ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Appeal For Transcendence: A Possible Response To Cases Of Deep Disagreement

• by: David Zarefsky - Northwestern University

1. The emphasis on agreement
It is almost a truism in argumentation studies that productive disagreement must be grounded in agreement. Shared understandings of the goal, shared commitment to particular procedures, and shared adherence to basic truth-claims are thought to be necessary in order for arguers to engage each other rather than to talk past each other. Among the many writers who offer some version of this postulate are Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969: 65), who say, “The unfolding as well as the starting point of the argumentation presuppose indeed the agreement of the audience. … from start to finish, analysis of argumentation is concerned with what is supposed to be accepted by the audience.” In a similar vein, Ehninger (1958: 28) wrote, “Debate is not a species of conflict but of co-operation. Debaters … co-operate in the process of submitting a proposition to rigorous tests. … They believe … not so firmly that they are unwilling to put their convictions to a severe test and to abide by the decision of another concerning them.” These underlying beliefs about purpose and mode of procedure are agreed to by all disputants. Brockriede (1975: 182), identifying indicators of argumentation, includes among them “a frame of reference shared optimally.” Argument is pointless, he suggests, if two people share too much in their underlying presuppositions, but it is impossible if they share too little.  And MacIntyre (1984: 8) notes the impossibility of reasoning with one another when there are no shared standards to undergird rational talk. These are only four representative examples. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Challenges Of Training Critical Discussants: Dialectical Effectiveness And Responsibility In Strategic Maneuvering And In Science Education

• by: Gábor Zemplén and Gergely Kertész - Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Philosophy and History of Science Department

1. Lessons on Teaching Argumentation from Science Education[i]
Teaching argumentation has an obvious entry point in most educational systems through science courses and teaching science. As editors of a recent edited volume summarize: “ … there is an increasing emphasis on resting the science curriculum on a more appropriate balance between science process and citizenship skills, and factual or content knowledge of science. The main rationale for the inclusion of argumentation in the science curriculum has been twofold. First, there is the need to educate for informed citizenship where science is related to its social, economic, cultural and political roots. Second, the reliance on evidence has been problematised and linked in the context of scientific processes such as investigation, inquiries and practical work.” (Erduran and Jiménez-Aleixandre 2008, p. 19). These curricular reforms – most often connected to NOS (Nature of Science) or SSI (Socio-Scientific Issues), and CT (Critical Thinking) discussions in science education – recognize the need for the explicit teaching of argumentation, and the importance of developing students’ existing argumentative skills.

The curricular reforms, however, have rarely born the fruits that supporters and enthusiasts have expected, and that curricular descriptions demand. The results so far are somewhat discouraging with respect to NOS, SSI, and CT, and to the more general argumentative skills. They show that effective teaching of argumentation in science classes is not without difficulties: “Only a minority of people progress to the final, evaluative epistemology, in which all opinions are not equal and knowing is understood as a process that entails judgment, evaluation and argument.” (Zohar 2008, p. 256). One can argue that the curricular expectations are set too high, and do not take the cognitive development of students fully into account. Setting realistic desiderata, however, runs into methodological difficulties. The fact that the results of high-achievers is more informative of the one end of the ability spectrum than the result of weak students (Voss, Segal, and Perkins 1991) is one of the problems that need to be addressed. At present it appears that: “Some desiderata concerning epistemological understanding are never reached by a large percentage of students. This is a serious problem that most curriculum-development has to face and tackle.” (Garcia-Mila and Andersen 2008, p. 39). But whether the cognitive constraints of the students or the didactical ineffectiveness of the educational system is the (main) culprit for the rather disappointing results, is hard to tell. Didactics can surely improve, as, despite the efforts at the level of international policies about the science curriculum, “the systematic uptake of argumentation work in everyday science classrooms remains minimal” (Erduran and Jiménez-Aleixandre 2008, p. 20). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Why Study The Overlap Between “Ought” And “Is” Anyways? On Empirically Investigating The Conventional Validity Of The Pragma-Dialectical Discussion Rules

• by: Frank Zenker - University of Lund, Sweden

1. Introduction
This paper forwards the (presumably controversial) thesis that the use-value of empirically studying the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical discussion rules (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004: 190-196) is heuristic. This thesis seems natural (to me), if the consequences of a particular theoretical commitment are appreciated: When treating argumentation that supports a descriptive standpoint with a normative premise (aka. a “value sentence”), and vice versa, pragma-dialecticians incur a commitment on the transition between “ought” and “is.” This commitment amounts to embracing the “naturalistic fallacy” as a discussion move that is never appropriate.

