It is fairly well taken for granted that questions and answers can form the basis for an argumentative discussion [i] (see, e.g., van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson, & Jacobs, 1992; Ilie, 1999; Walton, 1989). Yet, how questions and answers function in argumentative discussions and whether question-answer argumentative dialogues are subject to special soundness criteria are still fairly open questions. On the first point, as far as the existing extant literature is concerned, who exactly is allowed to make an argument – the questioner, the respondent, or both – is unclear. In his comprehensive analysis on question-reply argumentation, Walton (1989) suggests that questions are used to elicit premises for dialectical proofs from a respondent and that questions can be fallacious in that they trap the respondent into making certain concessions he or she should not make. In both cases, this appears to indicate that the actual arguer, our protagonist, must be the respondent. This leaves the role of the questioner, as far as his or her ability to actively participate in argumentation, at best unspecified and at worst, impossible. Determining what possible role the questioner can have in an argumentative exchange is the first issue taken up in this paper. It is argued here that the questioner should not, in principle, be only an elicitor of argumentation, but can also have an active role in making argument.

On the second point, Walton (1989) further suggests that question-reply argumentation is subject to special evaluation criteria. In his introduction, Walton (1989) explains the purpose of his research into question-reply argumentation as ” work[ing] toward establishing general guidelines that would enable a reasonable critic to approach a particular, given case of question-answer dialogue and to evaluate a question as reasonable or unreasonable in that given context relative to the given information” (p. 1). In this paper, I hope to demonstrate that despite Walton’s apparent claim, there is nothing particular special about question-reply argumentation that would necessitate unique standards for its evaluation. In contrast, this paper suggests that question-answer argumentation is simply an instantiation of critical discussion and can be reconstructed as such. Further, a justification is provided for why this is the case.

1. The roles of participants in question-reply argumentation
The characterization of question-reply argumentation suggested by Walton’s (1989) analysis, as presented above, has two central characteristics worthy of attention. The first is that questions are used to elicit dialectical proofs from the respondent. The second is that the person responsible for making the argument is the respondent. Example [1] demonstrates an exemplar case of what sort of argumentation this definition describes:

[1]
Polly: Does it rain? – (A?)
Annie: It rains. – (A)
Polly: If it rains, then does it pour? – (A à B?)
Annie: If it rains then it pours. – (A à B)
Polly: So, you must accept that it pours? – (B?)
Annie: Yes, it pours. – (B)

Example [1] shows what it would mean, using a very basic (and hypothetical) example, to use questions to get a dialectical proof. Polly leads Annie in justifying her conclusion B (“it pours”) though modus ponens reasoning by eliciting (or requesting) her commitments. This example is fairly formal and in such a way, only represents a narrow category of question-reply argumentation. Even Walton (1989) himself, while maintaining this formal definition of question-reply argumentation, considers cases of question-reply argumentation that are broader (or at least less formal) than what example [1] allows. In his analysis of Canadian parliamentary debates, Walton (1989) uses several examples of the questions that elicit argumentative answers that are not precisely formally dialectic in nature. An example of this sort of use of questions to elicit argumentation can be seen in the following example[ii]:

[2]
Between Paul Wolfowitz and a Newsweek reporter, Lally Weymouth, discussing Wolfowitz’s nomination (at the time) to head up the World Bank:

Q: Who is your biggest opponent among the Europeans? The French?
A: Well, I would say on the whole the reaction from the Europeans has been very constructive. They’re looking to make sure that if I’m approved that I have a good understanding of their concerns, one of which is the priority they attach to the bank’s work in Africa. I understand how important the bank is to Africa. (“The Last Word Paul Wolfowitz”, Newsweek 2005, p. 64)

Here, Wolfowitz gives an argument:

[3]
1. The reaction of the Europeans has been very constructive.
1.1a. They want to make sure I have a good understanding of their concerns, like the bank’s work in Africa.
1.1b. I understand how important the bank’s work is to Africa.

While the questioner suggests a track that Wolfowitz’s argument could take – “discuss why the French oppose you and what you think of that” – Wolfowitz is free, from a pragma-dialectical viewpoint, to put forward any sort of argument he wishes to (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984; 2005). From a strictly informational perspective, the answer given by Wolfowitz may not be satisfactory as he does not provide the appropriate wh-content (who the biggest opponent is) and instead seeks to indirectly refute the presupposition that there is an opponent. The answer is evasive (Polcar, 2005), but it is an argument.

Thus, we see at this juncture at least two ways that questions and answers can be used argumentatively and both share one property in common: only the respondent makes an argument. In both cases, the questioner only exists to elicit argumentation, and while in a sense she can suggest certain lines of argument/certain standpoints that she wishes the respondent make, she does not actively argue. These two sorts then follow quite cleanly from Walton’s characterization of question-reply argumentation. Yet, the question still remains as to whether the questioner can take a more active role in the process of making an argument.

One well-researched area of argumentation that concerns questions and replies is in the use of questions and answers during legal proceedings, for example in American criminal trials. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of Matlock, Perry Mason, Law & Order, or the like, is familiar with how attorneys must get the arguments for their case from those who are testifying. A brief example should serve to illustrate how questions are used in the (criminal) legal context:

[4]
Excerpt taken from the victim’s testimony in People v. Jackson, the sexual molestation trial against celebrity Michael Jackson (March 10, 2005)

Q. Was there ever any occasion that you drank something other than wine?
A. Yes.
Q. Tell us what it was.
A. I drank Bacardi, vodka and Jim Beam.
…
Q. Okay. And who provided you with the Bacardi?
A. Michael.
Q. Who provided you with the Jim Beam?
A. Michael.
Q. And who provided you with the vodka?
A. Michael.

Michael Jackson was indicted on 10 counts, including performing lewd acts on a minor under 14, furnishing a minor with alcohol to facilitate lewd acts, and furnishing a minor with alcohol. Example [4] clearly relates to establishing that the victim not only drank alcohol as a minor, but that this alcohol was given to the victim by Jackson. In closing arguments, the prosecution referred to this excerpt, and others like it, as evidence for its argument that Jackson violated the law. What we see in this example, and in examples like it, is an indirect use of questions, and the resultant answers, to make argument. Here, the District Attorney asks questions to elicit arguments that he will use later in presenting his case before the trial jury. Thus, this example gives us yet another “type” of question-answer argumentation and is the first to allow the questioner the ability to take a direct role in a critical discussion.

Though Walton’s conception of question-answer argumentation was first discussed as, strictly speaking, allowing only the respondent in question-answer sequences to make argument, this is apparently only a surface reading of the possibilities a questioner has in arguing with questions and answers. As shown in example [4] a questioner can ask questions to elicit premises that he or she can use to later argue and as is apparent in example [5], a questioner can also use questions to directly argue with a respondent:

[5]
Between Terry Gross (TG), the National Public Radio host of the contemporary arts and issues weekday radio magazine Fresh Air, and Lynne Cheney (LC), wife of current American Vice-President Dick Cheney and the author of several children’s books on history (Fresh Air, March 9, 2005)[iii].

TG: In talking about the education of children which I know um is really important to you as an as the uh the former head of the NEH as someone who has written children’s books as a former educator yourself (breath) I want to ask you about something that the new head of the Department of Education, Margaret Spelling, did, (breath) she uh criticized public television for an episode of uh of um of um of a program um about an animated rabbit called Buster. And she asked pubic television to return the money that funded this episode and asked the network not to broadcast it.What happened on this episode is that this animated rabbit goes to Vermont to see how maple syrup is made and along the way he encounters a couple, two lesbian mothers, and that’s what Margaret Spelling found offensive. She said many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode. Um I I wonder what you thought of that move, as somebody interested in in how how information and history how how children are educated?
LC: Well I I certainly haven’t read uh Secretary Spelling’s letter but it does seem to me that when your um when you take up the question of sexuality it is something that when little kids are involved parents want to be in charge. And so I can I can understand that um this is not something the Department of Education would feel the government should be involved in and uh it seems to me that I read didn’t I though that some PBS stations are distributed the program so it is not a free speech issue because PBS has uh gone along those lines, but… [
TG: But this made me wonder about this question, if um if the Department of Education is uncomfortable about um uh uh a program that has two lesbian mothers in it um what about two lesbian mothers in real life who might go to an actual school or daycare center or kindergarten or sixth grade to pick up their their daughter or son. Should like what about the reality of them is that is that gonna make people uncomfortable? Do we – should they be escorted out because um it’s exposing our children to a lifestyle that some parents would be uncomfortable with?
LC: You know I think you have taken an issue of um public funding of public television to uh to a level that no one else has taken it to. Uh, the issue for in my mind is that uh government funding shouldn’t be teaching little kids about sexuality, it shouldn’t be uh teaching little kids about sex. It shouldn’t be uh um promulgating religious ideas there are um all sorts of things public funding shouldn’t be doing and that is one of them. And uh so, I think that uh uh the issue’s probably been resolved in the right way. he government has said we don’t do this and um at least some public television stations have said that this is a matter of free speech and we are going to distribute the programs. So insofar as these issues ever come to uh a resolution that um that seems to uh satisfy all sides I think this one did.
TG: But…t you could argue it is not about sex it’s just about you know … [
LC: It’s about sexuality.
You know little kids I think this is something that parents want to have want to be in charge of themselves, just as they want to be in charge of sex education – that’s why sex education in public schools is always uh a subject um that arouses a lot of passion on both sides.
TG: But its not it’s there’s nothing sexual going on there any more than uh if a husband and wife came in any more that would be sexual. I mean you aren’t describing their marriage in terms of sex, it’s just that, you know, it’s two people who who have a family together.
LC: I think that I think that parents probably want to approach the issue of homosexuality with their with their children themselves rather than having the government do it or rather than having public television do it. Though in this case if public television decides to do that um as an advocate of the First Amendment I think that’s fine.
TG: Lynne Cheney will be back in the second half of the show …..

Certainly, we see that Lynne Cheney makes an argument here, much like Wolfowitz did in example [2]. Her argumentation is reconstructed in example [6]:

[6]
1. You (Terry Gross) are making more of this situation than you should. (c8-9)
1.1. The situation (that some stations broadcast the program and some do not and no money should be returned to the government) has been resolved in the right way. (c13-14)
1.1.1. There is no violation of free speech (the First Amendment) here.
1.1.1a. Stations could make their own decisions about whether they were comfortable broadcasting this program or not without government interference.
1.1.1b. As an advocate of the First Amendment, that is fine (an acceptable decision).
1.2. It is explainable that [airing the “Postcards from Buster” program featuring lesbian parents] is something that the Department of Education would feel the government should not support/be involved in. (c4)
1.2.1. Public money cannot be used to promulgate religious ideas or to teach kids about sex/sexuality. (c10)
1.2.2. When you take up the question of sexuality it is something that when little kids are involved parents want to be in charge (not the government or media). (c2-c3)
Yet, Terry Gross seems to also participate in some argumentation – arguing whether the sub-standpoint of whether the Buster program was promulgating sex is acceptable (Cheney’s 1.2.1) – as is reconstructed in example [7]:

[7]
1. This program is not about sex.
1.1. There is nothing sexual going on [in the program]. (t23).
1.1.1. It is the same as the program showed a (mixed-sex) husband and wife. (t24)
1.1.1.1. Generally, marriage is not described in terms of sex, it is just between two people who have a family together. (t25-t26)

This reconstruction only reveals a portion of what is occurring between Cheney and Gross, nonetheless, as is hopefully clear from the reconstruction, Gross, while still appearing to maintain her role as questioner, she also puts forward arguments against those given by Cheney. She is apparently in disagreement with Cheney on the issue of whether the lesbian couple featured in the Buster show actually advocates sexual choices (which, like the advocacy of religious ideas, does not warrant government funding) or is simply a demonstration of real-life (thus speech that can be governmentally supported).
Therefore, we see that when analyzing question-answer argumentation both the questioner and the respondent can have a role within the argumentative discussion. Identifying that the questioner can have a role in an argumentative discussion is not merely an exercise in over-precision or picking at definitions. There are some theoretical concerns that, on their face, might prevent us from considering at all the role of the questioner in argument. Arguments are thought of to consist of standpoints/claims that are defended by arguments/premises. One central component of this sort of idea is that argumentation is built up by statements. Using speech act terminology, standpoints should be assertives of some sort, which are supported by more assertives (see, e.g., Houtlosser, 1995; van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984). Questions are not assertive, they are instead directives – requests for information. Thus, there are reasons to ignore the role of questions in reconstructing argumentation since questions cannot “properly” be used as either standpoints or argumentation/premises. Yet, it has been fairly accepted, at least from the pragma-dialectical theoretical point of view, that there is absolutely no reason why standpoints and argumentation must be composed of direct assertives. For example, as Slot (1993) has demonstrated, rhetorical questions can be easily reconstructed as standpoints and argumentations (see also, Houtlosser, 1995, for reconstruction of standpoints in general in argumentative discourse). From this analysis then, we can be clear that when analyzing question-answer argumentation, both the questioner and the respondent can be parties in a dispute.

2. Question-reply argumentation as a “special” sort of argumentation?
That both the questioner and the respondent can make and respond to arguments during question-answer dialogues is also important to establishing whether it is necessary to propose special evaluation criteria for question-answer argumentation. To address this concern, it is necessary to think first about whether question-answer argumentation has a special goal that differs from ordinary argumentation. It is certainly the case that question and answers do not always have to be used argumentatively, and in principle, many activity types or discourse situations where questions and answers are the primary speech acts performed by participants do not have an overarching argumentative goal. For example, the “interview” discourse can be thought to contain information-seeking questions (from the questioner) and information-containing answers (from the respondent). While we can categorize the answers as argumentative, as was done in example [2], we can still say that the primary purpose of the discourse is not to resolve a disagreement or dispute, but to get information. Yet, this is no way precludes the use of questions and answers as argumentative. As shown by van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson, and Jacobs (1993), many sorts of discourse activities that do not have the primary goal of resolving a difference of opinion can still be reconstructed argumentatively when argumentation occurs in these contexts. Van Eemeren, et al. (1993) use several sorts of examples to illustrate this point – ranging from witnessing on a college campus to child-mediation sessions – with each illustrating that while the primary goal of the discourse is not argumentative in nature, that argumentation can occur within these contexts.
Without fully recounting the arguments made by Van Eemeren, et al. (1993), how one is able to identify and reconstruct the argument has to do in part with applying pragmatic principles to the analysis of discourse. People sometimes do things with language when participating in a certain discourse that appear to, in principle, do absolutely nothing that relates the goal of the discourse. Thus, a divorcing couple who during a child-custody mediation session “digress” into personal attacks against one another, linguistic contributions that are irrelevant to reaching an agreement about who gets to see the child when, should and do appear on their face as totally irrelevant contributions that only frustrate the goal of mediation. Yet, if these digressions are analyzed as argumentation – that this divorcing couple is attempting to convince each other and/or the mediator that they are the only suitable parent to care for the child – sense can be made of these linguistic contributions. This is not at all to suggest that this argumentation is strong, but the reconstruction at least makes the utterances make sense and eventually allows a potential evaluation of the argumentation.
Walton (1989) appears to suggest that question-reply argumentation is a particular sort of discourse and in being so, requires a certain set of evaluative criteria. Yet, closer analysis reveals that Walton (1989) uncovers the sorts of questions and answers that are constructive to making an argument – or those that hamper open discussion – which certainly is a different concern altogether. Where he stands on whether we need to develop actual independent criteria for evaluating question-reply argumentation remains unclear, but from a pragma-dialectical perspective, there is absolutely no need for a special sort of criteria. Question-answer argumentation is just one way, of numerous ways, to engage in critical discussions and argumentation. Much as the “digressions” in mediations can be reconstructed, and thus evaluated, as argumentative, so can questions and answers when they are functioning argumentatively. The use of questions, and answers, can be argumentative, or informative, or what have you – what is important is that when they have argumentative function they can be reconstructed as argumentation and evaluated as such.

3. The reconstruction of question-reply argumentation
Therefore, the question remains, how do we know that questions and answers are argumentative, as opposed to information-seeking and giving, or whatever? Of course, this subject warrants an entire paper of its own. Nonetheless, I wish to provide a very rough answer here. The way we know is exactly the same way we know how “irrevelant” contributions in mediation function argumentatively, or how we know “irrelevant” contributions is other discourse/activity types function argumentatively. We refer, generally, to Grice’s (1969) Cooperation Principle (or something similar) and other pragmatic principles in order to determine the meaning of what people are communciating. In a nutshell, people say things that they mean their interlocutor to understand – when they are uncooperative (e.g., say something patently false), they are not being linguistic jerks – they intend their interlocutor to search for the implicated meaning that makes their contribution cooperative. This search for implicature can happen on a textual/global level or on an elementary/utterance level, yet in any case, the utterances are interpreted as saying more (or something different from) what was literally/directly communicated. While the sort of pragmatic theory adopted will change the justification of the reconstruction, using Grice (1969) and Searle (1979), we can see how this applies in the following example and reconstruction:

[8]
Don’t you think that rap music lyrics should be censored? I mean, all those violent lyrics cause all sorts of violence in society.

[9]
1. Rap music lyrics should be censored.
1.1. All those violent lyrics cause all sorts of violence in society.

While [9] should provide a perfectly reasonable and interpretable reconstruction of the argument presented, on its face [8] doesn’t literally communicate an argument. First, there is a question of some sort presented. As discussed above, this directly does not communicate a standpoint. To make things worse, when treating the question as a question, before there is a chance for an answer to be given, there is an answer provided. If standpoints must be assertive and questions must get answers (or in the case of rhetorical questions, that answers are unnecessary), this then violates all the rules of cooperative communication. So, how can we make sense of this? With reference first to speech act theory, we should understand that this question can’t be seriously intended as either information-seeking or rhetorical as it violates the felicity conditions for sincere information-seeking or rhetorical questions. Our next cognitive step would be to assume the person who uttered this example is acting uncooperatively, but as we apply Gricean theory, we seek a cooperative interpretation and therefore realize this example, as uttered, violates both the manner and the relevance maxims and so we seek an interpretation that makes the example cooperative (that makes the second sentence relevant and the first sentence clear). We can therefore realize that if we treat the question as an indirect standpoint and the second sentence as argumentation defending this standpoint, the entire example is absolutely understandable as argumentation.
How this process was explained for example [8] can be applied to discourses at large. When in an interview discourse type, the primary goal should be for the interviewer to elicit information from the respondent. When the utterances made by an interviewer diverge from this goal, there are two interpretations possible: the interviewer is being patently uncooperative and frustrating the goal of the interview just because they are irrational/mean/linguistically-jerky or the interviewer is being uncooperative because they are engaging in a different discourse activity and wish the respondent and audience to comprehend this. Looking back at example [7], Terry Gross received the information requested by the very first answer given by Lynne Cheney. Gross asked simply what Cheney thought about Spelling’s criticism and Cheney answered (to paraphrase) that it was probably reasonable and that, in any case, it was not of big importance. Yet, Gross continues to question Cheney about this very issue. If Gross’ overall discourse goal was truly to illicit information, there would be no subsequent turn by Gross on this issue. That she continues to question Cheney, even when Cheney has already presented her answer, indicates that either Gross is patently uncooperative or that she has some other reason to continue to “question” her respondent. One possible way to make Gross’ contribution continued questioning cooperative is to realize she is engaging in arguing, not simply information-seeking.
At this point an alternative explanation can be given that while Gross received some information, she did not yet receive complete information, thus the next questions she asked were directed at getting that information. This is unsatisfying however. First, Cheney’s answer was fairly complete – she gave her opinion as requested. Second, not only does Gross bother to introduce justification for her questions, which is odd (from a speech act perspective) if she simply wants information[iv], but she also stops questioning altogether in later turns in favor of asserting (“But you could argue it is not about sexuality” or “But it is not as if anything sexual is going on here”). Not only does the audience (and Cheney) understand that there are markers of disagreement present here, such as “but”, we should see that asserting propositions that contradict those made by the respondent are not in-line with the goal of getting (more) information, but in-line with the goal of resolving a difference of opinion.
Unfortunately, it is likely that there are no certain linguistic structures that exist that indicate a questioner is arguing instead of simply information-seeking or doing something else. Also problematic is that the analysis of the reconstruction of question-answer sequences as argumentative, as presented here, is incompletely argued. However, I believe that this cursory examination of how question-answer sequences can be reconstructed as argumentative at least provides some justification for understanding how questions and answers can be used argumentatively without having to specify certain criteria for the use of questions and answers in argumentation.

