheres of action, people like to invoke a backing for their particular practices. An exercise routine is not enough for some; it must be justified or rationalized by reference to obscure entities. To the extent that practices spawn such “narratives” they invite the Russellian Occam’s razor. The Hanson attitude does not merely record what is conventionally thought; it asks, do we need it for any intellectual purpose? Then, the fact that some beliefs are incorporated in widespread and well funded traditions and that others are the idiosyncratic invention of a deranged mind remains as the only significant difference, in intellectual weight, between them. We write books about the Thomist God and not about leprechauns or zombies, purely for sociological reasons.
The moral I am pointing to is that a stance that says we can simply ignore a possible hypothesis or way of looking at things must go beyond passive tinkering with inherited belief-systems and begin to interrogate them. It must bring with it some notion of what explains what, and what can be taken to be more secure, epistemologically. Whether or not theistic religion is actually in this position, the point has been to use it as a conspicuous and provocative case for examining the possibility and the assumptions that are needed to adopt this stance in any area.

REFERENCES
Dawkins, R. (1993). Viruses of the Mind. In Bo Dalhbom (Ed.) Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind, Oxford: Blackwell – (available from http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html).
Feyerabend, P.K. (1989). Realism and the Historicity of Knowledge. Journal of Philosophy 86, 393-406.
Hanson, N.R. (1967). What I don’t Believe. In: R.S. Cohen & M. Wartofsky (Eds.), In Memory of Norwood Russell Hanson: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 3, (467-489), Dordrecht: Reidel.
Mackie, J.L. (1977). Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Mackie, J.L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nagel, T. (1997). The Last Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Penelhum, T. (1971). Problems of Religious Knowledge. London: Macmillan.
Quine, B.A.O. & Ullian, J.S. (1978). The Web of Belief, 2nd edition. New York: Random House.
Williams, B.A.O. (1955). Tertullian’s Paradox. In: A. Flew and A. MacIntyre (Eds.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology (pp.187-211, ch. X), London: SCM.

The Fourth of July, writes Howard Martin, was “the most important national ceremonial during the last century” in the United States (1958: 393). July Fourth occasioned the largest gatherings of the year in many communities, and was celebrated with picnics, ceremonies, fireworks, songs and speeches, which typically reveled in the mythic past and glorious prospects of the nation. But “the nation” was variously imagined by Americans on July Fourth (Anderson 1983: 13-15). Americans held divergent attitudes toward the holiday and used the occasion of the Fourth to contest ideas about national character, principles, and policies.
The United States prior to the Civil War bore few institutional expressions of its (increasingly fragile) unity. There was no official flag or anthem, and holidays were largely local or state, rather than national, observances. The Fourth of July was a unique national ritual, publicly enacted in local communities. During the American Revolution, July Fourth celebrations supplanted colonial celebrations of the monarchy (such as the King’s birthday), through which the colonists had declared their loyalty and identity as British subjects.

The Fourth of July expressed new national identities rooted in independence (Branham, in press). In 1778, Congress gave its official sanction to the Fourth, and the following year ordered that “the chaplains of Congress be requested to prepare sermons suitable to the occasion” (Journals 1779: 204). These sermons typically celebrated the revolution as the crucible of the republic, the shared and defining heritage of an otherwise heterogenous people. “It was the Revolution, and only the Revolution,” Gordon Wood writes, “that made them one people. Therefore Americans’ interpetation of the Revolution could never cease; it was integral to the very existence of the nation” (1992: 336). July Fourth was the principal occasion for the public contemplation of the revolution and the country it had produced. By the War of 1812, organized Fourth of July celebrations had spread from urban areas to settlements across the United States.
But American observances of the holiday were far from uniform. “What, to the American slave,” Frederick Douglass asked, “is your Fourth of July?” On the same date when communities across the country gathered to sing patriotic songs and listen to speakers laud national achievements, abolitionists and other reformers met to consider the failure of the American Revolution to secure liberty for all Americans. By the mid-1830s, the Fourth of July had become the most important annual occasion for abolitionist meetings. Abolitionists sought to subvert conventional celebrations of the Fourth. They adopted many of its rituals, but converted its symbols and themes to support the abolitionist cause. The result was what Stuart Hall has termed a “negotiated version of the dominant ideology” that was “shot through with contradictions” (1980: 137-138). The Fourth of July presented the best recurring opportunity to reveal these contradictions, to contest American policies by reference to national principles. Abolitionists reconstructed the Fourth of July, using the accepted premises and symbolic resources of the occasion to “argue the nation.”

1. Independence Day
Formal Fourth of July observances were inevitably devoted to the consideration of American national identity (Boorstin 1955: 377). To celebrate the nation’s independence was to justify its separate status and distinctive character, and to do so on July Fourth located the nation in the founding principles of the Declaration. In its songs, symbols, and speeches, the Fourth provoked mass participation in rituals celebrating “shared” national myths and memories (Wyatt-Brown 1991: 35). Some July Fourth observances had a religious tone, “commemorated,” as John Adams had hoped, by “solemn acts of devotion” (Travers 1997: 15). In the early 19th century, many July Fourth ceremonies followed the form of a Protestant church service, conducted “by priests appointed,” as the editors of The Liberator later commented, “under the name of orators” (“Independence Day” 1860: 1). The holy text of the Declaration of Independence was read and the sermonic oration was delivered, interspersed with prayers and hymns. “The ubiquitous salute to the day,” Martin observes, “had the ring of an invocation, a call to worship” (1958: 394, 399). The Fourth of July was “the political sabbath,” the highest holy day for an American civil religion in which the United States was envisioned as “God’s New Israel,” a divinely favored nation with a distinctive mission in the world (Larson 1940: 14; Bellah 1967: 3-21; Cherry 1971). Local Fourth of July ceremonies were often partisan and militaristic (Kammen 1991: 49).

