1.
At the last ISSA conference, I argued that Adam Smith’s system of moral psychology contained an implicit account of reasoning that shared much in common with contemporary discussions in informal logic and critical thinking (Weinstein 2003a).[i] First, I argued that for Smith, emotions were, to a large degree, rational. He did not regard passion and reason in opposition to one another. Second, I investigated the place of audience in Smith’s argumentation theory, suggesting that his work anticipated much that is now associated with a rhetorical approach to informal logic and reasoning. Smith’s moral theory is built upon the interactions of actors and spectators.[ii] It necessitates the creation of an imaginary impartial spectator who plays the role of an observing and judging conscience. The relevance of rhetoric to such a theory should be obvious (Weinstein 2001, chapter two; McKenna 2006).
During this discussion, I encountered a question: to what extent does the reunification of passion and reason call certain informal fallacies into question? Obviously, if the two are not fundamentally separate as the Western philosophical tradition has often assumed, the so-called appeal to emotion, for example, may not necessarily be fallacious. For Smith, emotions supply essential information that directs moral actors to normative judgments; appealing to these sentiments is a necessary component of moral reasoning.[iii]

My concern in this paper, however, is not with the appeal to emotion but with the argumentum ad hominem, an investigation inspired by Smith’s comments in the classroom. During his lectures on rhetoric, Smith compares Shaftesbury’s writing to Jonathan Swift’s, arguing throughout that Swift’s clear and simple style is to be praised while Shaftesbury’s more ornate writing is the exemplar of poor prose. In the midst of his discussion, he claims:
Shaftesbury himself, by what we can learn from his Letters, seems to have been of a very puny and weakly constitution, always either under some disorder or in dread of falling into one. Such a habit of body is very much connected, nay almost continually attended by, a cast of mind in a good measure similar. Abstract reasoning and deep searches are too fatiguing for persons of this delicate frame. Their feableness of body as well as mind hinders them from engaging in the pursuits which generally engross the common sort of men. Love and Ambition are too violent in their emotions to find ground to work upon in such frames; where the passions are not very strong. The weakness of their appetites and passions hinders them from being carried away in the ordinary manner,… (LRBL 138 – 139).[iv]
This is not a circumstantial ad hominem; Smith is not suggesting that Shaftesbury is either hypocritical or contradictory. It is abusive. Smith is asserting that because Shaftesbury was either sickly or a hypochondriac that he was unable to engage in sophisticated and in-depth reasoning.
There are no doubt times when individuals are too sick to concentrate. Nevertheless, Smith’s remarks are about Shaftesbury’s constitution, not his circumstance, and are therefore a condemnation of his intellectual capacities in general. Rather than judging Shaftesbury on the merits of his philosophy, he condemns his work based on biographical facts; this appears to be as fallacious as they come. Therefore, the question I pose is whether or not Smith’s comment can be justified. Using his complex notion of moral reasoning as a model, I ask whether character is somehow related to argumentation, and if so, how they are connected. In short, this paper asks whether abusive argumentum ad hominem might not necessarily be fallacious at all.

2.
The history and origin of the ad hominem fallacy is currently in dispute. There is a decade-long disagreement as to whether the fallacy was first introduced by Locke, as is usually argued, or whether its traces can be found in Aristotle (Chichi 2002, Eemeren and Grotendorst 1993, Nuchelmans 1993, Walton 2004 and 2001) In either case, however, Smith would have been familiar with the relevant texts. He read and was heavily influenced by both philosophers, and there are both Lockean and Aristotelian elements throughout his books and lectures. Yet, there is no direct continuum connecting the two philosophers, at least in regards to Smith’s theory of argumentation. In fact, whereas many contemporary informal logicians seem themselves as returning to an Aristotelian framework, Smith regards a rejection of formalism as moving away from Aristotle while finding himself more in line with Locke. Although Smith’s first academic appointment was the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University, he chose to teach rhetoric instead of the Analytics or similar systems of logic. Syllogistics were, according to Smith, an “artificial method of reasoning” (Ross 1995, p. 110). John Millar, Smith’s student tells us that according to Smith:
The best method of explaining and illustrating the various powers of the human mind, the most useful part of metaphysics, arises from an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts and speech, and from an attention to the principles of those literary compositions which contribute to persuasion and entertainment. By these arts, everything we perceive or feel, every operation of our minds, is expressed and delineated in such a manner, that it may be clearly distinguished and remembered’(Stewart 1980, 1.16).

I do not mean to suggest that Smith rejects Aristotle’s account of reasoning altogether.[v] Instead, I am arguing that he rejects the formal structures of the syllogism. In contrast, Smith is very attentive to Aristotle’s wider account of civic discourse. He clearly assumes the acceptance of the complementary nature of ethos, logos, and pathos as Aristotle presents them in the Rhetoric. This integration will be key to our discussion, especially since Smith’s “rejection of the parochial concerns of scholasticism was undertaken in favor of a total communications theory that would encompass taste, style, reader and audience reception, the rules governing different media, and the ethics of discourse” (King 2004, p. 48).
Smith’s lack of interest in more formal logic is representative of a common attitude in early modern philosophy. The fifteenth century humanists thought scholastic logic was “barbarous in style and unattractive in content by contrast with the rediscovered literature of antiquity.” They asked, “who but a dullard would devote his life to the proprietates terminorum when he might read the newly found poem of Lucretius De Rerun Natura or learn Greek and study Plato?” (Kneale and Kneale 1962, p. 300). The rise of modern physics, including the work of sixteenth century natural philosopher Galileo, showed that “logic was not an instrument of discovery” ((Kneale and Kneale 1962, p. 313), and famously, Locke, in the seventeenth century, wrote of formal logic that “God has not been so sparing to men to make them barely two-legged creatures, and left it to Aristotle to make them rational” (Locke 1975, IV.xvii.4).
Locke’s comments on the syllogism are more lengthy and dramatic.[vi] For example, he compares formal logic to corrective lenses, asserting that one should not over-emphasize the nature of the syllogism and “think that men have no use, or not so full an use, of their reasoning faculties without them” (Locke 1975, IV.xvii.4). In short, Locke is claiming that “as a matter of psychological fact, people do not, in their informal thinking and ruminating, follow the syllogistic pattern” (Woolhouse 1983, p. 75). This last point is also essential to our discussion.

There were, of course, philosophers who focused on more mathematical logics than Locke and the humanists; Descartes and Leibniz are probably the most recognized and influential. Smith mentions both in his writing.[vii] Therefore, Smith could have chosen to pursue more formal logic if he saw fit. Yet, Millar tells us that “in the professorship of Logic…he soon saw the necessity of departing widely from the plan that had been followed by his predecessors, and of directing the attention of his pupils to studies of a more interesting and useful nature than the logic and metaphysics of the schools” (Stewart I.16).
Smith’s comments on the nature of logic are limited. We do have a very brief fragment of an essay titled “The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries Illustrated by the History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics” (roughly nine book pages),[viii] but the fragment contains very little about logic itself and was dismissed by Smith in 1773, in a letter to David Hume, as one of a group of fragments “not worth publishing” (Corr. 137).
In it, Smith defines logic as that which “endeavoured to ascertain the general rules by which we might distribute all particular objects into general classes, and determine to what class each individual object belonged” (Ancient Logics 1).[ix] However, this seems more a definition of dialectic than of syllogistic logic, which he discusses immediately after this definition, and there is no evidence to suggest that Smith saw himself as continuing this “ancient” science in his own lectures. Furthermore, in WN, Smith changes his definition of logic to the “science of the general principles of good and bad reasoning” (WN v.i.f.26), a more general and more informal definition. It is worth noting, as Edward King emphasizes, that the title of the essay references logics in the plural (King 2004, p. 60). Smith likely recognized what many contemporary logicians take for granted, that there are multiple approaches to logic and many ways of describing or accounting for inference.

Whatever Smith meant by logic, it wasn’t mathematical in the sense that William and Martha Kneale ascribe to Plato or Aristotle in their influential book The Development of Logic (Kneale and Kneale 1962, chapters one and two). Nor was it mathematical in the way that Frege and the analytics would intend beginning a century after Smith’s death. Smith writes only negative things about formalization. For example, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he explains:
If we examine the different shades and gradations of weakness and self-command, as we meet with them in common life, we shall very easily satisfy ourselves that this control of our passive feelings must be acquired, not from the abstruse syllogisms of a quibbling dialectic, but from that great discipline which Nature has established for the acquisition of this and of every other virtue; a regard to the sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct (TMS III.3.21).[x]

For Smith, neither syllogisms nor dialectic are natural. They are opposed to “that great discipline which Nature has established for the acquisition of this and of every other virtue.” Any attempt to formalize logic is “one of the most effectual expedients, perhaps, for extinguishing whatever degree of good sense there may be in any moral or metaphysical doctrine (TMS VII.2.145).” One might say that rather than Locke’s corrective lenses, Smith saw logic as akin to wearing someone else’s spectacles. In any case, whatever Smith means by reason, it must be more informal in nature and more closely associated with the natural experience of language and sentiment than the Aristotelian or analytic method of reasoning.
Given that the rules of logic are, for Smith, really an account of natural reasoning, I suggest that Smith also calls into question any traditional account of relevance. If I am right that Smith’s argumentation theory is a psychological account of inference, then the universe of allowable grounds and consequence becomes much wider. For Smith, reasoning is always a social phenomenon. His famous comment about the self interest of the butcher and the baker, for example, is really a comment about persuasion (McKenna 2006, p. 134). Commercial activity is itself, for Smith, “the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech” (WN I.2.2) and is built on “the naturall inclination everyone has to persuade” (LJ(A) vi.57). As a result, according to Smith, “everyone is practicing oratory on others thro the whole of his life” (LJ(A) vi.57, McKenna 2006, p. 134).
For Smith, logic and rhetoric are, in some way, one and the same. Given this fact, would it not make sense that reasoning necessitates, not the abstract identification of contextless inference, but, rather, the intermingling of assertions regarding both the argument and the arguers? If argumentation, oratory, and exchange are themselves interrelated, might it not be possible that argument claims are somehow connected to the character of the arguer? And, if this is the case, then might it not be possible that calling an arguer’s character into question is also a form of calling the claim into question as well? The remainder of this paper focuses more specifically on these questions.

3.
Very briefly, Smith’s moral and rhetorical theories can be summarized as follows: Smith sees moral activity as involving two types of people: actors – the moral agents – and spectators, those who observe and evaluate the propriety of the moral act. Over time, actors identify moral rules by harmonizing their sentiments with those around them, modulating their passions to that “pitch” which is deemed socially acceptable. The moral process can only develop effectively within a community of inquiry as defined by contemporary critical thinking theorists. His comments foreshadow those who seek to develop what is now being called deliberative democracy and share the theoretical and practical compromise that can be found, for example, in the pragma-dialectic school of argumentation.
As a result of corrective social processes, moral standards become codified in general rules of morality which guide the actors’ further actions. Over time, moral agents develop the ability to create an imagined impartial spectator that allows actors to avoid being governed completely by either passions or reason while still preserves the capacity for critical reflection on communal beliefs. The impartial spectator is the unification of spectator and actor: a theory of conscience that allows an actor to modify moral judgments without the assistance of the community; it is a form of conscience that allows actors to challenge the social norm as they become morally sophisticated (Weinstein 2006). For Smith, argumentation is aimed both at discovering truth and normativity, not simply the justification of individual acts of argument or the identification of winning argument strategies.

Argument aims at intersubjectively and objectively justified cognitive transformation.
The process of deliberation over the moral propriety of acts and sentiments is the epicenter of Smith’s rationality and argumentation theory. The sympathetic process represents a commitment to common sense as a universal starting point for argumentation. The creation of the impartial spectator is evidence that argument analysis is the purview of disciplined, social, and specialized, or context-specific knowledge. Obviously, communication is of the utmost importance here, and, as Smith argues, moral judgments are impossible outside of society (TMS III.1.3). Moral inquiry is predicated on social exchange of information. As Stephen Mackenna suggests, for Smith, rhetoric supplants epistemology and communication is prior to ethics (McKenna 2006, pp. 78, 138).
Smith’s discussion of rhetoric emphasizes the written form. He argues that the ultimate test for such language is not whether the author feels his or her ideas are adequately represented on paper, but, instead, whether the reader has understood correctly; given his comments on oratory, however, there is no reason not to extend these assertions to speech as well. Accordingly, communication is successful when the two minds, that of the author and that of the audience, find some sort of meeting point: a shared understanding of the substance and emotion within the text. As I have argued in my previous paper, this rhetorical theory both anticipates Smith’s theory of sympathy and indicates a tendency towards emphasis on argument reconstruction and the availability of hidden premises. The author must make all of his or her claims explicit, otherwise persuasion is impossible.
Smith argues that good writing is both descriptive and prescriptive. Historical writing, for example, informs its reader, not only of that which has happened, but also of that which should or should not happen again. Implicit in this discussion is the assertion that arguments imply moral imperatives. An historian must present an account of events “as if he were an impartial narrator of the facts; so he uses [no] means to affect his readers,… he does not take part with either side, and for the same reason he never uses any exclamations in his own person” (LRBL i.83).

Here again, we see the notion of objectivity or impartiality. Accurate adjudication requires stepping away from one’s own passions and adopting a position that allows for the evaluation of as much competing information as possible (Weinstein 2006a, 2006b). However, once again, this notion of objectivity should not be taken so far as to suggest an endorsement of some Archimedean point that is free of all biases; Smith seemed to know that no God’s eye view was possible. Instead, he is making a point about language use. Smith observes that certain styles of writing and speech are more conducive to imparting information, and he is therefore very concerned with methods of providing facts as well as ways of describing objects. Implicit in Smith’s rhetoric is a standard for argument: optimal clarity, although Smith calls it “perspicuity.” Excess premises are not simply unnecessary; they are detrimental to understanding and thus impair communication. An argument must be efficient, effective, and elegant, but elegance here is a minimalist concept. As we shall see, this is where he and Shaftesbury disagree.
Smith defines the purpose of rhetoric as “the perfection of stile” (LRBL i.133). He explains that it “consists in Expressing in the most concise, proper and precise manner the thought of the author, and that in the manner which best conveys the sentiment, passion or affection with which it affects or he pretends it does affect him and which he designs to communicate to his reader” (LRBL i.133). Smith sees rhetoric as communicating sentiment, and sentiment is that which cultivates a person’s virtues and vices. Language use must therefore adequately represent who the author is as well as the nature of his or her character. This is a pivotal point for our discussion. It is not simply that argumentation implies a moral imperative; argumentation implies character. Rules prescribing language use become rules prescribing both human action and character development. The arguer becomes a component of the argument.

Combining TMS and LRBL, we see that morality is inherently rhetorical because the essential problem for sympathy is the process of the spectator learning all of the information relevant to the context, or, from another perspective, the actor communicating all that is necessary. The spectator must not only understand how a person should act in a given situation, but how this particular person should act in a particular situation (TMS VII.iii.1.4). The arguer must therefore present an argument in a manner than is understandable to his or her audience. The burden of persuasion is therefore bidirectional. The audience must do all in their power to understand the argument and arguer – the critical position is not a skeptical one for Smith – and the arguer must do everything he or she can to craft the argument for the audience. Failure to do so represents a failure to create the requisite community of inquiry.
Again, Smith’s lectures on rhetoric assume the problem of sympathy is a problem of clarity (LRBL i.v.57). The mechanics of language are the preconditions for sympathy. This is the result of the discrete physical nature of human beings; it is the consequence of Smith’s empiricism (Weinstein 2006a, 2006b). Narrative and story-telling play an important role in the determination of the facts of a moral actor’s case. What Smith’s rhetoric adds to this equation is the acknowledgement that the capacity to communicate an argument’s context also depends on the ability to receive the information. Argument and explanation are closely related processes for Smith, particularly since actor and spectator are not usually adversaries.

Arguments are commensurable. Rational justifications are understandable and often compelling to others. For Smith, arguments, both individually and collectively, persuade.

Thus, returning to our original discussion, Smith objects to Shaftesbury’s ornamental style because it inaccurately communicate his character.[xi] When communication is distorted, either intentionally or not – and Smith sees Shaftesbury as doing it intentionally – it interferes with the capacity to sympathize. This impairs the sympathetic process and with it the capacity to make moral judgments. In other words, Shaftesbury deflects our ability to understand him. He is guilty of, if I may use modern terminology, a violation of good faith. According to Smith, his style interferes with the audience’s ability to understand; it impinges upon the lessons Shaftesbury wishes to impart and the sympathy his readers ought to experience with him. In other words, Shaftesbury, intentionally or not, sabotages the community of inquiry.

We can now see why Smith attacks Shaftesbury in the form of an abusive ad hominem: attacking character is contiguous with attacking communication which is contiguous with attacking an argument. Rhetorical style presumes moral assertions and in Shaftesbury’s case – a philosopher who is himself prescribing both moral and aesthetic principles – communication of his character becomes distorted as he obfuscates his writing.
To understand this further, let us consider Douglas Walton’s diagram of the ad hominem argument scheme: “The respondent is a person of bad (defective) character. Therefore, the respondent’s argument should not be accepted” (Walton 2004, p. 361). Walton has argued that this logical move may be legitimate because an “attack on a respondent’s character, say for honesty, sincerity, and trustworthiness, can often undermine the respondent’s credibility as a source” (Walton 2004, p. 361). As Walton points out, this is relevant in legal argument. While he is probably correct, he is still accepting the traditional logical assumption that the only relevance of the arguer is as the purveyor of testimony. In essence, Walton argues that because of the questionable character of the source, premises that might otherwise support a conclusion cannot be deemed acceptable.
Smith, on the other hand, is doing something else. He is not arguing against the acceptability of the premises. Instead, he is suggesting that the nature of inference is itself fluid, and that character effects logical consequence. He can do so because he is making both a psychological point and an empirical one. The psychological point is that since individuals make inferences justified by their own impartial spectators, the natures of their spectators determine the viability of the inferences. This foreshadows MacIntyre’s plurality of rationalities: context affects the very nature of reason (Weinstein 2003b, 2003c).
The psychological point is that spectators make moral determinations based on observations, and inaccurate or distorted information about an actor or his or her context necessarily lead towards inaccurate moral judgments. Thus, for Smith, Shaftesbury is guilty of two improprieties. First, he intentionally obfuscates has own character, thereby preventing individuals from making accurate moral judgments about him. Second, he seems to truly believe that he is right in doing so. In other words, Shaftesbury’s “puny and sickly” character causes him to violate the rules of transparency and makes him feel good about doing so.

It is therefore not surprising, then, that Smith approves of the use of ridicule in argumentation, a practice “altogether consistent with the character of a gentleman as it tends towards the reformation of manners and the benefit of mankind” (LRBL v.116). Whereas in a traditional logical argument, pointed and humorous references to an arguer’s shortcomings are deemed wholly inappropriate (this, is, of course, a necessary consequence of the ad hominem fallacy), for Smith, ridicule is “appropriate when it derives from an appropriate sentiment and communicates clearly the capture of the object that gives rise to sentiment… for Smith pathos does a good portion of the work that in classical rhetoric is more typically assigned to logos” (McKenna 2006, p. 92). Thus, we see that for Smith, his comments on Shaftesbury are not simply an entertaining aside for the benefit of his students, but representative of a particular theory about argument, inference, and character. Given Smith’s scheme, not only are his observations about Shaftesbury relevant, they may, in fact, be necessary.

