ISSA Proceedings 2006 – A Foundational Principle Underlying Philosophy Of Argument

• by: George Boger - Canisius College

1. Introduction
The study of arguments and argumentations – logic – whether undertaken traditionally as a study of formal implication relationships among propositions or undertaken non-traditionally to involve the dialogical pragmatics of human argumentative discourse, is a decidedly metasystematic activity (consider, e.g., Barth & Krabbe 1982 on various uses of ‘form’). This is not obviated by philosophers of argument considering an argument to be a social activity (see, e.g., van Eemeren et al 1996: 5, Johnson 2000: 168, Govier 1988:1, Freeman 1993: 35, Walton 1989: 1, 3, and Tindale 1999: 1). Of course, philosophers of argument distinguish themselves by intentionally broadening their study to include considering the context and situatedness of argumentative discourse as essential to the discipline. In connection with this special approach to studying arguments, philosophers of argument have variously treated epistemic matters, normative matters, pragmatic matters, and a whole host of humanist issues. Indeed, in this latter respect, the philosophy of argument, whatever controversies it might compass, even to include adherents debating whether there is or can be a theory of argument, has sprung from persons motivated by deep humanist convictions to empower ordinary human beings with sufficient critical faculties to become autonomous members of democratic societies.
This discussion aims modestly only to highlight this important humanist underpinning of many contributors to the modern argumentation discussion. We use ‘humanism’ here in a generalized way to range over various humanisms, such as, secular humanism, religious, scientific, or naturalistic humanism and their individual philosophic expressions, all of which might be traced to their renaissance inspiration and all of which have deep moral predilections. We take humanists, then, to affirm the dignity and worth of human beings and to promote human freedom, especially as expressed by the self-determination of individuals and their communities. Besides promoting freedom, humanists promote a spirit of tolerance and peaceful coexistence, affirm human equality, and embrace cosmopolitanism. Humanists especially consider human nature perfectible and share an optimistic outlook on the possibility of genuine progress. Humanists express profound confidence in human reason to understand nature and society without external mediation, and they promote cultivating our moral sensibility and our sense of shared responsibility. Below we review the remarks of some important philosophers of argument to indicate their deep-seated humanism. The upshot of our discussion is to identify a foundational principle underlying philosophy of argument.

2. An initial humanist impulse motivating the modern study of argumentative discourse
Taking Chaim Perelman, Stephen Toulmin, and Charles Hamblin to have inspired a social movement concerned with the dynamics of human argumentative engagement, many contemporary logicians since the 1970s have taken up the cause of their initial inspiration. Perelman, along with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, has remarked at various places that he aimed to “combat uncompromising and irreducible philosophical oppositions presented by all kinds of absolutism” (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969:1). Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca were committed to fight absolutism in all its forms and to resist totalitarianism (1969: 510). Perelman has especially addressed the concerns of justice in various essays (see Perelman 1967, 1980). These philosophers had had first-hand experience with the effects of severe anti-democratic and anti-human practices. Toulmin, in much the same vein, has reflected on the social history of logic to locate a split between the reasonable and the rational in the Peace of Westphalia, out of which came absolute sovereignty, established religion, and logical demonstration, all of which share two common features: “[1] all of them operated top-down, and gave power to oligarchies – political, ecclesiastical, or academic – that supported one another … [2] they formed a single [ideological] package” (2001: 156). Toulmin also writes that “[t]he Westphalian Settlement was, then, a poisoned chalice: intellectual dogmatism, political chauvinism, and sectarian religion formed a blend whose influence lasted into the twentieth century” (2001: 158). He is optimistic that in the contemporary world “tolerance and democracy are winning out over elitism in methodology, and over imperialism in the philosophy of science. To that extent, the imbalance in European ideas about Rationality and Reasonableness shows healthy signs of correcting itself” (2001: 167; cf. 205). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Reforming The Jews, Rejecting Marginalization: The 1799 German Debate On Jewish Emancipation In Its Controversy Context

