ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Acts Of Argumentation: Beyond Spoken Dialog

• by: Edwin Coleman - Universities of Melbourne and Ballarat

1. Introduction: four approaches to argumentation
Theories, or treatments or conceptions of argumentation form three large classes which I will call the formal-logical, the dialectical and the rhetorical.
Formal-logical treatments take argumentation to be a structure of propositions whose truth relations are the only concern of a disembodied Pure Reason. The formal-logical approach to argumentation consists in classifying forms of argument as valid or invalid, assuming that every argument has a readily determined form and declaring each argument valid if it has a valid form, invalid otherwise. That is all you do. Ten zillion logic texts exemplify this approach. But it is true that some inferences are invalid and this can be good to know.
Dialectical accounts, pioneered by Hamblin (1970), take argumentation to be a rule-governed two-party game with claims, in which the aim of one or both parties is to secure the acceptance by the other of some specific claim. The dialectical approach to argumentation improves on the formal-logical approach in recognising argumentation to be action. The recent book of Van Eemeren, Grootendoorst, Jackson and Jacobs (1993) illustrated how the concept of speech act helps us understand argumentative norms other than truth conditions.
The leading concept in a rhetorical approach is the audience. Rhetorical conceptions take argumentation as attempts at rational persuasion of various audiences. In realistically highlighting the persuasive rationale for argumentation and the multifariousness of real examples, rhetorical approaches tend to be open to platonic charges of being concerned with success, not cogency. Crosswhite (1996) is a recent example of this approach.
I will argue for a still more realistic approach to studying argumentation, in two specific respects. My main point is that something more than a shift to rhetorical accounts is needed, specifically, we need more fully pragmatic accounts which observe the material realities introduced into argumentation by writing; that is, we need to take account of the fact that much important argumentation is necessarily written. My secondary point is that a pragmatic perspective demands recognising that much important real argumentation is multi-party – it involves many more participants than two. I will sketch an argument for these two rather general claims via a discussion of ad hominem argument.

2. Are ad hominem arguments fallacious?
Consider the following letters to the editor of The Age, a Melbourne newspaper, one day in February this year:
1.
Pardon?
John Howard states that Kim Beazley is a failed Finance Minister and a failed Employment Minister. Is Australia’s worst Prime Minister the most appropriate person to make such an assessment?
Colin Cleary, Epsom
2.
What makes an expert?
The loss of Walter Mikac’s family was tragic beyond words, but it is sheer emotionalism to imply this gives him technical expertise in the field of effective firearms regulations.
Chris Armstrong, Ringwood North Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – The Power And Perceived Truthfulness Of Visual Arguments In U.S. Political Campaign Biofilms

• by: Catherine Ann Collins & Jill D. Schmid - Willamette University

A relatively new, and certainly significant, controversy about the nature of argument revolves around whether it is possible to argue visually or whether argumentation is solely a linguistic phenomenon. Fleming (1996) offers a succinct review of advocates both for and against the extension of argument to visual images. Scholars who reject the extension of argument to visual messages assume a priority of verbal over non-verbal means of communication. Language, they argue, offers reasons for belief; linguistic reason-giving is the necessary characteristic of argument and, without language, argument cannot exist (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1984, Balthrop 1980, Toulmin, Rieke, & Janik 1979, Kneupper 1978). Fleming explains the rejection of non-linguistic forms of argument by contending that argument must both assert and prove, which in the case of pictures is impossible because one cannot differentiate between these two necessary elements. Fleming writes, “To say that a picture can be an argument is to leave individuals with the impression that they have argued for something when they have merely placed it in someone else’s field of vision” (1996: 13).
Although Fleming writes that “argument requires a structure in which conceptually-distinct ideas can be sequentially linked” (14), which verbal arguments are capable of achieving, the characterization of arguments as linear (Hintikka & Bachman 1991, Andrews, Costello & Clark 1993, Postman 1985) is limiting and short-sighted. We contend, as others who support the extension of argument to visual images, that neither verbal nor visual arguments are always linear and that pictures can be visual messages that argue enthymematically when they evoke a shared cultural claim and offer proof of that claim (Willard 1989, Hesse 1992, Fisher 1988, Fisher & Filloy 1982, Medhurst & DeSousa 1981).
Like verbal messages, visual messages are not absolute, but they nonetheless make the proposition that what is depicted is real or truthful. In political persuasion, anything that leads an audience to say “this is real,” or “this is truth,” is a powerful component of the rhetorical process meriting further attention. As Shelley (1996) writes, “in the case of rhetorical visual arguments, the individual elements of a picture evoke a pattern of verbal and emotional associations in the mind of the viewer” (67). The message is not just placed in someone’s field of vision; by careful association an enthymematic appeal is made. Of course, the visual message can reinforce a linguistic message, but we contend that even without the verbal claim, the argument can be completed by the viewer. There is no guarantee that all viewers will interpret the visual message in the same manner, but there is similarly no guarantee that an audience will interpret a verbal message in the same manner. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – The Renaissance Roots Of Perelman’s Rhetoric

