ISSA Proceedings 1998 – The (Un)Reasonableness Of Ad Hominem Fallacies

• by: F. v. Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, B. Meuffels & M. Verburg - University of Amsterdam

1. Introduction
It is unknown exactly what ordinary arguers think of the discussion moves deemed acceptable or unacceptable in argumentation theory. Little empirical research has been conducted concerning their standards for easonableness. Bowker & Trapp (1992) have made an attempt into this direction, but their research gives rise to a great many theoretical, methodological and statistical objections.[i] Because knowledge of ordinary arguers’ standards for reasonableness is of theoretical as well as practical importance, we started a comprehensive research project at the University of Amsterdam systematically aimed at charting these standards.[ii] In the pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, which is the theoretical starting point of the project, unreasonable discussion moves are regarded as fallacious. The central question in the project is to determine to what extent such fallacious discussion moves are also considered unreasonable by ordinary arguers.
The term ‘ordinary arguers’ here refers to people who do not have any specific knowledge of argumentation theory and who have not received any specific education in this field. Do they regard all fallacies as absolutely unreasonable? Do they make any exceptions? Do they distinguish degrees of (un)reasonableness? Generally speaking, we are interested in investigating ordinary arguers’ standards for reasonableness and in examining their consistency in applying these standards. This article reports the findings of the first research conducted within this framework, focusing on ad hominem fallacies.

2. Conventional validity
In the pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, the various moves made in argumentative discourse are seen as part of a discussion procedure for resolving a difference of opinion concerning the acceptability of a standpoint (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984 and 1992). The moves made by the protagonist and the antagonist are regarded as reasonable only if they contribute to the resolution of the difference of opinion. The pragma-dialectical discussion procedure is specified in a set of ten rules for critical discussion – thus constituting an ideal model of an exchange of views solely aimed at resolving a difference.
Any violation of the pragma-dialectical rules is an unreasonable discussion move, interfering with the aim of resolving the difference. Such violations reflect the type of errors commonly known as fallacies. From a pragma-dialectical point of view, fallacies are thus discussion moves that do not agree with the rules for critical discussion. The soundness of the critical discussion rules is first and foremost based on their “problem-validity”: the fact that they are instrumental in resolving a difference of opinion.[iii]

In order to resolve a difference, however, the discussion rules do not only have to be effective but they should also be approved upon by the parties involved. As a consequence, they must not only be problem-valid but also “conventionally valid”: they must be intersubjectively acceptable. The criterion of conventional validity is central to our research project. So far, the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical discussion rules has only been subject of investigation in exemplary analyses, for example, by corpus research of text fragments taken from columns in newspapers, articles in magazines, and private and public discussions.[iv] From this material, due to lack of experimental control and various other factors, no conclusive evidence can be drawn. For example, no reliable conclusions can be achieved concerning the extent to which the discussion rules are conventionally valid. Speaking from an empirical point of view, it is still in the dark which variables determine the standards for reasonableness ordinary arguers apply in practice, either individually or in combination, in judging argumentative moves. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Ubuntu Or Acknowledgment: An Analysis Of The Argument Practices Of The South African Truth And Reconciliation Commission

• by: Kathleen M. Farrell - University of Iowa

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela looked uncomfortable as she faced the third day of public hearings by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission examining her role in more than a dozen murders, many assaults, and her attempt to ruin the reputation of white, anti-apartheid Methodist bishop Paul Verryn.With Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, the head of the Commission intervening from time to time, witnesses testified that Madikizela-Mandela was either actively engaged in the murderous assaults of her bodyguards or gave her approval of their criminal activities during the late 1980’s.
If this were the Nuremberg trials, the panel of distinguished judges would be deciding the length of Madikizela-Mandela’s prison term. But South Africa’s novel version of the truth commission, a quasi judicial way of coming to terms with past human rights violations in countries emerging from the shadow of oppressive regimes, seeks “truth telling”, acknowledgment and reconciliation – the public accounting of the country’s difficult past as a step to building a new South Africa.
The Commission’s mandated conclusion for its stories, acknowledged truth for amnesty, has met with much public critique. Many people find it difficult to believe that multiple murderers should walk free. Yet many in Nelson Mandela’s government are supportive of coming to terms with South Africa’s past through the commission rather than the courts. Richard Goldstone, a Constitutional Court judge, says: “Making public the truth is itself a form of justice.” But is the Commission’s construction of Justice spelled with a small j? Is the great emphasis placed on forgiveness, particularly by Archbishop Tutu, possible to justify in a discourse of “truth telling” about the cruelest of human torture by both white Afrikaners and the black ANC?