• by: Mirela Saim - McGill University

1799 proved to be an extremely important year in the European history of the controversial issue of Jewish rights; during the 1799 debate it has been proved forcefully that practical and constitutional issues related to Jewish civil rights are clearly associated with the much broader issue of the cultural self-definition of the European subject. During 1799, in Germany, the issue of the Jewish civic condition came to the fore of the public discourse, being articulated in all its ambiguous complexity as a core dimension of the Enlightenment culture of reason. As I will show, this discourse – shaped as a “triangular” controversy between three contemporary opinion leaders, David Friedländer (1750-1834), Wilhelm Abraham Teller (1734-1804) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), managed to reveal an argumentative pattern that remains as fascinatingly interesting today as it has been misunderstood or misconstrued since its first publication.[i] Between Heinrich Graetz who dismissed the whole affair as an embarrassment and Michael Meyer’s more nuanced assessment, the polemic that brings together Friedländer and Schleiermacher within a unique historical frame, does, in fact, fix a rich constellation of topics, representative for the culture of Enlightenment. In the same time, the formulation of the topics involves a reappraisal by its participants of concepts of reason, religion, politics and philosophy and ultimately requires a new self-understanding of themselves as subjects.
By its very starting point, the question of unconstrained baptism of convenience, the debate defined itself as a controversy of interfaith structure: it presented itself as a controversy in the Jewish-Christian stream that was “meant to end all such controversies”, thus bringing an end to a long tradition of hostility, fight, rejection and repudiation. As we shall see, while it displayed a civility of interaction, it nevertheless managed to further the cause of oppositional confrontations. While on the surface debating the issue of convenience conversion as a tool of social integration, the controversy does, in reality, encompass a large number of issues of historical extension: deist formulations of universal religion, ever-weakening confessional distinctions, preservation of a (vague) Judaism in this context, goals of an even more obscured Christian theology, validity of opportunistic religious practices, etc. It is the object of this paper to discuss the main elements of this controversy within the broader context of the argumentative history of the Jewish-Christian debates, signaling some of their procedures of refutation, rejection and critique. I will first consider the main lines of the discourse of this controversy of emancipation in 1799, outlining its arguments, after which I will focus on the contradictory and dissuasive stratagems displayed by the three participants. I thus hope to throw a new light on the status of the argument in the controversial structure studied and to review the failure of persuasive effectiveness usually associated with this particular debate.

1. The Debate
The most important discourse inscribed in this confrontation was articulated by David Friedländer[ii], a pupil and a former protégé of Moses Mendelssohn, at the time leader of the Jewish community and representative of the Jewish mercantile elite in Berlin, in his Open Letter to His Most Worthy, Supreme Consistorial Counselor and Provost Teller at Berlin, from some Householders of the Jewish Religion (Sendschreiben an seine Hochwürden Herrn Oberconsistorialrath und Probst Teller zu Berlin, von einigen Hausvätern Jüdischer Religion). In this “letter” Friedländer made the proposal of having Jews convert to Christianity: without fully endorsing the dogmatic content of the Christian (Protestant) religion through a baptismal ceremony that would only carry formal meaning. This sort of “baptism light”, clearly opportunistic, would impose only limited doctrinal restrictions while offering full civic integration into the mainstream Berlin society.
The text of this document, published anonymously in April 1799, recovers some of the arguments so well defined in Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem, using frequently its distinctions, metaphors and analogies and making a similar use of the reasonable language of the religious and the political. But the disciple goes far beyond the boundaries kept by the master: he radically alters Mendelssohn’s integrative project when, in his desire to conform to the perceived expectations in the Berlin Protestant environment, he shows himself eager to consent to concessions that practically jettison the foundational elements of his own tradition; the possibility of an agreed conversion of convenience becomes thus a logical follow-up to his radical critique of rabbinic Judaism. The answers to this text came from many sides, but among all the opinions expressed at the time two are central to the development of ideas and practices discussed: Teller’s, the addressee of the letter and a recognized leader of the Prussian Protestant church, and Schleiermacher’s, the most innovative and profound Protestant theologian of the period. Nobody was satisfied with the proposal broached by Friedländer, certainly not his partners in this debate, Teller in the first place and definitely not Schleiermacher. Most probably, not even Friedländer himself, since to this day his true intentions and the real meaning of his text are still objects of puzzlement. What was indeed the meaning of his controversial arguments and how were they rebutted? Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – When You Don’t Have Anything To Prove. Strategic Manoeuvering And Rhetorical Argumentation