4. Conclusions
In many ways, what was presented in this paper should, hopefully, be uncontroversial. Ultimately, this paper was intended to simply detail what exactly question-answer argumentation entails. There were two major points presented here that I wish to draw attention to: first, in question-answer argumentation both the questioner and the respondent can have a role; and second, that there no special evaluation criteria needed to evaluate question-answer argumentation. Question and answers can be used argumentatively and reconstructed as argumentative when used in such ways. Finally, a preliminary way to approach justifying the reconstruction of questions and answers was presented. While certainly more explanation of how the principles of reconstructing questions and answers used in critical discussion is needed, I hope that at least a preliminary way of supporting how we can reconstruct question-answer argumentation was given.

NOTES
i. In this respect, question-answer “dialogues”, such as interviews, press briefings, or ralk-showa, can be reconstructed as argumentative, when argumentative elements are present, just like other sorts of dialogues that exhibit argumentative properties. For examples of the reconstruction of argumentation present in non-exemplar cases of critical discussion, like mediation or witnessing, see van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson, and Jacobs (1992).
ii. While this example does not come from Walton, it is representative of his examples. An example from Walton’s analysis of parliamentary debates was not included because of the length of his examples. However, see Walton (1989) for a fuller analysis. And in any case, this example provides is interesting given the presence of an evasive answer (Polcar, 2002).
iii. Transcript done by Leah Polcar. The original recording can be found in the Fresh Air archive linked from the National Public Radio website (http://www.npr.org).
iv. This is odd from, at least, a Searlean speech act perspective as a “true” information seeking question is uttered since the person asking does not know the answer. If any justification is to be given, it should a separate speech act of the type that excuses the person from not already knowing the answer (as in, “I am sorry, I should have understood this from the class readings, but what exactly does Dr. Smith mean by x on page 97?”).

REFERENCES
Eemeren, F. H. van, & R. Grootendorst (2005). A systematic theory of argumentation. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Eemeren, F. H. van, & R. Grootendorst (1984). Speech acts in argumentative discourse. Sic Sat: Amsterdam.
Eemeren, F. H. van, R. Grootendorst, S. Jackson & S. Jacobs (1992). Reconstructing argumentative discourse. University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, AL.
Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41-58). Academic Press: New York.
Houtlosser, P. (1995). Standpunten in een kritische discussie: Een pragma-dialectisch perspectief op de identificatie en reconstructie van standpunten. Amsterdam: IFOTT.
Ilie, C. (1999). Question-response argumentation in talk-shows. Journal of Pragmatics, 31, 975-999.
Polcar, L. E. (2005). The problem of evasion in question-answer argumentation: Are evasive responses fallacious or strategic communication? In C. A. Willard (Ed.), Critical Problems in Argumentation (pp. 466-473). Washington: National Communication Association
Polcar, L. E. (2002). Non-straightforward answers in question-answer dialogues. In F. H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in Pragma-Dialectics (pp. 215-228). Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Searle, J. R. (1979). Expression and meaning: Studies in the theory of speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slot, P. (1993). How can you say that? Rhetorical questions in argumentative texts. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Walton, D. (1989). Question-reply argumentation. New York: Greenwood Press.

1. Introduction
A central characteristic of rhetorical argumentation is the way in which it anticipates the responses of the audience in the structure of the argument, inviting a co-development through expressed and implicit commonalities. Strategies of invitation include ways to capture the audience’s prior beliefs and understandings, to expand the cognitive environment of the argumentation in relevant ways.
One such strategy is allusion (Tindale, 2004, Ch.3) and a key variety of this is textual allusion, where an arguer uses intertextual references and imitations to evoke ideas in the minds of an audience and draw them toward a conclusion. Allusions convey an indirect reference in passing without making explicit mention. So for an arguer to employ this strategy she must be confident that the reference alluded to is sufficiently present in the cognitive environment (that is, the beliefs, knowledge and background information) of her audience in order for the association to be grasped and the further conclusion drawn.
We see some vivid cases of this confidence in the textual allusions of early Greek practitioners of argument, Plato and Isocrates, as they try to win their audiences’ support for particular ways of conceiving the concept ‘philosopher’. Each reminds the audience of alternative ideas while at the same time gaining weight in the eyes of the audience by allusion to earlier texts with which they are familiar. In Plato’s case, he structures the Apology of Socrates so as it refers to the Defense of Palamedes by Gorgias (483-376 BC), a text with which his audience would be familiar. Isocrates in turn tries to establish his ideas in his own defense, the Antidosis, by allusion to and direct imitation of Plato’s Apology.
This paper discusses the details of this strategy and how it works in the cases surveyed, emphasizing its core rhetorical power as it draws on the audience’s prior understandings and recasts them in a new frame. On strictly logical terms, textual allusion and imitation of this nature would seem to have no argumentative force. But when audience considerations are highlighted in a rhetorical treatment of argumentation, the power of the strategy becomes evident.

2. Arguments and Figures
Arguments and figures are similar in several relevant ways. Both, of course, are audience-directed pieces of discourse that draw on the contextual situations involved. They are also discourses that move in the sense of transferring ideas or claims from one point in the discourse to the end. Arguments traditionally do this from premises to conclusion, and figures encourage a similar movement, especially when put to persuasive ends. Reboul (1989, p.181) shows how an argument “possesses the same status of imprecision, intersubjectivity and polemic” as a figure, and Jeanne Fahnestock (1999) in her work on rhetorical figures in science, takes us even further in laying bare the cognitive heart of figuration. Beyond this, she identifies within key figures crucial features of rhetorical argument like collaboration and experience (the writer/speaker collaborates with the audience; the audience experiences the discourse). Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969, p.168) are also important contributors to this discussion. They propose that a figure can be argumentative depending on whether it meets certain conditions: It must be recognized to have a codified structure; its inner activity promotes the movement from premises to a conclusion; and it has one of the goals of argumentation (adherence, persuasion, re-enforcement, etc.). Moreover, as already implied in the foregoing, when we are looking at argument from a rhetorical (rather than logical or dialectical) perspective, we are asking certain fundamental questions like ‘How is this discourse experienced?’ and ‘How does it invite collaboration?’ Such questions help us see the force of figures like allusion when used in argumentative contexts.

3. Plato and Gorgias
Plato’s Apology is taken nowadays to be a primer for philosophy: an introduction to a certain way of conveying philosophical practice and a defense of that practice. But it is first and foremost a trial speech, a defense of the person ‘Socrates’, and in that respect we might expect it to conform with established patterns of such speeches.
Gorgias’ Defense of Palamedes comes down to us as an exercise in the argument from probability. The supposed setting is the dispute between Odysseus and Palamedes. The latter had exposed Odysseus’ feigning of madness to get out of serving in the expedition to Troy. By way of revenge, Odysseus painted Palamedes as a traitor, framing him through a forged letter to him from Priam. This letter led to Palamedes’ trial and execution.
Treating this as the base text of our examination, we can focus on certain key passages or moves in the defense. The details of the Palamedes are obviously quite different from those of the Apology, and the opening parts of the speech are taken up with addressing the charges and arguing against the probability that they are correct. For example, there must have been some initial communication between Palamedes and the enemy, but not understanding each other’s language, how could they communicate? This difficulty decreases the probability that Palamedes is guilty, and so on. Beyond these arguments from probability there are frequent appeals to the defendant’s credibility or reputation, which he wishes to maintain. Palamedes then attacks his accuser, challenging him to produce tangible evidence including the presenting of witnesses. He points out that Odysseus’ indictment amounts to a contradiction: that Palamedes is both wise and mad. This, it is suggested, should undermine the jury’s confidence in the accuser. Palamedes then engages in a praeteritio: declining to bring up what in the process he actually does bring up. He then appeals to his own ethos, referring first to his blameless life, and then to his actual status as a benefactor of the Greek nation. He ends by directly addressing the jury, speaking of the risks that they face to their reputations should they act unjustly.

Already from this outline, I hope we can see something of the structure and argument of the Apology, but it may help to also provide an outline of that text, by way of a reminder. Socrates enters the unfamiliar environment of the law court stressing his inability to defend himself well with words. He addresses the charges and rumors that have been brought against him, speaking first to the long-standing negative reputation that he seems to have acquired, and then to the specific current charges of believing in false gods and corrupting the youth. He argues that he would not have corrupted the youth in part because he would then have put himself in the company of those who might harm him. And he invites his accusers to bring forward witnesses to this corruption (even the relatives of the “corrupted” youth). He argues that Meletus (his chief accuser) is contradicting himself when he charges Socrates with believing in false gods because he also claims that Socrates does not believe in gods (“You cannot be believed, Meletus, even, I think, by yourself” – 26e). He then defends his own occupation and life in general, arguing that he has always done his duty and stood by what was just. He has shown this through his deeds, opposing the wrongful dictates of both the democracy and the tyranny. He speaks to his role (divinely appointed) of benefactor to the city. He then engages in a praeteritio by describing the family that he will not bring before them in an appeal to pity (thereby bringing them before them in their minds). Having been convicted by the jury, he proposes a penalty suitable to a benefactor such as himself. And after having been condemned to death, he addresses the jury, pointing to the negative reputation the city will now acquire for an unjust judgment.

There are expected to be parallels between any defenses of men faced with capital charges. But we might take some of the key moments from each speech and compare them, looking to see whether the second instance (Plato’s) directly echoes the first (Gorgias’).[i]

Allusions between the Two Texts:
(1) Palamedes: Avoidance of harm to self [19]
Apology: Avoidance of harm to self (25e)

(2) Palamedes: Preservation of credibility/reputation [21]
Apology: Preservation of credibility/reputation (34e-35a)

(3) Palamedes: Invitation to bring forward witnesses [22]
Apology: Invitation to bring forward witnesses (34a)

(4) Palamedes: Contradiction of accuser: “You have accused me in the indictment…of two most contradictory things, wisdom and madness, things which cannot coexist in the same man” [25]
Apology: Contradiction of accuser: “I think he contradicts himself in the affidavit, as if he said: “Socrates is guilty of not believing in gods but believing in gods”’ (27a)

(5) Palamedes: Praeteritio (I have no desire to bring up your misdeeds) [27]
Apology: Praeteritio (I will not bring my children before you) (34b-c)

(6) Palamedes: Appeal to ethos I: “..all through from beginning to end my past life has been blameless, free from any accusation” [29]
Apology: Appeal to ethos I: “Throughout my life…I have never come to an agreement with anyone to act unjustly” (33a)

(7) Palamedes: Appeal to ethos II: “I am not only blameless but also a major benefactor of you and of the Greek nation” [30]
Apology: Appeal to ethos II: “I went to each of you privately and conferred upon him what I say is the greatest benefit” (36c)

(8) Palamedes: Addresses jury members about themselves [33]
Apology: Addresses jury members about themselves (39c)

(9) Palamedes: Jury’s concern with deeds: “And you in your turn do not direct your attention to words in preference to deeds” [34]
Apology: Jury’s concern with deeds: “I shall give you great proof of this, not words but what you esteem, deeds” (32a)

(10) Palamedes: Prophecy to jury: “If you kill me unjustly, it will become obvious to many; for I am not unknown, and your wickedness will become known and perspicuous to the whole of Greece [36]
Apology: Prophecy to jury: “It is for the sake of a short time, gentlemen of the jury, that you will acquire the reputation and the guilt in the eyes of those who want to denigrate the city, of having killed Socrates, a wise man” (38c)

4. Audience impact
We might stop here and think about the intent behind this strategy and its impact on Plato’s likely audience. First, how should we think of this in argumentative terms? It is obviously not argumentative in the premise/conclusion structure we might expect. But the cumulatively effect of the allusion has argumentative force. It moves the audience towards a conclusion, an adherence. What is this?
Unsurprisingly, commentators disagree on what Plato’s intentions might be. Guido Calogero (1957), for example, saw the strategy belonging to the historical Socrates, who was enamoured of Gorgias ethical practice and so wove allusions to it into his speech, along with some of his topoi of argument. Plato was simply reporting Socrates’ actual strategies. But the allusions to the Palamedes are too evenly dispersed throughout the structure of the Apology to suggest the responsibility does not lie with the author himself. In marked contrast to Calogero, James Coulter (1979) sees the allusions in the Apology as representing an implicit critique of Gorgianic rhetoric. The reader was expected to detect the contrast between a Gorgianic employment of the argument from probability and persuasive rhetorical devices and a Socratic insistence on truth and refusal to use just any means to persuade (Coulter, 1979: 57-58). But in making his case, Coulter overlooks the very way the allusions themselves undermine his position. While the Apology is not replete with arguments from probability in the way the Palamedes is, Plato does have Socrates adopt this topos of argument. He counters the charge of corruption (25e) by arguing that it is not probable that a man would put himself in danger of corrupting those close to him. And while Coulter takes at face value Socrates’ claim that he will not appeal to the jury’s emotions, our parallel #5 above shows Socrates doing exactly that: he employs a persuasive praeteritio by conjuring up the spectacle of his children in the very act of claiming he will not do so (34b-c).
A far more straightforward explanation of Plato’s intentions is the simple desire to parallel the known case of Palamedes with the case of Socrates that he is presenting. More particularly, that earlier text seems quite effective in making clear the injustice of the case against the (mythical) Palamedes. Insofar as it is partly Plato’s intent to emphasize the injustice of Socrates’ treatment at the hands of the Athenian jury, his argument from allusion, paralleling the cases of Palamedes and Socrates, is an effective strategy for transferring the attitude toward Palamedes likely held by Plato’s audience onto the case of Socrates. Working in conjunction with other features of the Apology, including the direct argumentation provided by the principal character, the allusion adds a depth to the rhetoric of the piece, strengthening its argumentative force.

5. Plato and Isocrates
A more interesting case still is that involving Plato’s Apology and Isocrates’ Antidosis. In 356, a citizen of Athens was summoned to undertake the public service of financing a trireme (such summons were an institutional form of taxation on the wealthy). The citizen argued that the rhetorician Isocrates should bear the cost instead because he was wealthier. Isocrates lost the case and had to provide this public service. His “revenge” was to construct a fictional trial speech, an apology, in which he defended himself and his life, creating out of discourse an image (eikōn) of his thoughts and life as a whole. In the course of this trial speech, Isocrates makes a number of allusions to Plato’s Apology. The following will give a sense of the parallels involved.

Allusions between the Two Texts:

(1) Antidosis: Isocrates is accused of being able to “make weaker speeches stronger” [15]
Apology: Socrates is accused of making the “worse into the stronger argument” (19b).

(2) Antidosis: Isocrates expects to have difficulty due to his old age and inexperience in such contests [26]
Apology: Socrates asks to be excused due to his old age and inexperience with respect to the manner of speaking in lawcourts (17d)

(3) Antidosis: Isocrates: “I lived my past life without anyone accusing me of violence or injustice during either the oligarchy or the democracy [27]
Apology: Socrates refused to act unjustly under the oligarchy and the democracy (32b-e)

(4) Antidosis: Isocrates is charged with corrupting the young by teaching them to speak well [30]
Apology: Socrates is charged with corrupting the young (24b-c)

(5) Antidosis: If Isocrates has harmed others, surely they would take the opportunity to accuse him [33; 92; 240]
Apology: Socrates invites the young men he has corrupted (or their relatives) to accuse him (33d-34a)

(6) Antidosis: It is claimed Isocrates is the cleverest of all men [35]
Apology: It is claimed that no man is wiser than Socrates (21a)

(7) Antidosis: Isocrates suggests he should receive thanks for his contributions rather than punishment [60-61]; greater thanks than those fed in the Prytaneum [95]
Apology: Socrates proposes a reward over a punishment; specifically, free meals in the Prytaneum (36e-37a)

(8) Antidosis: Praeteritio: Notes that others beg and bring their children before the court, “but I do not think anything of this kind is appropriate to a man of my age” [321
Apology: Praeteritio: “I will not beg you to acquit me by bringing them here…it does not seem right to me to do these things, especially at my age” (34d-e)

These eight comparisons should suffice to show the extent of the allusion Isocrates is making to Plato’s Apology. Other parallels, some less direct, are apparent.[ii] The question now, as it was in relation to Plato, is what Isocrates intends by doing this? Why is this rhetorical strategy chosen by him? Commentators have had mixed views on this. Jaeger (1944) suggests that Isocrates was attracted by the possibilities of autobiography and the genre of the apologia, and saw his situation as similar to that of Socrates (p.133). This, at least, seems clear, and Isocrates impresses on us how he wishes to reflect his life in words. But why should he choose Socrates, or even, Plato’s text of Socrates to draw on? Nightingale (1995), regards Isocrates to be inviting his audience to attend to the differences as well as the similarities between himself and Plato’s philosopher; it is part of “Isocrates’ attack on Plato’s portrayal of the philosopher” (29). This indeed also seems the case.
In the Antidosis, Isocrates defends not only his life but also his thought. That is, he is concerned to defend his conception of philosophy and what he teaches as philosophy. In this respect, he greatest opponent is Plato. And in the allusions to the Apology we see Isocrates vying with Plato to claim Socrates as intellectual ancestor. Isocrates and Plato are contemporaries, and write at a time when categories like ‘philosopher’ and ‘sophist’ are still fluid. And who should “own” such labels is still being decided. In the battle between Plato and Isocrates, Isocrates employs Plato’s own work against him.
We see this dispute in the latter stages of the Antidosis. Isocrates relegates anything that does not benefit a person’s ability to speak or act to the status of what children learn in school, and not philosophy [266]. In contrast to Plato, Isocrates does not believe that human nature can attain knowledge so as to know what to say and do. Instead, people should spend their time learning how to reach the best opinions as quickly as possible [271]. Denying that there has ever been the possibility of producing self-control and justice in those who are not disposed to virtue, Isocrates instead argues that people are improved by learning to speak well and developing a passion to persuade their audience [274-275]. Given this basic disagreement over the nature and goals of ‘philosophy’, it is no surprise that Isocrates would use every means at his disposal to persuade his audience of the sense he advocates, including associating himself with a ‘philosopher’ of Socrates’ pedigree.