This essay analyzes the argument strategies used in the Commission’s construction of the story of South Africa’s human rights atrocities between 1960 and 1993. Through an analysis of portions of the proceedings, I will attempt to understand how that story interweaves as complete a picture as possible of the atrocities, the public shaming of those who admit committing the atrocities, and the Commission’s prescriptions for reconciliation.
A close examination of particular hearings is critical to understanding if the argument forms employed in the quasi-judicial proceedings of the Commission can produce reconciliation. For instead of a general amnesty and corresponding reparations for all perpetrators and their victims, there is only individual amnesty and recommended reparations. Much like a criminal court of law, individuals are charged, the “truth” of each incident is exposed, and authorities pass judgment on the basis of the evidence heard during the Commission’s proceedings. But unlike the criminal court, the end result is acknowledgment not responsibility, victims’ catharsis and not justification, and amnesty not punishment. I will argue that the Commission’s construction of the story of South Africa’s violent past produces arguments for public acknowledgment of the “truth” of human rights atrocities, but cannot deliver reconciliation. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Magnitude Beyond Measure: Judgment And Justice In The Late Twentieth Century

• by: Thomas B. Farrell - Northwestern University

If classical tragedy has any residual wisdom for our age, it may lie in the possibility that the imperatives of forensic judgment prefigure a renewed sense of genuine civic life. Argumentation becomes rhetorical whenever it engages the priority, urgency, or importance of public matters. In the present century, the once-reliable borders, taboos, and hierarchies for grounding and guiding such argumentation have eroded, while the calamities and exigencies of our time have expanded in scale and enormity. Thus an ongoing dialectic of magnitude takes on the momentum of an irreversible process yielding a foreclosure of human agency, and virtuous reconciliation to catastrophe as fait accomplis. With this essay, I explore three twentieth century concepts designed to stabilize rhetorical argument over “magnitude’ in civic and social life; these are the concepts of the public, the spectacle, and the rhetorical forum. In the West, these concepts are the ironic legacy of three unlikely Nineteenth century rhetorical figures (Henry Thoreau, P.T. Barnum, and Ida Wells). In an institutional sense, these same three concepts are the residue of the three foundational genres of rhetorical argumentation; the deliberative, the ceremonial, and the forensic. Most important, these concepts depict inventional moods of civic argument; the utopian, the tragic/farcical, and the retributive/conciliatory moods of judgment and forgiveness. The body of my presentation will stress the allegorical voices of this latter forensic mood: in the Nuremburg trials, as well as in the International Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Such cases as these, exceptional as they are, help to capture the unfinished inventional possibilities of argumentation and civic culture.

The figures of Nineteenth century America – Thoreau, Barnum, Wells – loom over our still unfinished epoch with an expansiveness that seems larger than life. In mirroring back to us a cultural history more grand, and grandiose, than our own, they introduce nagging questions about what has become of magnitude as solitude, magnitude as magnificence, magnitude as the soul’s tumult: the implacability of rage within. Whether we might actually find or construct a map for the typical nineteenth century consciousness, it is clear that the vast panorama of that vision has receded.
The confident progressive histories, so prominent at a new century’s first moments, have also lost their traction. The not-always-felicitous union of concept and event, a residue of other discredited systems, continues to hover over the damage. It was Marx who once prophesied that philosophy would replace religion, only to be replaced by history and then politics. But the once-vibrant trajectory of modernity resists any easy assimilation. I do want to suggest, however, that even in an era of “dark times,” the work of rhetorical reflection, and all its attendant weights and measures, persists. Specifically, I want to show by way of some culturally specific evidence that magnitude, however momentous its eventful compass, may nonetheless be judged. Such judgment is not only possible. It is absolutely necessary if rhetoric itself has any lingering hope of surviving the crimes of the century. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – What Went Wrong In The Ball-Point Case? An Analysis And Evaluation Of The Discussion In The Ball-Point Case From The Perspective Of A Rational Discussion