4.
In conclusion, I wish to distinguish between two types of claims: those I am making about the nature and consequences of Adam Smith’s theory of argumentation, and those I am making about informal logic and argumentation theory in general.
If we accept Smith’s approach, then we must accept the possibility that rhetoric “takes over some of the heuristic tasks typically assigned to logos in classical rhetorical invention” (McKenna 2006, p. 1430. Furthermore, we ought also consider the possibility that the tradition of logic has not really taken Aristotle seriously: if ethos, logos, and pathos are truly interrelated, than it is likely impossible to look at logos in isolation.
For Smith, logic is a two way street. It is not simply the case that an audience analyzes an argument as presented by an arguer and then the arguer modifies it accordingly. (This description is reminiscent of Ralph Johnson’s dialectical tier of argumentation.) Rather, arguing is a sympathetic process, in Smith’s sense of the term. It is built on the potential of discrete individuals to come together by modulating their inferences based upon the comparison of their own insights with those around them – a social precursor to Rawls’s reflective equilibrium, perhaps. If an individual’s pathos interferes with the accurate communication of his or her ethos, then logos will necessarily be distorted.
My claims about argumentation theory are more of a prediction. If theorists continue to pursue the rhetorical elaborations of informal logic, then we will all eventually have to face these same issues ourselves. The more rhetoric becomes intertwined with logic, the more the arguer will become intertwined with the argument. If this happens, it may turn out, as Smith seems to suggest, that even the abusive ad hominem is not a fallacy at all.

NOTES
[i] For an account of a “Smithian” critical thinking theory as integrated in contemporary philosophy of education, see Weinstein 2004.
[ii] Smith uses theatrical metaphors intentionally both to emphasize the empirical nature of moral inquiry and to underscore the role of manners and audience response in determining appropriate action. See Marshall 1986.
[iii] Despite its frequent use throughout his writing, Smith only defines sentiments in LRBL. He calls them “moral observations,” a definition that incorporates much more than feelings or reactions (LRBL i.145).
[iv] All Smith references follow the standard form of citation for Smith scholarship and advert to the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondences of Adam Smith. The abbreviations signify the following: Corr.: Smith, A. (1987), Correspondence of Adam Smith; LRBL: Smith, A. (1985), Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres; Ancient Logics: Smith, A. (1980a), “The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries Illustrated by the History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics”; Astronomy: Smith, A. (1980b), “The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries; Illustrated by the History of Astronomy”; WN: Smith, A. (1976a), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; TMS: Smith, A. (1976b), The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
[v] Maria Alejandra Carrasco convincingly argues that Smith was rejecting Aristotle’s theoretical reason and not his practical reason (Carrasco 2004). But Carrasco’s argument must be accepted with moderation. She defines practical reason as “nothing but reason that is guiding action” (p. 89.) If this is the case, there is no ground to suggest that such a wide definition is necessarily Aristotelian as opposed to simply being compatible with Aristotle’s theory and with others as well. Carrasco adds certain other characterizations to the definition, including “openness to context”; that it is “constitutively linked to the faculty of judgment”; that reason includes “pathos and ethos” as well as (presumably) logos (p. 91); that “there are no necessary rules”; that there are “important elements that cannot be universalized”; that “there is immediate perception”; and that the judgment happens so quickly that actors are “scarcely aware of it because we have acquired a habit of judging in that way” (p. 94). I take no issue with these descriptions and will argue that Smith’s notion of reason shares many of these same characteristics. However, once again, none of this makes Smith’s theory necessarily Aristotelian. Perhaps more importantly for my purposes, Carrasco’s essay falls frustratingly short on the actual mechanics of how reason works. Only two and a half pages out of 35 focus explicitly on this project (pp. 112 – 114).
[vi] “And thus I have known a man unskilful in syllogism, who at first hearing could perceive the weakness and inconclusiveness of a long artificial and plausible discourse, wherewith others better skilled in syllogism have been misled: and I believe there are few of my readers who do not know such. And indeed, if it were not so, the debates of most princes’ councils, and the business of assemblies, would be in danger to be mismanaged, since those who are relied upon, and have usually a great stroke in them, are not always such who have the good luck to be perfectly knowing in the forms of syllogism, or expert in mode and figure. And if syllogism were the only, or so much as the surest way to detect the fallacies of artificial discourses; I do not think that all mankind,… would everywhere have neglected to bring syllogism into the debates of moment” (Locke 1975, IV.xvii.4).
[vii] Interestingly, neither Bonar nor Yanaihara list either author in the holdings of Smith’s library (Bonar 1966, Yanaihara 1966).
[viii] The date of this is uncertain, although it seems likely that it was written while Smith was living in Kirkaldy (1746-1748) before he was elected to the chair (Wightman 1980, p. 8)
[ix] Smith’s preliminary definition follows the history of logic as he understood it to that point. To quote King’s summary: “Contemporary logicians are interested in mental phenomena as an interpretation of our physical human environment, and in that part of mental phenomena we call valid or invalid inference. Ancient logicians as interpreted by pre-modern logicians were less interested in the abstract inference than in how statements about that environment acted as a reflection of a person’s inferences. This led to a tradition of problems in logic centered on the examination of the valid or invalid statement. Medieval logicians were interested in examining the statements by privileged auctors in an attempt to create an accurate verbalization of the world around them” (King 2004, p. 52).
[x] He uses the word “quibble” in a slightly different context elsewhere: “At any rate, I cannot allow myself to believe that such men as Zeno or Cleanthes, men, it is said, of the most simple as well as of the most sublime eloquence, could be the authors, either of these, or of the greater part of the other Stoical paradoxes, which are in general mere impertinent quibbles, and do so little honour to their system that I shall give no further account of them. I am disposed to impute them rather to Chrysippus, the disciple and follower, indeed, of Zeno and Cleanthes, but who, from all that has been delivered down to us concerning him, seems to have been a mere dialectical pedant, without taste or elegance of any kind. He may have been the first who reduced their doctrines into a scholastic or technical system of artificial definitions, divisions, and subdivisions; one of the most effectual expedients, perhaps, for extinguishing whatever degree of good sense there may be in any moral or metaphysical doctrine. Such a man may very easily be supposed to have understood too literally some animated expressions of his masters in describing the happiness of the man of perfect virtue, and the unhappiness of whoever fell short of that character” (TMS VII.ii.1.41).
[xi] Commentators seem evenly divided as to whether or not Shaftesbury was a good writer, stylistically. Smith’s student Hugh Blair, whose own lectures on rhetoric are so important to the discipline of English, continues many of Smith’s objections, but Swift himself claims that Shaftesbury’s Letter Concerning Enthusiasm is “very well writ” (Alderman1923, p. 214).

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1. Introduction
In this paper, I seek to answer two interrelated questions:
a) what argumentatively relevant information can we draw from the use of stance adverbials when they qualify the utterance that is to be reconstructed as a standpoint?
b) How can we make use of it in the analysis and evaluation of the argumentative discourse in which the qualified standpoint appears?

I start from the theoretical premises of the pragma-dialectical approach (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, 1992, 2004, van Eemeren and Houtlosser 1999, 2000, 2002a), which considers both the normative and the descriptive aspects of argumentative discourse and acknowledges both the dialectical and the rhetorical aims that arguers have when engaging in argumentative discussions. In answer to the first question, I introduce the concept of the management of the burden of proof as a normative assumption about the choices at the protagonist’s disposal regarding the qualification of a standpoint. In answer to the second question, I look at evaluative adverbials, in particular, and discuss how considering them as one of the ways in which a standpoint can be qualified contributes to the analysis of the argumentative discourse. Before elaborating on the answers to these two questions, I briefly present the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation and discuss how the qualification of standpoints is to be understood. In the last section of the paper, by way of illustration, I analyse a short fragment of argumentative discourse, in which the standpoint is qualified by an evaluative adverbial.

2. The theoretical framework
Pragma-dialectics (henceforth referred to as PD) proposes a systematic and comprehensive study of argumentative discourse as a verbal, rational and social activity (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004). The aim of the pragma-dialectical approach is to evaluate ordinary language users’ argumentation as it occurs in written or spoken communication by appealing to standards of critical reasonableness. To this end, an ideal model of a critical discussion has been developed, which is the theoretical construct that serves as the lens through which argumentative reality is interpreted, analysed and eventually evaluated.
The ideal model of a critical discussion is conceived as a dialogue between two parties, who perform the asymmetrical roles of protagonist and antagonist of the standpoint. The antagonist casts doubt on the standpoint and subsequently on the arguments in support of it, while the protagonist adduces arguments in response to the antagonist’s challenges. The path to the resolution of the dispute ideally goes through four stages: confrontation, opening, argumentation and concluding stage. A number of procedural rules, inspired by Popper’s critical rationalism and in line with a dialectical approach to argumentation describe which moves may be performed by each party and which not, and at which point throughout the dispute resolution process (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, 2004).
The model serves a heuristic function for the analysis of argumentative discourse in the sense that it specifies the argumentatively relevant elements that the analyst should look for in argumentative reality or extract from it for that matter. It also serves a critical function in the evaluation of argumentative discourse. When mapping the reconstructed discussion on the ideal discussion, all those moves that were made while they should not have been made and those that were not made while they should have are considered as an obstruction to the goal of reaching a resolution to the dispute and thereby identified as fallacies (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992).

In order to reconstruct argumentative discourse (whether spoken or written) in terms of the ideal model of a critical discussion, PD treats it as a dialogue (explicit or implicit) and attributes to the parties involved in it the joint goal of coordinating their moves in order to critically test the tenability of a standpoint. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (1999, 2000, 2002a) in a series of articles argue that an integration of rhetorical insights in the pragma-dialectical framework can benefit the analysis by providing a better understanding of argumentative reality. In the light of what is termed strategic manoeuvring, PD acknowledges that the parties, when fulfilling their respective roles and contributing their moves to the dispute resolution process, do not only observe the dialectical standards set by the procedural rules of the discussion but also try to make the best of what is allowed for each of them at the various stages of the discussion. In this integrated view:
– The antagonist is not only assumed to be interested in having the standpoint tested by casting doubt on the arguments in support of it but also in having the other party retract the standpoint as a result of the testing procedure.
– The protagonist is not only assumed to be interested in having the standpoint tested by adducing arguments in support of it but also in having the other party retract the doubt as a result of the testing procedure.

The moves that each party makes in the course of an argumentative discussion are thus considered to originate in his attempt to strike a balance between the goals of having the standpoint tested and having it tested in his own favour. It is with this normative view of how moves in an argumentative discussion are ideally produced that the concept of strategic manoeuvring complements the pragma-dialectical analysis. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (1999, 2000, 2002a) suggest that a way to understand what the design of the moves consists of is by referring to the three aspects of topical potential, audience and presentation, which roughly correspond to ‘what is said’, ‘to whom’ and ‘how’.
While in ideal terms none of these aspects should override the other two in the definition of a move that should be both dialectically sound and rhetorically effective, in practice things may be different. A party, for example, may allow the consideration of a particular audience to determine the choice of the topic or what the presentation should be, or allow the topic to shape the way the audience is being addressed. In doing so, that party prioritizes effectiveness over reasonableness to the detriment of the main goal of dispute-resolution, which requires both reasonableness and effectiveness to shape his argumentative conduct on equal terms. Such a move obstructs the dispute-resolution procedure from progressing according to the dialectical standards set in the ideal model of a critical discussion and is thereby identified as a fallacy. The perpetration of a fallacy, defined already as a violation of one of the procedural rules of a critical discussion, can now also be explained within PD as a derailment from the ideal balance that the strategic manoeuvring describes.
The analysis of argumentative discourse in the light of the strategic manoeuvring invites the analyst to pay closer attention to the pragmatics of communication in order to present a better-justified reconstruction of argumentative reality and a more refined evaluation of it. The concept of strategic manoeuvring, therefore, opens up the possibility within PD of a more systematic exploration of the strategic effect of choices in the use of language.

3. Qualification of standpoints
One such phenomenon of language usage is the qualification of an utterance by stance adverbials like: probably, clearly, certainly, perhaps, apparently, presumably, technically, ideally, frankly, honestly, fortunately, unfortunately, ironically, surprisingly. Stance adverbials are single word adverbs or adverbial expressions that “have the primary function of commenting on the content of a clause or particular part of a clause” (Biber et al. 1999, p. 853). In argumentative discourse, they occur either in the utterance that expresses the speaker’s point of view, as in (1) and (2) below, or in the utterance that provides the speaker’s arguments for his opinion, as in (3) and (4) below:[i]

(1)
Certainly it was unusual to refuse another golfer a practice with a new putter because professionals are notorious for trying each other’s equipment, and for swapping clubs.
(2)
Unfortunately, because the Earth’s climate mechanisms are so extremely complex, predictions of what could happen are very uncertain.
(3)
It’s a completely different world in there! No doubt about it, Gents’ toilets aren’t nearly as nice as the Ladies almost certainly because one sex looks after their toilets and the other sex gets drunk and tries to smash it up.
(4)
Now fortunately, during the whole semester, you guys have gone through, all the different parts of, writing a paper so this shouldn’t be too difficult.

In this paper, I refer exclusively to cases illustrated in examples (1) and (2) above, where the adverbial qualifies the utterance that can be reconstructed as the standpoint of an argumentative discussion.

A standpoint, within PD, is analysed in illocutionary terms as an assertive speech act (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984). The act of advancing a standpoint counts as an assertion of a positive (or negative) position in respect of an expressed opinion (O), by which one party addresses a present or implicit other party, who has expressed or is anticipated to express doubt regarding the tenability of that position (Houtlosser 1995, 2001, 2002). The standard paraphrase, which can be used in order to make fully explicit the communicative force of an utterance as a standpoint, is the following:

(I) My point of view is that (II) it is (not) the case that (III) O

To qualify a standpoint counts as adding a comment either on the assertion of the positive (or negative) position as a whole, position (I), or on the expressed opinion over which the positive or negative position is assumed, position (III). In the above standard paraphrase, to place the qualifier in position (II) would not count as qualifying the standpoint, since it would require that the arguments which follow support the choice of the qualifier and not the expressed opinion.

In examples (1) and (2) above, the adverbial does not alter the content of what is asserted and does not change what is advanced as a standpoint either. The utterances would be acceptable even if the adverbials were omitted. In addition, the argument adduced in support of the standpoint would still stand and be relevant even if the adverbial was omitted.[ii] What the adverbial does is convey the speaker’s comment over the expressed opinion or over the position he assumes over that expressed opinion. In (1) it conveys the speaker’s certainty about the proposition asserted in the standpoint, while in (2) it conveys the speaker’s evaluation toward the position assumed in the standpoint.

The reason why I propose allowing two positions in the standard paraphrase where the qualifier of the standpoint may appear is an analytic one. In this way, the difference between adverbials like ‘unfortunately, ironically, frankly, honestly,’ and adverbials like ‘certainly, perhaps, presumably, apparently, technically’ is taken into account. The former convey the speaker’s comment on the act he performs not on what he asserts to be the case, while the latter convey the speaker’s degree of conviction in what he asserts not in the act he performs.[iii] Both, however, comment on the whole utterance, by means of which the act of advancing a standpoint is performed, and not on parts of that utterance.

Stance adverbials may also convey a comment on a part of the utterance that functions as a standpoint, as in examples (5) and (6) below:
(5)
Business has clearly been good over the last few years because the Ewington recently completed a £ 100,000 refit.
(6)
Both questions are surprisingly easy to answer, simply because Le Pin[iv] has such a brief history.

In these cases, however, the adverbial is part of the expressed opinion (O) and does not qualify that expressed opinion or the position assumed over it, so these cases are not studied as instances of qualification of the standpoint.

Within PD so far, the choice of the language user to qualify an utterance like the one in (1) or (2) above, and to qualify it by using ‘certainly’ instead of ‘frankly’ or ‘unfortunately’ instead of ‘clearly’ would either be explained by reference to relevant literature from pragmatics and discourse analysis on modality and discourse markers or go unnoticed.[v] Despite the number of studies available on the use of stance adverbials and their effect in communication and interaction, there is no clear focus on their use in argumentative discourse in particular.[vi] In addition, the classifications of stance adverbials already proposed in syntactic, semantic or pragmatic terms cannot be readily of use for the purposes of a pragma-dialectical analysis that considers argumentation in its own right, neither as a genre of communication nor as underlying all instances of language use.[vii]
In the light of the assumption about the arguers’ strategic manoeuvring discussed in the previous section, the qualification of standpoints can be understood as one of the presentational means at the protagonist’s disposal in his attempt to keep the balance between his dialectical and rhetorical goal regarding the testing of that standpoint. That is, in ideal terms to have the standpoint both tested and accepted.

4. The management of the burden of proof
In order to suggest a systematic way to interpret the protagonist’s choice to qualify the standpoint that is relevant to the argumentative analysis of discourse, an understanding of what is involved in the act of advancing a standpoint and of the process of testing it is required.
As far as the protagonist of a standpoint is concerned, to engage in the process of testing a standpoint consists in the adducing of arguments in response to the antagonist’s explicit or anticipated challenge to the tenability of that standpoint. Within argumentation studies, the obligation to bring forward arguments that support a standpoint is described by the concept of the burden of proof, which is borrowed from the field of law (Rescher 1977, Walton 1988, Kauffeld 1998, van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002b). The testing of a standpoint then, from the protagonist’s viewpoint, amounts to assuming and discharging a burden of proof for that standpoint.
A burden of proof is incurred upon the one who advanced a standpoint because of the commitment that he has undertaken in public when advancing it. Namely, that he considers the position he assumes as tenable and the expressed opinion, over which he assumes that position, as acceptable.[viii] One would not assume a positive (or negative) position over a certain proposition unless one considers that proposition to be true, correct, etc. for all that he knows, believes, etc. at the moment of the discussion and for the duration of it.

To discharge the burden of proof, the protagonist of a standpoint engages in a dialogue with the antagonist, over the tenability of that standpoint. In this dialogue, both the content of the arguments in support of the standpoint and their potential in justifying / refuting the particular standpoint are tested on the grounds of commonly accepted starting points. This is what van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004, pp. 145, 149) call the ‘intersubjective identification procedure’ and the ‘intersubjective testing procedure’, respectively. In a fully externalised turn-taking system, the tenability of the standpoint is jointly tested by an antagonist and a protagonist in the following way:
– Every time the antagonist expresses doubt, the protagonist is invited to check whether what he has previously asserted is in accordance with commonly agreed starting points. If it is, the protagonist needs to spell that out for the antagonist by providing a further argument for the content or the potential of the previous argument. If it is not, then the protagonist should retract the argument (or eventually the standpoint).
– Every time the protagonist adduces an argument, the antagonist is invited to check whether what is asserted is in accordance with commonly agreed starting points. If it is, the antagonist should retract the doubt (over the argument or eventually over the standpoint). If it is not, then he is entitled to go on asking either about the content or about the potential of the argument adduced.

The obligation to defend is discharged either when the protagonist retracts the standpoint after conclusive attack of the standpoint or when the antagonist retracts the doubt over the standpoint after conclusive defence of the standpoint. A conclusive attack is achieved when at the end of the testing process doubt over the content or the potential of at least one of the arguments adduced remains, and the protagonist has no further arguments to bring forward. A conclusive defence is accomplished when at the end of the testing process there remains no doubt about the content and the potential of the arguments adduced, and the antagonist has no further questions to ask. When taking into account the protagonist’s interest in having the standpoint both tested and accepted (see strategic manoeuvring above), it is only as a result of a conclusive defence that the obligation to defend can be considered as successfully discharged.
Since advancing a standpoint incurs an obligation to defend it, to qualify it can be seen as a means to alleviate that burden, that is a means to manage the burden of proof. The effect of qualifying the standpoint on the burden of proof is to be understood ideally as keeping a balance between the rhetorical goal of having the standpoint accepted and the dialectical goal of having it tested. To qualify the standpoint is a strategic means by which the protagonist seeks to reach a successful discharge of the burden of proof, being rhetorically effective and remaining dialectically reasonable all along.
In order to provide a systematic interpretation of the protagonist’s argumentative behaviour that takes into account the linguistic and other choices that he makes and one that is relevant to the analysis and evaluation of discourse, I introduce the concept of the management of the burden of proof. The management of the burden of proof is a normative assumption, which postulates that the protagonist of a standpoint makes those choices regarding the design of his moves in the course of an argumentative discussion that help him reach a successful discharge of the burden of proof. To qualify the standpoint is one of the choices available as far as the presentation of this move is concerned at the confrontation stage of an argumentative discussion. By qualifying the standpoint, the protagonist proposes a certain representation of the starting points from where he is ready to defend it that helps him pave the way for a successful discharge of the burden of proof, given the topic and the audience addressed each time.