6. Conclusion
Again, we can consider how the argumentative use of allusion was intended to meet Isocrates’ purposes. Like the Palamedes/Apology case, this one also involves what is essentially analogical reasoning. But we have something far more subtle than just an argument from analogy at work here. The powerful effect of allusion on the audience seems to offer more than just a comparison of philosophical models. It is through the use of allusion that Isocrates is able to evoke similarities between himself and Socrates, to draw the association in the minds of his audience. In this way, it serves as a potentially effective strategy of rhetorical argumentation. When we ask our question, ‘How is the argumentation experienced by its audience?’ we can imagine an awakening in the audience, a consciousness as the connection is made and the relationship seen with the mind’s eye. In placing such onus on the ability of the audience to make the connection, allusion has an effectiveness missing from more “removed” discourses. Isocrates is not saying ‘here’s my model of the philosopher; there’s Plato’s model’. He is attaching his position to a life, a powerful life that has been forcefully depicted and defended in Plato’s text. And Isocrates draws that force into his own case. Furthermore, this first question points to the important collaborative involvement contained in the second question (‘how does the argument invite collaboration?’) The allusion argument invites the audience to complete the reasoning, to become complicit in the development of the argument towards its conclusion. The audience adds the missing elements; adds the connection, and as such Isocrates’ conclusion is their conclusion as much as it is his. They have drawn it for themselves, and if this is done unconsciously, the allusion has been even more effective. But given the currency of Plato’s text among educated audiences of the day, it’s unlikely the allusions would have been missed. Isocrates’ strategy would have been open and clear, and people left to decide for themselves, who between Plato and Isocrates is the fitting heir to Socrates.

NOTES
[i] There has been some dispute among scholars over whether the Palamedes (and Helen) are authentic, or the imitations of Gorgias’ style written by admirers (see Consigny (2001, pp.4-5), but the current consensus is for authenticity.
[ii] For example, 21, 85, 145, 154, 179.

RFERENCES
Calogero, G. (1957). Gorgias and the Socratic principle of neomo sua sponte peccat, Journal of the Hellenic Society, pp.12-17.
Consigny, S. (2001). Gorgias: Sophist and Artist. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Coulter, James A. (1979). The relation of the Apology of Socrates to Gorgias’ Defense of Palamedes and Plato’s critique of Gorgianic rhetoric, in: K.V. Erickson (Ed.) Plato: True and Socratic Rhetoric, (pp. 31-69), Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi.
Fahnestock, J. (1999). Rhetorical Figures in Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gorgias (2003). Defence of Palamedes in: John Dillon & Tania Gergel (Trans.) The Greek Sophists (pp. 84-93), London: Penguin.
Isocrates (2000). Antidosis in: David C. Mirhady & Yun Lee Too (Trans.) Isocrates I (pp.205-64), Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Jaeger, W. (1994). Paideia, G. Highet (Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nightingale, A.W. (1995). Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perelman, Chaim & Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969). The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. J. Wilkinson & P.Weaver (Trans.), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Plato (1997). Apology, G.M. Grube (Trans.), in Plato: Complete Works. John Cooper (Ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Reboul, O. (1989). The figure and the argument, in: M. Meyer (Ed.) From Metaphysics to Rhetoric, (pp. 169-181), Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Tindale, C. W. (2004). Rhetorical Argumentation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing.

1. Introduction: the Meaning of ‘Gospel’
For ‘gospel’, the dictionary gives us ‘the record of Christ’s life and teaching’ (NOD 2001). Earlier, in pre-Christian times, the term ‘gospel’ (Greek root euangel-) denoted the message of a messenger who was sent from the battlefield to convey good news about a battle. John Dickson (2005) argues that in antiquity the use of the word always connoted a message that was news. Dickson (2005, p. 220) states that ‘the larger eschatological context […] makes clear that euangel– for the synoptists connotes news disclosed to the world with the arrival of the Messiah.’ He also refers to Liftin (1994, p. 195–197) who points out that since euangel– in classical usage connoted ‘report’ rather than ‘persuasion’, it was of little significance in the rhetorical practices and literature of the period.
We should, however, not draw the conclusion that the gospels are non-persuasive and void of rhetorical practices. The gospels do not present Christ’s life and his teaching directly, but conveys them through a complex process of reflection and revision. They are far from neutral historical accounts. If the gospels are news, they are a very special kind of news, presented in a certain way and with a certain intention.

The Christian evangelists adopt a whole set of standpoints that go against the status quo of the time. Consequently, the gospel was and is by many received as an argument. It therefore seems probable that the purpose of the gospel from the beginning was not only to report, but also to persuade. This aspect is often not given enough attention in commentaries and exegeses. Dickson’s comment relating to the matter about the agent of the gospel is illustrative (2005, p. 220):
‘Although Jesus is the principal herald of the gospel in the synoptic traditions, numerous others also take part in this act of eschatological disclosure: angels (Luke 1.19; 2.10), the Baptist (Luke 3.19), the disciples (Luke 9.6; Matt 24.14), and even the narrator himself (Mark 1.1). In all of these texts “gospel” connotes news.’

Certainly the evangelist wants to give an impression of many witnesses, but are these truly separate witnesses (or agents of ‘eschatological disclosure’)? Is it not the author who presents arguments; directly and also often indirectly through the way the story is told, and through the characters in the story? If so, the evangelist is the principal ‘herald of the gospel’. My hypothesis is that the gospel can be viewed as an argument and that viewing the gospel as an argument illuminates an important aspect of the text.
In the next Section I briefly sketch a foundation for the analysis by putting the text in its historical context and by taking a look at some research from the point of view of narrative criticism and rhetorical criticism. Specifically I am interested in to what extent the gospel has been viewed as an argument. I then go on to attempt a preliminary argumentation analysis of the gospel. Does it make sense to outline the gospel as an argument-structure with standpoints, sub-standpoints, and premisses? In addition to presenting a structure of the gospel, I take a look at a shorter passage, the virgin conception (1: 18–23). Does the story lend itself to an argumentation analysis?

2. The Gospel of Matthew: Background and Some Earlier Approaches
2.1 Historical Context
Of the four gospels, I find Matthew to be a good choice for an argumentation analytical perspective for four reasons:
(a) it is a Jewish Christian gospel, providing many comments relating to Jewish tradition, testifying often to the Old Testament background and to Jesus’ clashes with the official representatives of the Jewish religion and nation. The background of a disagreement between the status quo (Judaism) and the new Jesus-movement (Christianity) is very clear in Matthew.
(b) It is a carefully constructed gospel. In comparison with the other synoptists, Matthew ‘impresses by the care and literary artistry involved in its composition’ (France 1990, p. 21).
(c) Matthew seems to lend itself most naturally to an argumentation analysis. This is a consequence of the careful composition.
(d) In comparison with John, Matthew is older and closer to the historical situation, to the original dispute. This is not to say that the same arguments are not present in the other gospels, but in Matthew they are easier to identify.

In order to produce an interpretation that comes as close as possible to the author’s intentions, familiarity with the original language and culture are indispensable. However, space does not here permit an elaboration of these aspects. In brief, I note that the gospel was probably written in a larger Syrian city, with Greek as its main language (Luz 1985, p. 73–75), after Mark’s gospel and after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. It probably reflects a situation shortly after the painful divide with Israel, before the Early Church stabilized, and should probably be dated between 80 and 90 CE (Luz 1985, p. 75–76).
The apostle Matthew is traditionally accredited as the author, but this cannot be confirmed (Luz 1985, p. 76–77). The most common theory is that the author, whom I shall call Matthew, made use of two sources: the gospel of Mark and the Q-source. Regarding the text of Matthew, none of the original manuscript papyri have survived; the oldest extant copies are from the second century. The variant readings given by Aland (1993) have no bearing on the type of analysis I undertake here.

2.2 Narrative Criticism
Narrative criticism offers many observations which are relevant also for an analysis of Matthew as an argument. In the following I highlight a few of them.
Jack D. Kingsbury (1988, p. 3) remarks that ‘the element of conflict is central to the plot of Matthew’. This conflict arises with different parties in the story: ‘Satan (4: 1–11), demons (12: 28), the forces of nature and of illness, civil authorities (such as Herod and Pilate), Gentiles (including Roman soldiers), Israel, and, above all, Israel’s religious leaders.’ (1988, p. 3). Kingsbury stresses that it is the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of Israel that leads to Jesus’ death, not the ones between Jesus and the crowds or the civil authorities (Kingsbury 1988, p. 5). After the resurrection, the risen Jesus will also enter into conflict with the nations (24: 14; 25: 31–46) through the mission of the Church. Although Kingsbury does not explicitly mention argumentation, these observations indicate that we can reconstruct an argumentative situation on many levels: where there is disagreement, argumentation usually follows.
Kingsbury’s analysis also shows the literary nature of Matthew. For instance, Matthew is omnipresent in relation to the world of his story – there is no scene from which he is absent. He is present with Jesus in the desert, alone, tempted by Satan (4: 1); he is with John in prison (11: 2), with the disciples in the boat (14: 22, 24), etc. Matthew is also omniscient. He knows the words of Jesus’ private prayer in Gethsemane (26: 39, 42), he knows the feelings of many characters, for instance that Herod is frightened (2: 3), that Jesus has compassion with the crowds (9: 36), and he is also able to describe what characters see or hear (Kingsbury 1988, p. 32). Kingsbury (1988, p. 33) remarks that ‘Matthew as implied author […] involves himself, through his voice as narrator, in every aspect of this story.’ This remark is similar to Dickson’s regarding how ‘even the narrator himself’ is a herald of the gospel (above, Section 1). I would like to add that the evangelist takes part in presenting the story – or ‘involves himself’ – not only through the role as narrator, but also through the layout of the story, and through the characters in the story.
Although narrative critics identify the purpose of the gospel, it is not treated as an argument. Therefore an important aspect of the text is more or less lost. Matthew does not only wish the reader to accept the information contained in the text, but also to accept the argument that is put forth.

2.3 Rhetorical Criticism
In his influential book on New Testament interpretation through rhetorical criticism, George A. Kennedy (1984) presents an overview of the rhetoric of the NT. Kennedy (1984, p. 12) describes the goal of rhetorical analysis as the ‘discovery of the author’s intent and of how that is transmitted through a text to an audience.’
Kennedy (1984, p. 101) notes that the evangelists made use of a range of rhetorical techniques by a ‘careful use of ethos, pathos, and logos, in that order of priority’ (1984, p. 101), and that Matthew ‘makes the widest use of all aspects of rhetoric’. This is apparent in the careful arrangement of the different parts of the gospel, and also in the arrangement of proofs. Matthew has a concern ‘consistently to provide his readers with something close to logical argument. He appears to furnish reason to make what is said seem probable and to allow his audience to feel some intellectual security in his account.’ (1984, p. 102). Kennedy mainly focuses on the Sermon on the Mount, but also provides a summary of how he understands Matthew’s use of external proof to show that Jesus is the Messiah (1984, p. 103):
‘We are shown that Jesus must be the Messiah because
(1) his birth fulfilled the prophecy of the birth of the Messiah,
(2) he was so acclaimed by John the Baptist,
(3) he was so recognized by God,
(4) he was tested and proved true by the devil,
(5) the disciples immediately responded to his call, and
(6) he could heal the sick.’

In addition to external proofs, Kennedy (1984, p. 103) notes that Matthew also ‘employs the internal proof of logical argument’ through characters in the story, who regularly ‘speak in enthymemes’ by supporting an assertion with a reason. Kennedy (1984, p. 104) concludes about Matthew:
‘For all its miraculous events, Matthew’s world is far more rational than that described by Mark, who has little interest in such things. In many cases, the minor premise of the enthymeme is a scriptural quotation. The external evidence, which functions cumulatively to show that prophecy has been fulfilled in the birth of Jesus, is thus utilized to construct an argument internal to the text.’

In his analysis of Matthew’s use of external and internal proofs, Kennedy has in essence provided a basic argumentation analysis of the gospel. However, I believe it possible to provide a more precise description of Matthew’s argument.

3. The Gospel of Matthew as an Argument
3.1 Pragma-Dialectical Argumentation Analysis
Argumentation arises when there is a difference of opinion, either implicitly or explicitly. A standpoint is an ‘(externalized) attitude on the part of a language user in respect of an expressed opinion’ (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 5). A standpoint implies specific commitments, such as a commitment to uphold that standpoint by clarifying it if asked to do so or by defending it, by providing arguments. The defence can be directed towards someone who holds a different standpoint, someone who simply disagrees with the standpoint, or even someone who just doubts the standpoint. In the last case, such doubt often remains implicit, making it more difficult to identify with certainty (van Eemeren et al. 2002, p. 12).
In such an implicit discussion – without a clearly defined antagonist – utterances that are strongly contrary to status quo are usually meant as standpoints since they probably will raise either doubt, rejection, or other, competing, standpoints. Often the writer or speaker refers to potential objections of a real or imagined antagonist. In such cases the focus of disagreement often becomes clear (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 43).

Van Eemeren et al. (1996, p. 288) suggest the following five points that the analyst should clarify:
(a) the standpoints at issue in the difference of opinion,
(b) the positions adopted by the parties, their starting points and conclusions,
(c) the arguments adduced by the parties,
(d) the argumentation structure, and
(e) the argument schemes used in the arguments. For the purpose of this analysis I will only highlight enough features to illustrate how the gospel can be viewed as an argument.

The first concern of the analyst is putting the text in a form suitable for evaluation. For this purpose, the standpoints and arguments are identified, and their mutual relationships displayed in an argumentation structure. Identifying standpoints and differences of opinion is not necessarily a straightforward process. A discussion may contain any number of arguments and sub-arguments and much in the discourse may be implicit or expressed unclearly. In order to get a clear presentation of the argumentation, the text is subjected to the four transformations of deletion, addition, permutation, and substitution (van Eemeren et al., 1996, p. 291–293).
Arguments can conveniently be displayed using the schematical presentation for complex argumentation structures suggested by van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, p. 73–89). This graphical instrument is very flexible and facilitates a clear presentation of both simple and complex argumentation structures such as multiple argumentation, coordinatively and subordinatively compound argumentation, and arguments with unexpressed elements (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 73–89). For evaluation, three types of argument schemes are distinguished between (here only in the example-analysis, not in the structure of the whole gospel): symptomatic, analogous, and causal (van Eemeren et al. 2002, p. 96–100).

3.2 Points at Issue and Positions of the Parties
It could be argued that Matthew is a story, a narrative, and not an argument. However, many narratives contain arguments. Even if the author of a story did not intend to make an argument, an argument may arise if the reader does not accept some of the propositions within the story. In the case of Matthew, the message he puts forth is in such contradiction with what most readers would accept that it necessarily becomes an argument.
What is, then, the main bone of contention in Matthew? Viewed from the perspective of the implied reader, the centre of the gospel is the person of Jesus: who he was and what he did.[i] If Jesus was not the Messiah, the long-awaited son of David, then all the prophecies related to him presented in Matthew would be irrelevant. If Jesus was not the Son of God, but just an ordinary man, much of his promises about the future, much of his teaching about heavenly matters, and much of his demands would loose a crucial element of credibility and relevance. Consequently, the main standpoint can be formulated as ‘Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah.’ This comes close to Kingsbury’s and David B. Howell’s identification of the message of the gospel, as it emerges from a narrative analysis.[ii] Howell (1990, p. 159) describes the element of confrontation in the story and how this transfers on to the reader:
‘Matthew opens his Gospel by introducing his protagonist Jesus, the Son of God, whose mission is to save his people from their sins. His coming provokes a crisis as characters in the story are confronted with the choice of accepting or rejecting him and his proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Acceptance or obedience to Jesus’ teaching is the proper response according to the evangelist, and the implied reader is challenged to respond correspondingly in the open-ended conclusion to the Gospel.’

I agree with Howell’s emphasis that the story aims at a response from the reader. In this sense we have two standpoints, one explicit and one implicit. The explicit standpoint is that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah. The implicit standpoint relates to the consequence of the explicit one. If the reader accepts the proposed identity of Jesus, he should also arrange his life accordingly and change role from the one being evangelised to the one carrying out the Great Commission to make all nations into disciples (28: 19–20). The latter aspect can be construed as the main implicit standpoint. In this analysis, however, I will focus on the explicit standpoint – which is the basis for the implicit one – but I acknowledge that Matthew not only wishes to convince of a certain matter but that he also wishes to persuade into action.
What kind of a dispute should we envision? In Matthew we basically have two different types of dispute depending on the interlocutor. For many, we would have a single non-mixed dispute: Matthew presents Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, and people would question whether this would be the case or not. In addition, we have a single mixed dispute where the antagonist explicitly disagrees with this standpoint. (For those who have already accepted the main standpoint, the gospel functions in a different, non-argumentative way, as a reminder of the foundation for their faith, as a source for insight, instruction, comfort, etc.).
The question of Matthew’s antagonists and audience is a complex one (Luz 2005, p. 3–17), but basically we have audiences on two levels, who also function as antagonists to the main standpoint: the audiences within the story and the audiences in the real world. The first group is multifaceted: disciples, crowds of people, Pharisees, different authorities, etc. From a narrative point of view, some of these audiences are at the same time the projected audiences of Matthew: a reader of the gospel may react in the same way as a character in one of the stories. Space does not here permit a treatment of the issue of different audiences in the real world.

3.3 Argumentation Structure
When formulating an argumentation structure for Matthew it is clear that we are not reproducing the author’s blueprint for the text. Rather, we are creating a heuristic tool for understanding one aspect of how the different parts of the text function with regard to one of the purposes of the whole text, namely to support the standpoint that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah. It is interesting that if we take this as the main standpoint, it is not at all difficult to subordinate the rest of the Gospel as arguments in support – an indication that this approach does indeed capture a feature inherent in the text.
In his structural analysis of Matthew’s faith, Patte (1987, p. 5) makes a similar discovery: ‘an author’s faith (system of convictions) is what gives a fundamental coherence to his or her discourse. This is why I could be confident that by systematically studying the convictions that Matthew expresses in each of the passages of his Gospel, my interpretation would be consistent.’ What holds for ‘system of convictions’ should also mutatis mutandis hold for arguments in an argumentation analysis of Matthew, provided that Matthew can be viewed as an argument. If not, an argumentation analysis should turn out to give inconsistent results.

The first question to ask is what the main arguments are in support of the main standpoint. It seems that the material in the gospel can be placed in six categories, each supporting the main standpoint in a different way:
(a) Jesus’ birth and infancy,
(b) the reactions Jesus received from others,
(c) the indications of several prophecies,
(d) the features of Jesus’ ministry,
(e) of his teaching, and
(f) of his death and resurrection.

The second question is how these arguments support the standpoint: multiply or coordinatively? At first glance, it could seem that Jesus’ death and resurrection would be enough to support the main standpoint, and similarly the circumstances of his birth. Some would argue that his teaching or his ministry would give enough support or that we should be convinced by the reactions of the people Jesus is recorded to have met. However, because of the following reasons, I find the structure to be coordinative.