• by: Eveline Feteris - University of Amsterdam

1. Introduction
In May 1991 a 53-year old woman is found dead in her house. Pathological investigation shows that she has a BIC ball-point inside her head, behind her eye. An accident? A murder-case? The finding is the introduction to one of the most interesting and complex criminal cases of the last years in the Netherlands. The former husband and the son are under suspicion. Rumour has it that the son, during his school years, has referred to the perfect murder more than once. Finally, in 1994, J.T., the son, is arrested. This is done after the police were given a statement by a psycho-therapist in which this therapist contended that the son confessed to her that he killed his mother. He would have shot a BIC ball-point with a small crossbow. On the basis of this statement of the therapist, who wanted to remain an anonymous witness, in combination with the statement of the forensic pathologist and the statement of the police, the prosecutor starts a criminal procedure.
The District Court sentences J.T. on September 29, 1995 for murder to twelve years imprisonment. J.T. appeals and after many procedural complications he is finally acquitted by the Court of Appeals in 1996. The Court of Appeals is of the opinion that, on the basis of what is said by the expert witnesses, it is not possible to formulate a hypothesis of what has actually happened. The expert witnesses, the witness on behalf of defense and the witness on behalf of the prosecution, all testify that when a ball-point is shot at a human head with a crossbow, this always results in a damage to the pen when it penetrates into the head. Therefore, it is impossible to shoot a ball-point at a human head with a crossbow without damaging the pen, as would have happened in this case. The Court also says that, because it could not find a convincing support for the statements of the therapist on the basis of other information, it could not decide that the statements of the therapist are in accordance with what has actually happened. Therefore the indicted fact could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Not only in the media, but also among lawyers, this so-called ‘ball-point’ case raised many questions with respect to the quality of the Dutch criminal system. A lot of mistakes would have been made by the police and by the courts during the trial with respect to the way in which the evidence was handled. Because of my own background as an argumentation theorist, I would like to concentrate on the question what could be said about this case from an argumentative point of view: what went wrong in the discussion about the evidence from the perspective of a rational argumentative discussion? In the reviews of this case, generally speaking, two important points of critique can be distinguished.[i]
The first point is that the decision of the district court was mainly based on the statement of the therapist, which turned out to be a very weak element. The second point of criticism is that the court did not engage in an explicit discussion of the accident theory, that the woman had fallen in the ball-point by accident.
These two points amount to the critique that the argumentation in the justification of the District court was unsatisfactory with respect to the central question whether J.T. had indeed killed his mother. According to the official rules and the official practice of district courts in criminal cases, the court has done nothing wrong. But considered from the perpective of a fair trial ànd considered from the perspective of a rational argumentative discussion, the argumentation of the District Court can be criticized in several respects.
What I would like to do is to go into these points of critique from the perspective of argumentation theory. I will use the pragma-dialectical theory of Van Eemeren and Grootendorst developed in Argumentation, communication, and fallacies (1992) (also known as the theory of the Amsterdam School) as a magnifying glass for highlighting those aspects of the ball-point case which can be criticized from the idealized perspective of a rational discussion. I will use this theory for analyzing and evaluating the ball-point case from the perspective of a rational argumentative discussion. I will connect my analysis and evaluation wit ideas developed by Anderson and Twining (1991 and 1994) and by Wagenaar, van Koppen and Crombag (1993) about ideal norms for the assessment of evidence in criminal cases. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – A Critique Of The Dialectical Approach: Part II

• by: Maurice A. Finocchiaro - University of Nevada

1. Introduction
This paper is part of a project designed to explore the nature of the dialectical approach in argumentation theory, its relationship to other approaches, and its methodological fruitfulness. The main motivation underlying this project stems from the fact that the dialectical approach has become the dominant one in argumentation theory; now, whenever a given approach in any field becomes dominant, there is always the danger that it will lead to the neglect or loss of insights which are easily discernible from other orientations; this in turn may even prevent the dominant approach from being developed to its fullest as a result of the competition with other approaches.
In a previous paper (Finocchiaro 1995), I undertook a critical examination of two leading examples of the dialectical approach. I argued that Barth and Krabbe’s (1982) demonstration of the equivalence of the methods of axiomatics, natural deduction, and formal semantics to formal dialectics works both ways, so that the former acquire the merits of the latter, and the latter the limitations of the former. I also argued that Freeman’s (1991) demonstration that the structure of arguments as products derives from the process of argumentation is insufficiently dialectical insofar as it involves a conception of dialectics in which dialogue is easily dispensable, and insofar as it suggests that argument structure is rooted more in an evaluative process than in a process of dialogue between distinct interlocutors.

