ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Absence Of Reasons

• by: Kati Hannken-Illjes - Universität Jena, Jena

In 2003 I started my fieldwork in two law firms. As a part of a comparative ethnographic research project, my objective was to follow criminal cases in their preparation and performance. In addition, one of my own research questions was, how argument themes are prepared and tested during this course of preparation. I was looking for the becoming of arguments. The very first case I encountered was one of child killing. A young woman, already mother of two and married, hid her pregnancy, gave birth in a back yard, covered the newborn with leaves and left. The child was found dead three weeks later. This was certainly a case, especially as my first case, that was difficult to deal with for emotionally. But also with respect to my research question, this case was remarkable: What first frustrated and then struck me as quite significant was the lack of reasons given in this case. It is this absence of reasons that I want to explore in this paper.

In legal procedures argumentation is often viewed as the central means to establish rationality and legitimacy. This assumption is important, even if one would take issue with it, as it has meaning in the field, if only counterfactually. The professional participants in the field work on the assumption that the giving of reasons is essential for the legal procedure, especially in criminal cases.This notion that is at work in the field can be explicated by Habermas’ notion of procedural rationality (1998). This procedural rationality in the legal realm incorporates the concept of communicative rationality. Similar to Habermas, Alexy’s work in legal argumentation (1983) and also the work done in the context of Pragma-Dialectics can be conceived of as subscribing to a procedural rationality (see Feteris, 1999, pp 163). Following this notion, legal proceedings can claim to be rational, if they adhere to certain (normatively formulated) rules of communication as in the ideal speech situation or the rules for critical discussions. One of the basic rules is, that interactants have to give reasons when asked for them. It is through reason giving that legal procedures attain legitimacy. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Using Argument Schemes As A Method Of Informal Logic

• by: Hans V. Hansen - University of Windsor

The method of using argument schemes for evaluating natural language arguments (NLA’s) is based on two assumptions [i]. The first assumption is that there are, if not ‘natural’ kinds of NLA’s, at least sortings of arguments into kinds that can be justified on epistemological or pragmatic grounds. The identity conditions of an argument kind can be represented in an abstract structure called an argument scheme. The second assumption is that with each identifiable kind of argument there is an associated standard that good arguments of that kind should meet.  Accordingly, to use the Argument Scheme Method (or AS Method) of evaluating NLA’s one begins by finding out to what kind a given NLA belongs; this can be done by determining which of the schemes it is an instance of. Having done that one proceeds to evaluate the NLA by determining how well it measures up to the standard associated with the kind to which it belongs. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – An Exploratory Study Of Argument In The Public And Private Domains Of Differing Forms Of Societies

• by: Michael David Hazen - Wake Forest University & Thomas J. Hynes - Clayton State University

1.Introduction
In this paper, we focus on the functioning of argument in the public and private domains of communication in different societal forms. By doing so, we address several weaknesses in contemporary argumentation studies.
Why would such a question be of importance to the study of argumentation? First, while an extensive literature exists on argument’s role in democracy and public spheres, there is no corresponding literature regarding non-democratic societies. Such a concern is of importance because, in both ancient and modern times, most societies have not been democratic. While some might contend that democratic argument is paramount, that position fails to consider the daily lives of citizens in non-democratic societies and, in turn, neglects a fuller understanding of argument in all societal forms.
Second, an examination of the recent argumentation literature reveals extensive discussions of public argument. Unfortunately, there have been few attempts to link our understanding of the two bodies of literature.
Finally, many argumentation studies involve other variables such as culture, society, economics and politics. Most studies focus on argument and one other concept and few look at the argument’s relationship to communication, culture, political systems, and cognitive functioning in terms of their systematic variation between societies.
This essay has two goals. First we explore argument’s structure and functions in three prototype models of the relationship between the public and private domains of communication. Second, we illustrate each model with a historical example. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Defining “Disruption”: Setting Limits On Student Speech Rights In The United States

• by: Dale A. Herbeck - Boston College

In December of 1965, three public school students – John and Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt – in Des Moines, Iowa, were suspended from school when they wore black armbands express their opposition to the Vietnam War. Although the armbands expressed a legitimate viewpoint on an important political issue, the students were sent home for violating school policy and were not allowed to return to school until they agreed to remove their armbands. Rather than meekly accepting their punishment, the students challenged their suspensions on constitutional grounds. As predicted by many commentators, both the federal district court (Tinker 1966) and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit (Tinker 1967) ruled in favor of school officials. The United States Supreme Court, however, reversed the lower courts and ruled in favor of the students in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), a landmark decision recognizing the student’s First Amendment rights.

