ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Reversing Perceptions Of Probability Through Self-Referential Argument: Interpretation And Analysis Of Protagoras’ Stronger/Weaker Fragment

• by: David C. Hoffman - University of North Carolina, Charlotte

The ancient sophists were accused of teaching how to make the worse argument the better. A key historical text that records this accusation is Protagoras’ ‘weaker/stronger’ fragment. This fragment occurs in chapter twenty-four of the second book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the context of a list of fallacious syllogisms used by sophists. Richard McKeon (1941), in his edition of Aristotle, translates it as ‘making the worse argument seem the better’. The original meaning of this fragment has been the subject of debate among scholars of the history of rhetoric. Traditionally it has been taken to mean that sophists made logically inferior arguments look logically superior, but a revisionary understanding of this fragment offered by Edward Schiappa (1991) asserts that it meant that the sophists improved the ‘weak’ arguments of the Athenian underclasses. In this presentation I will offer a new interpretation that is better founded in the context in which Aristotle cites Protagoras. The stronger/weaker fragment is actually referring to a particular kind of self-referential argument. I will explain how these arguments work, offer a critique of Aristotle’s critique of them, explore the peculiar conditions of their validity as well as their relation to the everyday logic of prejudice and stereotype.

1. Making the worse argument better: history and interpretation
Schiappa (1991: 103-116) is one of the most recent interpreters of the weaker/stronger fragment. In his discussion of it he has made two points. First, the ‘seem’ is spurious, not in the original text but added by McKeon in the translation. Second, the words translated as ‘worse’ and ‘better’, hetto and kreitto, are more accurately translated as ‘weaker’ and ‘stronger’. More importantly, Schiappa ultimately interprets the fragment in the context of Aristophanes’ play, Clouds, where two logoi (arguments or discourses) are personified. One is characterized as  kreitto and allied to traditional Homeric values of honor and noble birth. The other is characterized as hetto and allied to ‘rational argument’ and ‘agnosticism’. Schiappa, completely dismissing Aristotle’s interpretation as prejudiced, takes the Clouds’ dialogue as evidence that Protagoras was interested in helping the weak and downtrodden become strong and displace the old order. This may or may not be true, but I do not believe that Aristotle should be dismissed without an explanation of how and why he misinterpreted Protagoras’ argument.

To unravel the meaning of this fragment then, we should begin by quoting it in its whole context. Here is the McKeon translation of Rhetoric 24, 1402a 3-27:
Again, a spurious syllogism may, as in ‘eristical’ discussions, be based on the confusion of the absolute with that which is not absolute but particular. As, in dialectic, for instance, it may be argued that the what-is-not is, on the grounds that the what-is-not is what-is-not; or that the unknown can be known, on the grounds that it can be known to be unknown: so also in rhetoric a spurious Enthymeme may be based on the confusion of some particular probability with absolute probability.
Now no particular probability is universally probable: as Agathon says,

One might perchance say that this was probable –
That things improbable oft will hap to men.

For what is improbable does happen, and therefore it is probable that improbable things will happen. Granted this, one might argue that ‘what is improbable is probable’. But this is not true absolutely. As, in eristic, the imposture comes from not adding any clause specifying relationship or reference of manner; so here it arises because the probability in question is not general but specific. It is of this line of argument that Corax’s Art of Rhetoric is composed. If the accused is not open to the charge – for instance if a weakling be tried for violent assault – the defense is that he was not likely to do such a thing. But if he is open to the charge – i.e. if he is a strong man – the defense is that he is still not likely to do such a thing, since he could be sure that people would think that he was likely to do it. And so with any other charge: the accused must either be open to it or not open to it: there is in either case an appearance of probable innocence, but whereas in the latter case the probability is genuine, in the former it can only be asserted in the special case mentioned. This sort of argument illustrates what is meant by making the worse argument seem the better. Hence people were right in objecting to the training Protagoras undertook to give them. It was a fraud; the probability it handled was not genuine but spurious, and has a place in no art except rhetoric and eristic. (1402a3-27) Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Reasonableness Before Rationality: The Case Of Unreasonable Searches And Seizures