• by: Hilde van Belle - Lessius Hogeschool Antwerpen

‘Because deciding to smoke or not to smoke is something you should do when you don’t have anything to prove. Think it over.’ To smoke or not to smoke, that’s the question. Even the most notorious doubter in history is called upon in this smoky tragedy of legal limits versus free choice. The quoted Reynolds tobacco company advertorial is one of the examples Frans Van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser bring in to present the integrated pragma-dialectical model. In Rhetorical Argumentation. Principles of Theory and Practice, Christopher Tindale (2004) puts forward a model of argument that is characterised as rhetorical. In the introduction to this project, Tindale mentions this ‘rhetorical turn’ of the pragma-dialectic school. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2000) consider rhetoric part of dialectic, as dialectic deals with abstract and general questions, whereas rhetoric deals with specific cases and with context, elements that are to be embedded in the general.
First I will present the pragma-dialectic method and Tindale’s project, then I will deal with Tindale’s comments on the integrated pragma-dialectic model. Finally I will put forward the Reynolds case for my own discussion on the position of rhetoric and reasonableness in the integrated pragma-dialectic model, and the relation between dialectical and rhetorical norms. I will show how the advertorial can function as a prototype for the very notion of the complex shifting of norms in argumentation.

1. The pragma-dialectic model
The pragma-dialectic theory combines an approach to language use drawn from pragmatics with the study of critical dialogue from a dialectical perspective. It defines dialectic as ‘a method of regimented opposition’ in verbal communication and interaction ‘that amounts to the pragmatic application of logic, a collaborative method of putting logic into use so as to move from conjecture and opinion to more secure belief’ (Van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2000, p. 297).
All argumentation is considered to be part of a critical discussion aimed at resolving differences of opinion. This discussion consists of four stages: the confrontation stage, the opening stage, the argumentation stage, and the concluding stage. The aim of the participants should be to solve a difference of opinion within the boundaries of reason. As for assessment, the reconstruction of speech acts should make it possible to test discussions against procedural rules. Any derailment of these rules is considered to be fallacious.
In 1999 Van Eemeren and Houtlosser developed a model for integration of a rhetorical component in the pragma-dialectic approach. Their arguments for this idea are based upon praxis: although one is principally engaged in a critical discussion to solve a difference of opinion in a reasonable way, speakers or writers will also work towards a solution in their own favor (eg.: ‘as favourable as possible/ resolving the difference in their own favour/ getting things their way/ have their point of view accepted/ that best serves their interests) (Van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2000, p. 295). The way people’s own interests direct and influence the resolution of a dispute is an element of effectiveness, which is called the rhetorical aspect of argumentation: strategic attempts to personally influence the resolution process. In general, rhetoric is called ‘the theoretical study of practical persuasion techniques’ (ibid., p. 297).
A second argument for the integration proposal follows out of this and is of a more general kind. The authors claim to bridge the historical gap between dialectic and rhetoric. As for the integration, this is how they see the relation between dialectic and rhetoric: ‘We view dialectic –in line with Agricola- as a theory of argumentation in natural discourse and fit rhetorical insight into our dialectical framework’. From this, it is clear that rhetorical moves operate within a dialectical framework. Effective persuasion must be disciplined by dialectical rationality. In other words, the effectiveness element that is extracted from argumentation praxis is accepted as long as it does not interfere with principles of critical discourse, and in case of conflict between the two, praxis must yield to principles.
The reconciliation ‘in which the parties seek to meet their dialectical obligations without sacrificing their rhetorical aims’ is called ‘strategic manoeuvering’: ‘In so doing, they attempt to exploit the opportunities afforded by the dialectical situation for steering the discourse rhetorically in the direction that best serves their interests.’ (ibid., p. 295). Those opportunities are to be found in every of the four stages and can be pinned down to topical choice, adaptation to the audience, and presentation. The key criterion for assessing whether a rhetorical strategy is ‘being followed’ in any stage is that of convergence. Reconstruction provides insight into the strategic manoeuvers carried out to reconcile rhetorical aims with dialectical commitments. The strategic manoeuvres prove to be acceptable or to involve a violation of the rules for critical discussion.
For a conclusion, which may be a grounding argument as well, Van Eemeren and Houtlosser bring up the concept of ‘no incompatibility’: strategic maneuvering does not automatically imply that the critical principles for resolving conflicts are abandoned (ibid., p. 297). A final argument for the integration model is formulated in the conclusion of the Reynolds article:
This example shows, by the way, not only that a pragma-dialectical analysis becomes stronger and more useful when rhetorical insight is incorporated, but also that a rhetorical analysis of argumentative discourse is more illuminating when it takes place in a well-defined dialectical framework. (ibid., p. 302) Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Definition And The Negotiation Of The Norms Of Discussion In Newsgroups: Which Communication Ideal?