Regarding (a): although remarkable, a divine birth is not enough to prove that Jesus was the Messiah; antiquity tells of many divine births. Argument (f), his death and resurrection, is also not enough since many people were crucified, and although resurrection is certainly extraordinary, it is not unique in this context: Matthew himself tells of other resurrections (by Jesus, 9: 18–26; 11: 5, and also at his death, 27: 52–53)! Jesus’ teaching, (e), although extraordinary, was not unique in the sense that there would not have been other remarkable prophets and teachers; there were many of them. Some of the others also got similar reactions from the crowds, for instance John the Baptist, so (b) is also not enough by itself. The same goes for Jesus’ ministry, (d). As for (c), the prophecies are not only applied hundreds of years after they were given, but selected somewhat ad hoc, based on some similarity with what they are supposed to prove, and so not convincing by themselves without other arguments.
Consequently, none of these is enough to support the standpoint that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah. However, the analyst should put his (modern) objections aside and aim for a structure that is as close to the intentions of the author as possible. Even when taking this into account, I do not find it warranted to apply the strategy of maximally argumentative analysis (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 81) here. The impression of the text is that arguments, stories, examples, and formula-quotations[iii] are stacked on each other so that, if not at the beginning, at least at the end, the reader would accept the standpoint of the author. If one of the premisses is removed, the whole argument does not collapse, it just weakens. I therefore find the structure to be cumulatively coordinative.

In the following I present a possible argumentation structure for the gospel. Although the structure of the text and that of the argumentation have some similarities, several transformations are needed in order to clarify the argumentation. It is not here necessary to present a complete structure of all the levels. I only number the arguments on the main level (1), and on the first sub-level (1.1a´, 1.1b´, 1.1c´, etc.). I also include arguments on further sub-levels, unnumbered, to show how almost the whole text can be viewed as supporting the main standpoint. The six sub-standpoints are marked by a prime (´) and put in brackets to indicate that they are not explicit in the text. They are reconstructions of what I find to be the six main lines of argument in support of the main standpoint. See the Table for the argumentation structure.
Table: The Structure of Matthew’s Argument

1  JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, THE MESSIAH. (1: 1)

1.1a’ [Jesus’ birth and early childhood indicate this.]
– Jesus’ genealogy shows that Jesus was the son of David. (1: 1–17)
– Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of virgin Mary. (1: 18–25)
– The wise men’s visit from the East was testimony that Jesus was king of the Jews.
(2: 1–11): They came to worship the king of the Jews because they had seen his star rising. (2: 2); They were led to Jesus’ location supernaturally by the star. (2: 9–10); They paid Jesus homage worthy of a king. (2: 11)
– Several circumstances of Jesus’ birth and infancy conform to prophecies. (2: 13–3: 1): That Jesus would be born of a virgin was foreseen. (1: 22–23); The flight to Egypt was foreseen. (2: 1–15); That ‘a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel’ would be born in Bethlehem was foreseen. (2: 4–6); Herod’s slaughter of children was foreseen. (2: 16–18); Jesus’ hometown Nazareth conforms with a prophecy. (2: 23)

1.1b´ [The reaction of others indicates this.]
– Herod was afraid that Jesus might be the Messiah. (2: 3–16)
– John recognized Jesus’ identity. (3: 13–15)
– At the baptism by John, God supernaturally confirmed Jesus as the Son of God. (3: 16–17)
– Simon Peter, Andrew, and James and John (Zebedee), and Matthew recognized Jesus’ authority. (4: 18–22): They followed Jesus without slightest question when he called them. (4: 18–22)
– Many who heard Jesus were amazed, astonished or in awe of his ministry. (7: 28–29 et al.)

1.1c´ [Several prophecies indicate this.]
(Some prophecies were already mentioned under 1.1a´: 1: 22–23; 2: 5–6; 2: 14–15; 2: 16–18, and 2: 23.)
– Jesus settled down in Capernaum. (4: 12–16)
– Jesus healed many. (8: 16–17)
– Jesus was not boastful. (12: 15–21)
– Jesus taught in parables. (13: 34–35)
– Jesus rode in to Jerusalem on a donkey. (21: 2–5)
– Judas’ thirty pieces of silver were used to buy the potter’s field. (27: 6–10)

1.1d´ [Jesus’ ministry indicates this.]
– Jesus healed a large amount of people in many places who were sick by birth, illness or demons. (4: 23–24; 8: 2–3; 8: 6–16; 8: 28–33; 9: 20–22 et al.)
– Jesus raised a few dead. (9: 18–26; 11: 5)
– Jesus had command over the elements. (8: 23–27)
– Jesus forgave sins. (9: 1–8)
– Jesus addressed God as ‘my Father’.
– Jesus performed miracles: Jesus fed four thousand. (15: 32–38)
– Jesus had knowledge of the future. (26: 34; 26: 69–75): Jesus knew of his death and resurrection. (12: 40; 17: 9)
– Jesus transfigured, appearing with Moses and Elijah. (17: 2–8)
– Jesus knew things about circumstances that he could not have known naturally: Jesus knew about the donkey. (21: 2)

1.1e´ [Jesus’ teaching indicates this.]
– Jesus’ teaching was extraordinary. (4: 23–25; 5: 1–7: 28 et al.): Jesus taught with authority. (7: 28–29); Jesus had an unusual capability to answer questions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. (9: 10–17; 22: 15–22; 22: 23–33; 22: 34–36 et al.); Jesus criticised false worship (Jesus taught sincere prayer and fasting, 6: 5–8, Jesus rebuked the religious hypocrites, 6: 1; 23: 2–37 et al., Jesus cleansed the temple in Jerusalem, 21: 12–13).

1.1f´ [Jesus’ death and resurrection indicate this.]
– There were supernatural events at Jesus’ death: The curtain of the temple tore in two when Jesus died, the earth shook and rocks were split, tombs opened, and many saints rose from the dead and appeared to many. (27: 51–53)
– Jesus rose from the dead: Although the tomb was heavily guarded, it was opened. (27: 63–66; 28: 2–3); An angel testified that Jesus had risen from the dead. (28: 4–6); Jesus was seen after his resurrection by Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. (28: 1, 9–10); Jesus was seen by the eleven disciples. (28: 16–17)

3.4 Example-Analysis of Matt. 1: 18–23, the Virgin Conception
Let us take a look at an important argument (under 1.1a´), which is presented right at the beginning of the gospel, after the genealogy: the virgin conception. The following argument is put before Joseph by an ‘angel of the Lord’ in 1: 20: ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’ This is a single argument with one unexpressed premiss: If the child in Mary is conceived by the Holy Spirit, then you (Joseph) should not be afraid to take her as your wife. Kennedy (1984, p. 103) notes that the angel presents the first enthymeme in Matthew and that ‘[t]his is a logical angel who wants Joseph to understand and is not content simply to make authoritative announcements.’

When Mary became pregnant, Joseph naturally supposed that she had been with another man. No self-respecting Jew would have married Mary under such circumstances. The angelic visit explains why Joseph did not abandon her but took her as his wife: he was convinced by an angel. Let us take a look at how Matthew convinces the reader. The whole pericope reads (Matt. 1: 18–23):
1: 18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. /19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. /20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. /21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ /22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: /23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’ (English translation NRSV 1995.)

First the evangelist gives the reason for the pericope, it is to explain how the birth of ‘Jesus the Messiah took place’. At the end we find an explanation – in effect an argument – which places the event into the framework of salvation history: the conception was to ‘fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet’. The references are to Isaiah 7: 14 and 8: 8, 10. However, we can assume that Isaiah did not have parthenogenesis in mind, nor the birth of a Messiah several centuries later (Luz 1985, p. 105). The evangelist interprets Isaiah’s prophecy in such a way that it can be used as an argument for the virgin conception.

Joseph’s action, the angel’s announcement, and Isaiah’s prophecy are presented as arguments in favour of the standpoint that Jesus was born by a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit. The argumentation is symptomatic, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 are all signs: since they witness to the virgin conception, we should accept it, see the Figure.[iv]

Figure: Matt. 1: 18–23: The Virgin Conception

1. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born by virgin Mary.

1.1 Joseph did not dismiss Mary when he found she was pregnant.
& 1.1´ [A righteous Jew would dismiss his betrothed if she would be found carrying a child conceived by another man.]

1.2 An angel announced that the conception was by the Holy Spirit.
& 1.2´ [Angelic announcements are trustworthy.]

1.3 This was foretold by the great prophet Isaiah.
& 1.3´ [Isaiah’s prophecy applies to this pregnancy.]

A few comments about the arguments are in order.
Premiss 1.1: That Joseph did not abandon Mary is a sign that he accepted that the child was not conceived by another man. Something out of the ordinary would have been needed in order for Joseph to stay with Mary, such as an angelic visit testifying to the divine origin of the child.
Premiss 1.2: For an angel to appear, the reason must have been important. The angel testifies both to Joseph and to the reader. In addition, that Joseph believed the angel incurs also the reader to believe him (the premisses relying on the trustworthiness of angels – and indeed on their existence – would have been perfectly acceptable for the actors in the story, and for most of the early receivers of Matthew’s gospel).
Premiss 1.3: Also here is the argument scheme symptomatic: the prophet Isaiah’s reliability is used to back up the standpoint.
As is clear from the figure, I see the argument as multiple. For Matthew, Joseph’s action, the angel’s testimony, and Isaiah’s prophecy are three different lines of argumentation in support of the standpoint. Joseph’s action is the strongest argument since it is so concrete. The reference to Isaiah is the weakest of the three since it is so remote, but it seems to add (salvation-) historical support for the standpoint.

Already this brief analysis indicates some of the features that come into play analysing biblical literature. First, the literary nature of the story makes the analysis more complex. For instance, the story functions on three levels: between the characters in the story (Joseph and the angel), between the evangelist and the intended reader (‘all this took place to fulfil’), and through the characters (that Joseph believes the angel leads the reader to do so also). Second, contextual information is needed, especially about the make-up of a Jewish-Christian world-view, in which for instance a prophecy and an angel can appear as premisses in an argument. Third, we note that the reader is required to invest a lot of trust in the reliability of the evangelist since no concrete evidence is available (this held true also for readers contemporary with Matthew).

4. Conclusion
In this study I have approached the first gospel as an argument. I have also indicated the valuable contributions of narrative criticism and rhetorical criticism. Together with the traditional historical-critical approach, these methods can help us toward an interpretation that lets us better understand the purpose and the function of the gospel-story.
One purpose is for it to function as an argument in favour of the standpoint that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah. I have shown how the gospel of Matthew can be seen as such an argument and how the evangelist presents different parts of the story so as to support this standpoint. The tentative argumentation structure indicates the feasibility of an argumentation analysis. Although the form of the gospel is that of a narrative, it contains indirect argumentation.
Although earlier studies have noted some of the same features of Matthew, the advantage of a specific argumentation analysis approach is that it yields a much more specific description of the argumentative dimension of the text. A comparison between Kennedy’s understanding of the argument in Matthew (cf. the quote above, Section 2.3) and my exposition (cf. the Table) is illuminating. An explicit argumentation analysis approach has enabled me to be more thorough and precise.
My treatment of the story of the virgin conception shows how such a story lends itself to an argumentation analysis. It also illustrates some of the features that come into play analysing biblical literature.
The gospel of Matthew is not mainly ‘good news’, but an argument in favour of the standpoint that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah.

NOTES
[i] Although often occurring in popular arguments, the historicity of Jesus as a person is not a concern. In fact, the textual evidence for Jesus surpasses that of most persons in antiquity.
[ii] Kingsbury identifies the message of Matthew’s story to be that ‘In the person of Jesus Messiah, his Son, God has drawn near to abide to the end of time with his people, the church, thus inaugurating the eschatological age of salvation.’ (Kingsbury 1988, p. 42). I find Howell to be more precise in noting that Matthew is not a history of the beginnings of Christianity, it is ‘the unity of Jesus’ life and ministry rather than a theological concept of history’ that carries the story (Howell 1990, p. 91).
[iii] The formula-quotations typical of Matthew give an OT text as an argument for Jesus, or some particular of his life and ministry, as a fulfilment of an OT prophecy, often introduced by a phrase like ‘This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet.’ (2: 15).
[iv] Referring to the structure presented in the Table, the standpoint here should be 1.1a´.2 or 1.1a´.1b. Since I have not worked out the structure on this level I do not make a decision here about how Jesus’ conception relates to 1.1a´, coordinatively or multiply, but simply number the standpoint with 1.

REFERENCES
Aland, K. et al., Eds., (1993). Novum Testamentum Graece. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 27th edn.
Dickson, J. P. (2005). Gospel as News: euangel- from Aristophanes to the Apostle Paul.
Eemeren, F. H. van and R. Grootendorst (1984). Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions: A Theoretical Model for the Analysis of Discussion Directed towards Solving Conflicts of Opinion. Dordrecht (Holland) & Cinnaminson (USA): Foris Publications.
Eemeren, F. H. van and R. Grootendorst (1992). Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies. Hillsdale, NJ et al.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Eemeren, F. H. van, R. Grootendorst, and F. S. Henkemans (2002). Argumentation: Analysis, Evaluation, Presentation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Eemeren, F. H. van et al. (1996). Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
France, R. T. (1990). The Gospel According to Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 1 of Tyndale New Testament commentaries. Repr., 1st publ. 1985. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press.
Howell, D. B. (1990). Matthew’s Inclusive Story: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel, No. 42 in JSNT.SS. Rev. diss. (Oxford). Sheffield: JSOT Press.
Kennedy, G. A. (1984). New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism. Studies in Religion. Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press.
Kingsbury, J. D. (1988). Matthew as Story. 2nd rev. edn. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Liftin, D. (1994). St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1–4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric, No. 79 in JSNTS.MS. Cambridge: CUP.
Luz, U. (1985). Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Mt 1–7), No. I/1 in EKK. Zürich: Benziger Verlag.
Luz, U. (1989). Matthew 8–20: A Commentary, Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Luz, U. (2005). Studies in Matthew. Transl. Rosemary Selle. Grand Rapids, Mich & Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
NOD, The New Oxford Dictionary of English (2001). Judy Pearsall, Ed. Oxford: OUP.
NRSV, The New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition (1995). Oxford: OUP. Copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Patte, D. (1987). The Gospel According to Matthew: A Structural Commentary on Matthew’s Faith. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Twenty-five years ago, a theory of argument fields was one of the most important issues facing argumentation as a discipline. Building on the essential work of Stephen Toulmin, theorists developed a number of different approaches to field theory, including sociological, historical, psychological, and pragmatic perspectives, and focused in detail on laying out a sophisticated theory of how fields function. Other topics included methodological issues related to the best approach to defining particular fields or evaluating the argumentative practices in a given field. Some theorists, notably David Zarefsky (1982), rejected the conventional wisdom and argued that field theory had only limited value. These and other issues were debated in convention programs, at the first and second Alta argumentation conferences, and in journals, notably the Journal of the American Forensic Association (now Argumentation and Advocacy).
Twenty-five years later, the situation is quite different. Argument field theory has all but disappeared as a contested issue within the discipline of argumentation studies. As Godden noted, “the debate surrounding field theory seems to have reached its peak more than two decades ago” (2003, p. 370). The topic has been noticeably absent in the proceedings of recent conferences, including ISSA and Alta. Nor have field studies or field theory been featured in recent years in argumentation journals. It would appear that the somewhat skeptical judgment of Zarefsky almost a quarter century ago has been proven correct. And yet despite his criticisms of various approaches to field theory as including considerable “conceptual fuzziness,” Zarefsky rejected “abandoning the troublesome concept altogether,” noting “It is a potential aid to explaining what happens in argumentative encounters, to classifying argument products, and to deriving evaluative standards” (1982, p. 203). In the spirit of attaining those goals, a reassessment of field theory is in order. Surely, Toulmin’s fundamental insight that argumentation practices only can be understood in context and that the practices in particular coherent fields best are understood in relation to the norms of that field, remains a useful and essentially unquestioned principle in the discipline today. If the core idea at the heart of field theory is so widely accepted, a reconsideration of the underlying theory is long overdue.
In this essay, I argue that one reason that field theory is no longer a highly contested issue is that the description of individual fields, apart from the description of a particular argumentative controversy, is not a generally useful endeavor. I then argue that field theory declined as a contested issue because the various approaches that were developed in relation to fields were complementary, not competing approaches. I conclude by arguing that theoretical principles derived from those approaches have important implications for the study of argumentation itself as a field.

1.
At first, it may seem paradoxical, but one major reason for the decline of field theory as an area of contested debate is that while the theory is essential in many domains of argumentation, field studies by themselves are not particularly useful or interesting. Field studies exist at a mid-point between field theory and a case study of an actual controversy. The theory is important because it informs the way that argumentative practices evolve and illuminates the epistemic rules governing any particular domain. Application of those principles to a particular controversy can be enormously revealing, a point that is evident in the many case studies presented at argumentation conferences and published in disciplinary journals. But the middle ground of an analysis of a particular field lacks the generalizability of the theory and the specificity of the study of a particular controversy. This situation helps explain the judgment of Pamela Benoit in relation to research on individual fields that “theoretical development in argument fields has been disappointing” (1988, p. 38), as well as Ray McKerrow’s observation that field studies tend more toward detailed description than they do to application of the theoretical terminology found in a given theory of fields (1986, p. 185). A study of a general field, such as the law, is likely to be useful only for the very narrow pedagogical purpose of explaining the overall structure of argumentative activity, a topic of interest to almost no one. On the other hand, careful analysis of a given argumentative controversy can be enormously useful. Such analysis may not apply the terminology of field theory, but it inevitably depends upon that theory to explain particular argumentative practices, practices which always are constrained by norms of the field in which they occur. As Prosie, Mills and Miller note, “Field theory helps argumentation scholars understand practical argument” (1996, p. 127) in a particular controversy.

An additional reason that field studies have not taken root is that fields exist at so many levels of specificity that description rarely is useful apart from a particular case-study. Take the relatively well-defined field of the law as an example. Of course, any number of specific subject domains are included within the law: criminal law, civil law, constitutional law, appellate practice, and so forth. And these subject domains in turn can be divided into more specific areas. Product liability and medical malpractice are both in the civil law, but their argumentative practice will be shaped by their particular subject matter and the purposes they serve within the sub-field. I made this point twenty-five years ago when I argued both that “there are different levels of field invariance” and that “some larger fields contain smaller more specific fields” (Rowland, 1982, p. 239). What I did not recognize at that point was that this characteristic of field theory meant that descriptive studies of fields would need to be tailored to the specifics of a given controversy in order to be useful.
An illustration of this point can be found in the on-going debate about global warming. A field study of atmospheric sciences would not be particularly useful for explaining the argumentative characteristics that have defined the debate over global warming. Nor would a study of climatology as a sub-field be especially helpful. Instead, a discussion of the argumentative practices in the very particular sub-field related to global warming would be needed in order to describe the evolution of the arguments in the area. It is not that field theory lacks utility in this instance, but that this utility only is apparent in the study of the particular controversy and not in the description of more general argumentative characteristics of larger fields encompassing the disciplines and subject matters at issue in the warming debate.
Thus, as a general rule field studies are not interesting apart from a particular controversy. At the level of a case-study, however, field theory plays a key role in informing the analysis. While studies of a particular controversy may appear to be uninfluenced by field theory, that is in fact not the case. Understanding a particular controversy requires an understanding of the epistemic rules governing what counts for argument in that area. An explanation of these rules is, in turn, grounded in field theory, even if many analysts do not draw this connection. In an odd way, the absence of discussion of fields over the last quarter century is evidence of the enduring importance of field theory. The concept is so central to argumentation that its importance is no longer a matter of debate.