In Section 2.1, the aim, method and main result of the recent empirical investigation of van Eemeren, Garssen and Meuffels (2009) are presented. In Section 2.2, the discussion rules’ conventional validity is discussed. Vis à vis the explanation offered by the study’s authors – or so I admit –, the theory-internal purpose of this study remains rather unclear to me. After all, as stressed by the authors, the normative content of the pragma-dialectical theory is neither open to refutation by empirical data, nor to confirmation by such data (Section 3). Therefore, I claim, the theoretical value of this investigation is heuristic (Section 4). Section 5 comments on a tension between the level of measurement and the level at which measurement is reported. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Reported Argumentation In Financial News Articles: Problems Of Reconstruction

• by: Gergana Zlatkova - Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano

1. Introduction
In this paper we explore the argumentative function of reported speech in economic-financial newspaper articles. The present research is based on a corpus of articles of the three main daily Italian economic-financial newspapers: Il Sole 24 Ore, Italia Oggi and MF/Milano Finanza. Why are we interested in studying the relationship between reported speech and argumentative function of economic-financial news? The analysis of economic-financial newspaper articles previously carried out shows that the predictive speech act occupies a dominant position in the discourse structure of economic financial news (Miecznikowski, Rocci, and Zlatkova in Press). Being clearly oriented towards predicting events, the information demand in the journalistic discourse domain of finance differs significantly from other domains, such as editorials, sports, crime, whose informational interest lies in narrating or commenting past events.

The reader wants to know not what has happened, but also, more importantly, what is going to happen. The analysis also showed that the predictive speech acts and their supporting arguments are sometimes attributed to unnamed, but more often to named sources, such as financial analysts, money managers, bankers. Being geared towards the decision making of investors, financial discourse is overtly or covertly argumentative. These semantic and pragmatic features of economic-financial discourse make this genre particularly interesting for investigation. The frequent use of reported speech in this genre poses a challenge to argumentative reconstruction, because it is difficult to attribute the role of protagonist to the journalist who often seems to use reported speech strategically to avoid his/her personal commitment to either the standpoint or the argument. However, in this paper we argue that the distinction between different types of reported discourses and the distinction between different forms introducing them provide important cues for determining the functions of the reported segments in the journalist’s argumentation and ascertaining to what extent the journalist is committed personally to the stated claim. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Ethos Of Classical Rhetoric: From Epieikeia To Auctoritas

• by: Janja Žmavc - Educational Research Institute Ljubljana (Slovenia)

From antiquity onwards rhetorical ethos has represented a concept bearing many different notions, which generally refer to a speaker’s character presentation. Despite conceptual differences ethos still plays an important part in rhetorical analysis and presents one of the elements in various contemporary rhetorical and argumentative theoretical models (proposed by prominent scholars such as Perelman, Brinton, Leff, Tindale, van Eemeren and Grootendorst, Walton etc.).

When we consider contemporary notions of ethos as being the result of a long tradition, our questions are: can a study of the ancient conceptions of rhetorical ethos still provide us with interesting and useful starting points? Might such a study refine our conception of the role of a speaker in the contemporary models of rhetorical and argumentative analysis? In search for a positive answer the aim of this paper is to present in our view some of the crucial points in the conceptualizations of classical ethos. We will try to show how ethos, when seen as a multifaceted rhetorical concept, above all things reflects different social roles of a public speaker in the Greco-Roman society. We believe that such a perspective combined with the well known ancient theoretical models of rhetorical ethos can provide us with a more thorough understanding of the concept of character presentation, which can contribute to its use in the contemporary rhetoric and argumentation as well. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Arguing In “Pen Of Steele And Silken Inke”: Theorizing A Broader Material Base For Argumentation

• by: Maureen Daly Goggin - Arizona State University

I’ve been a hard worker all my life, but most all my work has been the kind that ‘perishes with usin’,’ as the Bible says. That’s the discouragin’ thing about a woman’s work . . . I’ve always had the name of bein’ a good housekeeper, but when I’m dead and gone there ain’t anybody goin’ to think o’ the floors I’ve swept, and the tables I’ve scrubbed, and the old clothes I’ve patched, and the stockin’s I’ve darned. . . . But when one of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren sees one o’ these quilts, they’ll think about Aunt Jane, and, wherever I am then, I’ll know I ain’t forgotten.
Aunt Jane of Kentucky (Hall, 1908)

Writing in her journal toward the end of the nineteenth century, Aunt Jane of Kentucky claimed quilting as a rhetorical space where she could leave her mark. As Carol Mattingly (2002a) observes of nineteenth century women rhetors, “since many of the traditional tools of rhetoric were denied them, women found it necessary to consider techniques beyond masculine speakers’ attention to argument and delivery” (4)[i]. Needlework offered women, like Aunt Jane, one such rhetorical technique (Parker, 1989).
Focusing scholarly attention on non-traditional, alternative rhetorical techniques raises at least two questions: How do those who are denied access, typically by virtue of their gender, race, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation, to dominant, ma(i)n/stream discursive spaces construct and engage in arguments? How do we as scholars devise methods for theorizing and historicizing rhetorical practices that take place in the shadows or on the margins of these spaces? Over the last ten years feminist historians of rhetoric have begun to tackle complex questions along these lines as they have tilled important new scholarly ground in their efforts to recoup neglected women rhetors and rhetoricians, and previously overlooked feminist traditions (Campbell, 1989; Glenn, 1997; Hobbs, 1997; Jarratt, 1991; Logan, 1999; Lunsford, 1995; Mattingly, 1998, 2002a; Peterson, 1995; Ratcliffe, 1996; Royster, 2000; Sutherland & Sutcliffe, 1999; Wertheimer, 1997). As Patricia Bizzell (2000) points out, over the last decade “few, if any, other areas of research in the history of rhetoric have produced such rich results of this kind as feminist research” (7). Read more