• by: Sacha Mandelcwajg & Michel Marcoccia - Tech-CICO/Université de technologie de Troyes

1. Introduction
Norms are at the core of research on argumentative discussion (Doury, 2003). There are two kinds of approaches to argumentation: descriptive and prescriptive approaches.
In a descriptive approach of argumentation, argumentative norms are built up by the speakers in their interactions (according to Plantin, 2002). It is noted that speakers have an argumentative/normative competence in daily life conversations. They can indeed:
– categorize the arguments they are faced with (this is an example, an analogy, an argument of authority, etc.),
– evaluate these arguments according to generally implicit criteria (this is a good example, a good analogy, an acceptable argument of authority),
– accept or reject arguments following this evaluation.

In a prescriptive approach to argumentative norms (Danblon, 2005): the aim is to distinguish a bad argumentation from a good one by trying to find pre-established rules: a rational, ethical, democratic argumentation versus manipulation and fallacies.
For example: in the pragma-dialectics model of van Eemren and Grootendorst (1996), we can notice the will to establish a “normative pragmatic” for “argumentative speech”.
Indeed, pragma-dialectics takes up Plato’s dialectics, Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, and Hamblin’s Fallacies (1970). So, the transgression of rules of logical and argumentative validity, the use of fallacies, belong to “evil” (Danblon, 2005).
This question is also of importance when we approach specificities of mediated communication by communication and information technologies (Marcoccia, 1998). It is indeed likely that Net users will take up to themselves a system of rules or refer to a set of external norms, in order to facilitate a good course of the dialogue in the newsgroups.

These rules are defined in two types of texts:
– the Netiquette, which is a set of communicative rules, with prescriptive and global aim. Communication rules, as defined by the Netiquette, are meant to be respected in any device of on-line discussions.
– charters of newsgroups, with rules limited to a local range, will be specific or not as far as the Netiquette is concerned.

In addition, Net users are often involved in conversational negotiations (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1984) during their discussions. We can indeed observe meta-communicative sequences relating to the rules of discussion: Net users themselves do propose how to express oneself, how to behave in a newsgroup, and what must be done or not. These sequences are generally warnings addressed to Net users having transgressed a rule.

To start with, this work will consist in clarifying the norms of discussion defined by the Netiquette and the newsgroup charter we have decided to study more particularly: fr.soc.politique. This is a political discussion newsgroup, non-moderate, that can be, at a first analysis, considered as an electronic form of public sphere. The observation of the messages posted in this newsgroup allows us to rank them as a hybrid kind: the ordinary political discussion (Marcoccia, 2003a).

During each phase of this analysis, we shall try to link the norms previously identified to four models of communication, which we shall regard as “normative”. These models are indeed regarded as major since they are at the root of a new reflexion on the rational norms at work in linguistic interactions:
– The Grice cooperation principle (1979), the rules of which aim at optimizing the intelligibility, the “interpretability” of messages.
– The politeness system elaborated by Brown & Levinson (1978), the purpose of which is to clarify the various means implemented by interacting people to spare their interlocutors’ faces.
– Habermas’ s ethics of discussion (1987) the normative purpose of which aims at making it possible to have a fully democratic and egalitarian communication.
– Van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s pragma-dialectics model (1996) the prescriptive position of which leads to a set of discussion norms guaranteeing its rational character.