Below, I distinguish five ways in which the protagonist can qualify the standpoint, that take into account the different kinds of comment that he can make either on the expressed opinion over which he assumes a position (a-c) or on the position he assumes over the expressed opinion (d-e):
a) Convey the degree of certainty in the correctness of the expressed opinion, by using such adverbials as: surely, certainly, clearly, perhaps, maybe, possibly, probably, presumably. The protagonist indicates to the antagonist that he considers the evidence he is ready to bring forward as a strong or weak support for the standpoint.
b) Convey the source of evidence that warrants the correctness of the expressed opinion, by using such adverbials as: apparently, obviously, evidently, reportedly, reputedly, supposedly. The protagonist indicates to the antagonist where he draws the evidence from that he is ready to adduce in support of the standpoint.
c) Convey the domain within which the expressed opinion is taken to be correct, by using such adverbials as: technically, theoretically, philosophically, morally, ideally, practically, politically, generally, basically, typically. The protagonist indicates to the antagonist the domain within which the arguments he is ready to adduce constitute an acceptable support for the standpoint.
d) Convey his own reliability when assuming the positive/negative position he does, by using such adverbials as: frankly, honestly, seriously, truly, actually, really, admittedly. The protagonist indicates to the antagonist that he is aware that the position he assumes will not to be accepted at face value.
e) Convey his own evaluation over the act of assuming the positive/negative position, by using such adverbials as: fortunately, unfortunately, luckily, strangely, curiously, paradoxically, ironically, oddly enough, interestingly, surprisingly. The protagonist indicates to the antagonist that he is aware that his assessment over the position he assumes may not be in accordance with the antagonist’s own judgement over the issue under discussion.
All five ways have the same effect, namely help the protagonist manage the burden by paving the way for a successful discharge of it. The way this effect is achieved, however, differs depending on the different comment that each of these ways adds to the standpoint. In the next section, I focus on the case of evaluative adverbials (group e, above).

5. Evaluative adverbials and the management of the burden of proof
I now turn to the question “how can we make use of the assumption about the management of the burden of proof in the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse”. More specifically, I will discuss how the way that evaluative adverbials manage the burden of proof can inform the analysis of argumentative discourse in which such a qualified standpoint appears.

To answer this question, a distinction should be made between assuming a positive (or negative) position over an expressed opinion and expressing a positive or negative evaluation of an object, person, institution, idea, etc. While the former constitutes a standpoint, the latter constitutes an attitude (see Houtlosser 2001). The act of advancing a standpoint should not be exclusively identified with the expression of an evaluative judgement over an issue. An utterance does not function as a standpoint just because a certain evaluation is expressed in it. The expression of a positive or negative evaluation may become the bone of contention in the ensuing discussion or may not, depending on what the reaction of the interlocutor to it is and what the follow up of the first speaker is. Compare the two constructed dialogic exchanges below:

(7)
A: Fortunately, John is not coming with us tonight
B: Why do you say that?
A: Because the trains are not running
(8)
A: Fortunately, John is not coming with us tonight
B: Why do you say that?
A: Because he always makes fun of me whenever he is around

While speaker A in (7) assumes a positive position over the expressed opinion that ‘John is not coming with us tonight’, in (8) the speaker assumes a positive position over the expressed opinion that ‘it is a fortunate fact that John is not coming with us tonight’. In both dialogues the presence of the adverbial ‘fortunately’ conveys a certain evaluation by speaker A but it is only in the second case that the evaluation expressed becomes the bone of contention and thereby functions as the standpoint that A has to defend.[ix] The adverbial qualifies the standpoint only in the first case (7), since it adds a comment to the expression of the positive position over the proposition ‘John is not coming with us tonight’.

That the adverbial is part of the standpoint that needs to be defended and not an additional comment on it, in the second case (8), can be further illustrated by the unacceptability of the constructed utterances below:

(9)
* Unfortunately, John is not coming because he makes fun of me
(10)
* Clearly, John is not coming because he makes fun of me

Compare the above examples with an utterance like:

(11)
Fortunately/Unfortunately, John is not coming because the trains are not running

In (11), the presence or absence of the adverbial does not affect the interpretation of the main clause’s communicative force as a standpoint. Here, the adverbial is not part of the standpoint since the choice of ‘fortunately’ or ‘unfortunately’ does not make the because-clause irrelevant in any sense with respect to what is asserted in the main clause. It is in such cases, where I argue that the evaluative adverbial qualifies the standpoint and that its argumentative function is to manage the burden of proof.

But what would choosing ‘fortunately’ instead of ‘unfortunately’ imply in those cases and when could such a choice make the move derail to a fallacy? As I already said in the previous section, to use evaluative adverbials to qualify the standpoint indicates the protagonist’s awareness that the position he assumes may be judged positively (or negatively) in addition to it being received with doubt by the antagonist. That speaker A in the dialogic exchange at (7) assumes a positive position over the expressed opinion ‘John is not coming with us tonight’ may be something that speaker B judges positively or negatively, in addition to the fact that B is of the opinion that John is coming tonight or simply has doubt over it.

Suppose that in the above situation, A who is of the opinion that John is not coming addresses B who is not sure about it, but who admittedly enjoys John’s company. A who is aware of B’s positive evaluation of John’s company could choose either ‘unfortunately’ or ‘fortunately’ to qualify the standpoint. By choosing to qualify it with ‘unfortunately’, A would confront his interlocutor with the opinion that ‘John is not coming’ and would additionally indicate his own evaluation, which happens to be in agreement with that of his interlocutor: both A and B will not be happy in case A’s opinion turns out to be tenable because they both enjoy John’s company. B would then reasonably react to it by asking A for reasons in support of the standpoint, rather than in support of the choice of the particular adverbial, since he is in agreement with A’s evaluation over it but doubts the tenability of A’s opinion.

By choosing to qualify the standpoint with ‘fortunately’, A would confront his interlocutor not only with the opinion that ‘John is not coming’ but also convey his own evaluation about this, which happens to clash with what B would wish to be the case. According to the procedural rules for the testing of a standpoint, B should also in this case ask A for reasons in support of the standpoint. In this case, however, B may reasonably do that before or after asking A for an explanation of the choice of the adverbial ‘fortunately’ as well, since he does not only doubt the tenability of A’s opinion but he also does not agree with A’s evaluation.
In a different scenario, in which B, to whom A expresses the opinion that John is not coming, admittedly does not enjoy John’s company, the effect of the choice between the adverbials ‘unfortunately’ and ‘fortunately’ would be the exact opposite. Of the group of evaluative adverbials, ‘fortunately’ and ‘unfortunately’ are the only ones that allow each for two different interpretations under the two possible scenarios. This is because the two adverbials form an antonymic couple unlike the rest of the adverbials of this group. For the rest of the adverbials such as ‘strangely, ironically, oddly enough, surprisingly’, the protagonist’s choice would be between selecting the adverbial when the evaluation would agree with that of his interlocutor and not selecting such an adverbial when it would be different.
Given the above presentation, to qualify a standpoint by using an evaluative adverbial such as ‘fortunately’ or ‘ironically’ would obstruct the testing of the standpoint when it would lead the other party to ask for an explanation of the choice of the particular qualifier instead of asking for the reasons for asserting the particular standpoint. A standpoint qualified by an evaluative adverbial does not immediately and unmistakably indicate that a fallacy has been committed by the protagonist. It only suggests that such a choice could lead to the perpetration of a fallacy in case the protagonist would leave it at a mere explanation of the use of the adverbial instead of arguing for the standpoint itself. Considering evaluative adverbials as one of the ways in which standpoints can be qualified with the effect of managing the burden of proof helps provide a normative understanding of their argumentative use, which does not require reference to the specific context in which they occur each time. However reference to the specific situational context in which the stance adverbials occurred is required for the assessment of their use as fallacious or non-fallacious.

6. An example
The text below comes from the section ‘frequently asked admissions questions’ on the web page of an American college in answer to the first year students’ question ‘What do I do about parking?’:

(12)
Because campus is situated in the middle of an urban area, it is difficult and expensive to park. Fortunately, because of the location, it is not necessary to have a car. Freshmen who have less than 30 semester hours of college work are not eligible for campus parking. The Auxiliary Services Office (843) 953-7834 does provide listings of off-campus parking spaces available to students.

Instead of answering that question, the text starts with two sentences that each contains a because-clause – one of them right at the beginning of the text. This gives the impression that the authors feel the need to give reasons in a passage that should initially provide information in response to the students’ question regarding parking facilities. In fact, the original question receives an answer only in the second half of the text. The answer given there, however, suggests that the solution to the question regarding available parking space is to be found outside the campus, and that not everyone is eligible for parking space. If the two last sentences are the answer, though partial, to the question, why aren’t they given right at the start of the text and why is there any need for argumentation in the first place? All this suggests that the text allows for an argumentative interpretation as well. Of the three propositions asserted in the first two sentences of the text: ‘the campus is situated in the middle of an urban area’, ‘it is difficult and expensive to park’, and ‘it is not necessary to have a car’, the standpoint can be reconstructed from the last one, namely:

The college’s point of view is that it is not the case that it is necessary to have a car[x]

The other two propositions can then be reconstructed as coordinatively compound argumentation in support of the above standpoint:
1a because the campus is situated in the middle of an urban area
1b because it is difficult and expensive to park in such a centrally located area

Note that the two propositions need to be coordinatively structured because none could stand alone as sufficient support for the standpoint (Snoeck Henkemans 1992). 1a alone assumes that students do not have cars or that all students live in the middle of the urban area. It could thus be rebutted as insufficient by those future students who have cars and/or use them to drive to the college from outside the centre. 1b anticipates such a challenge by pointing that even if students would use their car it would cost them a lot of money and trouble to park it close to the campus.

The evaluative adverbial ‘fortunately’ which occurs at the beginning of the second sentence functions as a qualifier for the standpoint in the sense described in section 3 above. The presence of the adverbial does not affect the identification of the standpoint in the text and the arguments that support the content of that standpoint would still stand and be relevant even if the adverbial was omitted. What can then be said about the argumentative function of ‘fortunately’ in this text?
Following the analysis of the use of evaluative adverbials that I have presented in the previous section, the choice of the adverbial ‘fortunately’ can help understand what the protagonist of the standpoint takes the starting point of the discussion to be.
As far as college students are concerned, to have a car and to have the possibility to drive it in town and park it easily is a fact positively evaluated. That is something that the college authorities are assumed to know when addressing first year students on the issue of on-campus parking facilities. By selecting the adverbial ‘fortunately’ instead of ‘unfortunately’ to qualify their claim that it is not necessary to have a car, however, they chose to ignore it. Had they chosen to qualify their claim by ‘unfortunately’ they would be appearing sympathetic to the feelings of freshmen but they would make it harder for the college to argue for the lack of parking space on campus.

By choosing to qualify the standpoint with the evaluative adverbial ‘fortunately’, the college authorities could have also opted for providing a mere explanation why they consider it ‘a fortunate fact that it is not necessary for freshmen to have a car’, by asserting only a proposition like the one in 1b above: ‘because it is difficult and expensive to park in such a centrally located area’. Instead, the authors of the text chose to provide coordinatively compound argumentation that supports the unqualified claim ‘it is not necessary to have a car’. Had they chosen to explain or argue directly why ‘it is a fortunate fact not to have a car’, the authors of the text would have risked an open clash with what they know the students’ feelings over the issue are and thereby would have lost any chance of convincing them over the issue.
By qualifying the standpoint over an issue that is positively assessed by their audience using ‘fortunately’ instead of ‘unfortunately’ and by choosing to argue in support of the standpoint instead of explaining the choice of the qualifier, the authors of the text falsely attribute to their audience the assessment that having a car is a problem. The lack of parking space, which could be a negative point for the college’s image is turned into a problem that potential students may have (namely paying a lot in order to park) and one that the college fortunately solves by being centrally located!
In the light of the above analysis it also becomes clear now why the argumentative part precedes the informative part in this text. In doing so, the authors anticipate criticisms about the fact that the college offers only restricted parking before going on to answer the question ‘what do I do about parking’ by informing the students that specific conditions apply under which they may be considered eligible for on-campus parking.

7. Concluding remarks
As van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992, p. 105) put it: “Only given a certain interpretation of the discourse, is it justified to maintain the allegation that a fallacy has occurred”. The assumption about the management of the burden of proof that I have formulated along the lines of the concept of the strategic manoeuvring provides such a background for the interpretation of the argumentative use of stance adverbials when qualifying a standpoint. In the light of this assumption there is nothing intrinsic in the use of words like ‘fortunately’, ‘frankly’, ‘in fact’, ‘allegedly’ or ‘perhaps’ that indicates unmistakably to the analyst that a fallacy has been committed. It is by derailing from the attempt to ideally exploit the strategic use of such words in paving the way towards a successful discharge of the burden of proof that space for the perpetration of a fallacy is allowed.

NOTES
[i] Examples 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are taken from the Collins Wordbanks Online English Corpus, which can be publicly accessed at http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx. Example 4 is taken from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE), which can be publicly accessed at http://micase.umdl.umich.edu/m/micase. Example 12 is taken from Google www.google.com.
[ii] Compare the following example (from the Collins Online English Corpus):
Fortunately, a couple came along and picked me up because I was very shocked by then, although, luckily, I was unhurt.
In this case, the because-clause explains the choice of the adverbial ‘fortunately’. The standpoint can be paraphrased: ‘My point of view is that fortunately it is the case that a couple came along and picked me up’. If the adverbial were omitted, the utterance would not function as a standpoint but as an assertion of a fact and the because-clause could not function as an argument in support of it but as an explanation for the asserted fact. The substitution with another adverbial like ‘clearly’ or ‘unfortunately’ would render the sentence unacceptable and the argument adduced irrelevant.
[iii] Quirk et al. (1985, p. 623) make a similar distinction between ‘style disjuncts’ (honestly, seriously, frankly) and ‘content disjuncts’ (certainly, surely, maybe, perhaps): “while both alike express conviction about what is said, style disjuncts assert that the speaker is saying something sincerely, while content disjuncts assert the truth of what is said”. Somewhat confusingly, however, they identify evaluative adverbials as ‘content disjuncts’. Greenbaum (1969, pp. 202, 206) also distinguishes two semantic sets of adverbials: those expressing an opinion on the truth-value of what is said, and those expressing a judgement about what is being said. Evaluative adverbials are classified under the second set.
[iv] Chateau Le Pin is a small vineyard located in the middle of the Pomerol plateau in the Bordeaux region of south-eastern France.
[v] Within PD, Snoeck Henkemans (1992) and Houtlosser (1995) have paid attention to only a number of those adverbials. Snoeck Henkemans considers the effect of modal adverbs such as ‘probably’ occurring in the standpoint as one of the pragmatic clues for reconstructing the structure of the arguments in support of such a qualified standpoint. Houtlosser takes adverbials such as ‘probably, certainly, undoubtedly, apparently, surely, clearly’, together with other expressions that have a parenthetical position, to indicate the function of an utterance as a standpoint. However, the focus of these studies is not on the strategic effect of choosing one adverbial instead of another but on the indicative potential that particular adverbials have for the purposes of reconstruction.
[vi] Brown and Levinson (1987) have studied some of these adverbials together with modal verbs and other hedging expressions as devices used for face saving strategies. Caffi (1999), too, focuses on the mitigating function of some of these adverbials and adverbial expressions, while Holmes (1984) and Sbisà (2001) propose a comprehensive view of both mitigating and boosting linguistic devices as a means to modify illocutionary force with a number of communicative effects each time. Ifantidou (2001) has studied the semantic status of adverbials such as ‘certainly, evidently, frankly, unfortunately’ and their contribution to the interpretation of utterances within the framework of Relevance Theory. Most recently, Martin and White (2005) have placed stance adverbials together with other parts of speech that express evaluation in the centre of an ‘appraisal framework’ for the analysis of discourse that acknowledges its intersubjective and dialogical nature.
[vii] Greenbaum (1969), Biber and Finegan (1988, 1989), and Fraser (1996), among others, have specifically focused on adverbials and stance adverbials. Extensive treatment of this class of adverbials can be found in grammars by Quirk et al. (1985), Biber et al. (1999), and Huddleston and Pullum (2002). The classifications proposed in these studies, however, do not overlap and the adverbials are studied under various labels such as ‘disjuncts’, ‘adjuncts’, and ‘markers’.
[viii] This requirement does not commit the speaker to believing that what he asserts is true and that his position is correct, but to being responsible for the consequences of having asserted a positive (or negative) position in public. Namely, to have reasons in support of this position and to be ready to bring them forward when asked to do so. For such a commitment there is no need to specify the epistemic or cognitive state of the speaker prior to the act of advancing a standpoint.
[ix] See note 2, above.
[x] The standpoint is paraphrased as a negative standpoint because it is assumed that there is a mixed difference of opinion in which the college authorities refute the potential students’ standpoint that it is necessary to have a car on campus.

REFERENCES
Biber, D. & E. Finegan (1988). Adverbial stance types in English. Discourse Processes 11, 1-34.
Biber, D. & E. Finegan (1989). Styles of stance in English: lexical and grammatical marking of evidentiality and affect. Text 9, 93-124.
Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad & E. Finegan (1999). The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
Brown, P. & S.C. Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Caffi, C. (1999). On mitigation. Journal of Pragmatics 31, 881-909.
Eemeren, F.H. van & R. Grootendorst (1984). Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions: a Theoretical Model for the Analysis of Discussions Directed Towards Solving Conflicts of Opinion. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Eemeren, F.H. van & R. Grootendorst (1992). Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies. A Pragma-dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Eemeren, F.H. van & R. Grootendorst (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The Pragma-dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (1999). Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative discourse. Discourse Studies 1, 479-497.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (2000). Rhetorical analysis within a pragma-dialectical framework. The case of R.J. Reynolds. Argumentation 14, 293-305.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (2002a). Strategic maneuvering: maintaining a delicate balance. In: F.H. van Eemeren & P. Houtlosser (Eds.), Dialectic and Rhetoric: the Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis (pp.131-159), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publications.
Eemeren, F.H. van & P. Houtlosser (2002b). Strategic maneuvering with the burden of proof. In: F.H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in Pragma-Dialectics (pp.13-28), Amsterdam/ Newport: SicSat/Vale Press.
Fraser, B. (1996). Pragmatic markers. Pragmatics 6, 167-190.
Greenbaum, S. (1969). Studies in English Adverbial Usage. London: Longman.
Holmes, J. (1984). Modifying illocutionary force. Journal of Pragmatics 8, 345-365.
Houtlosser, P. (1995). Standpunten in een Kritische Discussie. Een Pragma-dialectisch Perspectief op de Identificatie en Reconstructie van Standpunten. Amsterdam: IFOTT.
Houtlosser, P. (2001). Points of View. In: F.H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Crucial Concepts in Argumentation Theory (pp. 27-50), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Houtlosser, P. (2002). Indicators of a point of view. In: F.H. van Eemeren (Ed.), Advances in Pragma-Dialectics (pp.169-184), Amsterdam/Virginia: SicSat/Vale Press.
Huddleston, R. & G. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ifantidou, E. (2001). Evidentials and Relevance. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Kauffeld, F. (1998). Presumptions and the distribution of argumentative burdens in acts of proposing and accusing. Argumentation 12, 245-266.
Martin, J.R. & P.R.R. White (2005). The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. New York/London: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech & J. Svartvik (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
Rescher, N. (1977). Dialectics. A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
Sbisà, M. (2001). Illocutionary force and degrees of strength in language use. Journal of Pragmatics 33, 1791-1814.
Snoeck Henkemans, A.F. (1992). Analysing Complex Argumentation. The Reconstruction of Multiple and Coordinatively Compound Argumentation in a Critical Discussion. Amsterdam: SicSat.
Walton, D.N. (1988). Burden of proof. Argumentation 2, 233-254.