Writing for a 7-to-2 majority, Justice Abe Fortas noted that the armbands were a form of symbolic expression “within the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment,” that such symbolic expression is “closely akin to ‘pure speech,’” and that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the school house gate” (Tinker 1969, pp. 505-506). Although Justice Fortas believed that student speech should be protected, he also recognized that there were instances in which it might be suppressed. In an effort to delineate these circumstances, Justice Fortas noted that student speech could only be limited by demonstrating that it would “substantially interfere with the work of the school or impinge upon the rights of other students” (Tinker 1969, p. 508). Particular attention must be paid, Justice Fortas continued, to distinguish between legitimate regulation of disruptive student speech and efforts to “avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint” (Tinker 1969, p. 509). To insure that school officials did not engage in any content-based discrimination, Justice Fortas called on federal judges to independently review the facts and determine whether there was sufficient evidence to justify suppressing student speech. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Reasonableness And Strategic Maneuvering In Cold-War Editorial Argumentation

• by: Darrin Hicks & Justin Eckstein - University of Denver, Denver, Colorado

Over the last 150 years the New York Times, quite arguably the most influential newspaper in the world, has invoked the concept of reasonableness 746, 762 times (not counting adverbial uses, such as reasonably) to describe people and the decisions they make, the objects they construct, the processes they design, and, of course, the arguments they make and have. Turning to the editorial page, the official record of the Times’ judgments on the meaning of important political events and their attempts to persuade policymakers how to respond to them, we find 22, 314 invocations of reasonableness. The editorial page’s use of reasonableness matters because of its influence on elite decision-making, its significant inter-media agenda setting function, and because it explicitly purports to represent and cultivate a public voice. The Times’ editorial page is one of the few self-avowed organs of what John Rawls calls public reason. John B. Oakes, the page’s editor from 1956-1977, went as far as defining the “editorial we”, the voice of the editorial page and by extension its readers, as nothing short of the “community of the reasonable and responsible.” Where Rawls (1996) points to the U.S. Supreme Court as the exemplar of public reason, we point to the Times editorial page. The Times editorial page too gives public reason “vividness and vitality in the public forum,” though much more frequently and directly (237). This does not imply the page’s attempts to embody public reason are without controversy, far from it. The editorial page is a rhetorical battleground where what counts as public reason, and thus what counts as reasonable, is defined and debated. It speaks as advocate and advisor, interlocutor and instructor. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – “I Have Like A Message From God” – The Rhetorical Situation And Persuasive Strategies In Revival Rhetoric

• by: Mika Hietanen - Åbo Akademi University

1. Nokia Missio
Nokia Missio is a Christian revival movement that began in the Lutheran church in Nokia, Finland, after the charismatic awakening of the vicar, Markku Koivisto, in 1991. He began to hold revival meetings that featured intense praise and prayer and the use of spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongues and healing through prayer. This was in considerable contrast to traditional Lutheran meetings (Juntunen 2007; Pihkala 2007; Nokia Missio n.d.). Soon, tensions arose between the Nokia revival and the rest of the Lutheran congregation. Koivisto then founded Nokia Missio, a registered association, but remained a minister of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church.

The bishop of Tampere repeatedly called the practise and theology of Koivisto in question (Pihkala 2007 & 2006; Koivisto 2007; Aro-Heinilä 2006, pp. 130–131). With Nokia Missio the discussion about the place of charismatic Christianity within the Lutheran church reached an acute stage (Laato 2001, p. 1). It should be noted that, for most Finns, Christianity is known in its Lutheran and non-charismatic form (97 % of those who belong to a religious group or church in Finland, belong to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church; Väestö n.d.; Uskonto Suomessa n.d.). Read more