Speeches capped most community celebrations of the Fourth. These were touted by some as “the highest form of American oratory” (Larson 1940: 12). Hundreds of Fourth of July speeches and sermons were published as pamphlets and newspapers, and some were widely distributed and reviewed in literary journals. To be selected as a community’s Fourth of July speaker was an honor. Speakers looked for meaning in the occasion and strove for eloquence, but too often waxed formulaic, grandiloquent, and clichéd. The term “Fourth of July oratory” came to be, as Ohio Senator Stanley Matthews lamented, “a hissing and a byword, a scorn and a reproach” for speeches that made bombastic appeals to patriotism (1879). Independence Day orators praised the revolutionary past and dreamed of America’s shining destiny (Martin 1958: 399-401). “The fourth of July,” George Bancroft told his Springfield, Massachusetts, audience on July 4, 1836, “was the day on which the people assumed power, and proclaimed their power to an admiring world” (Larson 1940: 20). Orators extolled the institutions and rich resources of the ever-expanding American territory, lacing their speeches with biblical allusions and parallels to the greatness of Greece and Rome. July Fourth was typically an occasion for patriotic boastfulness.

Independence Day songs and speeches often proclaimed the success of the American Revolution in securing liberty for all Americans, despite obvious exclusions (Bellah 1975: 88). In slave-holding Charleston, South Carolina, John J. Mauger’s oration on July 4, 1817, celebrated (without conscious irony) the day as one on which “millions of freemen assemble in commemoration” of the “Birth Day of American Freedom” (Larson 1940: 17). Speaking in the same city on July 4, 1820, where two years later Denmark Vesey would plot the armed revolt of those enslaved there, William Lance could say without blushing that his country countenanced “no distinctions of rank, no degrees of right, to tarnish the natural equality for which” the nation’s founders “fought and conquered” (Martin 1958: 395). Even when Fourth of July orators decried conditions of tyranny and oppression elsewhere, most portrayed their own country as one in which such conditions had been eradicated. In his July 4, 1823, address, Horace Mann imagines the “Great Being” who, when scanning the globe, finds that there is “one spot alone” where no despot dares lift his hand to pluck a leaf from the tree of liberty” and where every heart thrills to its glories. “That spot,” he concludes, “is our country; those hearts our own” (Larson 1940: 16).

Fourth of July boasts of America’s status as a beacon of liberty to the world were deeply offensive to many abolitionists. How could America be a “land of the free” when millions were enslaved? Writing about the celebratory events of July 4, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison condemned national self-congratulation: “We have lived to see once more our nation’s Jubilee! Millions hailed it with exultation!. . . The orators of the day, as usual, recounted the many and great blessings which have been vouchsafed unto us. . . They eulogized in no measured terms our civil constitution, and indulged, as our predecessors have done, in high anticipations of our future greatness and glory. Who did not partake in the feelings of the occasion? Who did not join heartily in welcoming the day? But there are some, ‘tis believed, who rejoiced with trembling. All ought to have done so.” To “rejoice with trembling” is to recognize the fundamental paradox of American history, Garrison explains, that “while we have been vaunting our free institutions, and claiming for our country the admiration of the world, as the birth place of liberty, the asylum of the oppressed, we have been holding two millions of our fellow men in the most abject servitude” (The Liberator 1831: 119). Those who truly loved freedom and abhorred slavery, Garrison insisted, could not celebrate the Fourth of July in good conscience.

The Fourth of July was invested with a variety of ideological, cultural and racial meanings. For many Americans, Black and white, it was a “whites only” celebration. The liberties celebrated on July Fourth were white liberties. African Americans were denied the “self-evident” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and restricted both from white visions of the nation and from participation in its ceremonial observances. The Rev. Dr. Dalcho, a slaveholding minister from South Carolina, insisted that:
“The celebration of the Fourth of July belongs exclusively to the white population of the United States. The American Revolution was a family quarrel among equals. In this, the NEGROES had no concern; their condition remained, and must remain, unchanged. They have no more to do with the celebration of the day, than with the landing of the Pilgrims on the rock at Plymouth. It therefore appears to me, to be improper to allow these people to be present on those occasions” (Anti-Slavery Record 1835: 115). Some free African Americans in the North observed the Fourth of July, honoring Crispus Attucks (the “first to die for freedom”) and the Revolutionary War service of Black soldiers. But those enslaved or free in the South were generally prohibited from participation in white July Fourth activities (Sweet 1976: 262-263). Advertisements for the Independence Day program at Charleston’s Vauxhall Gardens in 1799 made explicit that there would be “no admittance for people of color.” By the beginning of the nineteenth century, white mobs in the northern states regularly attacked African Americans on July Fourth (Travers 1997: 150, 143). Many anticipated the Fourth of July with apprehension and fear.

African American orators, poets and songwriters attempted to show white audiences what July Fourth was like for Black people.
William Wells Brown, who had himself escaped from slavery, shocked his several thousand listeners in Framingham, Massachusetts, on July Fourth, 1859, when he began his speech by reading aloud an advertisement from a recent issue of the Winchester (Tennessee) Journal. It announced the sale, on July 4, that very day, of an enslaved African American woman and her children, “together with a top buggy, and several waggons and horses.” The Fourth of July, he informed the audience, was “the high-market day for slaves throughout the South. . .the day when more slaves were to be sold under the hammer than any other.” To the slave, Brown said, the Fourth of July is “more dreaded than almost any other day of the year” (Liberator 1859).
Black abolitionist orators addressing predominantly white audiences at Independence Day observances frequently asked their listeners to consider the occasion of July Fourth from the perspective of one enslaved. How would one in chains feel about celebrations and songs proclaiming the nation’s freedom? In what is perhaps the speech’s most quoted passage of his 1852 address in Rochester, New York, Frederick Douglass (who had himself escaped from slavery) re-visions the Fourth from this perspective:
“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all the other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to Him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour” (Foner and Branham 1998: 258).
Early abolitionists, particularly African Americans, condemned conventional observances of the Fourth of July. Religious and political leaders urged people to boycott them. “The festivities of this day,” Rev. Peter Williams, Jr., preached in New York on July 4, 1830, “serve but to impress upon the minds of reflecting men of colour a deeper sense of the cruelty, the injustice, and oppression, of which they have been the victims.” Williams asked his listeners to donate the amount of money they would normally spend in celebrating the Fourth to support instead the emigration to Canada West by African Americans driven out of Cincinnati (Foner and Branham 1998: 115). The national Black convention of 1834 voted to urge African Americans not to participate in public celebrations of the Fourth . The editors of The Colored American in 1838 suggested that a slave whip should be unfurled as the national symbol on the Fourth, instead of the American flag (Quarles 1969: 122). Abolitionist orators attempted to raise their audiences’ awareness of their own privilege, and to temper their willingness to celebrate it while other Americans were denied liberty.