• by: Darrin Hicks - Department of Human Communication Studies, University of Denver

I find Perelman’s (1979) claim that the rational and the reasonable are distinct, freestanding ideals – that they are not interchangeable terms, but in fact, in certain cases, the rational and the reasonable are in precise opposition –  to be his most important political insight. For instance, Perelman argues as applied to the law the “rational corresponds to adherence to an immutable divine standard or to the spirit of the system, to logic and coherence, to conformity with precedents, and to purposefulness; whereas the reasonable, on the other hand, characterizes the decision itself, the fact that it is acceptable or not by public opinion, that its consequences are socially useful or harmful, that it is felt to be equitable or biased (p.121).” The rational corresponds to mathematical reason; the reasonable corresponds to common sense. The rational purports to transcend all particular situations and apply equally to all persons regardless of circumstance; the reasonable is defined in relation to and bound by time, place and situation. However, both the rational and the reasonable strive for universality: the rational through an approximation of divine reason or immutable principle, the reasonable through the construction of a working consensus achieved through open and searching dialogue over the dictates of common sense and the standards of fair cooperation. It is because both the rational and the reasonable strive for universality and more precisely because each standard routinely fails to achieve universality due to the structural indeterminacies of communication as well as the contingencies that mark social life that they stand in a productive dialectical tension. Neither the rational nor the reasonable are sufficient by themselves to ensure either a true or just social order. The rational if left unchecked by the dictates of common sense and fairness would devolve into an inhuman instrumentality. The reasonable if unchecked by the systematicity of the rational would devolve into ethnocentrism. Hence, for Perelman, it is “the dialectic of the rational and reasonable, the confrontation of logical coherence with the unreasonable character of conclusions, which is the basis for the progress of thought (p. 120).”

Much of the reception of Perelman’s work, it seems, abandons this dialectical stance – where each of these distinct standards would be entertained simultaneously, not to reject one in favor of the other, but, to have them constantly modify each other – in favor of the claim that practical reason is exemplary for theoretical reason.  Perelman, and even more so his most articulate defenders such as Crosswhite (1996), Maneli (1994) and McKerrow (1982), hold that logical criteria, epistemic principles, and methods of inquiry are the result of a socialized, embodied, practical constellation of reasoning practices and norms of justification. These criteria, principles, and methods (which combine to form a community’s understanding of rationality) do not exist as antecedent conditions for discovery and justification, but have emerged over time as the consequences of dominant processes of inquiry. Hence, the criteria of theoretical reason do not govern practical reason: practical rationality is the grounds for and therefore determines, the cogency of technical rationality and sets the limits for it.  The relationship between the rational and the reasonable set out in the classic epistemic account is thereby inverted: the reasonable, understood as common sense, is the condition of possibility for the rational. It is this reversal – of the classical ideal of phronesis over the modern norm of instrumental rationality – that allows public judgment to serve as a normative standard for critiquing scientific knowledge that is the hallmark of contemporary rhetorical theory. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Fundamentalism Versus Cosmopolitanism: Argument, Cultural Identity, And Political Violence In The Global Age

• by: Thomas A. Hollihan, Patricia Riley -Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California & James F. Klumpp - Department of Communication, University of Maryland

In the series of essays to which we add the current paper (Hollihan, Riley, & Klumpp, 1993; Klumpp. Riley, & Hollihan, 1995; Riley, Hollihan, & Klumpp, 1998; Hollihan, Klumpp, & Riley, 1999; Klumpp, Hollihan, & Riley, 2001), we have considered a number of threats to democratic community at the turn of the 21st century, including the erosion of state power, the demise of the mass media, and development of extremist groups who grow from the openness of a democracy. None of these, however, represent a threat quite like the attacks of September 11, 2001. Most obviously the 9-11 attacks involved the use of violence against the United States and the death of three thousand citizens of the world, predominantly Americans. In addition, the 9-11 attacks presented an external threat; our work has highlighted internal problems that threaten democratic communication.