• by: Thomas M. Conley - University of Illinois

Everyone here, I dare say, is aware of the stature of The New Rhetoric (as the Traité de l’argumentation came to be known in its English incarnation) has these days in the field of argumentation theory, of the elegance of Perelman’s critique of cartesian formalism, of his re-positioning of the question of what constitutes reasonability, and of the consequent enhancement – perhaps the rehabilitation – of a discipline that many found suspect: rhetoric. You are all no doubt aware as well of the sorts of reservations Perelman’s ideas have elicited, chiefly in the area of his notion of the “universal audience” or, indeed, of his radical audience-orientation in general. Of these I shall have nothing to say because my concern is a rather different one from those expressed in the vast majority of critical response to Perelman.
Nothing I have seen in the critical literature pays much attention to two important subjects treated by Perelman in the Traité: loci and figures. I do not know why this is so. It may be that his interpreters of record understand these things better than I do. But it is nevertheless exceedingly strange that they should ignore them, since they constitute by far the greatest part of Perelman’s discussion. On the very face of it, therefore, a look at Perelman’s treatment of loci and figures seems very much in order. His book, he tells us in the very first pages, was to be a study of the discursive methods of “securing adherence”, methods that extend beyond the “perfectly unjustified and unwarranted limitation of the domain of action of our faculty of reasoning and proving” imposed by logic (p.3). His rhetoric is accordingly a method both of inquiry and of the means by which we can articulate the reasons for our decisions. The study of these discursive means centers on the loci of preference (NR pp.83-114/ TA 112-153) and schèmes argumentatifs (187-450/251-609) based on the loci (p.190/254f.), and on the verbal devices of eloquence in all its forms, devices ordinarily relegated to the realm of ornamentation and devalued as mere device (pp.167ff., 450f./ 225ff., 597f.). The primary subjects of the Traité are in short invention (not judgement, as so many want to claim) and expression.
Since time is short (and the argument is long), I will restrict myself to a brief examination of the resemblances between Perelman’s treatment of loci and Renaissance “place-logics” – particularly the place logic in the De inventione dialectica of the great Renaissance humanist, Rudolph Agricola. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – “I’m Just Saying…”: Discourse Markers Of Standpoint Continuity

• by: Robert T. Craig & Alena L. Sanusi - University of Colorado at Boulder

1. Introduction
Group discussion of a controversial issue confronts participants with intellectual and pragmatic challenges that in practice are inextricably entwined. Argumentation theory attends primarily to the intellectual challenges and provides conceptual tools for analysis of issues and arguments. Practical argumentation, however, is fundamentally a pragmatic, communicative process. The pragmatic work of discussion is not merely a distraction from the intellectual work of argumentation. Rather, it sustains the social matrix within which argumentation becomes possible and meaningful as a constituent feature of certain collective activities.
To understand the normative and pragmatic dimensions of argumentation in their intertwined complexity requires empirical studies of practical argumentative discourse along with analytical and philosophical studies of normative argumentative (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson, & Jacobs 1993). The present study attempts to contribute to the empirical side of this inquiry by describing and analyzing certain uses of a particular pragmatic device.
Specifically, the paper reports a discourse analysis of discussions among students in an undergraduate “critical thinking” course. Student-led discussions of two controversial issues (capital punishment and legal recognition of homosexual marriages) were audiotaped and transcribed. Examining discourse markers (Schiffrin, 1987) in the two discussions, we noted frequent uses of “I’m just saying” and related metadiscursive expressions (I’m/we’re saying, I’m/we’re not saying, etc.). Our central claim is that these “saying” expressions are pragmatic devices by which speakers claim “all along” to have held a consistent argumentative standpoint, one that continues through the discussion unless changed for good reasons. Through microanalysis of a series of discourse examples (see Appendix B), in the following sections we show how these discourse markers are used to display continuity, deflect counterarguments, and acknowledge the force of counterarguments while preserving continuity. In a concluding section we reflect critically on the use of these continuity markers with regard to a range of argumentative and pragmatic functions that they potentially serve.

2. “Saying” as a Marker of Standpoint Continuity
Speakers often use “saying” as a discourse marker in order to highlight a formulation of their continuing standpoint in contrast to some other idea with which it might be confused. As in (1)19, the purpose may be simply to distinguish the speaker’s main point from a subordinate element such as evidence. Often, however, the purpose is to dissociate the speaker’s standpoint from some other, usually less acceptable, standpoint that in the context has been, or might plausibly be, attributed to the speaker. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Is Praise A Kind Of Advice?