Conventional Fourth of July orators routinely characterized British rule as oppressive and tyrannical, and the American rebellion as a quest for liberty. But many American abolitionists did not share either belief. Some African Americans, such as H. Ford Douglass in his July Fourth oration of 1860, went so far as to say that they “would rather curse than bless the day that marked the separation” of the colonies from England, for had they remained British subjects, African Americans would have been freed in 1834 when Britain abolished slavery in the colonies (Liberator 1860: 1). The American abolition movement had been shaped in large part by its British counterpart. Beginning in 1826, British abolitionists had petitioned parliament in favor of immediate emancipation, and produced a torrent of pamphlets, newspaper articles and speeches in support of their cause. By late 1830 it was apparent that parliament would pass the measure. American newspapers reported the deliberations of the British parliament and anti-slavery activists quickly decided, as the New York Whig editorialized on September 23, 1831, “that this kind of reform needs to begin in our country.”

American anti-slavery activists adopted many ideas from British activists, mining British anti-slavery propaganda for facts, arguments, and rhetorical strategies that might be used in the American campaign (Barnes 1933: 29-33). British abolitionist speakers toured the United States and American speakers toured and raised funds in Britain. The success of the British abolitionists in persuading parliament to abolish slavery in the colonies in 1833 was hailed as a model for the prospects of American abolitionism. Antebellum African Americans were more likely to extol Britain or Canada, rather than the United States, as a “land of liberty.” They celebrated August 1, the date on which British slavery in the West Indies was abolished, and other dates of abolition or slave trade suspension (such as January 1 and “Juneteenth”), more often than they did the Fourth of July (Martin 1984: 53; Quarles 1969: 124-125; Wiggins 1987: xix-xx).
But anti-monarchism had been a potent force in American politics since 1775, and the Revolution was for many Americans the defining event of American national identity. The Fourth of July remained the most popular American holiday, and the occasion when national principles and texts were most regularly invoked in public ceremonies. Although most committed abolitionists by the mid-1830s felt they could not participate in standard rituals of national glorification, many also believed they could not merely ignore the holiday. The Fourth of July offered unique rhetorical opportunities for interrogating national practices, and abolitionists crafted a variety of approaches by which they might both use and distance themselves from the occasion, arguing for national change rather than self-satisfaction (Branham and Pearce 1985: 19-36).

2. July Fifth
African Americans sometimes held parallel ceremonies on the Fourth itself. On July 4, 1827, New York emancipated its slaves, and celebrations were held in African American communities throughout the state and beyond. In Rochester, New York, the emancipation act and a copy of the Declaration of Independence were read aloud, followed by an oration by Austin Steward. Steward carefully distinguished the proceedings from other Independence Day observances. He had been born in slavery and reminded his audience that while they enjoyed their freedom in New York, “we should remember, in joy and exultation, the thousands of our countrymen who are to-day. . . writhing under the lash and groaning beneath the grinding weight of Slavery’s chain.” “We will rejoice,” he advised, “though sobs interrupt the songs of our rejoicing, and tears mingle in the cup we pledge to Freedom” (Foner and Branham 1998: 107). The following year, Steward emigrated to Canada.
In order to differentiate their celebration of New York’s emancipation from the national holiday and to avoid physical attacks from drunken whites on July 4, many African Americans held their observances on July 5 (Quarles 1969: 119-122). This postponement also represented the fact that the liberties celebrated by white Americans on the Fourth had not yet been extended to them. Peter Osborne explained to his New Haven audience on July 5, 1832, that “on account of the misfortune of our color, our Fourth of July comes on the fifth.” Only when the terms of the Declaration of Independence were “fully executed,” he explained, “may we then have our Fourth of July on the fourth” (Foner and Branham 1998: 124). July Fifth became a common meeting date for gatherings that featured speeches, music, and organizational elections. It was an occasion when, as Leonard Sweet writes, African Americans “could symbolically express their alienation from the promises of July 4 (1976: 259). July 5 provided critical distance from July 4, yet its proximity made commentary on the Fourth inevitable.

The most famous July Fifth denunciation of the Fourth is undoubtedly Frederick Douglass’s brilliant oration, “What, to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,” delivered in Rochester, New York, in 1852. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and its enforcement in Northern states the following year made no place within American borders safe for any African American. Bounties and a lack of due process meant that even “free” Blacks were falsely charged and sent into slavery (Martin 1984: 59). Rochester was an important stop on the Underground Railroad and the Douglasses offered many fugitives their last American shelter before crossing the border into Canada. In 1851, Douglass hid three men who had shot and killed the slaveholder who pursued them. Despite the man-hunt mounted for them, Douglass personally made the perilous drive with the fugitives to the boat that would take them to freedom in Canada (Bontemps 1971: 194-196). When he accepted an invitation the following year to deliver a Fourth of July oration in Rochester, Douglass explained his alienation from the occasion: “I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn” (Foner and Branham 1998: 255).

Douglass feels he can take no part in the national celebration. He is an “aliened American,” as Joshua Simpson puts it. From the outset of his speech, Douglass distances himself from his predominantly white audience, even those who oppose slavery. Douglass makes clear that their subject positions are very different. “The freedom gained is yours,” Douglass tells his white listeners, “and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary.” Douglass delimits the “liberty” and “equality” typically proclaimed on the Fourth, revealing that these are privileged rather than universal conditions in America (Lucaites 1997: 47-70). Douglass compares the expectation that African Americans would join in the celebration of July Fourth and the singing of patriotic songs that accompany it to the predicament of the ancient Israelites during their exile in Babylon. He quotes Psalm 137: “For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion.” Douglass asks, in the words of the Israelites, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?;” How, he insists, can we sing a song of freedom in a land where we are not free? Whatever song Douglass is to sing on this day, he explains, must pierce the melody of “national, tumultuous joy” with “the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them.” The song he sings in this strange land, then, must itself be strange, estranged from dominant ideology and custom.