But, in addition to their violent destructiveness, the 9-11 attacks certainly had profound implications on democratic communication. Some of the effects have come in reaction to the threat to life and property. The reaction of the democracies has been at least partially to limit democratic rights such as free speech and the press. All democratic nations are tempted to forfeit democratic rights in the face of threats to security. The United States has been no exception. The White House quickly moved to silence news coverage of the videotape produced by Osama bin Laden’s organization soon after it was released, with a rather transparent warning of some hidden coded message. The flames of patriotism stoked by President Bush’s polemic declaration of an evil enemy quickly closed debate over the motivations for the intensity of Islamic radicalism. Susan Sontag’s rather mild curiosity about the roots of support for the radicals was met, not with disagreement, but with a barrage of ad hominem accusation including a questioning of her patriotism[i].

The attacks on democratic discussion are all the stronger because when President Bush declared this an act of “war,” it became the first war of the information age. The attacks were clandestine, a failure of our intelligence gathering, exploitive of information in the public domain. These story lines turned democratic freedom-to-know into the enemy of our security. With no sense of irony, the amount of information available to our citizens was systematically diminished, governmental information withheld from depository libraries, campaigns of disinformation promoted in the military, and a drumbeat of unsubstantiated, frightening threats substituted for a texture of inquiry and proof.

All of these diminutions of our freedom, cultural and statutory, were the reactions of a society under attack. Although they are real threats to democratic communication, they should not blind us to the threats to democratic community by those who perpetrated the attacks of 9-11. The movement supporting the attacks represents a new reality in the 21st century world and, we believe, a real threat to democratic values. In this essay, we propose to examine the challenges of the movement supporting the 9-11 attacks to democratic communication. We will begin by arguing that the movement is a fundamentalist identity movement. Then we will locate the specific challenge to democratic values represented by this new breed of opponent. And finally, we will identify the alternative to our military initiative: an initiative to foster the cosmopolitan values of a viable democratic politics. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Arguing For A Cause: President Bush And The Comic Frame

• by: Stephanie L. Hood - California State University, Los Angeles

1. Introduction
On the morning of September 11, 2002, a drama unfolded. It began in the air and ended in flames. Over the course of the day, planes would crash into buildings, individuals would be emotionally and physically injured, thousands would die, and a national symbol would collapse. This ensuing drama would become the single worst case of terrorism to occur on American soil and one of the worst cases of violence in history.
On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush responded to the terrorist attacks that transpired on September 11. In a speech delivered to a joint session of Congress, Bush argued a position and spelled out a plan that would begin a new social movement that not only involved the United States, but also an international assembly.

The following analysis will first explore the rhetorical situation through the lens of Burke in an attempt to discover why and how this text was dramatized. Additionally, Bush’s motivational apparatus will be analyzed through a Dramatistic perspective by utilizing the constructs of the comic frame and examining the associational/ dissociational clusters used by Bush. Exploration of this text through the lens of the comic frame reveals that Bush reaffirmed the social hierarchy and ultimately gained support for a “War on Terror” through civil disobedience and public liability. Recognition of the associational/ dissociational clusters explores how Bush used symbols to create identification among a national and international audience. Furthermore, they illustrate how Bush named a vague enemy and christened this enemy a clown in order to maintain, rather than eliminate, this enemy’s role in society.

2. A President Challenged
In the days between the attacks and Bush’s address to Congress, millions watched and listened as Bush’s rhetorical techniques began to alter and change. Previously shying from venues that called for an impromptu response, Bush not only began offering personal opinions, but also seemed comfortable in doing so. His rhetoric shifted from guarded to colorful and full of Wild West colloquialisms as he pronounced that he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” and that he would “smoke them out” (Bumiller & Bruni, 2001).
Rather than curb Bush’s word choice, speech writers and White House Officials decided to utilize this “down home” image to reconstruct the fractured American mythos of invincibility. It is this same rhetorical structure that was applied to the discourse presented to the world on September 20. In addition to being conscious of word choice, Bush was also mindful of his choice of venue (Max, 2001). Choosing to speak in front of a joint session of Congress would provide an air of authority and stability. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Assessing The Problem Validity Of Argumentation Templates: Statistical Rules Of Thumb