2.
Argumentation theories take many forms. Some theories serve a descriptive aim, describing practices in a particular domain. Others serve evaluative functions or are focused on the pedagogical goal of training students in effective and appropriate argumentation practices. At base, all of these theories, however, rest on an assumption that argument in some sense “has to” work the way that the theory describes. Absent that “has to” statement, the theory merely provides one way of describing or evaluating or teaching argument and there is no way of arguing for its superiority over any other similar theory. Thus, a central question for argumentation studies is “why does it have to work that way?” This question represents what might be called the Archimedes problem. Archimedes famously said that if he had a place to stand and a long enough lever he could move the world. The key to many issues in argumentation studies is to justify a principled place to stand for justifying theoretical positions.

At first, it may seem odd to turn to field theory to answer the Archimedes problem and provide a principled “has to” statement, since field theory inherently focuses on the particular. But the general justification of argumentation as an activity of greater import than reading tea leaves or astrology is based on the accumulation of experience with particular cases in which argumentative answers to problems were superior to answers derived from astrology or tea leaf reading. Thus, the justification of a larger theory has to begin with success in dealing with particular controversies. In that way, the ultimate grounding of all argumentation theories must lie in their utility as applied in particular field-related controversies. Nicholas Rescher was getting at this point when he argued that “available cognitive principles are produced by an evolutionary process that favor the fittest methods” and that “there is certainly no better way of justifying a method – any method – than by establishing that ‘it works’ with respect to the specific tasks held in view” (1977, pp. 97, 108; emphasis in original). Thus, argumentation theory in general of necessity depends upon field theory in order to account for the success or failure of argumentative practices related to the “specific tasks” mentioned by Rescher. Stephen Toulmin’s account of how ideas evolve in particular fields in Human Understanding (1972) can be seen as an extended example of how an evolutionary approach implicitly grounded in field theory is used to build a larger theoretical description of argumentation practices.
If argumentation theory in general depends upon field theory, why has field theory as a contested issue largely disappeared from the literature? Over the last twenty years, for instance, there has been considerable debate about spheres of argument (Goodnight, 1982), especially the public sphere, but very little focus on a theory of fields. The answer to this question is that debate about field theory reached a point of stasis roughly a quarter century ago, although that stasis was not immediately apparent to the participants in the debate about fields. In order to develop this claim, it is helpful to revisit the debate about fields that occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The debate was grounded in the work of Stephen Toulmin, who argued beginning in An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics that “every mode of reasoning . . . will have its own logical criteria, to be discovered by examining its individual, peculiar uses” (1953, p. 83). Toulmin developed the idea of fields in more detail in his seminal work, The Uses of Argument (1958), where he famously distinguished between field invariant (the force of argument and general argument form as described in the Toulmin diagram) and field dependent (the type of data and backing, as well as evaluative criteria) characteristics of argument. He continued to discuss field practices, although he did not always use that term, in Human Understanding (1972), where he focused upon how academic disciplines define themselves, the goals they establish, the epistemic principles which guide their research, and the processes through which they evolve. He drew a distinction concerning disciplinary types based largely on the presence or absence of “clearly recognized and agreed collective ideals” (1972, p. 379), between compact disciplines, such as atomic physics, which have such ideals, diffuse disciplines, which conform “only loosely to those requirements” (1972, p. 379), and would-be disciplines, such as the social sciences, where there are a “diversity of approaches of a kind unparalleled in physics” (1972, p. 382).
Toulmin’s various writings about fields and apparently synonymous terms such as “disciplines” set the stage for the debate about the nature of fields in argumentation. In a sense, Toulmin himself implicitly sketched the breadth of positions that would be taken in the debate. In The Place of Reason in Ethics and The Uses of Argument, he noted the way that standards for argumentative practice, including evaluative criteria, are tied to field theory. He also noted how argument form and subject matter are determined based on the field of inquiry. In Human Understanding, he broadened the approach, focusing upon sociological and psychological factors shaping the evolution of argumentative practices in a particular domain, discipline or field. And throughout his writings he emphasized the way that the purposes of arguers in particular contexts served as the ultimate grounding for judgments about argumentative efficacy in that context. The evolutionary process that he described in such detail in Human Understanding ultimately was grounded in the insight cited earlier from Rescher that the final standard justifying argumentative practices is always a simple test of whether those practices work to solve a given problem. It was perhaps inevitable that argumentation theorists would draw on Toulmin’s work in an attempt to provide clear standards for defining boundary conditions for any given field. It also was inevitable that such an approach would fail.
The debate that evolved in the 1970s and 1980s focused on five primary ideas for defining fields. One approach treated fields as essentially subject matter domains. For example, James Klumpp argued that “acceptable forms of argument” vary with “subject matter” (1981, p. 50). A second approach emphasized the importance of audience or community in defining field practices. Ray McKerrow, for instance, focused on social, personal, and philosophical communities of arguers (1981) and Charles Arthur Willard featured audience as one useful approach to field theory when he argued that “one way of characterizing fields is as audiences” (1981, p. 24). The third perspective on fields was based in Toulmin’s focus on argument practices as defining a given field. From this perspective, fields were best defined as a universe of discourse in a particular context, what Joseph Wenzel referred to as “the propositional context of a disciplined rational enterprise with an epistemological purpose” (1981, p. 4) and Charles Kneupper called “knowledge structures” (1981, p. 81).

The fourth approach treated fields from a sociological or psychological perspective. Perhaps the most developed statement of that view was found in the work of Willard who treated fields as both a kind of personal psychological perspective and as sociological constructs defined by disciplinary bodies (1981, pp. 28, 41). In both cases, the field acted as a kind of terministic device. He argued that the “foundational metaphor [of field theory] is the construing person engaged in role taking and social comparison” (1981, p. 42). Advocates of the sociological/psychological perspective varied to some degree based on whether they saw disciplinary organization (Kneupper, 1981, p. 81; Klumpp, 1981, p. 47) or symbolic structures, what Gronbeck called “collections of communicative rules,” (1981, 15) as more fundamental.
The final perspective treated fields as brought into effect by the existence of a shared problem-solving purpose in relation to some problem. This view, which I (Rowland, 1981; Rowland 1982) and to some extent Wenzel (1982) developed, and which Hanson (1989) later extended, emphasized the way that shared purpose acted as an energizing force to encourage arguers dealing with a given problem to choose a subject matter, develop standards for evaluating evidence and other argumentative forms, establish disciplinary organizations, and so forth. Purpose was not the defining characteristic of fields of argument. Rather, according to advocates of the purpose-centered approach, it was the force that led arguers to construct all other elements of the field. In this view, field practices evolved based on their pragmatic utility in problem-solving.

At first glance, the five perspectives on fields of argument were so different and the debate among advocates of different approaches so energetic (Godden, 2002, p. 370) that the sudden disappearance of field theory from disciplinary discussion is puzzling. What is clear, however, only in retrospect, is that the different approaches to field theory were in fact not all that different; they were complementary. It now seems obvious that one cannot adequately define the field in which a given argumentative controversy occurs without a focus on subject matter, audience characteristics, argument forms found in the area, propositional content, argument models serving as terministic devices to aid comprehension, disciplinary organizations, the evolution of argument practices, and a consideration of shared purpose. All of these characteristics are important, although in particular cases, depending upon the goals of the researcher, one or more of them may require special emphasis. As a consequence, it was not possible to choose among the different approaches to field theory because each provided one aspect of a complete definition of a field of argument.
The commonalities among the different perspectives on argument fields in the 1970s and 1980s were masked by the energetic debate about the concept. In all cases, however, the core principle underlying field theory was an explicit or implicit judgment that effectively solving puzzles in a given area created an evolutionary pressure to find the most useful argumentative tools (defined quite broadly) for achieving those aims. This emphasis on how field practices evolve in order to maximize the chance of solving a given puzzle was quite consistent with the work of theorists, including Toulmin and Rescher, who emphasized a fundamentally pragmatic standard for evaluating disciplinary practices in any given context and also the evolutionary pressures that the pragmatic standard created. In this view, field theory declined as an issue not because there was so much disagreement, but because there was so much underlying agreement. This underlying agreement reduced the evolutionary pressure on argumentation scholars to discover new approaches to field theory or choose among existing approaches. And thus, the same fundamentally pragmatic pressures that influence field practices in all areas of human endeavor, influenced the development of argumentation theory about such field practices.
The reconsideration of field theory also helps explain other factors that shape the evolution of field practices. It seems quite clear, for example, that where there is not agreement on particular problem-solving purposes served by the field, there will not be a clear evolutionary standard to guide the evolution of argumentative practices in the area. In Human Understanding, Toulmin attributed the failure of “would-be disciplines,” such as psychology and sociology to develop into compact disciplines, to “the absence of suitable professional organization, so that disciplinary possibilities of the subject are not fully exploited, and the rational purposes of its practitioners are frustrated” (1972, p. 380). I suggest that a more powerful explanation may be that in disciplines such as sociology and psychology there are multiple purposes, not all of which are shared by every member of the profession, and that as a consequence there are multiple lines of evolution operating within the field at any given time and no agreement on which evolutionary line is most important.

A related point can be made when fields serve some sort of purpose in addition to rational problem-solving. For example, while all academic disciplines would prefer to have access to support from governmental or non-governmental bodies, the existence of such support creates a purpose that potentially competes with rational problem-solving. That purpose, of course, is to secure monetary support for research. The existence of the purpose of gaining monetary support may in some instances encourage researchers to choose approaches that are not necessarily adapted to the rational goals of the field, but are adapted to securing funding. The larger point is that the presence of purposes unrelated to rational problem-solving may undercut the evolutionary process that leads to improved field practices.
A final point should be obvious – just as fields evolve based on the evolutionary standards I have identified, so they may simply die. If field practices fail to achieve the essential purposes of the field, eventually the field will decline and die or evolve into a different field. Thus, phrenology was an important field in the 19th century and currently a subject studied only by historians or anthropologists.

3.
To this point, I have argued that the reason field theory ceased being an important and contested issue in argument studies was that evolving theories of fields were in fact complementary and largely solved the argumentative problems they were created to confront. In particular, the focus on how the goal of pragmatic puzzle solving created evolutionary pressures leading field actors to choose argumentative practices in order to advance the evolutionary goal was shared among all of the different perspectives on fields. While field theory may not be a contested issue currently, there are implications that can be drawn from the previous analysis for issues that certainly are contested.
The previous analysis of the status of field theory indicates that the ultimate test of any argumentative theory is its practical ability to solve a puzzle confronting the field. At the core of this judgment lies a consideration of the basic purposes served by argumentation as a field itself. The overarching purpose of argumentation is rational problem-solving. Since the Greeks invented the study of argumentation, the core assumption of field actors has been that strong arguments were more likely to produce useful solutions to problems than were weak arguments. In some cases, this assumption was reflected in theories treating argumentation (or dialectic or logic) as an approach for uncovering true arguments or simply truth itself, while in others the focus was more explicitly pragmatic. But in all cases the goal of argument studies was to find argumentative practices that did a better job of solving problems than other argumentative practices.
Four sub-purposes are reflected in the practices of the discipline, two of which are tied to argument pedagogy and two of which are epistemic purposes tied to problem-solving itself. The two pedagogical sub-purposes relate to the creation of the most effective descriptive and evaluative schemas for the field. These pedagogical theories related to argument description and evaluation in turn must be justified based on their utility for advancing the overarching purpose of rational problem-solving. The ultimate test of a descriptive theory, for example, is whether it provides effective tools that ordinary arguers or those in specialized sub-fields can use to describe argumentative practices, prior to testing those practices through evaluative perspectives. Similarly, the test of pedagogical evaluative theories is whether they help arguers apply useful tests of argument quality in any context.

The epistemic purposes relate to argument creation and argument testing respectively. The test of an inventional theory is whether it helps arguers create not just new arguments or discover new data, but new arguments or data that help them create solutions to real problems of some sort. In regard to evaluative theories, the same standard applies, with the notation that evaluative theories are heavily influenced by standards of presumption and burden of proof, which by themselves are not so much evaluative principles as they are regulative standards related to the rational problem-solving goal of the activity. Thus, in cases where immediate action must be taken and potential negative consequences of action are relatively less important, such as choosing the best available treatment for a normally untreatable cancer, a very low standard of burden of proof or presumption will be sensible. In contrast, where the consequences of failed action are great, a much higher regulative standard is appropriate.

The analysis of the four sub-purposes served by argumentation as a field, in relation to the previous analysis of field theory, suggests several important conclusions. First, the best means of testing the value of any argumentative theory is through pragmatic application. Rescher was getting at this point when he observed:
Appearances to the contrary not withstanding, however, what is at issue here is not the establishment of a factual thesis – such as the regularity of nature – but the validation of a practice. For what matters here is a practice policy: to continue to employ a method that has proven to be successful (i.e., more effective than alternatives) in those cases (of suitable numerousness, variety, etc.) where it has been tried. The issue, accordingly, is not one of establishing a factual thesis but one of validating a practical course of action. (1977, p. 105)
Thus, the test of theories of argument is whether they either directly produce effective solutions to a given problem or whether they teach strategies, models, or other tools that achieve this aim. It is an unfortunate fact that argumentation theorists have been better at laying out theories, models, prescriptive devices and so forth than providing evidence that those materials in fact work for achieving their aim in practical or specialized problem-solving. If the field is to continue to evolve toward improved practices, more emphasis on providing actual evidence that the theories pragmatically work in the sense described by Rescher is needed. The difficulty is that it is much easier to demonstrate the evolutionary success of specific principles or practices found in a sub-field than it is in a broad field, such as argumentation. In the particular sub-field, the principle is justified because it works. In the most simplistic example, the medical researcher validates the treatment by curing the patient. But the “cures” offered in argumentation are epistemic in nature and require a different sort of evolutionary justification.

There are two primary means that this evolutionary justification can be provided. One method is simply that practical arguers continue to find the principles to be useful over time. Thus, argumentation theories focusing on the importance of principles related to burden of proof, presumption, tests of evidence quality, and so forth have been validated in an evolutionary sense by more than two thousand years of use. A second method would be to blend argumentation theory with social science. Of course, major advances have been made in recent years, especially by researchers working in the pragma-dialectic and informal logic traditions, in using research to validate the pedagogical value of their approaches. An additional step is needed, however. That step is to validate the theories in the context of real-world problem solving, to show not only that the theory helps someone identify argument types and defective practice, but also helps them invent and then test adequate arguments to produce superior decisions in a given context. The ultimate point of argumentation pedagogy, after all, is not only to help students distinguish between theoretically justifiable argument practice and unacceptable practice, but to result in superior decisions that solve real problems. In principle, it should be possible to conduct research which tested the value of a given theory by teaching it to subjects and then testing whether the subjects developed improved rational problem-solving in some particular context relevant to the study.

A second implication of the previous analysis is that too great a focus on cooperation within argument can have problematic effects. Any number of argumentation theorists privilege cooperation as an appropriate norm. In this way, Wayne Brockriede’s comparison of arguers to lovers (1972), the pragma-dialectic presumption in favor of cooperation (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004), Christopher Tindale’s defense of a dialogical not adversarial approach to argument (2004, pp. 89-90), and the feminist critique (Foss & Griffin, 1995) of symbol use that is not invitational in nature, are based on a similar view supporting the value of cooperative principles for argument. In the case of some feminists (Gearhart, 1979), the presumption in favor of cooperation essentially results in a rejection of argument itself.

While no one enjoys an interaction in which reasoned argument devolves into mere bickering, it is important to recognize that the evolutionary process which results in improved practices within any argument field inherently depends upon newly proposed ideas out-competing previously proposed ideas. It is through this evolutionary process that ideas are tested and the field develops toward superior practices. This same principle applies within argumentation studies. Rescher made this exact point in relation to what he labeled the “disputational model,” a model which he said necessitated “a very different stance towards conflict and controversy” (1977, p. 123) than was present in cooperative models. In relation to this stance:
It now comes to be a mark not of malignancy but of health that competing schools of thought should endeavor to argue for conflicting theories by the most powerfully supportive reasonings they can marshal. Rivalry, competition, and conflict must now be see not as unhappy aberrations, as deviant and regrettable manifestations of a human perversity that impedes the smooth progress of science; rather, they become a natural and requisite component of the ongoing process of scientific advance. (1977, pp. 123-124)
Thus, it is essential for the development of argumentation as a discipline to support norms that encourage rigorous debate among the competing perspectives on any issue. Of course, nearly all theorists would prefer that argumentative interactions be cooperative and person-respecting in every way. One danger with such an approach, however, is that the emphasis on cooperation could compete with the rigorous dialectical testing that Rescher and so many others have noted is essential to the evolutionary processes that produce improved argument practices. The danger is that the cooperative norm may discourage arguers from rigorously challenging the other side. In the debate on global warming in the United States, for example, global warning deniers have used very strong language in attacking the theory, while the advocates of the theory largely have responded in the restrained cooperative language of science. The result has been to obscure to some extent the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming. The larger danger is that a focus on cooperation may encourage politeness and passivity, and reduce the rigor of dialectical testing.
It is also important to recognize that while a cooperative argumentative interaction based on the good will of all the arguers involved is certainly preferable to a non-cooperative exchange, such purely cooperative argument is not needed for the evolutionary testing of ideas that drives the field forward. In the rough and tumble of debate in both the public sphere and many specialized fields, a spirited competition is quite common and an argumentative practice meeting the standards set out by advocates of cooperation, such as Brockriede, relatively rare. However, that spirited competition still can produce evolutionary advance in an intellectual sense, as many advocates of the free marketplace of ideas, perhaps most notably John Stuart Mill (1963), have noted.
Of course, the potential negative effects of competitive models of argument are well-known. In fact, those same negative effects in some cases can be inconsistent with the evolutionary rational problem-solving aim of the field, since they can result in situations in which conflict overwhelms the rational purposes of the field. Thus, while methods of minimizing or eliminating the negative effects of conflict are needed, some level of competition is simply an evolutionary requirement for the field of argument studies to progress. Contrary to Rescher, this required conflict can be viewed as regrettable, but it cannot be avoided in a productive theory of argument.