African American abolitionist Joshua McCarter Simpson composed just such a song in “Fourth of July in Alabama,” set to the tune of “America” and published in his collection, The Emancipation Car, two years after Douglass’ speech. Like Douglass, Simpson imagines the holiday from the perspective of one enslaved. He includes a prefatory paragraph, explaining that the song is “the meditation and feelings of the poor Slave, as he toils and sweats over the hoe and cotton hook, while his master, neighbors, and neighbors’ children are commemorating that day, which brought life to the whites and death to the poor African.”

Though cannon’s [sic] loudly roar,
And banners highly soar –
To me ‘tis gloom.
Though “lads” and “lasses” white,
With face and spirits bright –
Hail thee with such delight,
With sword and plumes.
I hear the loud huzzas,
Mingled with high applause,
To Washington.
The youth in every street,

Their notes of joy repeat;
While Patriots’ names they greet,
For victory won.
Brass bands of music play
Their sweet and thrilling lay,
Which rend the skies;
Old fathers seem to feel
New animating zeal,
While tones of thunder peal
On every side.

Yet we have got no song.
Where is the happy throng
Of Africa’s sons?. . .
How can we strike the strains,
While o’er those dismal plains,
We’re bleeding, bound in chains,
Dying by scores?

While e’er four million slaves
Remain in living graves,
Can I rejoice,
And join the jubilee
Which set the white man free,
And fetters brought to me?
‘Tis not my choice.

O, no! While a slave remains
Bound in infernal chains
Subject to man,
My heart shall solemn be –
There is no song for me,
‘Till all mankind are free
From lash and brand (1854: 41-42).

Because “America” was strongly associated with the Fourth of July (the occasion on which it premiered in 1831 and for which it remained a favored text), it was frequently parodied or reconstructed at abolitionist observances on that date. The abolitionists crafted dozens of alternate versions of “America,” some designed specifically for use on July Fourth, to distinguish between national boasts and realities (Branham 1996: 623-652). Simpson’s song describes the familiar sounds and customs of July Fourth, but from the perspective of one enslaved. He sings of his inability to join in the performance of national songs, saying: “There is no song for me.” For Simpson, it is a holiday celebrating the “jubilee/ Which set the white man free/ And fetters brought to me.” He is not within the compass of those liberties celebrated. Simpson’s first-person lyric dissents from the imaginary national unanimity of the Fourth. He chooses not to sing of America as a “sweet land of liberty” so long as “four million slaves/ Remain in living graves.” Simpson replaces the falsifying words of Smith’s “America” with his own song of freedom.
Simpson, Douglass, and other abolitionists sought to construct a critical observance, rather than celebration, of the Fourth of July. They used the occasion to interrogate and subvert its conventions and sacred texts, such as “America” and the Declaration of Independence, which provided poignant intertextual referents for the abolitionists’ own messages (Watson 1997: 91-112). In their own songs and speeches, abolitionists strove to reconstruct the Fourth of July, to make use of its rhetorical opportunities and invest it with new meanings.

3. Reconstructing the Fourth of July
The Fourth of July was always a political occasion, as conventional Fourth of July ceremonies reinforced the legitimacy and power of the state. But celebration of the Fourth of July was never universal or uniform. Its observance varied dramatically by region, year, race, and political orientation. Many groups, including trade unions and political parties, held their own Fourth of July gatherings, with particular meanings. Beginning in the 1790s, Philip Foner has written, American trade unionists celebrated the Fourth as their day and drank toasts to “The Fourth of July, may it ever prove a memento to the oppressed to rise and assert their rights” (1976: 1). Trade union gatherings used the occasion to draw attention to the oppression of workers, to lament the unfinished business of the Revolution, and sometimes proposed alternative Declarations of Independence to replace or supplement the original document. In Boston, the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans held competing Fourth of July celebrations to rally their members (Travers 1997: 11). Frances Wright’s “scandalous” Fourth of July orations of 1828 and 1829 combined appeals for a variety of radical reforms, including women’s rights, sexual liberty, and abolitionism (Eckhardt 1984:171). She viewed July Fourth as the ideal occasion for appeals to social reform. She denounced patriotism as a sentiment that ”surely is not made for America” and argued that the Fourth was a day best devoted to “celebrating protests against it” (1836: 195, 181).

The Fourth of July was used by a variety of political groups to grant legitimacy to their causes by aligning their diverse visions of the future with the myths and principles of the Revolutionary past. At the same time, reformers contested and refashioned the meanings of the Fourth and the national texts it celebrated. Abolitionists made use of the Declaration of Independence almost from the moment it was issued. African American minuteman Lemuel Haynes reprinted the Declaration on the title page of his 1776 pamphlet on “Liberty Further Extended; or, Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-keeping,” arguing that according to its principles, America must “let the oppressed go free” and recognize the “undeniable right” of the African American to liberty (Newman 1990: 2-4).

The Fourth of July was used to protest slavery at least as early as 1783, two months before the Treaty of Paris was signed. At a celebration of American independence in Woodbridge, New Jersey, according to an account in the Newark Eagle, a prominent local physician mounted the platform along with fourteen whom he had enslaved and emancipated them on the spot, citing the principles of the Declaration of Independence: “As a nation, we are free and independent, – all men are created equal, and why should these, my fellow citizens, my equals, be held in bondage?,” he asked; “From this day, they are emancipated” (Nell 1855: 164). On July 4, 1791, four years after ratification of the Constitution, George Buchanon, M.D., a member of the American Philosophical Society, delivered An Oration Upon the Moral and Political Evil of Slavery at a public meeting in Baltimore of the Maryland Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Buchanon’s speech was dedicated to Thomas Jefferson and invoked the language of the Declaration in support of abolition. His speech was widely circulated in pamphlet form and read by President George Washington, among others (1793). The universal human rights proclaimed in the Declaration, and its justification of resistance to oppression, made the Fourth of July an irresistable opportunity for anti-slavery activists to argue for reform based upon accepted premises.