Confrontation between these models and the norms extracted from the analyzed corpora (Netiquette, charter and newsgroups) will enable us to know if Net users have a real concern for the norms of discussion within newsgroups, and to specify the communication ideal defended by these norms. While respecting, violating, or defining norms, are the Net users animated by an ideal of comprehension and clarity, courtesy, equity or even rationality of the discussion? Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis Of Online Political Argumentation

• by: Mathieu Chaput & Milton N. Campos - Université de Montréal

1. Argumentation and Online Political Discussions
In recent years, we have witnessed a growing interest for the practice of argumentation using electronic conferencing systems.[i] Research has been conducted to understand how this asynchronous technology could facilitate the learning and practice of argumentation in the classroom (Marttunen, 1994, 1997; Marttunen & Laurinen, 2002 ; Schroeder & Zarinna, 1999), and Campos (2003, p. 300) even argue that “networked (many-to-many) communication has unique cognitive characteristics that are bound to collaborative argumentation”.
However, literature on argumentative practices in online political groups is much more limited. Most frequently, studies of political discussions online are bounded in the larger problematic of the ‘Internet and the Public Sphere’ and refer to the work of Habermas (1989) on argumentation and public deliberations in bourgeois society. Although general conclusions tend to be pessimistic, these studies note a high level of argumentation in online discussions (for a review in French, see Chaput, forthcoming). But on a closer look, one can find that their analysis is restricted to measuring the number of arguments in messages, and thus considering argumentation strictly as a product, which implies in turn to neglect the argumentation as process (cf. Blair & Johnson, 1987).

Our study aims therefore to understand the dynamic dimension of argumentation in online conferencing systems, by adopting what Plantin (2005, chap. 4) refers to as the “dialogical model of argumentation” in which interlocutors confront opposing viewpoints. We thus adopted the pragma-dialectical approach for it proposes “a systematic theory of argumentation” (cf. van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2003) and, as we thought, can account for the high level of interactivity occurring in online discussion groups. For that purpose, we selected four (4) discussion threads from a lively online group in the Canadian province of Quebec called Politiquébec – a contraction of the words ‘politics’ and ‘Quebec’- whose mission is “To provide a space for constructive discussions about political issues in Quebec”.
Following a brief description of the pragma-dialectical method of analysis we used in this study, we present a synthesis of our results and identify some characteristics of networked communication that can complicate the resolution of critical discussions. Finally, we discuss the specifics of political argumentation and provide some appreciation of the pragma-dialectical method of analysis for online argumentative discourse.

2. Theory, Method and Data
Critical Discussion: Inspired by critical rationalism and speech act theory, Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (1984, 1992) propose a theory of argumentation as critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion and going through four stages. During the confrontation stage, a viewpoint expressed by a party is put in doubt or rejected by another party; in the opening stage, the parties implied adopt the roles of protagonist and antagonist and respectively engage to defend or criticize the disputed statement. Common points of departure and rules are accepted at this stage. During argumentation stage, each party presents arguments to criticize or defend the disputed proposition, and finally, in the conclusion stage, we assist at the end of the dispute if the proposition is abandoned by the protagonist or the antagonist abandons its critique of the standpoint. As noted by pragma-dialecticians, critical discussion should be considered primarily as a tool for analysis:
The critical discussion model is a theory of how discourse would be structured if it were purely resolution oriented. It is not a theory of how discourse is structured nor is it a claim about what functions are or are not pursued in actual argumentation. Nevertheless, it plays an important role in the analysis of actual argumentation (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson & Jacobs, 1993, p. 26; italics added by the authors). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Arguing Against The Capitalist State: The Rhetorical And Ideological Struggles Of Eugene Victor Debs

• by: Geoffrey D. Klinger - DePauw University

“No man in America has been more hated, and few have been so much loved as Eugene V. Debs.”  (Max Ehrmann)