A third implication of the revised view of fields is that the postmodern critique of argumentation theory is not so much wrong as it is irrelevant. As I have argued elsewhere (Rowland, 1995), any number of postmodern critics ( Thomas, 1997) have challenged argumentation theory essentially by arguing that principles of that theory are not universal. The pragmatic approach to argument fields and to argumentation itself as a field is in full accord with this judgment. Obviously, no single principle or practice in argumentation results in the production of a useful solution to a problem in every instance. Rather, all of the tools presented by argumentation theory must be judged based on their capacity to produce useful solutions to some sort of problem more often than their competitors. Against that view, the postmodern critique has no possible response. It is simply undeniable that a wide variety of principles of argumentation theory are more useful in helping people solve problems than principles associated with fortune-telling or some other ancient art. The key point is that principles of argumentation theory have proved their utility in an evolutionary contest. Thus, from the perspective on field theory developed here, the most appropriate response to the postmodern critique is to accept the premise, but observe that it is simply irrelevant to a field in which theories, models, and all forms of practice are justified by evolutionary success in solving problems. Viewed from this perspective, the postmodern critique is simply an evolutionary dead end, which future scholars will analyze as part of the fossil record of the discipline.

4.
Since the Greeks invented the study of argumentation, theorists have been making what I referred to earlier as “has to” statements about the field, often justifying those statements with essentialist claims about the nature of argumentation as a discipline. It now seems clear that the essentialist defense of the field will not do. Rather, the ultimate justification of field theory and of argumentation studies itself as a field must be found in an evolutionary standard based on success in achieving field purposes.

REFERENCES
Benoit, P.J. (1988). A case for triangulation in argument research. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 25, 31-42.
Brockriede, W. (1972). Arguers as lovers. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 5, 1-11.
Eemeren, F.H. van & R. Grootendorst (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foss, S.K. & C.L. Griffin (1995). Beyond persuasion: A proposal for an invitational rhetoric. Communication Monographs, 62, 2-18.
Gearhart, S.M. (1979). The womanization of rhetoric. Women’s Studies International Quarterly, 2, 195-201.
Godden, D.M. (2003). On Toulmin’s fields and Wittgenstein’s later views on logic. In: .H. van Eemeren, J.A. Blair, C.A. Willard & A.F.Snoeck Henkemans (Eds). Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 369-375), Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Goodnght, G.T. (1982). The personal, technical, and public spheres of argument: A speculative inquiry into the art of public deliberation. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18, 214-227.
Gronbeck, B.E. (1981). Sociocultural notions of argument fields: A primer. In G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.), Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 1-20), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
Hanson, J. (1989). Argument fields, logical types, and shared purposes. In: B.E. Gronbeck (Ed.), Spheres of Argument: Proceedings of the Sixth SCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation (pp. 275-285), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
Klumpp, J.F. (1981). A dramatistic approach to fields. In: G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.), Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 44-55), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
Kneupper, C.W. (1981). Argument fields: Some social constructivist observations, In: G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.), Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 80-87), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
McKerrow, R.E. (1980). Argument communities: A quest for distinctions. In: J. Rhodes & S. Newell (Eds.), Proceedings of the Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 214-227), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
McKerrow, R.E. (1986). Case studies in field theory: An introduction. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 22, 185-186.
Mill, J. S. (1963). The six great humanistic essays. New York: Washington Square.
Prosie, T.O., J.P. Mills & G.R. Miller (1996). Fields as arenas of practical discursive struggle: Argument fields and Pierre Bordieu’s theory of social practice. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 32, 111-128.
Rescher, N. (1977). Dialectics: A Controversy-oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rowland, R.C. (1981). Argument fields. In: G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.), Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 56-79), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
Rowland, R.C. (1982). The influence of purpose on fields of argument. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18, 228-245.
Rowland, R.C. (1995). In defense of rational argument: A pragmatic justification of argumentation theory and response to the postmodern critique. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 28, 350-364.
Thomas, D.E. (1997). Deconstruction and rationality: A response to Rowland, or postmodernism 101. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 30, 70-81.
Tindale, C.W. (2004). Rhetorical Argumentation: Principles of Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Toulmin, S.E. (1953). An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Toulmin, S.E. (1958). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Toulmin, S.E. (1972). Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wenzel, J.W. (1982). On fields of argument as propositional systems. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18, 204-213.
Willard, C.A. (1981). Field theory: A Cartesian meditation. In: G. Ziegelmueller & J. Rhodes (Eds.), Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation (pp. 21-43), Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association.
Zarefsky, D. (1982). Persistent questions in the theory of argument fields. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18, 191-203.

1. Introduction
According to some argumentation scholars, such as Brinton (1985, 1986), ad hominem arguments, or personal attacks, can be reasonable, and, according to some dialecticians among them, such as Walton (1987, 1998, 1999) or the pragma-dialecticians (Van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2003), they can be dialectically sound. In this paper I will restrict myself to the kind of personal attack where a critic charges an arguer with a so-called pragmatic inconsistency: the arguer, allegedly, didn’t practice what he preaches, or he defected from his own policy. The question is: why would an arguer care for the (pragmatic) consistency of his argumentative position?[i]
For example, according to the British local council of West Lincolnshire, roadside memorials, put there to remember the victims of traffic accidents, cannot be tolerated because they distract drivers. A critic responds:
It’s total hypocrisy. The authorities are happy to put up signs that make big money. But if we campaign to put up signs they treat us as troublemakers, and expect us to keep quiet when our children have been slaughtered. (The Guardian, London, November 3, 2005, Features Pages, p. 8).

I will discuss this kind of personal attack from the pragma-dialectical perspective of strategic manoeuvring between dialectical and rhetorical objectives (Van Eemeren & Houtlosser 1999a, 1999b, 2002, 2003). One problem to be solved is that, dialectically speaking, there is nothing wrong for a protagonist to have an inconsistent position. So any such charge seems to be irrelevant. I will try to solve this problem by using the distinction between the role of the protagonist in the model of a critical discussion, and the person adopting that role in argumentative practice. This person can be vulnerable to the inconsistency charge in three ways. Correspondingly, I will distinguish three versions of this personal attack. One of these versions is metadialogical in nature, and that one will be examined in some further detail.

2. Critical discussion
A model for critical discussion specifies a normative procedure for resolving differences of opinion by critically testing whether a particular standpoint is tenable vis-à-vis a particular antagonist with particular commitments. A critical discussion has four stages (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, pp. 57-62). The parties develop and formulate their difference of opinion in the confrontation stage. They decide on procedural and material starting points in the opening stage. In the argumentation stage they exchange arguments and criticisms. Finally, in the concluding stage, they determine whether the difference has been resolved, and if so, in whose favour.
Within a critical discussion there is a division of labour to stimulate the parties to consider all relevant pros and cons. The division of labour in the pragma-dialectical notion of a non-mixed discussion resembles the division of labour in the formal dialogues of Barth and Krabbe (1982). The individual task of the protagonist is to show to the antagonist that her critical position is untenable, or, equivalently, that his standpoint is defensible on the basis of the agreed upon starting points. He must do so by offering argumentation that starts from the antagonist’s commitments and that leads to his standpoint. However, his primary aim is not to show to the antagonist that the standpoint he defends is true, or acceptable in its own right. The antagonist’s aim is to make it clear to the protagonist that her position as a critic is tenable after all, and she does so by challenging and testing the parts of the protagonist’s defence.

Shared goals and the individual dialectical tasks can be specified for each of the four stages. Consider the confrontation and the concluding stage. The shared goal of the confrontation stage is to formulate the difference of opinion in a way that furthers its resolution. The parties carry out the mutually opposite tasks of wording their positions and usage declaratives in ways that facilitate their individual defensive or critical tasks in the argumentation stage. In an impeccable confrontation, however, they do not become overly opportunistic. Discussion rules prevent them to nip the resolution process in the bud and impel them to remain within the bounds of reason. So, the parties do not hinder one another when advancing or adapting a standpoint or critical doubt; they formulate their contributions as clearly and univocally as possible; they interpret the formulations of the other party carefully; they accede to requests for usage declaratives; and the issue of the status or the position of the arguers does not arise (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004, pp. 60, 135-137, 190-191). The main goal of the concluding stage is to determine whether the difference of opinion is resolved, and if so, whether it has been resolved in favour of the protagonist or in favour of the antagonist. So, a discussion has three possible outcomes. The protagonist may give up his attempt to show to the antagonist that her critical position is untenable. In that case the conflict of opinions has been resolved in favour of the antagonist. The antagonist may give up her attempt to challenge the main standpoint, resulting in a resolution in favour of the protagonist. Or the parties may decide that their discussion ends unresolved.

3. Inconsistency in a critical discussion
A set of propositions is inconsistent if its propositions cannot possibly all be true in whatever possible situation we may come up with. In models for dialogue logic the asymmetry between the role of the proponent (or: protagonist) and the role of the opponent (or: antagonist) is relevant for assessing the act of committing oneself to inconsistent propositions (Barth and Krabbe 1982). In a formal dialogue along the rules of these dialogue logics, the proponent tries to show to the opponent that the opponent’s critical stance towards the thesis is untenable, given that the opponent has made certain initial concessions, while the opponent tries to show that she is able to withstand this attempt. In those dialogue models that correspond to classical or constructive logic, there is a winning strategy for the proponent whenever the opponent has inconsistent propositions among her initial concessions. The proponent, on the contrary, makes no concessions, because the opponent, having nothing to defend, has no need for them. Suppose, the proponent’s thesis is inconsistent, for instance by being a conjunction of a proposition and its denial. Then the proponent can be said to defend a provocative thesis (Krabbe 1990, p. 38): the proponent does not claim that the thesis is true or acceptable, but rather that the opponent’s concessions commit her to this absurdity.
We have seen that in a critical discussion, as understood in the pragma-dialectical approach, the task of the protagonist is to show to the antagonist that her critical position is untenable. If the protagonist exposes a logical inconsistency in the antagonist’s position, he is considered to have been successful. Such a commitment to an inconsistency, by the antagonist, can be further understood in dialogical terms, as Barth and Krabbe have shown, as adopting two incompatible stances towards one and the same proposition.
However, the antagonist has not achieved her dialectical aim if she points out an inconsistency in the position of the protagonist. First of all, it is not her aim to show the position of the protagonist to be untenable. The antagonist’s raising critical doubts and asking for reasons must be understood as a way to unfold or develop a critical position in a way that is in line with her positive commitments. Second, the existence of two mutually inconsistent commitments of the protagonist does not necessarily make it harder for him to achieve his individual task of showing the antagonist’s position untenable. What about a standpoint that is in itself contradictory? Given the dialectical aim of the protagonist, we must understand him as claiming, again, not that the thesis is true or acceptable, but that the opponent’s concessions commit her to this absurdity.
I take it as a requirement of an adequate dialectical theory of pragmatic inconsistency that it does justice to the basic insight that an inconsistency does not harm the protagonist’s position, at least not in any direct way.

4. Rhetorical and dialectical aims in argumentative practice
The expression argumentative practice will here refer to the textual or oral activity of exchanging argumentation and criticism. How can speakers or writers within an argumentative practice adhere to the pragma-dialectical discussion rules? Typically, only in an indirect manner, unlike for instance simple traffic rules.
One reason is that the pragma-dialectical model starts from the elementary position where the parties take turns by making singular contributions to the dialogue. Even an explicitly and directly formulated argument is to be reconstructed as an implicit dialogue before evaluating it. Real argumentation is normally complex in the sense that arguers, within one turn, anticipate and respond to several challenges in several ways. So, applying the model to argumentation requires reconstruction (and that does not decrease the argumentation’s reasonableness).[ii]
If we start from a sense of rule following that is overly straightforward, we might say that parties in argumentative discourse do not need to follow the rules for critical discussion. We should understand the obligation to obey the rules as the obligation to make contributions that can be reconstructed[iii] as sequences of appropriate singular moves in an ideal critical discussion between the protagonist and the antagonist (see Van Laar 2007 for a formal specification of this higher order obligation). A fallacy must be understood as a contribution that cannot be reasonably reconstructed as a series of legitimate singular moves.

Following van Eemeren and Houtlosser, two goals are to be distinguished in order to reconstruct, evaluate and explain argumentative behaviour. Here it is stressed that these are goals assumed to be operative in argumentative practices. First of all, an arguer, understood as a person having primarily the part of the protagonist, and a critic, someone who first of all takes care of the antagonist, are dialectically bound to achieve the dialectical objectives, or to fulfil their dialectical obligations (Johnson 2000). The arguer and the critic must make contributions that are construable both as legitimate elements in a critical discussion as well as elements that are instrumental for fulfilling the individual dialectical tasks of the protagonist or the antagonist. Secondly, it is methodologically useful to interpret the argumentative behaviour of arguers and critics in the light of their (presumed) rhetorical objectives. The central rhetorical objective of the arguer is to get the best of the discussion, that is, to persuade the antagonist to retract her critical doubt regarding the standpoint. The central rhetorical objective of the critic amounts to persuading the protagonist to retract his standpoint with respect to the antagonist. These rhetorical objectives can be instrumental for further aims, such as for the purpose of making the arguer look stupid, or for the purpose of a good negotiation result. A party is said to manoeuvre strategically when he pretends to be successful in reconciling his rhetorical aims with his dialectical obligations.

Arguers and critics can be strongly motivated to realize their rhetorical objectives. By using only dialectically permissible means of persuasion a party can bring his rhetorical and dialectical goals together. There is, however, a risk that the rhetorical motives are so strong that a party abandons his dialectical goals, or gradually loses sight of his obligations. It can be hard to find dialectically appropriate arguments, or to analyse a position thoroughly so as to find the dialectically weak spots. If parties resort to unsound, but possibly effective means of persuasion, the strategic manoeuvring derails and a fallacy of some kind has been committed.
The kind of personal attack that is at issue in this paper is a kind of confrontational manoeuvring, that is, a form of strategic manoeuvring where at least some of the central objectives have to do with the confrontation stage. The main dialectical aim in confrontational manoeuvring is to express a difference of opinions in a way that furthers its resolution. The central rhetorical aim of a party is to shape the difference of opinions in a way that is opportune for winning over the other party in the later stages. Take the critic in a situation where the arguer has already advanced a standpoint. For her, the rhetorical objective amounts to getting the arguer to change his standpoint in a manner that is advantageous for her, for instance by being clearer on those parts of his position that are difficult to defend. She may try to get the protagonist to reformulate his standpoint or to revise it in a different respect.
In argumentative practices, a critic may surmise that the other arguer’s position is inconsistent, not on the ground of his explicit propositional commitments, but on the ground of his behaviour. By themselves, actions do not lead to propositional commitments, but they do head for them. An action A by a person only suggests that he is committed to the propositions that he has done A, as well as that A is permissible. However, it’s not impossible that this person may offer an explanation of why he does not regard himself committed thus. So, actions lead to contextual commitments only, “commitments that are assumed to be inherent in the discussion situation at hand” but that are “only of real consequence for the discussion if they stand up to an appropriate intersubjective identification procedure” (Van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2003).

I will start from the following definition of pragmatic inconsistency that subsumes the three action-related types of inconsistency distinguished by Woods and Walton (1989). The position of a person P is pragmatically inconsistent if and only if
(1) P has put forward assertion S and, in addition, P has conveyed the message that he considers S acceptable himself;
(2) P has performed action A;
(3) having done A, P cannot avoid committing himself to T, if asked to do so;
(4) S and T are logically inconsistent.
So, charging an arguer with a pragmatic inconsistency is to express the expectation that the arguer’s set of commitments will become inconsistent in case the critic requests him to commit himself explicitly to the contextual proposition generated by P’s action.

As said, actions do not lead directly to commitments. For example, if P is seen hitting a person, P might be considered committed to the proposition that he has hit this person, unless P can make it clear that he disagrees with this description of his action and commits himself to the alternative reading that he slapped this person on the back, in a friendly manner. Similarly, P can avoid committing himself to the acceptability of hitting a person, by explaining that he lost his temper and did something he considers impermissible. If the critic’s expectation is wrong, the arguer’s position was not really pragmatically inconsistent, although it may have looked that way.
Now, why would an arguer, the person taking primary responsibility for the tasks of the protagonist in an argumentative discussion, worry about a potential pragmatic inconsistency?

5. Three uses of pointing out a pragmatic inconsistency
There are at least three reasons why the arguer may want a consistent position, and why the critic may want to point out a pragmatic inconsistency.
(1) First, the arguer may want to be perceived as a credible arguer in order to persuade the antagonist of some proposition on the basis of his say-so. The arguer’s holding the standpoint acceptable himself then functions as an argument from trustworthiness to persuade the antagonist to accept the standpoint: Smoking is bad. I really think so. Such an appeal can best be understood as an application of the symptomatic argumentation scheme (cf. van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992a, p. 163): ‘p, because I say so and I am a credible source with respect to this subject.’ (Arguers do not always need to be credible in this particular sense. If the protagonist is able to support his standpoint by propositions that have already been conceded by the antagonist, the arguer may argue ex concessis, having no need to appeal to his trustworthiness.)
What if the arguer defends a standpoint in this way, while his behaviour is at odds with it? Like trust (Govier 1998), credibility has two dimensions: motivation and competence. So, two possible explanations suggest themselves. The critic may surmise that the arguer is dishonest, disbelieving his own standpoint while talking as if he holds it acceptable, or that he is incompetent by being unaware of what constitutes a plausible position. Both lying about S, as well as holding S and its denial true, diminishes an arguer’s worth as a reliable source of the information that S is the case.

(2) Second, the arguer may want to remain consistent, not in his capacity as a protagonist, but in his capacity as an antagonist. Discussions are normally mixed, in the sense that both parties defend contrary standpoints, contributing to two distinct, though closely related, non-mixed critical discussions. So, in a real debate, an arguer may want to reckon both with his aims as a protagonist in the one critical discussion as well as with his aims as an antagonist in the other critical discussion. Moreover, an arguer may want to remain consistent for the long-time purpose of developing one single position that is his operating base for a number of critical discussions that he wants or needs to engage in, sometimes as a defending protagonist and at other times as an antagonist testing others. To be able to play the part of antagonist in future discussions successfully, the arguer may want to remain consistent in the current discussion.

(3) Third, the arguer may want to remain consistent in order to keep up the image of a sincere and capable arguer. In order to fulfill the tasks of a protagonist adequately, such as formulating a standpoint, offering argumentation, and assessing the merits of counterarguments, one must be intellectually capable of doing so, and well disposed towards accomplishing these tasks. If an arguer is credible with respect to these tasks, he can be said to be credible as a protagonist. Arguers can be credible as a protagonist with respect to the one subject matter, while lacking it with respect to a different subject. If, given the standpoint he defends, an arguer lacks credibility as a protagonist, we cannot expect a reasonable discussion to unfold, due to fallacies or blunders on the part of the arguer, and so, a condition for critical discussion is left unfulfilled.

If an arguer lacks credibility as a protagonist, a second-order condition for conflict resolution is left unfulfilled. Following Barth and Krabbe on procedural rules of first, second, third and even higher order (1982, p. 75-6), van Eemeren and Grootendorst distinguish three kinds of conditions that must be fulfilled in order to enable the resolution of a difference of opinion (1988, 1992a; van Eemeren et al 1993). According to the first order conditions, the participants must follow the discussion rules. According to the second order conditions, particular character traits, intellectual capacities, and attitudes are needed to realize the first order conditions. According to the third order conditions, particular external, social and political, circumstances must apply in order to realize the second-order conditions.