• by: Sally Jackson - University of Arizona & Dale Brashers - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Burden of proof, a central concept in argumentation theory, situates the requirements for good argument within bodies of substantive knowledge and practical action (Gaskins, 1982). To respond to the burden of proof associated with any claim means providing grounds for acceptance that are adapted to a constellation of related beliefs and prior experience. Burden of proof should not be assumed to be a set of logical requirements, but instead should be understood as an outline of what is known so far that might constitute grounds for challenging claims of some particular sort within some particular substantive domain. The burden of proof that structures scientific argument in any field should be expected to change over time, as disagreement over particular claims reveals general grounds for disagreement with whole classes of claims. For this reason, scientific arguments contain myriad allusions to argumentative failures of the past, answering objections no one may actually have, simply because someone could have that objection or has had that objection to some other claim in the past.
Within expert fields of all kinds, and especially scientific fields, the burden of proof to be discharged may evolve over time as new issues emerge from research and theorizing. Among the discoveries of scientific fields are discoveries of things that can go wrong in drawing conclusions about the subject matter. Such discoveries are likely to stimulate the invention of new methods for guarding against the things that can go wrong, including routinized safeguards applied in research procedures (like “double-blind” administration of experiments or use of drug placebos). These routinized safeguards and boilerplate arguments associated with them often come to be understood by scientists themselves as their methods (McCloskey, 1985).
Disciplinary research practices may be seen as a kind of technology of reasoning and argumentation, embodied in new devices (such as statistics) that have been designed to serve an argumentative purpose and that may become interactionally stabilized in scientific discourse. As distinct from natural, commonsense reasoning, disciplined argumentation has a “designed” quality that comes from the tuning of argumentation to the requirements of the subject matter. As pointed out by Walton (1997), the more specialized these become, the more impenetrable they become for anyone other than a specialist. In this paper we illustrate how relatively impenetrable expert practices such as statistical testing can be opened to theoretical analysis, blending concepts and methods from pragma-dialectics with systematic computer simulation of certain designs for arguing. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2002 – Two Conceptions Of Openness In Argumentation Theory

• by: Scott Jacobs - University of Arizona

One of the central values in dialectical models of argumentation is that of openness. Sometimes this value is embodied in the form of specific rules – such as those in the pragma-dialectical code of conduct (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992) which specify such things as rights to challenge, burden of proof, and so forth. But usually openness has a more informal quality to it. In any case, the concept lacks the precision one finds with, say, the concept of inferential validity in logical models of argumentation where we find not only well-defined exemplars of deductively valid forms of inference, but also a relatively clear definition of validity in general. It is perhaps because of this informal quality that argumentation scholars have not fully appreciated how the value of openness is used in two distinct ways when evaluating the quality of argumentative conduct. In one way, the concept of openness reflects an epistemic orientation. In the other way, the concept of openness takes on a more socio-political orientation. This paper spells out these two different senses of openness, articulates their rationales, and then explores some of the implications of this distinction for understanding the nature of reasonable argumentative conduct.

1. Two Functions of Argumentation.
In large part, these two conceptions of openness in argumentation theory are responsive to two different functions of argumentation: a cognitive function and a social function. So, to get a better lock on the two sense of openness, we begin by considering these two different functions. There has always been a tension in argumentation theory between a cognitive understanding of argument and a social understanding of argument. Logical approaches most clearly exhibit a preference for emphasizing the cognitive function: that of belief management. Logical approaches have a tendency to reduce the argumentative function to processes of individual reasoning – so much so that not only are notions of interaction and audience easily erased from the picture, but discourse itself is largely stripped away until only something call ‘propositions’ remain. But whether or not such a reduction seems prudent, it does isolate this cognitive function of argumentation. Argumentation does clearly have a truth-testing function. It is this epistemological aspect that dominates the study of argument in philosophical traditions. And this concern is quite proper. This concern derives from the very structure of accountability and reason-giving that forms an integral basis for ordinary language uses of argument. Read more