The 2000 general election was of great significance because it would decide the direction Japan was to take in the twenty-first century. Prior to the general election, on the funeral day of his predecessor, Obuchi Keizo, Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro made a toast at a party of the pro-Shinto parliamentary organization. In his speech, Mori described Japan as a “divine nation,” and sparked controversy across the country. To play to the pro-Shinto religious side, Mori did not just magnify Japan’s pride and self-regard, but also intensified the sentiment of its national identity by calling in Japanese cultural uniqueness (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983).[ii] For his pro-Shinto audience, Mori’s cultural assertiveness and defiance was a common sense support for the traditional values of Japanese society. To the public ear, however, the strong-sounding words sounded very conservative. Mori’s pronouncement adversely affected public trust both in his cabinet and in his leadership of the ruling coalition consisting of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), new Komeito, and the newly-born Conservative Party. Controversy over his “private” remarks at the party spread from the political sphere to the public sphere. Troubled by the emotional trauma of loss for more than a half century after World War II, many Japanese people questioned his capacity as the Prime Minister.[iii] Following a decade of dissatisfaction with empty promises of administrative reform in the 1990s, public cynicism now seemed to run so deep that public desire for strong leadership appeared to seek even authoritarian alternatives.
In this paper[i], I observe the social, political, and historical context in which the nationwide backlash against Mori’s calling Japan “divine” circulated in concert with a particular mood that was influencing opinion polls. Observations of the contexts of his “divine nation” remarks will provide a more realistic picture of the two-fold quality of Japanese polity, in which everything has a front “tatemae,” the pretense designed for public acceptance (i.e., de jure) and a back “honne,” the actual intent of the private self “I” (i.e., de facto). For that purpose, I would explicate first how the news reported his “private” remarks and questioned his genuine intent, and then examine how Mori attempted to defend the controversial phrase “divine nation” by shifting the issue from his “mistake” of advocating Shinto religious ideas to the public’s “misunderstanding” of his remarks. This includes his implicit, but strong censure of the news media that made his private comments public. Mori’s strategic approach to publicly explaining his questionable remarks failed, but the sympathy vote for Obuchi saved him from having to resign.
Prior to examining the controversy, I explain the context in which Mori was attacked by the opposition parties and the general public for having “hawkish” views.

1. The Context
Mori’s toast, delivered on May 15, 2000, at a party held by the Shinto Seiji Renmei parliamentary league (consisted of pro-Shinto Diet members) at Hotel New Otani in Tokyo, was extemporaneous. Its purpose was to pay tribute to those Shinto priests who for a long time had supported the LDP members in their respective electoral constituencies.[iv] In his toast, Mori called Japan the “nation of the kami centered on the emperor”: “I would like people to acknowledge that Japan is the divine nation with the Emperor at its center. Everything we have done in the last 30 years has been done with that in mind.”[v] In front of Shinto leaders and pro-Shinto lawmakers, he made a respectful gesture toward Shinto religious ideology. By creating a friendly atmosphere among his immediate political associates, Mori sought to strengthen his relations with Shinto LDP supporters for the 2000 general election.[vi] Here he ignored the importance of making a clear distinction between his public obligation as Prime Minister and private matters. Especially, his choice of Shinto religious terminology exposed his particular political views to public scrutiny. To the public, his yearning for Japan’s prowess under a divine Emperor appeared to have troubling echoes of Imperial Japanese military power and its devastating results. On the whole, Mori’s “private” remarks ended up being reported in political news coverage, and then criticized by opposition leaders as well as subjected to negative national attention.

Prime Minister Mori’s description of Japan as a “divine nation with the Emperor at its center” caused a series of political and public attacks on his personality. At first, he overlooked the political and public backlash against his “divine nation” remarks. His belated response missed an opportune time to mute growing consciousness-raising as well as to restore his image of ineptness played up in the news coverage. The growing criticism affected his initiative in keeping the tripartite ruling coalition united. The leaders of New Komeito and the Conservative Party, Kanzaki Takanori and Ogi Chikage, publicly expressed their concern that the Prime Minister’s choice of language might have an adverse effect on the election, and even on their political alliance. Prior to his formal apology delivered on May 19, 2000, Mori privately apologized to the leaders of those two coalition partners for his “mistaken” performance that caused the political fiasco.[vii] Both of the leaders accepted his explanation along with his pledge to be more careful not to offend anyone holding different political views (Mori sets June 25 poll amid resignation calls 2000).[viii]
Even members of his cabinet voiced misgivings and puzzlement about Mori’s mishandling of the situation. Implicitly Chief Cabinet Secretary Aoki admitted that Mori’s remarks were indiscreet, saying that the Prime Minister should have been more careful about the choice of language in his capacity as the nation’s top political figure.[ix]

2. Analysis
In an age when the domination of television and print media has turned the world into a kind of global village, politicians must address the whole nation as a single audience whenever they speak. That is, they have great difficulty advocating specific ideas because they must take into consideration many different kinds of people simultaneously. In the case of the controversy over his verbal “mistake(s),” Prime Minister Mori already lost control over his initial performance when he gave the toast at the occasion to celebrate the Shinto Seiji Renmei parliamentary league. Since he was a newsworthy person as the national leader of the second biggest economic power in the world, the foreign and domestic media highlighted the Shinto religious implications of Mori’s “divine nation” remarks. With the weapon of ridicule, the media characterized Mori as a nationalist, constitutional revisionist, and traditionalist who was making common cause with conservative political circles.

2.1 Reactions
One of the most serious failings that Mori made was the internal/external audience problem. In terms of political communication strategies, he failed to clearly distinguish between a public obligation and a private matter.[x] In addition, he did not take into account the current political situation in which politicians can no longer separate content, wording, or the possible implications should their words find their way to the public ear from the meaning of the words themselves. Mori trained with the Waseda debating club to be a good speaker. Among old-fashioned politicians, he could be also seen as a skilled orator: “In a classical sense, Mori knows how to get ahead. He has been very good at associating with people” (Jottings 2000). As intimacy communicates involvement in the private sphere, his “sense of getting ahead” played a key role in creating the inclusive “we” among his immediate audience. Yet, in the wider public relations context, Mori was often accused of making insensitive comments and careless remarks. In fact, Mori was known more for loose lips than oratorical skills among voters. Hence his “divine nation” remarks at the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Shinto Seiji Renmei parliamentary league were shocking, but not surprising. Through the choice of pro-Shinto religious terms, he presented a view of the world that could be shared by his immediate audience; he identified his ways of viewing the world with those Shinto priests and pro-Shinto Diet members (Jottings 2000). For the general public, therefore, he failed to adapt to the dominant social attitudes and values. His mutual feeling of oneness with a pro-Shinto audience created division from the national audience. Later Mori consistently claimed that he merely expressed his goodwill by calling on Japanese cultural uniqueness in what would be sometimes called “folkloric,” “traditional,” and “religious” language (See Anderson 1991).

The mass media highlighted the phrase “divine nation” as another “slip of the tongue.” In a series of his political blunders, the news media drew attention to the implications of “divine nation” that reminded many of Japan’s past militarism and imperial rule. In the news, the questionable remarks were soon called Prime Minister Mori’s “remarks on Japan as a divine nation” (kami no kuni hatsugen). This sound bite changed political issues into a political event in which news became confused with theater and theater with news.[xi] For the “news theater” stage, the media focus on his audience contributed to increasing attacks on Mori’s political performance rather than on his economic policy (Brustein 1974, p. 7). In order to keep out of the news, or at least keep as quiet as possible, Mori initially applied avoidance tactics by canceling his weekly appearance at question time, and even at the regular debate in the Diet with the opposition parties, for two weeks after making the controversial remarks.

In terms of his insensitive or slanderous remarks,[xii] one issue that the national media kept questioning was whether Mori was capable of leading the nation. In the months prior to taking office as Prime Minister, Mori was criticized for his discriminatory comments on Osakans, AIDs patients, Americans, and Okinawans. He described Osaka as a “spittoon” and “a dirty city that thinks only about making money.” In January, reflecting on the difficulties of campaigning in his opponent’s constituencies, he said, “During my first election campaign, when I was visiting farmers, all the farmers in the field ran away as if someone with AIDS was knocking on their doors.” In February, he asserted that the American people had all “bought guns” in preparation for the Y2K (shortened for the Year 2000 computer problem) bug “because when electrical power fails in the United States, the gangs and murderers come out. Such is the American society,” alluding to what had happened during the blackout in New York on July 6, 1999. In April, he charged that school teachers in Okinawa, who strongly opposed the government’s new policy of requiring the national anthem and flag at functions, were “controlled by Communists” (Sims 2000). Immediately after his characterizing Japan as “divine,” the media started to call Mori a “gaffe-prone Prime Minister” (zekka shusho) based on the proverb “Confine your tongue, lest it confine you.”[xiii] A few days later, on June 3, Mori talked of the “national polity” (kokutai), another obscure phrase glorifying Japan’s unique status under the divine Emperor.[xiv]
A second critical question concerned whether Mori would turn the clock back to Japan’s military supremacy in Asia. The “divine nation” sound bite worthy of headline news echoed throughout state Shintoism as a voice against the current Constitution of Japan, especially Japan’s postwar pacifist stand in its Article 9. In resurrecting the state ideology, Mori’s nostalgia conjured up a mythic cord to the lost Japanese authenticity. In response, the leaders of the four opposition parties criticized Prime Minister Mori whose remarks recalled Imperial Japan’s war rhetoric and created anxiety among its Asian neighbors and their peoples. Those political opponents raised doubt about his qualifications as a national leader orienting the country and as a world politician presenting Japan’s vision on the international stage. They also pointed out that the Japanese and other Asian peoples shared a strong antipathy toward Imperial Japanese militarism so as to become disturbed and uneasy about the implications of the “divine nation” phrase used in wartime rhetoric. More clearly, the news media at home and abroad delivered critical warnings that Japan’s new militarism seemed set to emerge. In political news coverage, the opposition camp cast suspicion that Mori would make common cause with current neo-nationalistic moves to revive Japan’s militant nationalism.

To end their bickering, the DPJ and other opposition parties united to create an axis of confrontation against the tripartite ruling coalition. For the opposition camp with no shared ideology, Mori’s “divine nation” remarks and other verbal “mistakes” offered great opportunities to make a case against the coalition government. They immediately criticized the Prime Minister for violating the constitutional principles of the sovereignty of the people, the separation of Church and State, and freedom of religion and conscience. For national appeal, DPJ President Hatoyama said, “His [Mori’s] reasoning flatly rejects the constitutional principle of sovereignty that resides with the people. If Mori tries to alter the Constitution in such a backward manner, we [shall] never allow it. We would be forced to topple his Cabinet” (Mori defends remark about “divine nation” 2000). Fuwa Tetsuzo, the JCP Secretary, also contended that “I cannot help but feel shocked by the way in which Prime Minister Mori’s mind has been polluted to such a degree by the notion of a divine nation, such as that which existed before World War II. I demand that he step down immediately” (Mori defends remark about “divine nation” 2000). Within a few days, these opposition parties held a joint meeting of their Diet Affairs committees at the top level, and agreed to demand Mori’s resignation. In spite of contesting views on foreign affairs and domestic issues, they cooperated in taking over control of the government, which also necessitated a unified vision (Minshuto faces hurdle at next general election 2000).

A third area of questions was related to the upsurge of neo-nationalism. Mori’s calling Japan “divine” seemed to resonate with the ideological phrase “spirit of love of the country” (kuni o ai-suru kokoro) promoted in reforming the “Fundamentals of Education Law” (Kyoiku Kihon Ho). This neo-nationalist slogan reminded many Japanese of the wartime militarist slogan “patriotism” (aikokushin) inscribed in the “Imperial Rescript of Education” (Kyoiku Chokugo) that aimed at training the Japanese people to be a shield for their country and to sacrifice their lives for it. Interestingly both slogans consist of the same three Chinese characters “love” (ai), “country” (kuni), and “spirit” (kokoro). Known for his special expertise in education, Mori consistently advocated the need to reevaluate the wartime educational rescript for recovering lost Japanese virtues. As the conservative-leaning national daily Yomiuri Shimbun stated when pointing out Mori’s earnest concern about educational reform as one of the distinctive characteristics of his cabinet (Coalition coordinates campaign pledges 2000),[xv] Mori addressed one of his educational ideals in his first policy speech: “education should be aimed at fostering honorable persons rich in creativity” (Shasetsu 2000). Here he made no reference to the current education law that resulted from reflecting on Imperial Japanese education that helped connect patriotism with militarism. In addition, the promotion of educational reform was included in the slogan for the election campaign adopted by the ruling parties, “Putting an End to Five Sources of Anxiety,” that focused on the problems of peace, welfare, education, public safety, and economy (Coalition coordinates campaign pledges 2000).[xvi] In response, political and public objections to Prime Minister Mori displayed skepticism about his popular campaign for reforming the existing educational system.[xvii]

Given a basis for a serious challenge, the political protest against the ruling coalition confronted the old-fashioned, indirect rhetoric echoing the LDP power structure. However, such reactions against Mori’s “divine nation” remarks gradually disappeared in three main directions. First, the Emperor stands as the national icon of cultural unity for the nation of Japan. The sound bite of “divine nation” thus mixed a nationalistic consciousness with a cultural nationalism linked to the issue of Japanese identity – a sense of who “we” are (Oliver 1989, p. 229). The phrase was not so negative for many people. Second, the opposition parties confronted Mori with his lack of strong leadership; however, the opposition failed to deliver an uplifting, alternative vision attractive to voters. On the one hand, the confrontation appeared to be a political clash between Japanese “conservative” (hoshu, represented by the LDP, which supported the constitutional revision) and “liberal” (kakushin, represented by the Socialist Party, which changed its name into the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in July 1996, and opposed the constitutional revision). On the other hand, despite the collapse of the cold-war ideology, the confrontational axis of political ideology over Japan’s postwar pacifism remained. Last, the general public began expressing deep dissatisfaction with the old style of “closed-door” or “behind-the-scenes” politicking, which followed Japan’s long-held practice of seniority merits consideration (The view from Monday 2000). While the decision over whether Mori would stay or go still rested in the hands, not of the Diet, but of the LDP Old Guard, the voting in the election was more likely to rely on the good personal qualities of (party) leaders than on the electoral system which was tied with narrow, local interest groups.

2.2 Self-Defense
Facing public cynicism about his trustworthiness, competence, and stand on issues, Mori strove to differentiate the real – and critical – issues from his personal credibility and to shift attention to reflections on a sense of Japaneseness “which is generally known, but cannot be articulated” in homogenizing the Emperor into Japan (See Black 1988, p. 148; Simmel 1950, pp. 107-78; Canetti 1984, pp. 290-96; Foucault 1980). Designed for public consumption, his apologetic gesture focused more on alleviating fears among members of the ruling coalition who warned of a possible negative effect on the outcome of the general election than on explaining the “divine nation” remarks. In the public eye, his justification was not convincing in as far as it claimed that his genuine intent had not been the same as was expressed by his words when taken at face value. His public apology thus resuscitated questions about the implications of his controversial remarks as well as about his subsequent crisis management. Short of delivering the needed image of openness, honesty, and forthrightness vital to an apology, his simple disavowal was also taken as arrogant. Furthermore, along with his ineffective justification, he kept refusing to retract the controversial phrase in order not to alienate the conservative, pro-Shinto base. Faced with declining public approval ratings and political pressures inside and outside his own party, Mori was forced to apologize in order to rebuild rapport. For national public relations, Mori issued an apology first to the Diet, and then to the people. The first occasion was in front of the House of Councillors on May 19, 2000. A week after that, he was again demanded to arrange a special televised press conference in order to speak directly to his national audience. While making a gesture to restore public trust in his credibility, Mori never gave in to the demand for retracting his words “divine nation.” Since the rise of political and public criticism, Mori stood up for the controversial phrase by claiming that nothing was wrong with it. At the Diet as well as on television, he reiterated his claim: “If my remarks caused any misunderstanding, that was not what I intended. I apologize, even though what I really meant was different from how my words were taken” (Mori calls press conference over remark 2000, May 25; See also Nakamoto 2000). In his national appeal, Mori continued to insist that he had no intention to revive the state ideology of Imperial Japan or to violate the fundamental constitutional principle of popular sovereignty. Instead of retracting the controversial phrase, he attempted to dissociate his genuine intent from the historical, negative implications that were clear to the public ear. His consistency with pro-Shinto religious ideas conveyed a strong message to conservatives with
strong prewar associations.

Part of a serious difficulty for Mori was that he was simply unable to deliver the political leadership and the narrative that would rescue him from the backlash. He remained stuck in old-fashioned politics based on a coalition of powerful interest groups. In other words, he relied on traditional Japanese modes of political communication in which politicians could misrepresent facts, or protect their own feelings, thoughts, and opinions from public concern. Hence Mori failed to see the importance of effective communication with the public for his own advantage. In trying to explain his “divine nation” remarks, Mori first claimed that the occasion of calling on the cultural uniqueness of Japan under the divine Emperor was his private matter. He then said that the goal of his original speech was not to reclaim Shinto religious ideology, which takes on a nationalist fashion and believes the Emperor to be “a living deity” (arahito-gami), but to reconfirm forgotten Japanese virtues. For that reason, Mori argued, he mentioned various religions besides Shinto religion in the original speech: “It is important to speak out about the need to worship gods of any religion, or the Buddha, at school, at home, and in society, from the standpoint of cherishing the state of Japan.” While stressing that the speech had no emphasis on any specific religious dogmas, he also claimed that his focus was on an educational design to internalize the sacred embedded in the existing social order. Mori called for the “efforts of individuals to live together in society and to bind themselves to their agreed rules” (Douglas 1975, xiii). Furthermore, he drew national attention to his critical comments on the high rate of juvenile crime and the collapse of social morals, emphasizing that “[h]uman life is a divine gift to us, and therefore we must take good care of our lives.” By combining religious values with moral customs in the practice of everyday life, Mori defended the controversial phrase “divine nation” against being attacked by opposition leaders and public criticism. Even in his public apology, Mori repeatedly claimed that in his reference to kami he did not mean to evoke militarist Japan’s wartime creed, but to emphasize the Emperor as a single national icon (See Mori defends remark about “divine nation” 2000). Despite his emphasis on “our” bonds of communal sharing in leading “us” to restore “our” lost virtues, the critical question remained why he used the wartime slogan. In fact, Mori chose the Shinto religious terminology for his original pro-Shinto audience in order to give reassurance that they and their religious belief were worthwhile especially in reforming the current educational system. He intended to show his respect and honor for what his target audience, the Shinto political group, believed in.

The term kami stands for the divinities like objects of nature, such as mountains, that are worshipped in Shinto traditions. Until modern times, Shinto (literally, “Way of the gods”) referred more to a loose collection of folklore culture like ancestor worship than to a specific religion. In the late nineteenth century, political ideologues began to make use of Shinto as a symbolic means to invent the nation-state. In the process of unifying the nation under state Shintoism, they defined the Emperor as the leading kami as well as the divine being of worship. Even after Emperor Hirohito renounced his divinity on January 1, 1946, for Shinto devotees, the Emperor remained a holy being. In his use of the Shinto religious terminology, Mori conveyed to his original audience the message that sovereignty should rest with the Emperor. Moreover, the advocacy for religious education made his voice more identical with Shinto religious ideology, and thus ended with offending those who held different beliefs and opinions.