The earliest regional and national efforts to encourage local anti-slavery observances of July 4 were undertaken by the American Colonization Society. The American Society for Colonizing of the Free People of Color in the United States was founded in 1816 and had may eminent supporters, including James Monroe, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and Francis Scott Key, the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Its efforts to promote the emigration of free African Americans to Liberia were at first supported by many white anti-slavery activists and a few African Americans, who despaired of ever gaining equality in America. The Colonization Society’s prejudicial rhetoric, however, which urged whites to support the removal of free Blacks as an inherently inferior and troublesome group, soon produced unified opposition (Quarles 1969: 3-8). In the 1820s and 1830s, the Colonization Society sponsored annual Fourth of July meetings, using the occasion to wrap their controversial programs in the garments of patriotism. These were the colonizationists’ best attended and most lucrative fund-raising events (Hay 1967: 129-130, 132; Friedman 1975: 188-189).

On July 4, 1829, at a ceremony sponsored by the American Colonization Society in Boston’s Park Street Church, twenty-three year-old William Lloyd Garrison delivered his first major public address against slavery. Garrison would soon abandon the colonizationists and denounce their schemes to deport free blacks to Africa as racist and supportive of slavery. In this speech, he was already far more militant than most colonizationists. He denounced the Fourth of July as “the worst and most disastrous day in the whole three hundred and sixty-five.” Yet Garrison made much use of the occasion in his speech, finding support in the Declaration of Independence for his thesis that slavery was a national sin, and contrasting the hypocritical proclamations of national virtue that characterized conventional celebrations of the Fourth (“that pompous declamation of vanity, that lying attestation of falsehood, from the lips of tumid orators, which are poisoning our life-blood”) with national realities (1852: 46; Thomas 1963: 92-101).

From 1830, Garrison and many other anti-slavery activists denounced slavery as a sin and embraced the goal of immediate emancipation. They made astonishingly rapid gains in membership and organization. The New England Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1832, and the American Anti-Slavery Society began the following year. States and towns formed their own anti-slavery societies, which sent delegates to regional and national conventions. The network of organized anti-slavery activities expanded from 47 societies in 1833 to more than 1,000 in 1836 (Richards 1979: 108). The new abolitionist movement drew upon the religious fervor of the revivals that had swept America during the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s. The revivals had preached of personal salvation and national perfectionism, invigorating an array of social reform movements. Most abolitionists initially believed moral suasion to be the key to individual and national redemption. Abolitionism became a form of evangelism, and its proselytizers sought to spread the word through publications, revival-style meetings, and songs. They encouraged national reform by reference to national principles and texts, which they argued were at odds with the practice of slavery. The Fourth of July seemed to many abolitionist leaders the ideal opportunity to interrogate national pretensions and promote social reform.
Garrison’s Liberator and the intensification of abolitionist activities in 1831 fueled efforts to organize alternative observances of July Fourth. Black abolitionist Anna Elizabeth of Philadelphia published “A Short Address to Females of Color” in The Liberator on June 18, 1831, noting the suggestion “by some of our best friends” (Garrison chief among them) “that the approaching fourth of July be set apart, by us, as a day of humiliation and prayer.” She asks African American women to join her in acting accordingly (98). July 4, 1831, was probably the first Independence Day on which abolitionists organized counter-observances across localities and states in competition with those of the colonizationists. At an observance in Lynn, Massachusetts, on that day, orator Alonzo Lewis proclaimed the appropriateness of the occasion for anti-slavery appeals, noting that “On a day like this, it is highly suitable to speak of whatever has a tendency to advance or retard national honor, happiness and prosperity” (“Independence and Slavery” 1831: 94-95.
In the next issue of The Liberator (July 9, 1831), Garrison criticized non-abolitionist observances of the Fourth. He denounced the hypocrisy of conventional celebrations: “Our love of liberty increases with the multiplication of our slaves.” Despite the fact the the American “slave population is larger by sixty thousand souls than it was at the last anniversary;” Garrison asked, “when have we made so extensive and boisterous a parade of our patriotism?” Garrison voiced particular disdain for the July 4, 1831, sermon by Lyman Beecher in favor of colonization, in which Beecher urged “every man, woman child to put their hands into their pockets, and contribute money” for “the removal of the whole colored population to Africa” (111). Criticism of conventional and colonizationist observances of the Fourth would become a standard feature of abolitionist rhetoric and a basis for differentiating their own Independence Day events.

July Fourth was a holiday with very different meanings for different groups of Americans. Although there had been scattered prior uses of the occasion by abolitionists, it was still associated with a wide variety of reform causes. Garrison and others began a campaign to seize the day for antislavery purposes. In The Liberator three weeks later, Garrison reprinted a column in which the editor of the Lynn Record argued that “no day, perhaps is better adapted to urge an appeal” on behalf of those enslaved “than the Fourth of July.” Beginning the following year, Garrison and others promoted annual counter-observances of July Fourth. Abolitionists sought to make the day their own, a day when many Americans would contemplate the paradoxical proclamations of freedom amidst the continuing practice of slavery.
Anti-slavery uses of July Fourth competed with uses of the occasion for other causes. Some of these (such as colonization) were contrary to abolition, while others (temperance, for example) were causes supported by most abolitionists. Recognizing that Independence Day had already been employed by temperance activists and other reformers to promote their causes, Garrison argued in the Liberator that anti-slavery activities should be given the highest priority in use of the day. For other causes, he explained, “there are other seasons quite as appropriate and just as useful.” But July Fourth offered unique opportunities for anti-slavery organizing, he insisted, and those in bondage should “have the first and highest claim upon our sympathy and aid on Independence Day.” “It should be made ‘The day of days’ for the overthrow of slavery,” Garrison concluded, “as formidable to domestic as it ever was designed to be to foreign tyrants” (Liberator 1852: 106).