In this paper I plan to examine the ideas of other authors who have written on or have used the dialectical approach. I shall use as a guide the following three working hypotheses suggested by the just stated conclusions reached in my previous paper. The first is the claim that if one takes the point of view of formal dialectics, the formal dialogical approach is not essentially different from the monological approach, but rather the two approaches are primarily different ways of talking about the same thing. The other two working hypotheses involve informal rather than formal dialectics. The second working hypothesis is that perhaps there are two versions of the informal dialectical approach, depending on whether one emphasizes the resolution of disagreements or their clarification. The third working hypothesis is that the dialectical approach is fundamentally a way of emphasizing evaluation, a way of elaborating the evaluative aspects of argumentation.[i] These are working hypotheses in the sense that I shall be concerned with testing their correctness, namely with determining whether they are confirmed or disconfirmed by other actual instances of the dialectical approach. Since I shall be examining only examples of the informal dialectical approach, I will be dealing primarily with the second and third working hypotheses. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Truth And Justice In Mass Media Reporting And Commentary: Serving More Than One Master In American Adversarial Contexts

• by: Richard Fiordo - University of North Dakota

1. Background
When writing for the mass media, reporters must usually explain complex matters in simple terms (Fiordo, 1997). Were media reporters to explain complex matters in complex terms, they would employ a style generally unsuited to their audiences. Writing for the mass media requires a style that is plain and direct (Roth, 1997; Harrigan, 1993). Although the principle of clarity is frequently violated for commercial and thematic media purposes, plainness remains a primary criterion of style (Kennedy, Moen & Ranly, 1993; Knight & McLean, 1996). Mass media writing should also have substance and be ethical (Zelezny, 1996).
A problem existing in American mass media reporting and commentary is analyzed in this paper. Two cases are used to illustrate a difficulty that surfaces frequently in American journalism. While this same troublesome condition may occur in the journalism of other countries, its manifestation in US journalism alone is examined here. For this study, 127 American television news broadcasts were viewed and 132 American newspaper and magazine articles read. All had content pertaining to the problem addressed. Because of its straightforward use in journalism (Kennedy, Moen & Randy, 1993), general semantics has been selected for this analysis. General semantics separates reports from inferences and judgments.While reporters utilize all three, the most heavily weighted should ideally be the report. The report is a statement verifiable through our senses (or the scientific extensions of our senses). An inference is a statement about the unknown made on the basis of what is known. And, a judgment is an evaluative or emotive statement highly autobiographical in its function. Reporters will be understood in this paper to be writers or speakers who ideally communicate to us through reports primarily and inferences and judgments secondarily (Hayakawa & Hayakawa, 1990). Reporting and commentary are thus distinguished through higher frequency of inferences and judgments in commentary.
Subsequently, the reporter might construct an accurate and just account of the facts related to a topic or issue. The account should take the context of the facts into account (whether the context is the field of medicine, law, education, or whatever). Without reference to a context, we lack appropriate standards. What a statement means in relation to one set of criteria depends in part on what it means in relation to some context (Morris, 1964; Albrecht & Bach, 1997, 153). For example, a woman speed skater in the Nagano Olympics had to cover 500 meters in 39 seconds or less to win an Olympic medal; however, a woman speed skater in a regional 500 meter race may win a medal with a time of 47 seconds or less. Apart from the context of Olympic versus regional competition, the time would have a limited meaning since the context would be undefined. We would merely know the time it takes a particular female skater to cover 500 meters. In a medical report about reducing sodium in our diets, a “lite” soy sauce with 540 milligrams per tablespoon would be endorsed over one with 1130 milligrams per tablespoon. However, the diet of people with hypertension might require that soy sauce be avoided entirely. So, a 65 year old woman with a threatening case of hypertension may have to minimize sodium from all sources while a 20 year old female with no health problems may be able to consume an all-you-can-eat salty supper with minimal risk. Read more