When his “private” remarks became public, the country as a whole recognized how rich and influential with cultural, historical significance the wartime slogan “divine nation” still remained. Mori later apologized for causing public “misunderstanding” by describing Japan as a “divine nation with the Emperor at its core”: “I am sorry if I caused any misunderstanding and I offer my apologies” (Mori apologizes over “divine nation” remarks” 2000; See also Mori calls press conference over remark 2000, May 24). During the televised press conference at his official residence at 4 PM on May 26, he once again offered his sincere “apology” for any “misunderstanding” caused by the controversial remarks: “I feel a deep sense of remorse (for causing any misunderstanding).” In his apology, he also repeated that he had no desire to revive the state system: “I have no intention at all of seeking the revival of the state-backed Shintoism of the prewar era.” However much Mori made efforts to dissociate the controversial phrase from Shinto religious ideology to win back public trust, the symbolic power of the phrase could not be trivialized. For many who knew how such religious terms as “divine nation” were once used so purposely, his apology was viewed as trying to deceive voters.[xviii]
What made his position worse was that Mori consistently refused to retract the controversial phrase (Opposition slams Mori for lack of retraction 2000). In order to maintain his favor among pro-Shinto LDP supporters, he apologized only for causing a miscommunication, and not for any misstatement, thus raising public cynicism about his apology. In his public apology, Mori implicitly accused the public as well as the media of misunderstanding his “divine nation” remarks. What he attempted here was to clearly distinguish his pro-Shinto audience and his private matters from his national audience and his public obligation. In confronting the backlash, Mori answered the question of whether he had an intention to deify the Emperor during a plenary session of the House of Councillors, on May 19:
The way in which the Emperor is defined has changed with the times. I only meant that the Emperor is now the symbol of the state and the unity of the people. I did not mean to say anything that goes against the idea that sovereignty rests with the people (Mori offers apology for “divine nation” gaffe 2000; See also Political pulse 2000).

Mori first redefined his intent when using the controversial phrase to be one of calling for Japanese cultural identity, and not for Imperial Japanese military glory. Then he claimed that he believed in Japan’s postwar democracy and Constitution, and that, therefore, he had not intended to mislead the country. His rhetorical strategy of dissociation did not help reassure the country, but dragged him down. As a matter of fact, Prime Minister Mori never got rid of being attacked as conservative, nationalist, and traditionalist; he was presented as failing to take responsibility and accountability for his “mistaken” remarks. His control over the tripartite coalition thus became weakened, but it did not reach the point of overthrowing his coalition government yet.

3. Conclusions and Implications
In order to compensate for his own unpopularity, Mori made the best of sympathy voting for the late Prime Minister Obuchi. Even on the defensive, Mori continued to address Obuchi, and presented himself as the appropriate choice at least in light of cultural practices that show consideration for the seniority meritocracy. Even in his “divine nation” remarks, Mori emphasized his close ties with former Prime Minister Obuchi, who was his longtime political rival as well as his Waseda University classmate, by addressing him as “Mr. Obuchi” (Obuchi-san: 6 times), “Prime Minister Obuchi” (Obuchi-Sori: once), and “Premier Obuchi” (Obuchi-Shusho: once). In addition, whereas the Prime Ministers usually elaborate on their own positions on particular issues in a political communication, Mori offered no new policy agenda; instead, he vowed that he would carry on Obuchi’s plan for Japan’s economic recovery and reforms. For instance, Mori pledged to continue the current economic policies:
It’s like an order from heaven. Mr. Obuchi and I have been friends for more than 40 years. I feel my heart torn to pieces when I think of it. I can hear his voice saying, “I leave things to you.” What is important is to take care of what he had wanted to do, and had been concerned about (Mori says appointment “mandate from heaven 2000).

By taking into account the unusual situation in which he succeeded Obuchi in office, Mori promoted public recognition of continuity.[xix] Concerning his questionable succession, Mori repeated, “It’s like an order (or the mandate) from heaven,” using the same expression he had used when describing his surprised feelings about his sudden promotion in his inaugural press conference (Mori says appointment “mandate from heaven 2000). On the pragmatic level, his reappointment of all the members of the Obuchi cabinet to his own strengthened the impression that the Mori cabinet would be in place just until the general election.[xx] Furthermore, as Obuchi, hooked up to life-support systems, had just passed away, Mori played on the deceased national leader’s image to increase public sympathy, and thereby made criticism raised against the Obuchi government as well as against his own government look inconsiderate.

For attention-getting news coverage, Mori set the general election to be held on the deceased Prime Minister Obuchi’s birthday, June 25, 2000. The LDP campaign strategists thus defined the election as a “battle to avenge Obuchi’s death” to turn public sympathy into support for the LDP.[xxi] In the 1980 general election, the LDP had once won a landslide victory based on sympathy votes for the death of then Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshi, who had suddenly died during the election campaign. In this regard, it was obvious that the LDP members expected the death of Obuchi to bring similar surging effects to the 2000 election. As his party sought to take advantage of public sympathy over the death of his predecessor on May 14, 2000, to sway popular votes, Mori also sought to retain his hold on political power (Death of Former Premier creates ripples in preelection politics 2000). Mori consistently stated that he was continuing the overall policies initiated by the Obuchi cabinet, so that he could take advantage of public sentiment over Obuchi who died before he could achieve all his political goals. Even in the “divine nation” sound bite, Mori continued to underscore the regret that Obuchi might feel about missing the Group of Eight Okinawa summit meeting in July, the success of which he had set his heart on: “It was fateful that I heard the death of Prime Minister Obuchi as I was about to leave for the ceremony (of the Japanese children summit in Okinawa Prefecture).” In reflecting on what Obuchi attempted to accomplish, Mori presented himself as the legitimate heir who was carrying out Obuchi’s living will. On the whole, Obuchi’s death enabled Mori and the LDP to draw sympathy votes at the election.

NOTES
[i] Pache Research Subsidy I-A-2 for Academic Year 2005 funded by Nanzan University assisted the research to work on this paper.
[ii] The Japanese used to believe that they were a chosen people, directly descended from the divine Amaterasu. Historian E.H. Carr (1962) put it into the following words: “Our country, as a special mark of favor from the heavenly gods, was begotten by them, and there is so immense a difference between Japan and all other countries of the world as to defy comparisons” (What is history? (New York: Knopf), p. 128).
[iii] According to the Yomiuri Shimbun survey, 50.9 percent of respondents said they did not support the Mori cabinet mainly because they were not able to trust him. While stressing this disturbing result that such a great percentage of Japanese people could not trust their country’s top leader, the journal’s editorial urged political parties to regain public trust in national politics (“Editorial: Return political focus to issues,” The Daily Yomiuri (May 27, 2000): 6).
[iv] This paper uses the word Diet, instead of the Congress, as a reference to the Japanese national legislature, following the Japanese official English translation of national political body.
[v] All the quotations of Yoshiro Mori’s “divine nation” remarks in this paper are based on the text “Mori shusho aisatsu zenbun (The entire speech text given by Prime Minister Mori)” placed on http://jinja.jp/jikyoku/kaminokuni.
[vi] During his nine-day tour of the Group of Eight (G8) major nations for the Okinawa summit in July, 2000, Mori informally mentioned the timing of dissolving the lower house (“Mori hints at June 25 general election,” The Daily Yomiuri (May 2, 2000): 1). During the NHK (Nihon Hoso Kyokai) TV program recorded on May 13, Mori said the next House of Representatives election would likely be held on June 25 (“Mori: June 25 likely for general poll,” The Daily Yomiuri (May 14, 2000): 1).
[vii] At the time, Kanzaki mentioned that New Komeito might start considering its withdrawal from the current partnership with the LDP: “Though he must still be unsure of himself as he became Prime Minister only about a month ago, we want (Mori) to take to heart his responsibility as prime minister and choose his words more carefully” (“Mori remarks deal heavy blow to leadership role,” The Daily Yomiuri (May 19, 2000): 2).
[viii] In contrast to foreign coverage, Japanese newspaper articles are rarely named mainly due to the censorship procedure within each newspaper company. In this paper, therefore, a longer reference suggests a citation of an English article circulated in Japan.
[ix] Even if Mori meant to symbolize Japan’s long history and culture, such an expression as “divine nation” took a nationalist tinge intimating the Emperor’s status as “a living god” (“Editorials / Prime Minister’s ‘divine nation’ gaffe,” The Daily Yomiuri (May 17, 2000): 6).
[x] Politicians often make controversial remarks in closed, informal meetings with small groups of colleagues, bureaucrats, or news reporters. Often they become surprised and embarrassed, mainly because they view their remarks as private so as not to be publicized.
[xi] Due to its time constraints, television uses modes of synecdoche to view political values, attitudes, perceptions, and sometimes personalities in the political scene, and shapes the responses to the political world. It was on May 18 when he officially approved a plan to dissolve the House of Representatives for a general election on June 25 (Mori sets June 25 poll amid resignation calls 2000).
[xii] Japanese politicians have often made “indiscreet” remarks and used “violent language” (bogen) at the local level, which ended up in international and national news coverage.
[xiii] Just like Mori, former Prime Ministers Takeshita and Obuchi were the alumni of the same debating club at Waseda University. As to his public speaking ability, Takeshita was known for using easy-to-understand words, but his sentences as a whole did not make any sense. Obuchi was known for “poor vocabulary” (bocya-hin). As prime minister, Obuchi was characterized as “having all the pizzazz of a cold pizza,” and his personal image of mediocrity gave him the name of “vacuum prime minister” (“Jottings,” The Daily Yomiuri (April 6, 2000): 3).
[xiv] In a speech to the Ehime Prefecture LDP Association, Mori objected to the possibility of the Japan Communist Party (JCP) joining the ruling coalition, remarking “how can the national policy (kokutai) be preserved?” (“Mori shusho shitsugen mitomeru” (Prime Minister Mori admitted that he made a misstatement), The Asahi Shimbun [Morning ed.] (June 5, 2000): 1; “Editorial,” The Asahi Shimbun [Morning ed.] (June 5, 2000): 2).
[xv] Concerning the plan for educational reform, one of Mori’s aides said, “among all of the issues that he inherited from former Prime Minister Obuchi, [this] is the most suitable issue with which Mori can show his originality” (“Mori Cabinet to tackle tough issues left by Obuchi,” The Daily Yomiuri (April 6, 2000): 3).
[xvi] The coalition campaign slogan also echoed Mori’s advocacy of “Japan’s renewal” in his first policy speech, calling up the “realization of a renewed Japan.”
[xvii] Mori’s policy speech more or less echoed the policy speech delivered by Obuchi in January, 2000. There were two main reasons. First, the fiscal 2000 budget had already passed the Diet with deliberations on bills related to the budget left for future discussion. Second, all ministers from the Obuchi Cabinet were reappointed to the Mori Cabinet.
[xviii] For members of his faction, the current catchphrase was “aggressive defense” (Mori calls press conference over remark 2000, May 25).
[xix] While describing his newly-born cabinet as “a cabinet for the rebirth of Japan,” Mori emphasized it would continue the policies of former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in his first policy speech delivered at the Diet on April 7, 2000. He then made frequent use of references to his predecessor like “honoring the wishes of the former Prime Minister.”
[xx] Prior to Mori’s inauguration, it was certain that the general election was to take place since the four-year term of the current House of Commons would expire in October, 2000.
[xxi] The LDP even set forth the joint Cabinet-Liberal Democratic Party funeral service for former Prime Minister Obuchi on June 8. This was deliberately calculated to draw sympathy votes in the 2000 House of Representatives election on June 25 (“Obuchi funeral timing eyed with suspicion,” The Daily Yomiuri (May 17, 2000): 3).

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Right-wing populist argumentation is best analysed within the framework of a transdisciplinarian, politolinguistic approach that connects concepts of political science, argumentation theory and critical discourse analysis. In the following, this claim will be justified and exemplified with a selective analysis of right-wing populist argumentation in Austria. I will especially focus on the question of how populist argumentation articulated by members of an opposition party differs from populist argumentation verbalised by members of a governing party.[i]

1. The concept of populism
There are many different proposals as to the meaning of the political fighting word “populism”. To mention just a few of them:
The German political scientist Dieter Nohlen (1998, p. 514f.) distinguishes among three different meanings of the word.
(1) First, “populism” denotes – according to Nohlen – a politics that is either judged negatively or positively.
(2) Second, Nohlen speaks of “populism” in terms of a social-political movement that concentrates on masses of people on the one side and on single politicians as leaders on the other side. The concentration on the appeal to masses here often relates to nationalism. If this is the case, we are faced with so-called “national populism”.
(3) Third, Nohlen conceives “populism” as a political strategy of mobilisation and unification.

The positive evaluation of the word is especially advocated by those who promote populism, who see themselves as populists; in Austria for example by Jörg Haider, who has repeatedly and proudly adorned himself with this predicate, as one can see in example 1, 2 and 3.

(1) “In case of doubt we have put a limit on the presumptuousness of the powerful and have strengthened the back of the citizens. Although the ruling class has never forgiven us for this, the people has thanked us for this by supporting us. Our politics has thus thoughtlessly and condescendingly been denounced for being populist. But whatever.
Populism is nothing but a politics that is obliged to the people. Very unlike the politics of the rulers in the ivory tower, who like so much to speak of the ‘people out there’, in order to also express their distance from the people. With respect to the ruling class, one has often the impression that one’s own people is a nuisance to the powerful and often stands in their way. But the citizens are not willing to be permanently abused as applauding and approving scenery. Also the citizens in the former German Democratic Republic have finally scanned every week during big demonstrations: “We are the people!” (Haider in his speech “On the state of the Republic and the situation of the FPÖ”, November 12, 1999; the German original is quoted in Reisigl 2002, p. 154)

(2) “For this we [= the FPÖ, M.R.] have gotten the reproach for populism, and we consider this to be definitely honourable. The people must be heard and taken seriously in a democracy! Issuing of orders coming from the ivory tower of the ruling class, whose contempt for the common people thus becomes visible, have nothing in common with a system of freedom. But especially state-political responsibility should demand to take seriously the worries and anxieties of the people and to keep away in good time dangers and threats by political action.” (Haider 1994, p. 57; the German original is quoted in Reisigl 2005, p. 64)

(3) “Populism is readily used as a swearword for politicians close to the people whose success consists of raising their voice for the citizens and in suiting their mood. Thus, I felt this designation always as an honour. We live in a mediatised democracy. Where much democracy is written on, there is, in reality, mostly very little democracy in it. For this reason the citizens who do not belong to the ruling class and their society need reliable advocates of their interests. I always considered this as my role.” (Haider in Worm 2005, p. 9; the German original is quoted in Reisigl 2005, p. 64)

Here, we have three examples of “populism” as positive flag-word (if we disregard the first sentence in example 3, in which Haider points out that “populism” is hastily used as a swearword). There is a notable difference between the first two examples and the third one. Whereas in 1994 and 1999 Haider assumes the “we”-perspective of the Austrian Freedom Party when characterising the term “populism” as honourable predicate for politicians, he passes to the “I”-perspective in 2005. This change can be read as a linguistic indicator of decreasing party-cohesion within the Austrian Freedom Party, which was actually split into two parties in April 2005.
Furthermore, in the meantime some parliamentary politicians of Haider’s new party, the Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (BZÖ, meaning “Alliance for the Future of Austria”), use the political fighting term also as a stigma-word, designated to denounce political opponents. A recent example of this can be found in the debate that took place in the Austrian parliament on June 21, 2006, on the occasion of the discussion about the petition against the European Union and Turkey’s application for membership in the EU. The petition was initiated by the current Austrian Freedom Party and held in March 2006. It was titled: “Austria, remain free!” In the debate on June 21, 2006, Herbert Scheibner, ex-minister of the FPÖ and now leader of the parliamentary representatives of the BZÖ, criticises his former party-colleagues of the FPÖ for abusing the petition as a populist instrument in an election campaign (see Stenographisches Protokoll der 154. Sitzung des Nationalrates der Republik Österreich, 22. Gesetzgebungsperiode p. 56). Replying to the reproach for a populist petition campaign, Barbara Rosenkranz, a representative of the oppositional Austrian Freedom Party, contends that this accusation would not strike the FPÖ disparagingly, for the FPÖ could bear the accusation. Rather, the accusers would affect the “the citizen” derogatorily (by implication that the appeal to the citizens would be something bad; see Stenographisches Protokoll der 154. Sitzung des Nationalrates der Republik Österreich, 22. Gesetzgebungsperiode p. 69).
This and other examples (see, e.g., Stenographisches Protokoll der 112. Sitzung des Nationalrates der Republik Österreich, 22. Gesetzgebungsperiode. June 8, 2005, p. 76) show that the participation in the government has – at least partly – had consequences on the strategic use of the word “populism” on the part of some populists of the former FPÖ.

Pierre-André Taguieff, in his social-scientist stock taking of the chameleon-like phenomenon of populism (Taggart 2002, p. 220), maps out six different conceptualisations (Taguieff 2003, p. 101-109):
(1) First he tells us, and this explanation relates both to the second and the third conceptualisation mentioned by Nohlen, that some theoreticians understand populism as a movement or type of political mobilisation.
(2) Some regard populism, according to Taguieff, as an authoritarian or semi-plebiscitarian regime with a charismatic leader at the top.
(3) Taguieff further explains that others see populism as an ideology or a doctrine
(4),that others take it to be an attitude
(5) and others comprehend it as a rhetoric, a specific form of communication or a so-called “polemism”.
(6) Finally, there are also theoreticians who, according to Taguieff, regard populism as a form of provisional or temporary legitimisation in post-dictatorial and post-totalitarian times.

The fact that the word has the grammatical ending “-ism” seems to lead various authors to believe that – analogically to other “isms” – “populism” is an ideology or recurrent ideological scheme (among them are Mény and Surel 22004, p. 41, 202, 278 and Di Camerana 2004, p. 236f.). Taguieff (2003, p. 80) argues against this conviction and claims that populism is a political stile, which can relate to various ideologies, not just to one.
This view is convincing to me, because one can observe that the phenomenon in question consists of a syncretistic combination of rather heterogeneous and theoretically inconsistent elements. Thus, populism can, among other things, be grasped as a political syndrome (“syndrome” not in a pathological sense), that is to say, as a variable cluster of single constituents that have not to appear all together at one and the same time in a concrete case (see Wiles 1969 and Altermatt 1996, p. 193). I therefore consider populism generally to be a political style in the sense of a complex syndrome and functional type of political expression.

However, more specifically, not just focussing on the formal-stylistic, technical and media-related aspect, but also taking content into consideration, one can, still today, maintain the conceptual distinction between “right-wing populism” on the one hand and “left-wing populism” on the other hand, although the traditional political categories of “right” and “left” have changed and somehow become blurred. In other words: There are many common features of style, form and media that link “right-wing populism” with “left-wing populism”, but there are content-related differences that separate them. Among these distinctive features are the attitude towards National Socialism, fascism, racism, antisemitism, “xenophobia” and the understanding of social policy, migration policy and security policy.
There is also another distinction made in social scientist literature which, in the case I am discussing here, is most important, namely the distinction between “oppositional” and “governmental populism”. Since in the present context I empirically concentrate on right-wing populism, this differentiation will be taken in consideration to distinguish between “oppositional right-wing populism” and “governmental right-wing populism”.

Generally, populist rhetoric is a matter of external political communication. The rhetoric of oppositional right-wing populism manifests itself in three fields of political action:
(1) the field of political advertising,
(2) the field of political control, and
(3) the field of formation of public attitudes, opinions and will. The action field of political control is the classical place of oppositional right-wing populism, which develops itself as a form of protest against governmental policy.