From 1833 through the beginning of the Civil War, July Fourth was the most important annual meeting day for abolitionists, marked by huge gatherings, speeches, songs, and fund-raising. The Liberator on 28 June 1834 carried notices for six anti-slavery Fourth of July observances in three states, and in 1835 listed sixteen. These were largely local affairs, although some invited notable outside speakers and advertised to attract attendance from other communities. The New-England Anti-Slavery Society, for example, sponsored a regional anti-slavery meeting on July 4, 1834, in Boylston, Massachusetts, attended by delegates from several states (“Fourth opf July” 1835). But the logistical difficulties and expens of travel prevented large-scale regional gatherings until the development of rail lines. In the interim, abolitionist leaders urged the proliferation of local observances “in every place where a society exists for the furtherance of this holy and patriotic work” (Libertas 1835: 94). Anti-slavery Fourth of July activities were designed to motivate anti-slavery sympathizers to take concerted action, and to contribute financially through “free-will offerings.” July Fourth anti-slavery activities also appealed to the unconvinced. “Many new volunteers enrolled themselves under the banner of immediate emancipation” as a result of these gatherings, Garrison claimed in 1836 (111). Antislavery activists regarded July Fourth as an occasion that offered unique rhetorical and organizational opportunities.

Just as conventional Fourth of July ceremonies linked local communities together in the invocation of nationhood, so too did anti-slavery gatherings, which connected local communities with national issues. At the Plymouth County (Massachusetts) Anti-Slavery Society’s July Fourth observance in 1837, hymn by George Russell set to the tune of “America” asked:
Shall Despotism sway,
Its iron sceptre here,
Our lips to close?
Sons of the pilgrims! Say!
Will ye proud lords obey,
And ask them when ye may
The truth disclose? (Russell 1837: 128).

Russell’s song asks those gathered to consider the national Congressional gag rule as a restriction on their own speech, and to see in their local heritage (as “Sons of the Pilgrims”) a national responsibility.

The spread of rail lines in the 1840s and 1850s enabled the physical as well as rhetorical consolidation of anti-slavery forces. Anti-slavery July Fourth rallies in some cases attracted thousands of participants. In his 1886 memoir of anti-slavery activities in Maine, Austin Willey recalled that “the fourth of July had been much used” in “the cause of liberty to which it belonged, and with great benefit.” On July 4, 1847, anti-slavery meetings were held throughout the state, “in groves and churches, with speeches and music, the women preparing the picnic.” By July 4, 1852, improved transportation, as well as the impetus to anti-slavery organizing provided by passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, enabled the Maine societies to stage an enormous anti-slavery rally. The featured speaker was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. An estimated “six to ten thousand” people convened in a grove near East Livermore. Normally used for Methodist camp-meetings, the grove was festooned with banners bearing mottoes (including “No Compromise With Slavery,” “The Daughters of Freedom Opposed to the Nebraska Bill,” and “Temperance and Liberty”), and pictures of Aunt Chloe and Uncle Tom’s cabin. Those assembled listened to speeches and anti-slavery songs, followed by a picnic lunch, then more speeches and resolutions (Willey 1886: 318, 442-445).
From 1852 through 1860, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society sponsored huge annual “Anti-Slavery Celebration[s] of Independence Day” in rural groves. Five thousand people from throughout Massachusetts attended the July 5, 1852, gathering at Abington “to listen to the speeches of freemen, and sing the songs of freedom” (“Anti-Slavery” 1852: 119). Horses and carriages “stood almost innumerable in the shade of the trees” and “booths well filled with wholesome viands, but containing nothing which could intoxicate, stood all around.” African American abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond was elected president of the day’s gathering and delivered the principal oration (Liberator 1852).

Beginning in 1853, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society held large annual July Fourth meetings in Framingham. Framington’s Harmony Grove was a popular tourist attraction in the 1850s for urban residents who wished to spend a day in the country, rowing on the lake or perhaps playing round-ball or cricket on the adjoining field (Herring n.d.; Gleason’s 1852: 384). “The Grove itself,” Rev. Elias Nason recalled, “consists of several acres of tall, majestic pine, oak, maple and chestnut trees, whose spreading branches form a dense and grateful shade” from summer’s heat. “The squirrel leaps from bough to bough; the song birds fill the air with melody” (Potter 1896: 1). The air of Harmony Grove was also filled with speeches. Anti-slavery and temperance meetings were held in a natural ampitheater, 250 feet long and 150 feet wide, that seated over a thousand people. Special trains carried attendees from Boston, Worcester, and other towns and cities for the July Fourth rallies. These were frequently all-day affairs. The thousands who attended the Framingham event in 1857, for example, “spent some six hours in the various exercises appointed for the occasion” (“Anti-Slavery Celebration” 1857). Speakers included Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Charles L. Remond, William Wells Brown, Frances Ellen Watkins, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson (National 1857). The Framingham Anti-Slavery Fourth of July rally gained national attention in 1854, when Garrison first burned a copy of the Fugitive Slave Law, then a copy of Judge Edward G. Loring’s decision approving the seizure of Anthony Burns as a fugitive slave. Finally, he burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution, which he pronounced a pro-slavery “covenant with death and agreement with hell.” The crowd erupted in a mixture of cheers and hisses (Garrison and Garrison 1885: 412).
The Framingham rallies intensified the national debate over slavery. “It has been said that a small nest of hornets attending strictly to business can break up a camp meeting,” Edgar Potter, curator of the Framingham Historical Society, wrote in 1896, and the Framingham rallies “kept the whole country in an uproar” (1896: 2). The rallies incorporated some elements of traditional Fourth of July gatherings but differentiated their purposes. Like traditional gatherings, abolitionist observances of July Fourth featured oratory, music, family picnics, political campaigning, banners and national symbols. Abolitionists capitalized on established conventions of the holiday in order to reconstruct its meanings and purposes.