How could an inconsistency of the part of the arguer diminish the arguer’s credibility as a protagonist? My answer is tentative, and it applies only to particular circumstances. Often, but not always, an arguer means more than that the critic’s position is untenable, regarding the standpoint both justifiable to the antagonist as well as acceptable himself. Think of discussions on what we believe to be the case. Suppose, an arguer conveys this additional information, while his behaviour is at odds with it. That makes it, somewhat plausible, although no more than that, that either the arguer is insufficiently sincere with respect to his expressed intention to fulfill the tasks of a protagonist, or that he is intellectually incapable of fulfilling these tasks.
Defecting from policy is probatively relevant for such insincerity to the extent that someone’s being insincere about what he believes, indicates an insincerity about his dialectical intentions. Defecting from policy is probatively relevant for such incompetence to the extent that someone’s incompetence to detect an inconsistency indicates incompetence to fulfill the protagonist’s tasks in a critical discussion. I suppose these warrants carry some plausibility, though, of course, more is needed to build a convincing case for the metastandpoint that, due to the arguer, a second order condition for resolving the difference of opinions is left unfulfilled. And if the arguer does not convey the additional message that he considers the standpoint acceptable himself, defecting from policy is even completely irrelevant for these metastandpoints about the sincerity and the competence of the arguer.
In order to achieve his objectives, a party may contribute to either the ground level dialogue, or to a metadialogue, that is, “a dialogue about a dialogue or about some dialogues” (Krabbe 2003, p. 641). In this paper, the problem, formulated by Krabbe, of demarcating ground level dialogue from metadialogue is dealt with by considering any move that pertains to the fulfilment of a condition for critical discussion as part of a metadialogue. So, a fallacy criticism, given the dialectical explications of fallacy, starts a metadialogue about a first order condition for critical discussion. Here, however, we are dealing with the charge of pragmatic inconsistency. If used for this third purpose of showing that the arguer lacks credility as a protagonist, the personal attack starts a metadialogue about a second order condition for critical discussion.

6. Pointing out a pragmatic inconsistency as a form of strategic manoeuvring.
Corresponding to these three ways in which an inconsistency may harm the arguer’s position, three distinct subcategories of this personal attack can be distinguished. I will restrict attention to the metadialogical version.
This kind of strategic manoeuvring forms itself an argument, having the following form:

P1. You are insufficiently credible as a protagonist of this standpoint, lacking either argumentative competence or sincerity in this issue.
P1.1. Because, your position is pragmatically inconsistent.
P1.1.1. Because, you advanced standpoint S while you performed act A.

By pointing out a pragmatic inconsistency, the critic tries to discredit the arguer as a protagonist. According to the critic, a second order condition for resolving this particular issue is left unfulfilled, therefore, the critic can expect the arguer to commit fallacies and make blunders, and consequently, the arguer is unfit to adopt the role of the protagonist of the standpoint. This meta-argument first of all contributes to the opening stage, where the parties decide on the division of the discussion roles. Indirectly, however, the critic also tries to influence the final results of the confrontation and even the concluding stage in his own favour. By declaring the arguer unfit for the role of protagonist of this particular standpoint, the critic can be seen as pushing the arguer to adapt his standpoint, to give a different formulation of the standpoint, or to get him to withdraw from the discussion altogether.
So, the rhetorical objective served by this version is to get the standpoint revised in a manner that is advantageous for the antagonist, for instance by highlighting those parts of the standpoint that are hard to defend, or to get the protagonist to admit that the issue cannot be resolved in his favour. In this way, pointing out a pragmatic inconsistency is a device for excluding persons from defending particular standpoints or from defending particulars formulation of them. Because resolution is served by the fulfilment of the second order conditions, the critic is able to keep up the pretence of dialectical reasonableness.
The example of the roadside memorials is an example of this third version: the arguer, a council in this case, is considered hypocritical and lacking the credibility needed to participate in a serious, resolution oriented discussion on this issue.

7. Conclusions
There are at least three reasons why an arguer would care for the consistency of his position. He may care for his credibility for either the purpose of appealing succesfully to his personal trustworthiness, or for the purpose of keeping up the image of a competent and sincere arguer. In addition, he may care for consistency in his capacity as a would-be antagonist. Consequently, there are three different rhetorical grounds for why a critic would attack the consistency of the arguer’s position. So, strategic manoeuvring by pointing out a pragmatic inconsistency serves the rhetorical purposes of the critic while keeping up the aspirations at dialectical reasonableness. Still, this kind of strategic manoeuvring may easily derail. A discussion of the specific soundness conditions for this kind of personal attack, and the relation between this form of strategic manoeuvring and the ad hominem fallacy of tu quoque (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992b, Van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2003, Woods 2004) is something for a different occasion.

NOTES
[i] This paper has been made possible by the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and by a grant of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for a project on strategic manoeuvring in argumentative confrontations, lead by Peter Houtlosser and Frans van Eemeren and carried out at the University of Amsterdam. I thank Peter Houtlosser, Frans van Eemeren, Allard Tamminga and Erik Krabbe for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.
[ii] Another reason is that the rules are formulated on an abstract level. Even if we have developed the criteria and interpretation procedures that refine and specify the rules (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992a, pp.104-6), they will exhibit a level of abstractness and need to be applied in actual situations. Some room will still be left for giving shape to dialectical obligations when substantiating them.
[iii] See Van Rees (2001) and van Eemeren et al (1993, chapter 3) for the distinction between (normative) reconstruction, based on a theoretically motivated model, and interpretation, based mainly on linguistic conventions.

REFERENCES
Barth, E.M. & E.C.W. Krabbe (1982). From Axiom to Dialogue : A Philosophical Study of Logics and Argumentation. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Brinton, A. (1985). A Rhetorical View of the Ad Hominem. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 63, 50-63.
Brinton, A. (1986). Ethotic argument. History of Philosophy Quarterly 3, 245-258.
Eemeren F.H. van & R. Grootendorst (1988). Rationale for a Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Argumentation 2, 271-291.
F.H. Eemeren van & R. Grootendorst (1992a). Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies. Hillsdale, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Eemeren F.H. van & R. Grootendorst (1992b). Relevance Reviewed: The Case of Argumentum ad Hominem. Argumentation 6, 141-159.
Eemeren, F.H. van & R. Grootendorst (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Eemeren, F.H. van, R. Grootendorst, S. Jackson, & S. Jacobs (1993). Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse. Tuscaloosa / London: The University of Alabama.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (1999a). Rhetoric in pragma-dialectics. Argumentation, interpretation, and translation. Electronic journal 1.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (1999b). Delivering the Goods in Critical Discussion. In: F.H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J.A. Blair & C.A. Willard (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 168-167), Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (2002). Strategic Manoeuvring in Argumentative Discourse: A Delicate Balance. In: F.H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser, Dialectic and Rhetoric: The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis (pp. 131-159), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (2003). More about Fallacies as Derailments of Strategic Maneuvering: The Case of Tu Quoque. In: H.V. Hansen, Ch.W. Tindale, J.A. Blair, R.H. Johnson & R.C. Pinto (eds.), Argumentation and its Applications. Proceedings of the conference organised by the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation in May 2001, CD-ROM. Windsor, CA: Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation.
Govier, T. (1998). Dilemmas of Trust. Montreal / Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University.
Johnson, R. (2000). Manifest rationality: A pragmatic theory of argument. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Krabbe, E.C.W. (1990). Inconsistent Commitments and Commitment to Inconsistencies. Informal logic 12, 33-42.
Krabbe, E. C. W. (2003). Metadialogues. In: F.H. van Eemeren, J.A. Blair, C.A. Willard & A.F. Snoeck Henkemans (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (pp. 641– 644). Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Laar, J.A. van (2007). One-sided arguments. To appear in Synthese.
Rees, M.A. van (2001). Argument Interpretation and Reconstruction. In: F.H. van Eemeren (ed.), Crucial Concepts in Argumentation Theory (pp. 165-199). Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Walton, D.N. (1987). The Ad Hominem Argument as an Informal Fallacy. Argumentation 1, 317-331.
Walton, D.N. (1998). Ad Hominem Arguments. Tuscaloosa, AL.: University of Alabama.
Walton, D.N. (1999). Ethotic Arguments and Fallacies: The Credibility Function in Multi-Agent Dialogue Systems. Pragmatics & Cognition 7, 177-203.
Woods, J. (2004). The Death of Argument: Fallacies in Agent-Based Reasoning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Woods, J. & D.N. Walton (1989). Fallacies: Selected papers. Dordrecht / Providence: Foris Publications.

“No, we cannot say: everything that is useful to the people is law, but just the opposite must be said: only what is law is useful to the people.”
(Gustav Radbruch)

I. The Concept and Elements of a State Governed by the Rule of Law
A state governed by the rule of law is a modern state[i] where the actions of state bodies are legally determined and where basic (human) rights are guaranteed. The administration and the independent judiciary, which issue individual and executive acts or carry out material acts (especially the administration), are subject to the constitution and statutes passed by the representative body (national assembly, parliament, etc.). It is organized as a democratic state based on the principle of the separation of powers. One of the fundamental principles of the European Union and of its member states is that they are states governed by the rule of law.
The design of the modern state governed by the rule of law is a result of historical development, with the most intensive contributions coming from English (later also North American) and European continental law.[ii] The original elements of the English (common law) rule of law are the supremacy of the parliament in relation to other state bodies [together with the principle of the necessity of the legal (not arbitrary!) actions of the organs of state power], equality before the law, and the protection of basic rights before courts.[iii] Basic rights exist already before that power and thus, as the substantive principle, define the limit that the state power must not violate. This insight was also accepted by the continental (especially German) variant of the state governed by the rule of law, which originally put more emphasis on the legality itself of the state organisation (hence the expression Rechtsstaat) and the subordination of the administration to statutes passed by the representative body. It is generally accepted in modern theory that there are no essential differences between the European-continental Rechtsstaat and the Anglo-American rule of law.[iv] Even more clearly: the rule of law is the result and the aim of both systems and they understand it very similarly as regards its contents, while they approach it in different ways depending on the differences between the two families of law.

In a state governed by the rule of law, legality is a quality that is specially emphasized. It holds true for such a state that the constitution, the statutes, and other formal legal sources treat legal subjects equally (the principle of equality before the law) and foreseeably. Violations of the law are also defined in advance (of special importance is the principle Nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege certa) and the procedure used by the responsible state body in order to establish whether a violation of law has taken place and which legal consequence should be pronounced (the principle of legal certainty!). In a state governed by the rule of law the rights and duties of legal subjects are defined by law, the most important among them are contained and promulgated as the basic rights in a legally formal manner by the constitution or some other constitutional documents. Another element of a state governed by the rule of law are the legal remedies used by legal subjects to exercise their rights and achieve the realization of duties.
The design of the state governed by the rule of law is very broad. Its main dimension is a legal framework as regards the contents and the procedure within which legal decision-making should take place and state bodies should decide. By way of example, let us look at the elements of the state governed by the rule of law as enumerated by Herzog in Maunz/Dürig’s commentary. Herzog bases his explanations on the original Maunz’ division defining the following elements as corresponding to the concept and tradition of the state governed by the rule of law: the division of powers; basic rights; the legality of the administration and judiciary also encompassing being bound to “law and justice” (cf. Art. 20/3 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany); the restrictability of state activity, which must be measurable and foreseeable (sub-elements of this element are the principle of legal certainty; trust in the law within a limited scope; the prohibition of retroactivity; the principle of definiteness in legislation, and the prohibition of excessive state interventions together with their necessity and proportionality); legal protection together with the principles ensuring an independent and fair trial; Nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege; the existence of a formal constitution, which is “the crown of a state governed by the rule of law”.[v]

II. The (In)definiteness of Legal Regulation
In the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia the standpoint can be found that legal rules must be defined “clearly and definitely, so that they can be applied without arbitrary conduct by the executive power, and that they define unambiguously and definitely enough the legal position of individuals to whom they refer (the principle of definiteness).”[vi] In another decision we can read that “the norms must be determined in a manner enabling their implementation, that the contents of a regulation may be established by interpretation, and that the action of state bodies be thus determined.”[vii] Even more “radical” is the following standpoint: “One of the fundamental rules of a state governed by the rule of law is that statutory rules must be clear, understandable, and unambiguous. This especially applies to regulations directly regulating the rights and the legal position of a wide circle of the population. A regulation from which an average citizen, unskilled in law, cannot reliably decipher his legal position, but which could be – also in the legislature’s opinion – correctly applied, though in contrast to its explicit text, only after an interpretation of the statutory provisions at the enforcement thereof, i.e. in the responsible legal bodies, causes legal uncertainty and a lack of trust in the law and violates the principles of a state governed by the rule of law (italics in all places added by M.P.).”[viii]
The standpoint that “statutory rules must be clear, understandable, and unambiguous” and designed so as to be understood by “an average citizen, unskilled in law” is rather naïve and does not correspond to reality. Legal norms – however perfect and well expressed they may be – are only a result of an understanding of the law. The rule of law argument cannot require anything that is against the nature of law and against the nature of legal understanding, but it can require that the legal message contain enough elements to make possible an understanding of the contents of the message and the normative realization of the message. The legal message is arbitrary if its contents do not direct the recipient and also restrict him. It would be unrealistic to expect the meaning of a legal text to be completely clear and unambiguous. It is more realistic to require the legislature to provide such degree of certainty that will enable rational and foreseeable legal argumentation at least at the level of legal understanding and decision-making. Laws that do not fulfil even these criteria do not correspond to the rule of law (the principle of trust in the law).
In a state governed by the rule of law, criminal offences, the rights and legal duties of legal subjects [especially the limitations of rights and the regulation (in more detail) of duties], as well as the jurisdiction and proceedings used by state bodies to decide on rights and legal duties all have to be defined with relative certainty (lex certa!). It is of special importance that the meaning of legal norms be based on criteria contained in legal texts (in the constitution and/or statutes), i.e. on criteria that can be activated by established methods of interpretation. If the legal text does not offer any support on how it is to be understood, one cannot speak about interpretation: in this case teleological interpretation cannot replace other arguments of interpretation and, on the basis of itself (as the goal), create a legal norm as a means to achieve a certain goal. In such a case one could, at best, speak about a legal gap that has to be recognized as such and filled by means provided for filling legal gaps.
Teleological interpretation cannot be a solitary method of interpretation, like a “shining goal” that can be manipulated just as one wants. It is in the legal nature of teleological interpretation that it must also be based on other elements incorporated into the legal system.[ix] The more such elements that define its meaning exist and the more these elements supplement each other, or the less they exclude or even contradict each other, the more coherent the teleological interpretation. The interpreter’s task is to work out these criteria, to combine and evaluate them and to justify the solution he judges to be most well-founded and most rational. These findings are especially binding for the interpretation of legal texts by the constitutional court.
It is natural and legally correct that the interpreter first seeks the criteria for the purpose of the legal norm in the legal text itself. Logical interpretation will tell him whether the criteria is consistent and help him to encompass, by persuasive arguments, also cases that are not directly regulated (e.g. by argumentum a contrario). Historical interpretation will remind him of the purpose attributed to the statute (the legal norm) by the legislature or of the purpose determined by the historical circumstances that gave rise to the law and in which the law was created. In a broader sense, the historical interpretation will also give rise to the dilemma whether the interpreter is bound by the “intention of the historical legislature”, by the “intention of the current legislature” or by the purpose of the independent text at the time of interpretation (an objective-dynamic interpretation). Within this broad range of possibilities, which can also be divergent or even contradictory, a systematic interpretation will, last but not least, remind one of the meaning of legal principles, of the meaning of the legal norm in view of its position in the system, and of the “inner logic” binding the parts into a whole and thereby determining them with regard to their intended function.
It would be ideal if these and other interpretative arguments acted in a harmonizing manner and confirmed thereby that the legal text has a relatively clear and definite meaning. In legal practice, however, it often happens that the arguments do not work together and result in the discovery of two or even more meanings in the legal text. If a collision occurs between the interpretative elements, the teleological argument is of crucial importance. It is generally accepted in theory and legal practice that in such a case one has to choose, from among the several linguistically possible solutions, the one corresponding to the purpose of the legal norm in the most intensive manner. The condition for such is, however, that this is not a purpose based on the interpreter’s assumptions or even his wishes, but that this purpose is already expressed in the legal text itself or can be gathered from it or from its value (teleological) context in a relatively (i.e. sufficiently) defined manner.[x]

III. The Significance of Basic (Human) Rights
1. The Expressiveness of the Constitution
The starting criterion of the rule of law argument are basic (human) rights. The expressiveness of modern constitutions is not so strong that basic (human) rights would be defined therein in much detail, but they are rather a matter of understanding and further normative concretization. What constitution-makers can do is to be aware of this problem and to incorporate the criteria for a suitable constitutional interpretation into the constitution itself. In the following section I would like to touch upon three general aspects that can contribute to the rule of law argument.

2. The Central Position of Human Dignity
Human dignity as the central criterion of interpretation is most clearly emphasized in the German constitution (Grundgesetz, Art. 1/1): “Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. (Die Würde des Menschen ist untastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt.)” The first sentence is the basic one, the second one could be even broader and could emphasize that this is the duty of everyone. This is really what it is all about, and the whole spirit of the constitution (the Basic Law) in general, and of the first chapter on basic rights (Art. 1-19) in particular, is in accordance with this approach. Historical reasons required and still require that the one who is the most powerful and can repress basic rights in the most severe way should be mentioned first.

The ambivalence of the law and basic rights is just an additional reason for establishing human dignity as the central criterion with regard to content for the interpretation of the constitution and basic rights (cf. Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, Art. II-61: “Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected.”. Human dignity is the common value starting point on which the whole constitutional structure is based: it refers to the protection of the dignity of the living as well as of the dead, and it is also a topical value criterion with regard to our duties to future generations – e.g. regarding the protection of a healthy living environment, the protection of the natural and cultural heritage, or the dilemmas concerning gene technology and technical influences upon human embryos. In countries with a totalitarian past the protection of human dignity is an especially sensitive issue in (criminal and other) proceedings before state bodies and during the enforcement of a custodial sentence.

3. Human Measure is the Measure of One’s Fellow Man
Human dignity has a very broad meaning which has to be theoretically, and practically, operationalized and developed in concrete cases. The general starting point is that the human measure is necessarily the measure of one’s fellow man: the other side of rights are duties that impose upon us the consideration of the rights of other persons to the same qualitative extent.
The human measure in law may take on very different complexions. I have in mind e.g. the questions of difference and distinction, which cannot be evaluated by the same general yardstick if we deal with privacy and autonomy, that show consideration for the equal rights of others. I am furthermore thinking of a collision of two or more basic rights, which are either proportional if we deal with rights of the same importance (e.g. the collision of two rights to the freedom of movement), or exclusive if some basic rights are weightier than others (e.g. the priority of the right to privacy over the right to the freedom of expression in publications). And, last but not least, I am thinking of the subtle questions of the social state, where the initial unequal starting points should be equalized by a rearrangement of the income created, yet this should be done in such a manner that it would not bring the creativity of the market economy to a standstill and that possible social goals as “higher goals” would not drown out basic rights and other historically established principles of a state governed by the rule of law.
The questions dealt with here also belong to the area of legal culture. In the legal world of continental Europe and of the West in general, the thinking is rather dualistic and bipolar: the right is set against the legal duty and the legal duty is set against the right. Behind this rather coarse vision of a correlation between rights and legal duties the measure of one’s fellow man stands, which tells us that – at least in a certain sense – the entitlement of A is always connected to his legal obligation, whereas the legal obligation of B is always connected to his legal entitlement. The holder of a right is really entitled to act freely within legally allowed limits, yet he is simultaneously obliged not to go beyond these limits. On the other hand, someone subject to a legal duty is obliged to act in a certain manner, yet he is simultaneously also legally entitled to demand of others that they not put obstacles in his way. What has been said wholly applies to unilateral as well as to bilateral obligatory legal relationships; the difference between both kinds of relationships is a quantitative one and does not refer to the legal quality of rights and legal duties, the quality being the same in either case.
A correlation is not characteristic only of the relationships between rights and legal duties. It applies to any mutual dependence of conduct and behaviour between two or more legal subjects. Correlation also exists between the holders of rights and the holders of duty entitlements (e.g. the relationships between parents and children) as well as between holders of legal obligations that are connected to one another with regard to their contents. Especially administrative and other public law is embodied by duty correlation. Thus, in public law relationships citizens are often holders of legal obligations (e.g. of tax obligations), which are in accordance with the “entitlements” of state bodies that citizens meet their obligations. The “entitlements” of state bodies are, with regard to their contents, legal obligations that state bodies cannot discard, because this would already represent a violation of the law.