In contrast, the rhetoric of governmental right-wing populism is first and foremost articulated in the field of formation of public attitudes, opinions and will. In part, it is also discursively realised in the field of inter-party formation of attitudes, opinions and will. Further, governmental right-wing populism sometimes also gains a certain importance in the field of political executive and administration, for example in the case of “issueless politics”, in which political action is simulated by symbolic rituals.
Populism involves, in the first place, the political dimension of politics (that is to say, political processes), and the dimension of polity (that is to say, the formal political dimension). Sometimes, however, it also touches upon the content-related governmental dimension of policy.

First, the rhetoric of right-wing populism – but also of left-wing populism – relates to politics, i.e. to conflicting and polarising processes among political actors centred upon the fight for power, influence and approval. This semiotic fight is held in the two fields of political advertising and of formation of public attitudes, opinions and will. Whereas the politics of oppositional right-wing populism strategically aims to achieve the power, populist politics of a right-wing government attempts to maintain and increase power.
Second, right-wing populism – as well as populism as such – involves the dimension of polity, especially where oppositional right-wing populists state a crisis of polity, referring to the “people” as the basis of the political “community” and demanding that the “people” should regain their right of being the source of legitimatisation of political decisions (Mény and Surel 2004, p. 202). Populism in this sense is the reaction to a problem of political representation, a reaction that takes place in the field of political control. Such a reaction sometimes serves the democratic function of a corrective mechanism, but it cannot be considered as a sort of “auto-immune defence inherent in the political system of representative democracies” (Heinisch 2004, p. 248), which is at times suggested by systemic approaches (see, e.g., Taggart 2002).
On a third level, right-wing populism may also concern the dimension of policy, that is to say, of government’s political action. This has indirectly been the case in Austria in the 90’s of the 20th century when the oppositional right-wing populism perpetrated by Haider and its Freedom Party led to the consequence that many of the populist claims regarding security policy, migration policy and asylum policy were partly adopted by the SPÖ-ÖVP government.

2. Right-wing populism and democracy
The relationship between right-wing populism and democracy is a dynamic, variable and conflicting one. Very often, right-wing populism shows characteristics that endanger democracy, especially where it relates to authoritarian, racist, antisemitic and “xenophobic” bodies of thought. Sometimes, however, it expresses a crisis of democratic representation and justly criticises undemocratic political representation and political corruption.
The core of every form of populism is a generalised claim of representation. This claim is discursively realised by the linguistic reference to the imagined community of “the people”, which is very often formulated in the context of argumentation, by means of argumentation schemes such as the so-called “topos of the people” and its fallacious perversion, the “argumentum ad populum” (see Kienpointner 2002, p. 124-126; Reisigl 2002, p. 186 ff. and Taguieff 2003, p. 19).

Please note that I make an explicit terminological distinction between “topos” and “argumentum ad”, among others relying on the pragma-dialectical approach. If argumentation does not follow rules for rational dispute and constructive arguing such as the freedom of speech, the obligation to give reasons, the correct reference to previous utterances by the antagonist, the obligation to “matter-of-factness”, the correct reference to implicit premises, the respect of shared starting points, the use of plausible arguments and schemes of argumentation, logical validity, the acceptance of the discussion’s results and the clarity of expression and correct interpretation (see van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 102-217), then I follow the classical phrasing and name the employed argumentation scheme in Latin as “argumentum ad”. If the use of an argumentation scheme does not violate these rules, I prefer to speak of “topos”, which I understand, in accordance with Manfred Kienpointner (1992, p. 194), as those obligatory parts of argumentation that serve as “conclusion rules”. The topos links up the argument or arguments with the concluding claim.
Of course, it is often difficult and sometimes even impossible to concretely distinguish between the more or less plausible “topos of the people” and the fallacy of the “argumentum ad populum”. Douglas Walton (1999, p. 100-103, 229,253-276) and Manfred Kienpointner (2002, p. 124-126) have shown this already. Nevertheless, the distinction can very often be justified. According to the pragma-dialectical approach, the fallacy of argumentum ad populum is committed if rule 4 (the obligation to “matter-of-factness”) or rule 7 (the use of plausible arguments and schemes of argumentation) are violated (van Eemeren, Grootendorst 1992, p. 134, 161). I would like to add that the argumentum ad populum is also committed by the infringement of rule 2 (the obligation to give reasons), which is the case if it assumes the character of an argumentum ad verecundiam. The distinction between fallacious argumentum and plausible topos can, among others, be facilitated by applying Douglas Walton’s (1999, p. 250-252) “four steps of evaluation”. They consist
(1) in identifying the type of people-related argument[ii] and answering the two questions whether the premises of the argument are true or justified and whether the inference from the premises to the conclusion is warranted,
(2) in judging the dialectical relevance of the argument in question with reference to the type of dialogue or interaction, to the given case and to the context,
(3) in evaluating how strong or weak the argument in question should be taken, depending on the type, stage and context of dialogue or interaction (and especially in conjunction with other evidence to be found in the respective part of discourse and context), and
(4) in judging how the argument appeals to the commitment of the audience in the given case (e.g. whether there is the possibility of open-minded deliberation and of asking critical questions).

The difficulty in sharply separating the topos of the people from the respective fallacy is due, among other things, to the fact that the collective anthroponym “people” – in German “Volk” – is a highly ambiguous category which can rhetorically be analysed as an alternating synecdoche (see Mény, Surel 22004, p. 171), strictly speaking, as totum pro parte. It is constituted by the representative manoeuvre that the whole stands for a part, that more stands for less, that the name of a whole entity of human beings, of a “collective”, stands for a smaller group that is included in the whole entity as a part.

The three most important synecdochic meanings of the collective “the people” can be ascribed to different forms of populism (see Mény, Surel 22004, p. 172-196):
(1) The concept of “the people as nation” (“nation” in a culturalist sense) is particularly connected with right-wing populism and national populism.
(2) The concept of “the people as class” (“class” in a socio-economic sense) is primarily associated with the rhetoric of left-wing populism, which shows an inclination to name the working class as “the people”.
(3) The concept of “the people as the political sovereign”, that is to say, as the final authority composed of a state’s citizens who decide upon the question of who is legitimated to represent whom within which political framework, of who is entitled to exert power over whom, relates to a form of populism which is especially realised in situations in which democratic mechanisms of representation are disturbed. This form of populism is certainly the one that is most compatible with the democratic system, since it fulfils an important function of political control. It is linguistically not exclusively linked with the collective nomination of “the people”, but can also be tied to anthroponyms like “the citizens” or “the population”.

One can frequently observe that Austrian populists such as Jörg Haider, Peter Westenthaler (the 2006 leader and top candidate of the new Austrian party BZÖ) and Heinz-Christian Strache (the 2006 leader and top candidate of the Austrian Freedom Party) invoke “the people” in a rather fallacious manner. They decide rather arbitrarily or depending on the respective political opportunity who belongs to the so-called “people” and who doesn’t (see Reisigl 2002, p. 190 f.). Thus, they often commit the fallacy of argumentum ad populum. An example of such an argumentum ad populum can be found in the following quotation, in which Haider reacts to the protest demonstrations against the xenophobic election campaign of the Austrian Freedom Party in October 1999:
(4) “Austria is a democratic republic; its right comes from the people. This state has to be re-established. It is our most pressing task to engage for this. It must be our aim to give the right of decision-making powers back to the people and not the parties or the street. In this endeavour we have found many new allies in the last weeks and months”. (Haider in his speech “On the state of the Republic and the situation of the FPÖ”, November 12, 1999; the German original is quoted in Reisigl 2005, p. 190)

The first three sentences form a quite sound argumentation based on the warrant expressed in the first sentence: “Since Austria is a democratic republic, its right should come from the people”. This warrant is easily reconstructed. The second premise of the argumentation is presupposed in the second sentence. This second premise says: “At present, the right does not come from the people”. The claim to be concluded from the two premises is verbalised in the second and the third sentence. It can be paraphrased as follows: “Thus, one has / we have to take political measures in order to re-achieve the state that the right comes from the people”. The fourth sentence transforms Haider’s whole argumentation into a fallacious topos of the people’s democratic participation (i.e. an argumentum ad populum), as the premise that the people should again be given the right of decision-making powers becomes incredible, because Haider decides from a party-political perspective who belongs to “the people” and who doesn’t. He constructs an opposition between “the people” and “the parties” as well as “the street”. This opposition implies that the demonstrators against the FPÖ, who are metonymically referred to as “the street”, are excluded from “the people” who should have the right of decision-making powers. Thus, Haider refuses the citizens’ democratic right to express their political will through a public demonstration against the FPÖ. He does not accept “the man and woman on the street” to be a part of “the people”. This exclusion contradicts the democratic warrant that – in the Austrian republic – the right should come from the people and infringes the principle of open-minded deliberation and articulation of critique.

3. Right-wing populist argumentation in Austria
The topos of the people and the argumentum ad populum intersect with a series of classical topoi and fallacies, among others with the topos of quantity and argumentum ad quantitatem, with the topos of numbers and argumentum ad numerum (as subtypes of the topos of quantity and argumentum ad quantitatem), with the topos of authority and argumentum ad verecundiam, and with the fallacy of hasty generalisation or secundum quid (see also Kienpointner 2002). As conclusion rule, the argumentation scheme of topos of the people or argumentum ad populum can be explicated by various conditional or causal paraphrases. Formulated negatively, it may be spelled out as follows: If the people / the majority of the people refuse(s) a specific political action or decision, then the action should not be performed / then the decision should not be taken. Verbalised positively, the argumentation scheme can be expressed by the following conclusion rule: If the people / the majority of the people favour(s) a specific political action or decision, then the action should be performed / then the decision should be taken. Among others, the above-mentioned examples 1, 2, 3 contain this argumentation scheme.

l though there is no doubt that the topos of the people and the argumentum ad populum are to be found in the centre of populist argumentation, populism cannot one-sidedly be reduced to this argumentation scheme. Such a narrow understanding of populist argumentation can be avoided by the politolinguistic and critical-discourse analytical approach I am trying to promote. This approach identifies a series of different argumentation schemes, of different characteristics of populism and of different rhetorical principles upon which populism relies (for more details see Reisigl 2002 and Reisigl 2005).
In addition to the topos of the people or the argumentum ad populum, there are several typical content-related argumentation schemes of right-wing populist argumentation in Austria. They may become subtypes of the topos of the people or the argumentum ad populum, if there is an explicit linguistic reference to “the people”, the population, the citizens and so on.
The topos of (the “people’s”) democratic participation or fallacy of (the “people’s”) democratic participation (see example 4 for an illustration) appears in various forms. It can take the form of the following conclusion rule: If a specific political decision, action or non-action concerns all citizens / the people, then the citizens / the people should be asked for their opinion. In example 4, the underlying argumentation scheme can abstractly be formulated as follows: If a state is politically organised as a republic, the people should have the right of decision-making powers. A populist version of this scheme often employed in election campaigns goes: If I or we have the power, the people, “the man on the street” will have the right to participate in political decisions democratically.

The populist topos or fallacy of the anger and displeasure (of “the man on the street”, the “ordinary people”) can be explicated as: If “the man on the street”, the “ordinary people” become(s) angry and displeased, then a political action has to be performed in order to resolve anger and displeasure. Another version of this argumentation scheme means in its negative form: If a specific policy is not made (by the government) / if a specific political decision is not taken, then “the man on the street”, the “ordinary people” become(s) angry and displeased. The same version in its positive form goes: If a specific policy is made (by the government) / if the government abuses its power / if a specific political decision is taken, then “the man on the street”, the “ordinary people” become(s) angry and displeased. A combination of the positive and negative form of this second version can be found in the following example:
(5) “The delusion of the population is simply very great. There is no renovation, but the diligent citizen and the man in the street is dismantled.” (Haider in “Kurier”, September 27, 1987, quoted in Tributsch 1994, p. 184)

The topos or fallacy of burde­ning or weighing down (the “man on the street”, the “ordinary people”) can be reduced to the following conclusion rule: If a person, the “man on the street”, the “ordinary people”, “the Austrian” is burdened by specific problems, one should act in order to diminish these burdens. Example 6 contains this conclusion rule:
(6) “The coalition – the FP chef spoke about the ‘united red-black party’ – according to Haider commits a ‘policy of theft of comestibles for personal consumption against the man on the street’, who is burdened instead of gaining from structural reforms.” (Haider in “Die Presse”, September 16, 1987, quoted in Tributsch 1994: p. 182)

The topos or fallacy of exonerating (the “man on the street”, the “ordinary people”) can be summarised in the following formula: If a person, the “man on the street”, the “ordinary people” is (over)burdened or overloaded by political measures, one should do something in order to exonerate the person, the “man on the street”, the “ordinary people”. An example of this argumentation scheme is:
(7) “Over and above that, a good 800.000 Austrians regularly work overtime. Haider demanded a drastic reduction of the overtime tax, which he called pure tax vandalism, in order to let an overtime deduction sum of about 5.000 schillings per months take effect, in order to finally stop the penalisation of the diligent.” (Haider on June 10, 1993, quoted in Tributsch 1994, p. 250 f.)

Example 7 also realises the topos or fallacy of repaying the diligent and good workers / Austrians, which goes as follows: If you support / vote for my populist movement / if I or we will have the power, then the diligent and good workers will be repaid.

The populist topos or fallacy of liberty or of liberating (the “man on the street”, the “ordinary people”) shows a range of different versions. Two of them are:
(1) If you support us (our petition, our politics etc.), we guarantee you freedom.
(2) If I or we will have the power, we will guarantee the freedom and liberate or save the “man on the street”, the “ordinary people”. The first version is realised by the following political slogan:
(8) “To remain master in one’s own house!” (Heinz-Christian Strache during the Viennese election campaign in 2005 and during the campaign for the petition “Austria remain free!” in 2006; this androcentric, sexist topos of independence has an old tradition that goes back at least as far as 1945 or 1946, when the Austrian chancellor Leopold Figl used the same metaphor to ask for political independence of Austria in post-war times.)

Austrian right-wing populists regularly resort to the topos or fallacy of decency or respectability. Its two main versions are:
(1) If somebody is not decent and respectable, she or he should not be / become politicians.
(2) If I or we have the power, we will perform a decent or respectable policy and work for the decent and respectable. The first version is to be found in example 9:
(9) “Well, he [Christof Zernatto, a political opponent in Carinthia, M.R.] denies a lot, but one really cannot believe him anymore, because whenever he opens the mouth he tells lies, and this is the thing which also moves the people. They to not want anyone on the top who actually is not an honourable man.” (Haider in the Austrian TV-news “Zeit im Bild 2”, April 25, 1994, quoted in Tributsch 1994, p. 272)

The topos or fallacy of “dirty politics” and of the necessity of clearing up, cleansing and “mucking out the stable” is a populist argumentation scheme of which Haider often made use during his successful phase of right-wing oppositional politician. It means, among others: Since politics is a dirty business, one / we must clear up, have a clean-out, muck out the stable. Example 10 is an illustration of this argumentation scheme:
(10) “The leaders of this country are rotten, corrupt and avaricious. We’re doing spring-cleaning in this country.” (Haider in “Kleine Zeitung.”, January 12, 1998, quoted in Czernin 2000, p. 124)

The topos or fallacy of law and order is also a very common populist argumentation scheme. Among others, it says: If I or we will have the power, we will provide for / guarantee law and order. It is very often employed in election and petition campaigns. Example 11 was used by FPÖ chef Heinz-Christian Strache 2005 during the Viennese election campaign and 2006 during the campaign for the petition “Austria remain free!”:
(11) “Zero tolerance in the case of asylum abuse!”

The enumeration is a selection of salient populist argumentation schemes. It is far from being complete. As the Austrian case has shown in the last six years, many of these topoi are almost never credibly employed by right-wing populists belonging to a party of government, whereas oppositional populists – in situations of a crisis of democratic representation – sometimes legitimately fall back on these argumentation schemes.

General characteristics of an oppositional right-wing populism in Austria, but also in many other states of the European Union, are
(1) a strong mistrust of the “establishment”, of “the powers that be” (in German: “die da oben”), especially of the government, of professional politicians, of lawyers, of bankers and of big business people,
(2) an undifferentiated, oversimplified picture of the society with strict distinctions between friends and enemies and with regressive, antimodernist, neoconservative and anti-welfare-state utopianism,
(3) a strong tendency of personalism and personalisation on the one hand, of collectivism and assimilatory identity politics for the purpose of “synchronising different group interests” (Reinfeldt 2000, p. 51) on the other hand,
(4) agitation, irrationalism and anti-intellectualism and
(5) a seemingly radical-democratic or grass-roots-democratic attitude on the one side; an anti-democratic, authoritarian, hierarchical and “leader”-oriented attitude on the other (Reisigl 2002, p. 153-160).

As the example of Austria demonstrates, the right governmental populism of the BZÖ and the former Austrian Freedom Party loses the first characteristic and transforms the fourth and fifth feature more and more since 2000. After the change of the Austrian government in February 2000, the FPÖ itself becomes part of the so-called establishment. As a consequence, the former anti-establishment party (Heinisch 2004, p. 249) can no longer criticise the powers that be. From 2000 on, the Austrian Freedom Party, and from 2005 on, the BZÖ find themselves in a position in which they are politically controlled and attacked by political opponents as well as actors of the civil society for the abuse of their power, for example for allocating political offices according to party-political criteria. From 2000 onwards, the new political requirement to maintain the coalition discipline restricts the possibilities for FPÖ-politicians (and from 2005 onwards, for BZÖ-politicians) to attack the former political opponents who have now become coalition partners.
The loss of the classical populist projection surface and scapegoat of the government is partly compensated by identity politics and national-populist argumentation that evokes new dangers and threats in order to mobilise and unify followers and voters. The new “internal” enemy becomes the political opposition, and among the most important “external” enemies of national-populism are the European Union, so-called “foreigners”, the Turkey that aspires to join the European Union, “the Islam” and partly the United States. In Austria, the projective attack of the EU was must successful during the period of the so-called “sanctions of the EU-14 against Austria” (Reisigl, Wodak 2002).
The fifth populist characteristic mentioned above is often transformed by the governing populists in the sense that they transpose their (pseudo-)democratic claims to a supranational, European level and call for various political referenda, for instance with respect to the bilateral political measures already mentioned, or with respect to Turkey’s application for joining the European Union. Often, such claims are not legitimised by democratic procedures.
Since the FPÖ has become a governing party, Jörg Haider, in his capacity as the governor of the federal province of Carinthia, and several right-wing politicians of the FPÖ have still managed to make the Austrian government the target of populist criticism. The critique of the governing party colleagues undermined both the party cohesion and the coalition discipline. In 2002, the permanent tension due to party-internal conflicts led to the dissolution of the coalition between FPÖ and ÖVP. The problem, however, was not yet solved. In April 2005, the party-internal dissent led to the splitting of the Austrian Freedom Party into two parties. This splitting has not yet extricated the FPÖ and BZÖ from their problems, since Jörg Haider still does not conform to the government and has been shown to possess a great self- and party-destructive potential.

Heinz-Christian Strache, the new party leader of the Austrian Freedom party, seems to have learned that right-wing populist rhetoric is most successful if articulated from an oppositional perspective. Among the rhetorical principles of oppositional populists are
(1) the principle of subdividing the world of social actors into friends and enemies by black-and-white portrayal, of rhetorically constructing “internal” and “external” scapegoats,
(2) the principle of reducing complexity by drastic and simplistic illustration, hypostatisation, and personalisation,
(3) the principle of “not mincing one’s words”, of “saying exactly what comes into one’s head”, (4) the principle of insulting the political opponent disparagingly,
(5) the principle of assuming a “worm’s eye view”, a perspective of looking up from below,
(6) the principle of suggesting that the speaking or writing ego “is one of yours and for you” (this principle closely relates to Walton’s “common-folks ad populum argument”; see Walton 1999, p. 214, 226),
(7) the principle of pathetic dramatisation and emotionalisation,
(8) the principle of insistent repetition,
(9) the principle of calculated ambivalence, and
(10) the principle of promising salvation and liberation (for more details see Reisigl 2002, p. 166-174).