4. Arguing the Nation
Those who wished to highlight the inconsistencies between slavery and national principles could ask for no better occasion. “A people yet suffering under oppression,” Garrison explained, “should use all occasions when the word FREEDOM is spoken, to remind themselves and each other they have it not” (“Independence” 1860). On a practical level, July Fourth was one of the few dates when large-scale attendance could be secured for day-long meetings. In urban areas, at least, it was a day free from labor and commerce, when most people were free to attend. The primary attraction of July Fourth, however, was rhetorical. It held powerful associations and made available certain symbols and lines of argument that were less poignant on other occasions.
In his July 5, 1852, Rochester address, Frederick Douglass oppositionally decodes the symbols, themes, and conventions associated with July Fourth, turning the occasion against itself. He subverts the characteristic elements of the generic Fourth of July oration. He too invokes the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, civil religion, the flag, and the American landscape, and he too speaks of the nation’s singularity. But Douglass revises these concepts and symbols. He refigures, for example, the concept of national unity traditionally expounded on the Fourth by speaking of the nation as “unified” in evil by the passage of the Fugitive Slave law, through which “slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form.” The United States is defined by its national support of slavery. “By that act,” he explains, “the power to hold, hunt and sell men, women and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. . . coextensive with the star-spangled banner and American Christianity.” Douglass, like most conventional Fourth of July orators, proclaims the singularity of the nation, but by insisting that “for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival” (Foner and Branham 1998: 258).
In their own observances, abolitionists incorporated many of the themes and symbols associated with July Fourth. Polemicists of all sorts used the Fourth of July to identify their own causes with the American Revolution, as Ronald Reid has observed, emphasizing their own contributions to the Revolution, drawing parallels between the Revolution and their own causes, and purporting to continue or complete the Revolution through their proposed reforms. “It is peculiarly proper,” anti-slavery orator James Eels of Ohio observed on July 4, 1836, “to link together these two American Revolutions, and to celebrate the triumph of one and the progress of the other, at the same Anniversary; for they are intimately allied, and have relations so closely interwoven, that they could not well be separated” (Reid 1978 68-69, 70).

Abolitionist speakers and writers praised the colonial revolutionaries who took up arms against the British oppressors. Their narratives emphasized those aspects of the American Revolution most analogous to the anti-slavery campaign. Abolitionists drew parallels between their numbers (three million colonists then, three million enslaved now), objective (liberty), their animating principles (“that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. . .”), and their willingness to die for their freedom. The Declaration of delegates at the 1833 National Anti-Slavery Convention, for example, recast the story of the American Revolution as one in which “three millions of people rose up as from the sleep of death, and rushed to the strife of blood; deeming it more glorious to die instantly as freemen, than desirable to live one hour as slaves” (“Declaration” 1833: 426). By drawing parallels between the Revolution and their cause, abolitionists made use of the mythic structure through which the Fourth had long been conventionally celebrated. But Douglass and others recast the roles in the Revolutionary morality play. It is the abolitionists, he argues in his July 5, 1852, Rochester address, who are most akin to the “agitators and rebels” who led the Revolution of “the oppressed against the oppressor.” Those now in power, who hate “any great change (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it),” are today’s tyrants and Tories (Foner and Branham 1998: 250-254). The Revolution is thus refashioned as a justification for the radical actions of the abolitionists.

Linguistic references to the American Revolution were woven throughout the speeches and promotional materials for anti-slavery July Fourth gatherings. A notice for the July 4, 1860, event in Framingham was headlined “THE INSURRECTION OF 1776!” and urged “all who hate despotism in the garb of Democracy and Republicanism as well as of Monarchy, and would overthrow it by every weapon that may be legitimately wielded against it” to assemble” (Liberator 1860: 90). Linking the Revolution to abolitionism was made easier by the hyperbolic language used to describe the patriot cause. The Fourth of July was “the glorious day – / When slavery’s clouds were chased away,” a poet wrote in the Florida Herald in 1829 (82). The Revolution was justified as a response to tyranny, “breaking the chains” of British oppression. The metaphoric description of British colonialism as bondage and slavery suggested obvious connections to the abolitionist cause. Conventional Fourth of July orations regularly analogized the Revolution to the Israelites’ providentially guided escape from Egyptian bondage (Hay 1967: 192-193). Abolitionists made the simple leap from figurative and Biblical bondage to literal contemporary slavery, which they argued meant that their cause was even more noble than that of the American Revolutionaries. The grievances of the colonists, delegates to the National Anti-Slavery Convention declared in 1833, “were trifling in comparison with the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we plead.” “Our fathers,” they explained, “were never slaves – never bought and sold like cattle – never shut out from the light of knowledge and religion – never subjected to the lash of brutal taskmasters” (“Declaration” 1833: 426-427. The colonists had less cause to revolt, abolitionists argued, than did they.