Eugene V. Debs As An Orator
Just over 100 years ago, in 1904, the Democratic Socialist Party tapped Indiana native Eugene Victor Debs[i] to serve as their candidate for the upcoming Presidential election. While an outspoken critic of capitalist economics and the U.S. government, and a strong supporter of workers’ rights, Debs was reluctant to accept this invitation. Eventually, he relented and ran a vigorous and, by some measures, highly successful campaign. This was his first of five Presidential campaigns. Perhaps the most significant event of his campaigns was a speech that Debs delivered in Canton, Ohio, in 1918. Because of this speech, Debs was arrested and charged with treason under the Espionage Act of 1917 for voicing his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I. He continued his fifth run for the Presidency from prison, the first and last time any person had ever done so. Remarkably, for that election, he received nearly one million votes, tripling the previous total of the Democratic Socialists from the election of 1900.
In more than just a metaphorical way, Debs was the voice of the working class. His entire life was devoted to advancing the cause of the working class against the excesses of the capitalist state. He first advanced this cause through the politics, but when it was obvious that the ideological structures of the political system resisted and then rejected his anti-capitalist argumentation, he had no choice but to turn to the legal system for recourse.
At his trial for treason, Debs chose to represent himself, and presented one of the most highly regarded speeches in the history of American Public Address. Indeed, Americanrhetoric.com ranks his “speech” to the jury as the 34th most influential and memorable speeches of all time. In this essay, I will carefully examine the three speeches that cluster around this rhetorical situation: the Canton speech, the speech to the jury, and the speech to the judge. While the speech in the courtroom failed at the legal level given the complicity of law and politics in reinforcing the power of the state, it succeeded in its broader rhetorical appeal. Importantly, Debs constructed tropes of working class rhetoric that resonated with a wider audience. This teaches us something about the law and legal argumentation, namely, that even “losing” arguments, or minority opinions, serve a significant role in legal and political culture. And this also teaches us something about justice, a concept that is perhaps best understood rhetorically, not something that is a natural function or part of the legal system. Indeed, Debs never doubted that justice was on his side, despite the contrary conclusions of a closed political and legal system. Writing on the life of Eugene Victor Debs, Bernard Brommel (1978) observed:
He used his voice and pen to aid workers in important strikes, union organizational battles, five Socialist presidential campaigns, cases defending imprisoned workers, free speech contests, and in other controversial issues ranging from women’s rights, birth control, child labor, to the threat of automation. Throughout these fifty-two years of agitating, Debs kept his enthusiasm for the causes that he thought just. (p. 200)[ii]

1. From Canton To The Courtroom: Law, Politics, and War
Debs was scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Ohio state convention for the socialist party on June 16, 1918. The rhetorical situation was politically charged. As Brommel (1978) recounts, “While a crowd of 1,200 waited in the hot afternoon sun, federal agents circulated through the audience asking to see draft cards” (footnote omitted) (p. 151).
Almost as if he sensed what was to come, Debs began his speech with an eerie sense of foreshadowing. Pointing to a jail, Debs mused, “They have come to realize, as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make Democracy safe for the world” (Brommel, 1978, p. 151)[iii]. Indeed, Allen (1989) notes, “He was testing, daring the federal government to arrest him under what he perceived to be the immoral, unjust, and ill-conceived Espionage Act of 1917” (p. 88).

In the speech, Debs highlighted inconsistencies between “official Washington attitude” toward Germany and the war. He noted that the American government had supported the Kaiser in the years before World War I. This was one of the main themes of his speech. In all, Debs made six references to war:
1. The master class has always declared war; the subject class had always fought the battles.
2. The working class furnishes the corpses but never has a voice in declaring war or in making peace.
3. If the war would end, Rose Pastor Stokes would be released.
4. Workers should know that they exist for something better than slavery and “canon fodder.’
5. The government maintains that workers should grow war gardens as a patriotic duty while an official report shows that fifty-two percent of the tillable soil is held out of use by war “profiteers.” 6. When the “war press says war,” every pulpit in the land “will say war.” (Brommel, 1978, p. 152) Read more