Governing populists cannot usually fall back upon the principles (3), (4), (5), (6) and (10) in the same manner as oppositional populists. They suffer from a crisis of credibility, a crisis of ethos. Their ruling policy contradicts the former political announcements and claims. From 2000 until 2006, the Austrian Freedom Party lost all regional and European elections except for the election in Carinthia in 2004, where Jörg Haider is governor of the federal province (see Picker, Salfinger, Zeglovits 2004). The new party of the BZÖ is in danger of disappearing in autumn 2006 after the parliamentary election from the level of national policy and politics in Austria. The oppositional FPÖ with its leader Strache, however, tries to perfectly copy Haider’s former oppositional politics. It is to be feared that Strache’s racist, “xenophobic”, anti-European, anti-Turkish, anti-Islam populism verbalised from an oppositional point of view will be more successful than the governing populism of the BZÖ. But it will never be as successful as the FPÖ was in the 1990’s.
So the spectre of right-wing populism in Austria has shrunk for many reasons related to the FPÖ’s participation in the government, among others, for not having maintained election promises, for unprofessional policy and high consumption of personnel, for being co-responsible for political measures against the so-called “ordinary people”, but also for Haider’s destructive unpredictability (see also Pallaver, Gärtner 2006, p. 116 ff.). For the time being we can conclude that governing right-wing populism seems to be a medium-term problem in Austria, but also in several other states.

NOTES
[i] I would like to thank Maura Bayer for correcting my English.
[ii] Walton (1999, p. 195-227) differentiates among eleven subtypes of “ad populum arguments”, which cannot be discussed in the present context.

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1. Introduction.
Much recent work in epistemology focuses on the role of testimony in generating warranted beliefs. One of the main views about this topic is known as non-reductivism. This view involves the idea that warrant by appeal to (expert) testimony does not involve inductive reasons that support belief in the reliability of the source in question. Tyler Burge’s particular version of this view (Burge 1993) is based on an a priori principle that all testimony is (at least defeasibly) probative, even to the degree that will sometimes qualify those sorts of beliefs as knowledge. Moreover, on Burge’s view, the kind of warrant that this principle imparts on certain beliefs is externalist in nature and so in forming warranted beliefs on the basis of testimony it is neither necessary that a believer know that the source of that testimony is reliable nor is it necessary that the believer know of and/or understand the (a priori) principle that Burge claims is sufficient often to warrant those beliefs. Finally, such warrant is supposed to be a priori in nature. In this paper it is argued that Burge’s view fails to provide resources sufficient to make an adequate distinction between fallacious ad verecundiam appeals to authority and legitimate appeals to authority and so Burge’s epistemology of testimony is deficient in this respect.

2. Ad verecundiam arguments.
The standard approach to the informal fallacies is to treat them as sorts of deficient arguments, most often as deficient deductive arguments. In line with this idea, ad verecundiam arguments have been most often understood to have the following sort of form (A1):

P1. A states that p is true.
P2. A is not an expert with respect to p.
C1. p is true.

Similarly, legitimate appeals to expert testimony are supposed to have the following form (A2)[i]:

P3. A states that p is true.
P4. A is an expert with respect to p.
C2. p is true.

Ad verecumdiam arguments would then seem to be best defined as invalid deductive inferences that involve appeals to inappropriate authority or appeals to the testimony of non-experts. What is epistemically important about A2-type inferences is that, when valid, they are justification preserving, and so if one is justified in accepting the premises then one is justified in accepting the conclusion. Recognition of this point highlights the error involved in A1-type inferences. Such inferences are bad because the premises do not support the conclusion such that were one justified in accepting the premises, then one would be justified in accepting the conclusion.
Of course there has been considerable debate about the adequacy of A1 as the proper analysis of appeals to inappropriate authority on a number of fronts, the two most important of which are (1) whether such arguments should be understood to be deductive in nature and (2) whether appeals to expert testimony are arguments at all (see Walton 1997, ch. 4). The first of these issues will not be addressed here, as it is largely tangential to the main point of this paper. However the second issue, the issue of whether or not fallacious and legitimate appeals to non-expert testimony are arguments is an important issue in the context of the general epistemic significance of appeals to authority. More specifically, the issue of whether appeals to expert testimony are arguments at all is an important for both the evaluation of the adequacy of certain epistemological approaches to testimony and for the evaluation of the adequacy of A1 and A2 as the standard analyses of the logical and epistemic features of appeals to authority. In any case, we can begin by noting a few things about the nature of quasi-formal treatments of fallacies that will ultimately be relevant to this discussion.
Recall that from the more or less standard perspective of informal logic A1 is supposed to be a formal, or more properly a quasi-formal, analysis of canonical examples of everyday inappropriate appeals to expert testimony that we often see exhibited in advertising and elsewhere in our epistemic exchanges. As such, A1 is supposed to represent an important and generic logical cum epistemic reconstruction of a kind of case of reasoning that fails to adequately justify belief in the conclusion. Again, this is supposed to be because the premises do not entail the conclusion. In this case this it is because P1 and P2 are supposed to fail to be relevant to the truth of C1. This is why ad verecundiam arguments are supposed to be a species of the fallacies of relevance and so are typically reconstructed as a kind of deficient argument.

Given this general understanding, the more or less informal logical analysis of evidential appeals that is part and parcel of quasi-formal logic is simply a kind of epistemological reconstruction aimed at explicating the basic logical structure of garden-variety attempts to justify certain beliefs by appeal to reasons and simple logical rules. At this point, in order to make things a bit more clear and concrete, it will be useful to examine some detailed cases. So let us consider the following two wholly typical sorts of appeals to testimony where the bracketed information describes relevant contextual factors:

(E1) Gary Neville says that Amanita phalloides is deadly. [Gary Neville is a famous Manchester United defender and a member of the English national team].[ii]

(E2) Gary Lincoff says that Amanita phalloides is deadly. [Gary Lincoff is the author of Toxic and Hallucinogenic Mushroom Poisoning: A Handbook For Physicians and Mushroom Hunters. In that book it is explained that Amanita phalloides, the death cap, is deadly because it causes cyclopeptide poisoning which is characterized by the following gruesome pathology:

(i) A long latent period of up to 1 day between the ingestion of the mushrooms prior to the onset of the first symptoms;
(ii) The occurrence of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting;
(iii) A 1 day period of remission of the symptoms noted in (ii), followed by
(iv) possible liver and kidney failure, and consequent death] (1977).

Notice that E1 is typically supposed to exhibit an A1-type structure and that E2 is supposed to exhibit an A2-type structure (Copi and Cohen 2004, p. 42-44). Moreover, there is supposed to be something importantly different about the epistemological situations described respectively in E1 and E2 that is revealed by the context of each utterance and so sanctions the difference in the logical reconstructions of these examples. So if we substitute the relevant detains of E1 and E2 into A1 and A2 respectively, then we get AE1 and AE2:

P’1. Gary Neville states that Amanita phalloides is deadly.
P’2. Gary Neville is not an expert with respect to Amanita phalloides.
C’1. Amanita phalloides is deadly.

P’3. Gary Lincoff states that Amanita phalloides is deadly.
P’4. Gary Lincoff is an expert with respect to Amanita phalloides.
C’2. Amanita phalloides is deadly.

Let us then focus our attention primarily on E1, A1 and AE1, while remembering that E2, A2 and AE2 are also important for the general critical points that will be raised later.

The first crucial question that arises here then is whether or not A1 is really a correct representation of the relevant epistemological and logical features of E1 and thereby whether AE1 adequately captures the essential logical features of E1. Notice that this is a question that depends on much more than the mere choice of a system of logical notation and it involves much more than the debate about which particular logical reconstruction is correct once a formalism is accepted, appearances perhaps to the contrary. More specifically, answering this question adequately depends on determining what is actually occurring in the epistemological situation described in E1and what we are clearly dealing with in such cases is the attempted testimonial transmission of information. As a result, disputes about the correctness of any particular logical analysis of ad verecundiam arguments, while important, must be regarded as secondary to our resolving the issue of the epistemological nature of testimony. The former issue is just the matter of the logical reconstruction of the latter sort of occurrence. Unfortunately, this is not at all comforting because the epistemological debate about the nature of testimony is itself a topic about which there is considerable disagreement, but nevertheless this modest conclusion is surely true. Assessing the correctness of any particular reconstruction of ad verecudiam argumentation requires resolving the epistemic problem of testimonial warrant, because ad verecundiam arguments are nothing more than failed appeals to testimony.

3. The Epistemology of Testimony.
There are currently two basic approaches to the nature of testimonial evidence: reductivism and non-reductivism. On the one hand, non-reductivism is just the view, derived from Reid, that testimony is a basic source of justification in the sense that it can generate justification and that such justification does not depend on knowledge of the frequency of veracity of testimony, or on any other empirical facts. The independence condition is crucial for those who accept this view because if testimony did require such additional knowledge, then it would be dependent on induction and thus would ipso facto not be a basic, justification-generating, source. On the other hand, reductivism is the view that testimonial justification requires knowledge of the frequency of the veracity of testimony and so on this view the justificatory status of testimony is parasitic on the justificatory status of induction. In the context of this paper we will be concerned only with non-reductivism and its implications for our analyses of ad verecundiam arguments. More exactly, we will be concerned here with the specific and influential version of non-reductivism about testimonial warrant defended by Tyler Burge (1993) and how this view fares with respect to the standard interpretation of those arguments sketched out above.

3.1 Burge’s View of Testimonial Warrant.
As has been noted here already, Burge defends a version of non-reductivism concerning testimony. As a result, for one to be warranted in accepting some item of testimony does not require one to know that the source of that testimony is reliable. Hence, on this view one can be warranted in accepting testimony without any knowledge of the degree of expertise on the matter in question possessed by the utterer of that testimony. This is largely a result of Burge’s more general claim that epistemology has too long been concerned with an overly intellectualized concept of justification (2003, 503-505). The sort of hyper-intellectualism that Burge identifies and objects to is just the sort of account of warrant that involves the possession of reasons that are mentally accessible to the knower in question and which exhibit inferential structure. Burge finds such views to be wildly implausible when applied to a number of areas of epistemic interest including both perception and, more importantly, testimony. Nevertheless, Burge does hold that such sources provide us with warranted beliefs.

In order to avoid this sort of over-inellectualization, the general basis of Burge’s view of the sort of warrant that is involved in testimony (and perception) is externalist in nature. Moreover, in the process of rejecting reductionism Burge also reveals that the sort of warrant that is involved in testimonial acceptance is a priori in nature. For Burge this means that the kind of warrant that is involved in testimony does not in any epistemic way depend on sense experience or perception (1993, p. 466-467). We are supposed often to be warranted in accepting testimony based on the mere satisfaction of the acceptance principle (SAP), the simple version of which states that:
A person is entitled to accept as true something that is presented as true and that is intelligible to him, unless there are stronger reasons not to do so (1993, p. 467).[iii]

Burge refers to the sort of warrant derived from principles of this sort as entitlement in order to distinguish this sort of warrant from the traditional reason-based sorts of justification characteristic of traditional hyper-intellectualized epistemology.

So based on SAP we are essentially entitled to accept as true anything uttered to us that is intelligible unless we possess some relevant defeater that pertains to that testimony or to the source of that testimony. As Burge would have it principles of this sort are simply norms the fulfillment of which has positive epistemic status because they are conceptually related to truth in some important manner (2003, p. 506-507). In the case of testimony this condition is understood to be satisfied because intelligibility is supposed to be conceptually related to rationality and thereby to truth in accordance with a kind of a principle of charity as it applies to rational discourse (1993). In other words, it is rational, and thus warrant-generating, to accept as true any intelligible testimony because truth-telling is the normative default position we should adopt with respect to intelligible interlocutors in the absence of any known defeaters. In line with this Burge formulates a more complex version of the acceptance principle (CAP) as follows:
A person is entitled to accept a proposition that is presented as true and that is intelligible to him, unless there are stronger reasons not to do so, because it is prima facie preserved (received) from a rational source, or resources for reason; reliance on rational resources or resources for reason ¾ is, other things equal, necessary to the function of reason (1993, p. 469).

Intelligibility is thus supposed to be a prima facie and a priori indication of rationality, and hence of truth.

Testimonial warrant is then supposed to be a priori because satisfaction of CAP requires no epistemic reference to sensations or perceptual states at all (1993, p. 472). Notice also that in rejecting internalism Burge is also committed to the view that we are entitled to accept many items of testimony even if we have no knowledge of CAP. He explains,
The Acceptance Principle is not a premise in an argument applied by the recipients of information. It is a description of a norm that indicates that recipients are sometimes entitled to accept information from other immediately without argument (1993, p. 476).
So the ultimate view that Burge defends is that we are warranted in accepting testimony without any argument at all, without any explicit or implicit reasons, because the acceptance of intelligible testimony in the absence of defeaters is always warranted. It is always warranted because it is the satisfaction of an a priori norm of reason that one need not even be aware of in order for this sort of a priori entitlement to obtain (1993, p. 467), often to the degree that it even constitutes knowledge (1993, p. 485).

4. Burge and Ad Verecundiam Arguments.
Given Burge’s account of testimonial warrant what then can we say about the distinction between E1 and E2 and their logical reconstruction as AE1 and AE2? First, note that absent the crucial contextual factors included as bracketed information in those cases, we could make no epistemic distinction between Gary Neville’s utterance and Gary Lincoff’s utterance on Burge’s view. Both Garys simply utter tokens of the sentence “Amanita phalloides is deadly.” As a result, one would be equally warranted in accepting the intelligible proposition that Amanita phalloides is deadly as true whichever person it came from. This is simply because in both cases one would be satisfying CAP, and so one would be a priori justified in believing that Amanita phalloides is deadly, irrespective of the contextual factors at work in E1 and E2. Now, of course, one might later learn that Gary Neville is no expert with respect to the matter of mycological toxicity and so that justification would be defeated by one’s doxastic possession of that reason. This just indicates that Burge accepts the view that a priori knowledge is defeasible when one is in doxastic possession of information in the form of an explicit reason that undercuts some item of testimony, and while the view that there is defeasible a priori knowledge is an awkward one Burge is not alone in accepting this view (2003, p. 506-507, Kitcher 1983). In any case, in the absence of such explicit defeating knowledge, the hearer is justified to the same degree in accepting that proposition when that information comes from Gary Neville as it would be had it come from Gary Lincoff. This is so because that justification derives exclusively from satisfying CAP and none of it is derived from making any inference, good, bad or otherwise.
Burge’s view is curious in this respect as in being an externalist about CAP itself he is perfectly happy to accept that one’s warrants for one’s beliefs need not be a function of doxastic items that one is aware of. So why should we not just apply the principle of charity here and simply accept that one’s justification for accepting that Amanita phalloides is deadly is a function of the, often unknown, contextual information in the context of an utterance that plays a role in an explicit or even implicit inference that we are making even though we might be unaware of that we are making such an inference? This would work equally well. The logical reconstructions of our epistemic circumstances need not only include what we are self-reflectively aware of and Burge himself accepts this general point in endorsing externalism with respect to CAP. So there seems to be no special reason why we should not simply retain this more traditional position, and there are also some good additional reasons why doing so is useful. Specifically, it allows us to make the important epistemic distinction between E1-type and E2-type situations even when we are not aware of the importantly different contexts (especially defeaters), and it preserves the standard logical model of appeals to testimony that allows for us to distinguish ad verecundiam and legitimate appeals to authority from a purely logical point of view.

This brings us to the second point of criticism. What is perhaps most interesting about Burge’s view is that, in accepting his particular account of testimonial warrant, Burge is committed to the view that neither AE1 nor AE2 is a correct analysis, respectively, of E1 and E2. This is the case because he explicitly claims that the transmission of information by testimony does not involve any argumentation at all. As a result, on Burge’s view, that one’s behavior conforms to an A1-type or an A2-type structure cannot have anything to do with justification and testimony, pace the standard understanding of ad verecundiam argumentation. So, importantly, Burge must hold that E1 does not involve any fallacy at all, because it does not involve any argument whatsoever. As a result, there is no way that one can say that defective reasoning conforming to A1 is occurring in E1 on Burge’s view. Hence, if we accept that informal logic is a tool by which we reconstruct the basic logical features of everyday discourse, Burge cannot possibly offer any account of ad verecundiam argumentation, at least as it is understood as per typical textbook treatments of that fallacy. As a result, ad verecundiam arguments cannot really be adequately distinguished from legitimate appeals to authority on his view and we cannot really say that anything is epistemically wrong about formulating the belief that Amanita phalloides is deadly on the basis of Gary Neville’s testimony to that effect in the absence of a such a defeater. However, it is natural to feel that we would be being duped in such a case and hence are not really justified in those circumstances.[iv] But we cannot uphold this view on Burge’s account. Again, this is simply because on Burge’s view there essentially are no ad verecundiam arguments as they are understood in the standard sense outlined above. Burge’s view does allow one to distinguish E1 from E2 by simply noting that E1 involves a potential defeater whereas E2 does not, at least when we are in doxastic possession of the relevant contextual information, but the point still stands. Burge’s view offers no account of how to make the distinction between E1-type and E2-type cases absent this information and there is essentially nothing wrong with accepting testimony in situations like E1. More importantly, on his view the distinction between E1-type cases and E2-type cases would not in any case be a logical distinction.
These observations seem to constitute a sort of reductio ad absurdum of Burge’s view, albeit of a relatively weak sort. What we can say is that we can and should make the logical distinction between E1-type and E2-type examples and we should resist endorsing the sort of implausible gullibility that CAP would sanction by basing the epistemic status of testimony on the actual doxastic possession of defeaters (see Fricker 1994). There is something logically and epistemologically wrong about a reasonable adult accepting as justified the claim that Amanita phalloides is deadly when uttered by Gary Neville when he or she does not know who Gary Neville is (see Dawkins 1995). By the same token, absent any information about Gary Lincoff, it would also seem to be wrong to accept that Amanita phalloides is deadly when he utters a statement to that effect absent any knowledge of the relevant contextual factors concerning Lincoff’s bona fide expertise on mycological matters.

On the standard logical interpretation of ad verecundiam arguments and their epistemic significance we can account for these aspects of testimonial transmission of information. Were one to accept C’1 on the basis of P’1 in the absence of awareness of P’2 one would be unjustified in doing so for logical reasons and the same general lesson applies in the case of AE2. Absent reasons, even implicit and weak ones, to the effect that the testimony in question is good we would not be justified in accepting Lincoff’s pronouncement either. This of course amounts to a simple rejection of non-reductivism and this then seems to indicate that non-reductivism is a superior account of testimonial warrant. Even if we are not prepared to go this far, we should at least be prepared call a spade a spade and to accept that we are not justified in accepting a proposition on the basis of testimony when the testimony comes from an inappropriate source and we are not aware of this. What non-superficial or non-question-begging epistemic purpose is served by holding that we would be warranted in accepting such a belief in such circumstances?[v] Burge’s only real answer seems to be that so-called hyper-intellectualized epistemology is not realistic in its application to testimony. However, this contention is dubious as CAP is at least as unrealistic as the standard view, but it is also simply a misunderstanding of the nature of logical reconstruction.