4. What is not prohibited and commanded, is permitted
Behind the areas of what is permitted (Germ. erlaubt), commanded (Germ. geboten), and prohibited (Germ. verboten), the relation between the world of legally regulated behaviour and the world of legally free behaviour stands. A legal consequence can only arise on condition that one moves in the world of legally regulated behaviour (also in the area of legally permitted behaviour, which is an object of legal protection just due to its legality). If there is no such support, one is in the world of free behaviour (e.g. in the world of intimate and friendly relations between people), which lies completely outside any legal enforcement and legal consequences. Of no lesser importance is the knowledge that the dividing line between the worlds of legally regulated and legally free behaviour is differently defined for individuals and their associations on the one hand, and for the state and its bodies on the other hand. The individual is legally free if he is not limited by legal prohibitions, legal commands, and the rights of others (the prohibition of the abuse of rights!) and if he has not legally committed himself. It stems from the nature of modern law and of the state governed by the rule of law, however, that it is just the other way round concerning the state and its bodies. They are only allowed to do what falls within their legally foreseen jurisdiction, everything else is forbidden to them. Another question is how strongly this jurisdiction can be defined and how elastic the language characterizing it is. Nevertheless, the difference is evident: it is assumed for the individual that he is legally free if he is not subordinated by law in the above-explained manner or if he himself does not take on legal obligations (Pacta sunt servanda!), whereas with state bodies one must always find an appropriate legal criterion that entitles or obliges them to carry out a certain activity. This is, certainly, of special importance for the state governed by the rule of law.

IV. The Rule of Law Argument as a Legal Principle
The rule of law argument is, by its nature, a legal principle, which differs from a legal norm. One can say for legal principles that they are value criteria directing the definition of legal norms as regards their contents, their understanding, and the manner of their enforcement. In positive-law theory and in legal practice, legal principles are often not sufficiently observed. For many the main legal guideline is still the legal norm (for some even just the “legal regulation”, “legal provision”, “constitutional provision”, “article” of the constitution, etc.) and not also the legal principle, though both legal guidelines are closely connected to each other: norms without principles would lose their direction, principles without norms would lose their variety with regard to content (as well as their foreseeability and the firmness of their meaning), which would result in unprincipled and arbitrary legal adjudication. In short, the law is a system of legal principles and legal norms and within this whole there are differences that have to be considered.
It must not be said either of legal norms or of legal principles that the former are applied directly because they are ready for subsumption from the very beginning, whereas for the latter just the valuation or value consideration (assessment, nuancing, etc.) is of central importance. In either case it is subsumed in the end and legal consequences are deduced; with legal norms the interpretative path is, as a general rule, shorter and less complex, whereas with legal principles the interpretative procedure is, as a general rule, longer and more complicated. In either case the decision is only possible once the norm/principle has been chosen and when also its meaning – as undemanding as it may be – has been accepted.
A few examples will follow to illustrate how legal principles (also the rule of law principle) are used in practice. The legislature (the lawgiver) has the most leeway; its duty is to remain within the limits of the legal principle, but at the same time it is the one to concretize the principle as regards its contents and to operationalize it. It (co)depends on the contents where the principle ends and where its limit is. Similar is the role of the constitutional court when it judges whether a statute or some other normative legal act is in accordance with a legal principle (e.g. the rule of law principle). When the constitutional court decides on a constitutional complaint, it judges whether a concrete decision is in accordance with a corresponding basic right. The duty of the constitutional court is to consider those constitutional principles (again e.g. the rule of law principle) that co-determine single basic rights regarding their contents, at the same time it must gauge the basic rights themselves which are under discussion. Many a basic right has largely the nature of a legal principle if it contains value standards (e.g. the principles of human dignity and of trust in law), which are characteristic of legal principles. Before regular courts (and other state bodies) it is, as a general rule, impossible for a decision to be directly based on fundamental legal principles (an exception are legal gaps). Regular courts use legal principles indirectly i.e. via legal norms on which they directly base their decisions. Here, the rule of law principle can have an important role; its influence is especially felt in pre-criminal and criminal proceedings, before administrative bodies, and before the administrative court (e.g. the question of using one’s power of discretion).

V. The Constitutionality of the Legal Game
It is also a question of principle how intensively single elements of a state governed by the rule of law are already designed in the constitution and how far the understanding and a possible further improvement of the constitution may go. In principle, it can be said that the further improvement of the elements of the state governed by the rule of law should be in inverse proportion to the degree of their constitutional legal implicitness or explicitness. If some elements (e.g. the question of substantial justice) are only implicit, it is correct that the constitutional court is restrained and only supervises the constitutionality of the legal game.
Recently it has been the professor and German constitutional judge Hassemer who has very distinctly stressed the constitutionality of the legal game. Hassemer’s standpoint is that also in democratic societies “the majorities have lost the self-evident dignity of being the source of the right law (Germ. richtiges Recht).”[xi] Also in a democracy the majority is limited in the sense that it must consider the substantial and procedural norms of the game that are constitutionally consolidated. Hassemer’s emphasis is clear and meaningful: in the term constitutional democracy “the adjective ‘constitutional’ is not just an epitheton ornans or a mild change of the noun meaning of the word such as, for example, the adjective ‘liberal’ in the concept of the liberal state. The adjective ‘constitutional’ in the concept of the constitutional democracy represents a real intervention into the noun itself. It determines nothing more and nothing less than the limit of the democratic principle; it expresses that the judgement whether the majority decisions are right will in future be subject to a basic reservation, namely the reservation whether these decisions are in accordance with the constitution.”[xii]
Constitutional democracy is incorporated into the design of the state governed by the rule of law. A political and legal game which does not accept the rules of constitutional democracy, but which moves beyond them or arbitrarily subjects them to itself, returns to the condition of a totalitarian state. One should not forget that an important condition of constitutional democracy is also an open and objective argumentation which can listen to the other (Audiatur et altera pars!) and is at the same time tolerant of the views of the other (the principle of tolerance). A typical example of legal intolerance can be a change in the level of decision-making. In legal practice it can happen that what should be regulated at the level of legislation is taken to the constitutional level. Thus, also the decisions of the constitutional court and the norms of the valid constitution can be trumped, and a decision can be reached which more reminds one of a constitutional divide et impera than of a tolerant constitutional democracy. We are at a point that even the highly elaborate design of a state governed by the rule of law cannot avoid. Only those responsible for the political and legal game can avoid this point. It depends on them whether they remain within the limits of the rule of law or the legal form is for them just a facade to hide arbitrary political and legal decision-making.

VI. The (Non)political Nature of Legal Decision-Making
It would be unconvincing and unrealistic to say that making value decisions is apolitical and that it is just a technical legal question how to “merely” recreate a typical legal norm (e.g. a constitutional or a statutory norm) and “mechanically” transfer it into a concrete legal decision. If the activity of state bodies refers to matters connected to the existence, operation, and directing of the polis, it is evident that any decision-making taking up these matters is political. Mutatis mutandis this applies to any decision-making in smaller or broader communities such as states, and this decision-making is especially sensitive when the decision influences the quantity and the quality of the power of individuals and individual state bodies.
Open argumentation does not hide that legal decision-making is also political decision-making and/or that legal decision-making also has political dimensions.[xiii] If we are aware of this fact and admit it to ourselves, the main emphasis of the problem is on the arguments that are allowed and the limit that legal decision-making must not go beyond. The degree of political sensitiveness is much higher in the area of public law (e.g. constitutional, administrative, and criminal law) than in the area of civil law, concerning individual proceedings, however, it is by far the most intensive with some matters within the jurisdiction of constitutional justice.
The fact that legal decision-making is also political decision-making does not mean that we are leaving the ground of law and entering the world of politics, which is not restricted and directed by law. I am speaking about a world that is a wholly legal world, but which deals with questions that are (also) politically charged. It would be very bad for law if this charge were overlooked and one would want to give the impression of a pure application of the statute. Behind such veil there is an ideology that exploits the lawyer, whereas it shows him outwardly as a politically neutral decision-maker led by a statute with perfect content.
Making decisions about politically sensitive questions of law requires a careful survey of the meanings that can be attained with the help of interpretative arguments. By way of example, it can be said that among all the possible arguments, the following have special weight: the argument of linguistic interpretation, which reminds us that the meaning must be one of the linguistically possible meanings; the argument of basic rights, which prevents us from increasing legal duties and/or decreasing the scope of rights (at the same time knowing that they are limited by the same rights of others); the argument of sense and purpose, which urges us, however loose the legal text may be, to discover solutions that are immanent in the law; and the rule of law argument, which imposes on us that we remain within constitutional (legal) possibilities and that we make decisions in proceedings that are within the limits of the constitutional procedural game.
It is essential that already in the determination of the competence of individual state bodies it has to be considered who should be competent for what. Legislative questions that are of a political as well as of a legal nature are decided by the constitution-maker and the legislature, but not by courts (including the constitutional court), who are protectors of constitutionality and legality. Legislative questions are, at least directly, an object of judicial and constitutional court review in the negative sense; the responsibility of the courts is to remove regulations that are unconstitutional and/or unlawful. It is in the nature of law that the separation of competences is not watertight and that also matters with political dimensions fall within the jurisdiction of the courts. This cannot be avoided even in the most elaborate state governed by the rule of law. This circumstance is an additional reason for a prior determination of competencies and that the criterion for a possible current exclusion of matters cannot be the degree of their politicalness; the criterion for a possible current exclusion of matters can only be the degree of legal importance (especially in proceedings before the constitutional court).

VII. Si in ius vocat, ito!
When one finds oneself surrounded by questions that are also politically important, one cannot avoid the political atmosphere in the society (which may also be strongly electrically charged and tense). In such circumstances the attitude and role of the legal profession is of special importance. A prototype of such attitude is the role of the judge in general and especially the principle of judicial self-restraint. The judicial attitude does not depend just on the judge’s personality, but always also on the education of lawyers, on political conditions and the legal culture, and, to a large extent, on the legal institutions and principles that guarantee and strengthen judicial impartiality and independence (together with the permanence of judicial office as one of the most important legal guarantees).
Judicial self-restraint is synonymous with acting with moderation: the judge should be neither an activist intervening in the competencies of the other two branches of power nor a passivist diplomatically shirking from showing with determination how far the other two branches of power may go. Either attitude becomes clearest with the constitutional court. If the constitutional court is activistic, it takes over the role of the positive legislature or declares its position on political questions that are outside its jurisdiction. If the constitutional court is too cautious, it takes refuge in milder decisions without directly saying where the legal mistake is.
Courts breathe with the time and place in which they act. The zeitgeist marks them and co-determines the directions of the interpretation of statutes. The objective-dynamic interpretation which is accepted by the majority, is not conservative but is restrainedly open to changes in time and place. The objective-dynamic interpretation is not an interpretation in the service of daily politics, but an interpretation that admits in the long term that the understanding of old legal texts changes. The self-restraint requires the judge to not anticipate the time and to not bring novelties into the understanding of a statute that the text does not support with regard to the meaning.
It is evident from the above that the judiciary does not have only a constitutional and generally legal framework, but is always rooted in a certain social and legal culture. It is of decisive importance that the legal mechanism strengthens the checks and balances system, which is the central dimension of the separation of powers. The judiciary can have a very important role in social conflicts. It is crucial for the rule of law whether the central political subjects act within the limits of constitutional democracy and whether they are ready to subject themselves to the decisions of the highest courts (especially of the constitutional court, in the systems that know such a court). The co-dependence of the state governed by the rule of law, as a normative phenomenon, upon the society, the state and legal tradition, politics, the economy, and culture is strongly evident in the so-called transition countries (since the fall of Berlin wall).[xiv]

NOTES
[i] Cf. Brand, Hattenhauer (ed.) 1994.
[ii] About the origin and design of the state governed by the rule of law, see e.g. Dicey 1927, p. 179ff.; MacCormick 1984, p. 65ff.; Šarčević 1991; Benda 1994, p. 720ff.; Varga 1995, p. 159ff., and Troper 2001, p. 267ff.
[iii] See Dicey 1927, p. xxxviiff, p. 179ff, p. 402ff.
[iv] See MacCormick 1984, p. 65ff
[v] Herzog, in: Maunz, Dürig 1994, p. 266-269.
[vi] OdlUS (Decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia) XI/1, 1.
[vii] OdlUS VIII/1, 105.
[viii] OdlUS VII/1, 78, p. 494
[ix] See e.g. Müller, Christensen 2004, p. 349. Cf. Weinberger 1988, p. 186: “Die teleologische Argumentation für die Entscheidung zwischen Interpretationsalternativen darf nicht als schlüssige Begründung angesehen werden, sie kann jedoch dazu dienen, die Plausibilität einer vorgeschlagenen Interpretation zu erhöhen.” (The teleological argument for a choice between alternative interpretations may not be considered as a conclusive reason, but it can serve to increase the plausibility of a proposed interpretation.)
[x] See and cf. Pavčnik 1993, p. 71ff.
[xi] Hassemer 2003, p. 217.
[xii] Ibidem, p. 214.
[xiii] See Bell 1985, p. 269 and Heyde 1994, p. 1632.
[xiv] Cf. Přibáň, Roberts and Young 2003 (concerning Slovenia, see the contributions of M. Novak, p. 94ff., and Igličar, p. 180ff.) and Pavčnik 2005.

REFERENCES
Alexy, Robert: Theorie der Grundrechte. Frankfurt/Main 1986.
Bachof, Otto: Der Verfassungsrichter zwischen Recht und Politik, in: Häberle Peter (ed.): Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit. Darmstadt 1976, pp. 285-303.
Bell, John: Policy Arguments in Judicial Decisions. Oxford 1985.
Benda, Ernst: Die Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, in: Stark, Christian; Weber, Albrecht (ed.): Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit in Westeuropa. Baden-Baden 1986.
Benda, Ernst: Der soziale Rechtsstaat, in: Benda, Ernst; Maihofer, Werner; Vogel, Hans-Jochen (ed.): Handbuch des Verfassungsrechts. Berlin, New York 1994, pp. 719-797.
Benda, Ernst; Maihofer, Werner; Vogel, Hans-Jochen (ed.): Handbuch des Verfassungsrechts. Berlin, New York 1994.
Brand, Jürgen; Hattenhauer, Hans (ed.): Der Europäische Rechtsstaat. 200 Zeugnisse seiner Geschichte. Heidelberg 1994.
Bröstl, Alexander: Zur Spruchpraxis des Verfassungsgerichts der Slowakischen Republik im Verfahren der Normenkontrolle (1993-1997), in: Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, 59 (1999) 1, pp. 109-140.
Dicey, A. V.: Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution. London 1927.
Dreier, Horst (ed.): Grundgesetz. Kommentar. I, II. Tübingen 1996, 1998.
Grossman, Joel B.: Political Questions, in: Hall, Kermit L. (main ed.): The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York, Oxford 1992, pp. 651-653.
Häberle, Peter: Europäische Verfassungslehre. Baden-Baden 2001/2002.
Hassemer, Winfried: Ustavna demokracija (Constitutional Democracy), in: Pravnik, 58 (2003) 4-5, pp. 207-226.
Heyde, Wolfgang: Rechtsprechung, in: Benda, Ernst; Maihofer, Werner; Vogel, Hans-Jochen (ed.): Handbuch des Verfassungsrechts. Berlin, New York 1994,pp. 1579-1636.
Hohfeld, Wesley Newcomb: Fundamental Legal Conceptions. New Haven, London 1963.
Holländer, Pavel: Abriβ einer Rechtsphilosophie. Berlin 2003
Holländer, Pavel: Ústavneprávní argumentace. Praha 2003.
Igličar, Albin: Sociologija prava (Sociology of Law). Ljubljana 2004.
Kennedy, Duncan: A Critique of Adjudication. Cambridge etc. 1998.
MacCormick, Neil: Der Rechtsstaat und die Rule of Law, in: Juristenzeitung, 39 (1984) 2, pp. 65-70.
Maunz, Theodor; Dürig, Günter (main ed.): Grundgesetz. Kommentar. München 1994.
Miličić, Vjekoslav: Opća teorija prava i države (General Theory of Law and State). 2nd Edit. Zagreb 2003.
Müller, Friedrich; Christensen, Ralph: Juristische Methodik. 9th Edit. Berlin 2004.
Pavčnik, Marijan: Juristisches Verstehen und Entscheiden. Wien, New York 1993.
Pavčnik, Marijan: The Transition from Socialist Law and Resurgence of Traditional Law, in: Acta Juridica Hungarica, 46 (2005) 1-2, pp. 13-31.
Pavčnik, Marijan; Mavčič, Arne (ed.): Ustavno sodstvo (Constitutional Judiciary). Ljubljana 2000.
Pitamic, Leonid: A Treatise on the State. Baltimore 1933.
Přibáň, Jiří; Roberts, Pauline; Young, James (ed.): Systems of Justice in Transition. Central European Experiences Since 1989. Aldershot 2003.
Radbruch, Gustav: Rechtsphilosophie. Studienausgabe. Ed. by Ralf Dreier and Stanley L. Paulson. Heidelberg 1999.
Šarčević, Edin: Begriff und Theorie des Rechtsstaats (in der deutschen Staats- und Rechtsphilosophie) vom aufgeklärten Liberalismus bis zum Nationalsozialismus. Dissertation: Saarbrücken 1991.
Sprenger, Gerhard: Der Menschen Maβ: der Andere. – Gedanken zu Humanität und Recht, in: Gröschner Rolf, Morlok Martin (ed.): Recht und Humanismus. Baden-Baden 1997, pp. 25-52.
Šturm, Lovro (ed.): Komentar Ustave RS (Commentary on the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia). Ljubljana 2002.
Troper, Michel: La théorie du droit, le droit, l’état. Paris 2001.
Varga, Csaba: Transition to Rule of Law. On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary. Budapest 1995.
Weinberger, Ota: Norm und Institution. Eine Einführung. Wien 1988.