Pro-slavery forces accused abolitionists of fomenting slave rebellions, although many abolitionists denied the charge. While abolitionists drew parallels between their own cause and the principles of the American Revolution, most differentiated their tactics. The Revolution was “effected by the sword and bayonet,” James Eels explained on July 4, 1836, but abolitionists would succeed through “argument and persuasion” (Reid 1978: 70). In an 1848 song, “The Liberty Army” (set to the tune of “America”), the abolitionist singers pledged: “No bloody flag we bear;/ No implements of war,/ Nor carnage red shall mar/ Our victory” (“Liberty” 1848: 194). Some abolitionists, however, embraced not only the principles but the means of the American Revolutionaries. July Fourth presented a unique rhetorical opportunity to defend armed resistance to slavery. Those enslaved staged hundreds of revolts in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in efforts to gain their freedom. These uprisings were sometimes violent and were greatly feared by whites. Abolitionist orators and writers drew upon the threat of further uprisings in order to alarm their listeners and prod them to action. Rev. La Roy Sunderland’s Anti-Slavery Manual, a pocket handbook of facts and arguments used by many anti-slavery speakers in the 1830s, includes accounts of twenty-four slave rebellions from 1712 to 1831. Speakers were instructed to present these “facts demonstrating the danger of continued slavery,” which made further violent rebellions inevitable (1839: 86-91).
Abolitionists regularly invoked the prospect of slave uprisings on July Fourth, a day in which rebellion was celebrated by most Americans. Conventional Fourth of July celebrations often included military parades and themes. Orators praised the willingness of the Revolutionaries “to conquer or die” in armed resistance to British oppression. Some abolitionists, such as Garrison, asked, “Do they not fear lest their slaves may one day be as patriotic as themselves?” (“Walker’s” 1995: 77). The Fourth of July, he argued, must not only “embitter and inflame the minds of slaves,” but “furnish so many reasons” why “they should obtain their own rights by violence” (Liberator 1831: 120). In an oration delivered in Lynn, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1831, as “America” premiered in nearby Boston, Alonzo Lewis warned his listeners that they must emancipate those enslaved before they “deluge our southern cities with blood” (“Independence and Slavery” 1832: 24). That same day, Nat Turner had originally planned to stage his Virginia uprising, the bloodiest in American history, before illness forced him to postpone it (Aptheker 1943: 297). In the South, July Fourth was a common occasion for acts of resistance and retaliation by those enslaved (Travers 1997: 148).
By whatever means, abolitionists and other reformers argued that the duty of the current generation was to complete the unfinished American Revolution. Members of the 1833 Anti-Slavery Convention pledged their support “for the achievement of an enterprise, without which, that of our fathers is incomplete” (“Declaration” 1833: 426). The Declaration of Independence was regarded as a statement of principle, rather than an accomplished vision of the nation (Reid 1978: 70). July Fourth was an occasion on which abolitionists, as well as those who attended conventional celebrations, rededicated themselves to the nation’s founding principles. “An Appeal to American Freemen” (1859) consisting of four stanzas set to the tune of “America” and designed for use at anti-slavery July Fourth observances, instructed celebrants to initiate a second American Revolution, to: “Light up again the fires/ Once kindled by your sires/ In Freedom’s cause (Justitia 1859: 104).

Although July Fourth was popularly referred to as the “Nation’s Jubilee,” celebrating the “birth of freedom,” abolitionists denied this, insisting that the “day of jubilee” was yet to come. Abolitionists used the Fourth to expose the failure of America to fulfill its founding principles, and to dream of a future day of emancipation. The military success of the American revolutionaries against overwhelming odds offered assurance to anti-slavery workers that their struggles would also some day succeed. In his 1836 song, “Day of Jubilee,” set to the tune of “America,” A. G. Duncan imagined the celebration that one day would be.

Roll on thou joyful day,
When tyranny’s proud sway,
Stern as the grave,
Shall to the ground be hurled,
And freedom’s flag unfurled,
Shall wave throughout the world,
O’er every slave (87-88).

Duncan displaces the language, occasion and featured melody of Independence Day celebrations. A true Independence Day, he insists, is contingent and deferred, but possible through concerted action. Abolitionists used the Fourth of July to reimagine the nation as a “sweet land of liberty” in fact as well as in song.

5. Conclusion
The thousands who attended the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society’s Framingham rally in 1859 heard Thomas Wentworth Higginson announce that “This is our day – our Fourth of July. We can claim it, if nobody else can” (“Address” 1859). Abolitionist counter-observances of July Fourth were more than alternative, self-contained events. Abolitionists saw themselves as transforming the occasion, “redeeming the Nation’s birth-day from the utter perversion and desecration which it everywhere suffers at the hands of a degenerate and time-serving people” (“Anti-Slavery Celebration” 1857). Abolitionists sought to reconstruct July Fourth, changing its meanings and implications for a broader public. July Fourth and July Fifth were occasions on which abolitionists “argued the nation,” contesting common conceptions of national character and reconstituting national identities.
Abolitionists sought to problematize participation in conventional Fourth of July celebrations. They equated participation in conventional July Fourth celebrations and the singing of national songs with support for slavery. “We’ll meet beneath no gilded arch with pomp and show and pride,” the participants in Framingham’s July 4, 1860, anti-slavery meeting declared, refusing “To chant the songs of freedom, while we swell Oppression’s tide” (“Our Fourth” 1860). Abolitionist orators, songwriters, and poets sketched scathing portrayals of conventional Independence Day speeches and celebrations, in part to differentiate their own efforts on that date. If the most important function of conventional Fourth of July celebrations was, as Len Travers has written, “to mask disturbing ambiguities and contradictions in the new republic, overlaying real social and political conflict with a conceptual veneer of shared ideology and elemental harmony,” the primary function of abolitionist Fourth of July observances was to reveal these contradictions and strip away the veneer of harmony (1997: 7). Abolitionists hoped that their audiences would reflect on the irony of the terms (“liberty,” “freedom,” “independence”) and texts (such as the Declaration of Independence or the song “America”) used to celebrate the Fourth in a land of slavery. They publicly desecrated national symbols and subverted patriotic texts on the Fourth, when doing so would be most shocking and, they hoped, thought-provoking.

By the Civil War, July Fourth gatherings were regarded by abolitionists such as William Wells Brown as “the most important meetings held during the year.” It was an occasion that drew large crowds and exposed ironies that “deepened the impression” upon those who attended (Liberator 1859). The Fourth offered rhetorical resources less effective on other occasions, enabling the abolitionists to draw parallels between the American Revolution and their own cause. Abolitionists employed patriotic appeals as premises from which to argue for reform. Like other Americans on July Fourth, many voiced their loyalty to cause and country. But the country to which the abolitionists pledged loyalty was not the United States as presently constituted. Decades before the Gettysburg Address and Reconstruction, abolitionists imagined a future reconstituted nation without slavery. “That’s my country, that’s the land,/ I can love with heart and hand,” James Russell Lowell writes; “Of her glories I can sing” (1857: 127). Those who attended anti-slavery gatherings on the Fourth joined together in singing of their mutual commitment to create a “land of liberty” where none yet existed, a commitment that would eventually find expression in civil war.

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