This brings us to the crux of the issue. Essentially the problem with Burge’s view is that it is not merely the intelligibility of the message that is relevant to the justification of information received as testimony and so testimony is not as simple and basic as Burge believes. Also, it is simply not obvious that the default normative assumption in cases of testimony should be that of truth-telling. The kind of principle of charity that Burge assumes links intelligibility to truth is simply too weak to allow us to draw important distinctions in epistemic behavior involving testimony. As Richard Dawkins puts it, “[c]hildren are naturally credulous (1993, p. 32),” but, “[t]here is no charm in the near infinite gullibility of children (1993, p. 33).” This is why we think that logical analysis of our epistemic behavior is so crucial. It allows us to reveal our epistemic failings by revealing them often to be, in part, logical failings and doing so allows us to guard against these sorts of logical and epistemic deficiencies. Again quoting Dawkins, we should recognize that “[g]rowing up, in the fullest sense of the word, should include the cultivation of a healthy skepticism (1993, p. 35-36),”and that “[w]e need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science (1993, p. 36).” Science, of course, involves reasoning and this is precisely the point where Burge’s view fails. His view of testimony denies that when we engage in information transmitting dialogue we should recognize that there is a logical norm to be upheld that is crucially related to rationality via the logical structure of our discourse in direct opposition to CAP, even if we are not reflectively aware of such logical structure. Specifically, we ought not to glorify the failures to observe this kind of healthy skepticism and to obey logical principles that are part and parcel of rational behavior that are endorsed in Burge’s simple de-intellectualized epistemology of testimony. His view amounts to nothing more than the brute acceptance of whatever others tell us in the absence of explicit defeating reasons to the contrary. Such behavior is illogical and involves the commission of a fallacy of which we are all acutely and commonly aware and which we should label as such, but this is precisely what we cannot do given Burge’s view of testimony.

NOTES
[i] The dashed line in this inferential scheme is used to indicate that good inferences of this sort may be either cogent inductive arguments or valid deductive arguments that are enthymemes. In the latter case the omitted premise might be something like “What experts claim is true”.
[ii] The implicit implication here is, of course, that Gary Neville is not, in fact, an expert on mycology.
[iii] For Burge this seems to mean that merely conforming to this rule is sufficient for entitlement, as opposed to literally following the rule.
[iv] Here I am implicitly rejecting that there is anything like prima facie evidence. Evidence is what really justifies belief, not what appears to do so.
[v] One main motivation for Burge seems to be the rejection of a rather extensive skepticism that might appear to follow from our rejecting testimony as a basic source of knowledge. However this is blatantly question-begging whether or not such skepticism actually follows from the rejection of testimony as a basic epistemic resource.

REFERENCES
Burge, T. (1993). Content Preservation. The Philosophical Review 102, 457-488.
Burge, T. (2003). Perceptual Entitlement. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67, 503-548.
Copi, I. And C. Cohen (2004). Essentials of Logic. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Dawkins, R. (1995). Putting Away Childish Things. Skeptical Inquirer January/February, 31-36.
Fricker, E. (1994). Against Gullibility. In: B. K. Malital and A. Chakrabarti (Eds.), Knowing from Words (pp. 125-161), the Netherlands: Kluwer.
Kitcher, P. (1983). The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lincoff, G. (1977). Toxic and Hallucinogenic Mushroom Poisoning: A Handbook For Physicians and Mushroom Hunters. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Walton, D. (1997). Appeal to Expert Opinion. University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press.

Table of Contents ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Work in Progress

Frans H. van Eemeren, J. Anthony Blair, Charles A. Willard & Bart Garssen – Preface
Mark A. Aakhus & Alena L. Vasilyeva – Managing Disagreement In Multiparty Deliberation
Donn P. Abbott – Modern Rhetoric And The End Of Argument
Andrew Aberdein – Virtue Argumentation
Theodora Achourioti  – Fallacies And Context-Dependence: Considering The Strategic Maneuvering Approach
Martin T. Adam – Classes Of Moral Agent And The Art Of Persuasion In The Pali Nikayas Jesús Alcolea-Banegas -Visual Arguments In Film
Jesús Alcolea-Banegas – Visual Arguments In Film
Habibe Aldağ & Ahmet Doğanay – The Effects Of Textual And Graphical-Textual Argumentation Software As Cognitive Tools On Development Of Argumentation skills
Donka Alexandrova – Agonistics Among The Wooden, Democratic And Monarchic Discourses In Contemporary Bulgaria
J. Francisco Álvarez – The Risk Of Arguing. From Persuasion To Dissuasion Rodica Amel  – The Challenging Force Of Dissuasion
Rodica Amel – The Challenging Force Of Dissuasion
Bilal Amjarso  – Addressing Anticipated Countermoves As A Form Of Strategic Manoeuvring
Corina Andone – The Strategic Use Of Antithesis In The Argumentation Stage Of A Critical Discussion
Kevin T. Baaske & Megan A. Baaske – Hurricane Katrina: An Argumentative Analysis Of Race And Gender Issues In The Media Coverage Of A Natural And National Disaster
Susan J. Balter-Reitz & Karen A. Stewart – A Perfect Circle: Visual Argument Field And The Definition Of The Middle Class
Hilde van Belle – When You Don’t Have Anything To Prove Strategic Manoeuvering And Rhetorical Argumentation
Lilian Bermejo Luque – The Justification Of  The Normative Nature Of Argumentation Theory
Barbara A. Biesecker – Memorializing In A Time Of Terror: A Case Study Of Public Argument
Frans A.J. Birrer – Hidden Obstructions In Discussions Involving Conductive Argumentation. Core And Surface In The U.S. Debate On The Use Of Data Mining Techniques In The Fight Against Terrorism
J. Anthony Blair – Investigations And The Critical Discussion Model
George Boger – A Foundational Principle Underlying Philosophy Of Argument
Åsa Brumark – Argumentation At The Swedish Family Dinner Table
Lilit Brutian – Arguments In Child Language
Andrew J. Burgess – Irony As Ethical Argumentation In Kierkegaard
Ann E. Burnette & Wayne L. Kraemer – The Argumentative Framework Of Imperial Righteousness: The War Discourse Of George W. Bush
Damiano Canale & Giovanni Tuzet – The A Contrario Argument: A Scorekeeping Model
Linda Carozza – A Pragma-Dialectical Response To Feminist Concerns
Adelino Cattani – Rules Of Refutation And Strategies Of Dissuasion In Debate
Leah Ceccarelli – Creating Controversy About Science And Technology
Mathieu Chaput & Milton N. Campos – A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis Of Online Political Argumentation
Sara Cigada – Past-Oriented And Future-Oriented Emotions In Argumentation For Europe During The Fifties
Daniel H. Cohen – Understanding, Arguments, And Explanations: Cognitive Transformations And The Limits Of Argumentation
Elisia L. Cohen – Rhetoric, Homeland Security, And Geopolitical Context: A Comparative Argument Analysis After Terror Strikes
Catherine Ann Collins – Seeing Is Believing: The Visual Diary Of Paul Wynne
Peter A. Cramer – Controversy Participation As A Function Of Direct Reported Speech In News
Nathaniel I. Córdova – Between Radical Democracy And Civic Virtue: Political Piety And Public Moral Argument

Robert T. Craig – Arguments About “Dialogue” In Practice And Theory
Chiara Degano – Argumentation Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis And Corpus Linguistics: A Case Study
Antoni  Diller – Understanding The Strategy Of Attacking Premises
Marianne Doury – A Bottom-Up Approach To Argument Schemes: The Case Of Comparative Argument
M. Dufour – Didactics And Authority: Towards A Pragma-Didactical Approach
Danielle Endres – “Yucca Mountain Will Become Unhappy And Angry” : Culture, Metaphor, and Argument
Ademar Ferreira – On The Role Of Pragmatics, Rhetoric And Dialectics In Scientific Controversies
Eveline T. Feteris – A Normative Reconstruction Of Arguments From Reasonableness In The Justification Of Judicial Decisions
Maurice A. Finocchiaro – Metadialogues And Meta-Arguments: Krabbe On Formal-Fallacy Criticism
Gerd Fritz – Communication Principles For Controversies – An Historical Perspective
Claudio Fuentes – Towards A “Pragma-Dramatic” Approach To Argumentation
Richard Friemann – Pragma-Dialectics And A Unified Understanding Of Interpersonal Disagreement
Giovanni Gobber – Some Remarks On Interrogativity And Argumentation
G.C. Goddu – Against Making The Linked-Convergent Distinction
G. Thomas Goodnight – The Duties Of Advocacy: Argumentation Under Conditions Of Disparity, Asymmetry, And Difference
Jean Goodwin – Actually Existing Rules For Closing Argument
Trudy Govier – Duets, Cartoons, And Tragedies: Struggles With The Fallacy Of Composition
Jim Gough – Accepting Premises And Systems Of Belief
Miriam Greenfeld – The Invocation Of Time Within Argumentative Discourse In An Asynchronous Internet Environment
Alessandro Grilli – Argumentation, Keywords And Worldviews
Bruce E. Gronbeck – Theorizing Visual Argumentation: Three Approaches To Jacob Riis
Kati Hannken-Illjes – Undoing Premises. The Interrelation Of Argumentation And Narration In Criminal Proceedings
Hans Vilhelm Hansen – Mill On Argumentation
Gerard Hauser  & Virginia C. Sanprie – Women In Combat: Arguments Against Military Women In Combat Through Media Depictions Of Jessica Lynch And Lynndie England
Mika Hietanen – The Gospel Of Matthew As An Argument
David Hitchcock – Why There Is No Argumentum Ad Hominem Fallacy
John Hoaglund – Informal Logic And Pragma Dialectics
Hanns Hohmann – Legal Arguments For Political Violence: The Assassination Of The Duke Of Orléans (1407)
Michael Hoppmann – Dialectical Ideal And Dialectical Training
Isabela Ieţcu-Fairclough –  ‘Status Groups’ Or A ‘Free Market Of Ideas’? An Analysis Of A Romanian Intellectual Polemic In Pragma-Dialectical And Critical Discourse-Analytical Terms
Cornelia Ilie – Argument Refutation Through Definitions And Re-Definitions
Hengameh Irandoust – A Pragmatic Analysis Of Critique And Evaluation
Michael Janas –  What Is The KKK: Metonymy And Synecdoche In Arguments About Racism
Sharon Jessop – Citizenship Education And The Teaching Of Argumentation In Schools
Ralph Jessop – Undesirable Passions: Utopia’s Emotionless Rationality
Ralph H. Johnson – Responding To Objections
Charlotte Jørgensen – The Relevance Of Intention In Argument Evaluation
Mary L. Kahl – An Analysis Of Argument In George Washington’s Newburgh Address: “Address To The Officers Of The Army,” March 15, 1783
Tomohiro Kanke – Reshaping Emperor Hirohito’s Persona: A Study Of Fragmented Arguments In Multiple Texts
Fred J. Kauffeld – Grice’s Analysis Of Utterance-Meaning And Cicero’s Catilinarian Apostrophe
Zornitsa Keremidchieva – The Argument Of Print: State Sovereignty And The Publication Of U.S Congressional Debates
Manfred Kienpointner – Revolutionary rhetoric. Georg Büchner’s “Der Hessische Landbote“ (1834). A case study
Sheila J. Kindred – Resort To Persuasive Authority: The Use And Abuse Of Legal Argument In Political Discourse
Susan L. Kline – Displaying Reasonableness: Developmental Changes In Two Argument Practices
Geoffrey D. Klinger – Arguing Against The Capitalist State: The Rhetorical And Ideological Struggles Of Eugene Victor Debs
Christian Kock – The Domain Of Rhetorical Argumentation
László I. Komlósi – Perelman’s Vision: Argumentation Schemes As Examples Of Generic Conceptualization In Everyday Reasoning Practices
Marcin Koszowy – A Methodological Approach To Argument Evaluation
Erik C. W. Krabbe – On How To Get Beyond The Opening Stage
A. J. Kreider – Informal Fallacies As Inferences To The Best Explanation
Tone Kvernbekk – Theory And Practice: A Metatheoretical Contribution
Gábor Kutrovátz – A Role For Dialectic In Science Studies
Jan Albert van Laar – Confrontational Manoeuvring By Pointing Out A Pragmatic Inconsistency
Michael Leff – Ad Hominem Argument In The Bush/Kerry Presidential Debates
José Julio León – Justice As Argumentation
Thomas M. Lessl – Scientific Demarcation And Metascience: The National Academy Of Sciences On The Greenhouse Effect And Neo-Darwinism
Elena Lisanyuk – Russian Political Talk Show: Glamour Of Argumentative Discussion – A Case Study
Sacha Mandelcwajg & Michel Marcoccia – The Definition And The Negotiation Of The Norms Of Discussion In Newsgroups: Which Communication Ideal?
Beth Innocenti Manolescu – Shaming Into Argumentation
Roberto Marafioti – Argumentation In Debate: The Parliamentary Speech In Critical Contexts
Roberto Marafioti, Zelma Dumm & María Elena Bitonte – Argumentation And Counter-Argumentation Using A Diaphonic Appropiation In A Parlamentary
Vesel Memedi – The Role Of A Third Party In Argumentative Discourse
Raphaël Micheli – The Argumentative Construction Of Emotions: The Example Of Indignation In Pro-Life Rhetoric
Marta Mignini – Strategic Maneuvering In Banks’ Annual Reports
Gordon R. Mitchell – Ehninger’s Argument Violin
Dima Mohammed – Towards A Pragma-Dialectical Approach To Negotiation
Jeremy Morris – Pragmatic Reflexivity In Self-defeating And Self-justifying Expressions
Daniel J. O’Keefe – Normatively Responsible Advocacy: Some Provocations From Persuasion Effects Research
Hiroko Okuda – Prime Minister Mori’s Controversial “Divine Nation” Remarks: A Case Study Of Japanese Political Communication Strategies
Edward Panetta – Obscuring The Facts: The Bush Administration And The Politicization Of Science In The Greenhouse Debate
Georgios Papagounos & Manolis Polychronides – On Relevance
Donn W. Parson & George Ziegelmueller – Rhetorical Irony: Problems And Possibilities
Marijan Pavčnik – The Rule Of Law Argument (Its Elements And Some Open Questions And Cases)
Roosmaryn Pilgram & Leah E. Polcar – Questioning The Fallacy Of Many Questions
H. José Plug – Evaluating Attacks On The Credibility Of Politicians In Political Debates
Leah E. Polcar – Question-Reply Argumentation Reconsidered: A Pragma-Dialectical Account Of How Questions And Answers Are Used In Critical Discussion
Marian Pijnenburg – Quote … Unquote. Direct Quotation As A Strategic Manoeuvre In The Confrontation Stage
Karen Rasmussen – Warranting Spiritual Reclamation In Chicana Literature
Angela G. Ray – Arguments For Popular Audiences: Early U.S. Woman’s Rights Advocacy In The Lyceum Lectures Of Elizabeth Oakes Smith
M.A. van Rees – Dissociation: Between Rhetorical Success And Dialectical Soundness
Anna Carolina Regner – The Polemical Interaction Between Darwin And Mivart: A Lesson On Refuting Objections
Martin Reisigl – The Dynamics Of Right-Wing Populist Argumentation In Austria
Pedro Reygadas & Josefina Guzman – Visual Schematization: Advertising And Gender In Mexico
John Rief – Talking At Cross Purposes: Violating Higher-Order Conditions With Oppositional Arguments
Patricia Riley, Thomas Hollihan & James F. Klumpp – On Taking The UN Seriously As A Site For Public Arguments: Does The UN Have A Role In The 21st Century?
Juho Ritola – On Justified Belief In The Link Of An Argument
Robert C. Rowland – Purpose, Argument Fields, And Theoretical Justification
Lambèr Royakkers & Bart van Klink – Equality In Utilitarian Reasoning Or: How Useful Is The Pragma-Dialectical Approach As An Analytical And Critical Tool?
Sara Rubinelli, Peter J. Schulz & Kent Nakamoto – Reading Direct-To-Consumer Advertising Of Prescription Medicine. A Qualitative Study From Argumentation Theory On Its Dialectical And Rhetorical Features
Mirela Saim – Reforming The Jews, Rejecting Marginalization: The 1799 German Debate On Jewish Emancipation In Its Controversy Context
Margareth Sandvik – The Rhetoric Of Emotions In Political Argumentation
Janice Schuetz – A Typology Of Arguments In U.S. Judicial Opinions About Immigration
Susan A. Sci – Aesthetic Reason: Expanding The Role Of Argumentation & Deliberation Within Aesthetic Theory
Marita Seppänen – The Quality Of Argumentation In Masters Theses
Michael J. Shaffer – The Ad Verecundiam Fallacy And Appeals To Expert Testimony
M. Siderits – Contradiction In Madhyamaka Buddhist Argumentation
Harvey Siegel & John Biro – Rationality, Reasonableness, And Critical Rationalism: Problems With The Pragma-Dialectical View
Anders Sigrell – The Normativity Of The Progymnasmata Exercises
Virgílio Afonso da Silva – Legal Argumentation, Constitutional Interpretation, And Presumption Of Constitutionality
Alla V. Smirnova -Why Do Journalists Quote Other People, Or On The Functions Of Reported Speech In Argumentative Newspaper Discourse
A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans – Manoeuvring Strategically With Rhetorical Questions
Tim Steffensmeier – Arguments Across Symbolic Forms: An Analysis Of Presidential Popularity
Kevin A. Stein, Suzanne Larson & Lionel A. Grady – Antapologia Arguments During The Hurricane Katrina Disaster
Takeshi Suzuki – A Fantasy Theme Analysis Of Prime Minister Koizumi’s “Structural Reform Without Sacred Cows”
Konishi Takuzo – Conceptualizing And Evaluating Dissociation From An Informal Logical Perspective
Christopher W. Tindale – Textual Allusion As Rhetorical Argumentation: Gorgias, Plato And Isocrates
Karen Tracy – How Newspaper Coverage Transforms Policy Issues Into Character Matters: Debate About A School District’s Test Scores
Tatyana P. Tretyakova – Polyphony Of Interpretations In Providing Argumentation In Modern Media Text
Assimakis Tseronis – The Management Of The Burden Of Proof And Its Implications For The Analysis Of Qualified Standpoints: The Case Of Evaluative Adverbials
Leire Urbieta & Begoña Carrascal – Circular Arguments Analysis
Hilde Van Belle – When You Don’t Have Anything To Prove. Strategic Manoeuvering And Rhetorical Argumentation
Jeffrey VanCleave – The Role Of Argument In Political Advocacy And The Power Of The Enthymeme: A Case Study Of The NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program Debate
Luis Vega & Paula Olmos – Enthymemes: The Starting Of A New Life
Ana María Vicuña Navarro – An Ideal
Ron Von Burg – Cinematic Arguments: The Efficacy Of The Day After Tomorrow In Public Arguments On Global Warming
Kristine Warrenburg – Aesthetic Argument: Moving Beyond Logic
Jack Russell Weinstein – Adam Smith’s Ad Hominem: Eighteenth Century Insight Regarding The Role Of Character In Argument
Andreas Welzel & Christopher Tindale – Fallacies As Violations Of Rationality Norms. An Interdisciplinary Approach
David Cratis Williams & Marilyn J. Young – Argumentation And Education: Preparing Citizens In Cultures Of Democratic Communication
Carol Winkler – Encroachments On State Sovereignty: The Argumentation Strategies Of The George W. Bush Administration
Harald Wohlrapp – Who Is Afraid Of Emotion In Argument?
Minghui Xiong & Yi Zhao – A Defeasible Pragma-Dialectical Model Of Argumentation
Yadvigha Yaskevich – Moral And Legal Arguments In Modern Bioethics
David Zarefsky – The U.S. And The World: The Unexpressed Premises Of American Exceptionalism
Gábor Á. Zemplén – Utilising Pragma-Dialectics For The Study Of Scientific Controversies: The Published Part Of The Newton-Lucas Correspondence, A Case Study From The 1670s