• by: Emmanuelle Danblon - Université Libre de Bruxelles

1. Introduction
In this paper, I will try to capture the fonction of the epideictic genre of the classical rhetoric from a linguistic point of view. This will be done by describing both praise and blame as peculiar varieties of “advices”.

2. Aristotle on epideictic
According to Aristotle, the object of rhetoric is a judgement that the audience should perform on the matter that is presented by the orator. Each of the three rhetorical genres – i.e. deliberative, forensic and epideictic – requires a specific discursive activity of the orator and a specific judgement of the audience. This typology can be summarized as follows:

In the light of this typology, one may observe that Aristotle’s statements remain rather vague about the activity performed by the audience of the epideictic genre. In the deliberative genre, the audience’s activity is a “decision”, i.e. some kind of deontic activity. In the forensic genre, the audience’s activity is a “judgement”, i.e. some kind of epistemic activity. But what about the “evaluation” which is supposed to be the audience’s activity in the epideictic genre? Aristotle, who seemed to be aware of this fuzziness, considered this “evaluation” as an aesthetical activity. Indeed, for him, the audience of the epideictic genre is in charge to judge the orator’s talent. But this way out endangers the internal coherence of the whole typology. In the deliberative and the forensic genres, the matter of the judgement reduces to the object of the discourse (the action (not) to be realized or the innocence/guilt of the defendant). On the contrary, the matter to be decided on by the audience of the epideictic genre is discourse itself.

3. Contemporary theories
Perelman rightly underlined the fact that although epideictic discourses – of praise or blame – have to do with matters that are not disputable (e.g. the greatness of the city, the authority of gods, the virtues of a dead person…), they nevertheless fulfil a function which is not merely aesthetical, since they are used to increase the communion of feelings concerning those values that are already endorsed by the whole community. In my opinion, Perelman implicitly referred to the ancient notion of homonoïa (i.e. concord, conformity, unanimity). As pointed out by Barbara Cassin, homonoïa is an effect created by discourse. In epideictic rhetoric, homonoïa could be seen as the emotion produced by amplification i.e. by the evocation of those prototypes of agents or actions that represent the values of the community. It should induce, in the mind of each citicitizen, a general disposition to some kind of political action. For example, Isocrates’ Panegyric, praises the city of Athens; this praise provokes a homonoïa effect which is such that Athenians citizens are inclined to accept, and to engage in, a war on the Persians.
This conception entails that there is an essential link between the epideictic genre and the deliberative one. Indeed, both aim at triggering a certain type of decision that should precede a certain type of action. This relationship had already been noticed by Greek and Latin authors. It is emphasized in Pernot’s book which directlyinspired me when choosing a title for this lecture: indeed, according to Pernot, praise is a kind of advice.
Pernot remarks that many discourses, like Isocrates’ Panegyric, belong to a hybrid genre, partly epideictic, partly deliberative. In other words, such texts are basically symbouleutic (from sumboulê: advice) – i.e. the orator supposedly performs a deliberative activity – but they are grounded on an encomiastic matter (from enkômion: praise), so that the orator should also perform an epideictic activity. According to Pernot, this is the typical case in which we can see that praise is a kind of advice. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Calculating Environmental Value: The Displacement Of Moral Argument

• by: James Darsey - Northern Illinois University

They took all the trees and put ‘em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar-and-a-half just to see ‘em
Joni Mitchell

“Big Yellow Taxi”

Rather, money endangers religion in that money can serve as universal symbol, the unitary ground of all action. And it endangers religion not in the dramatic, agonistic way of a “tempter,” but in its quiet, rational way as a substitute that performs its mediatory role more “efficiently,” more “parsimoniously,” with less “waste motion” as regards the religious or ritualistic conception of “works.”
Kenneth Burke

A Grammar of Motives
In May, 1997, Robert Costanza and a group of colleagues published in Nature the results of a meta-analysis of studies designed to measure the economic value of the environment. Perhaps due to the dramatic nature of their findings – they estimated the annual value of ecosystem functions and services at probably around $33 trillion in U.S. dollars compared to annual global gross national product of about $18 trillion – the report received considerable publicity, including coverage in the United States on National Public Radio and in the New York Times (Costanza, et al. 1997; Stevens 1997). Though the figures are stark, and probably startling to most, the fundamental argumentative strategy, the justification of environmentalism on purely economic grounds, a striking and controversial departure from traditional appeals for the defense of the environment, is part of a quietly growing trend. Kenneth Boulding, in the 1960s, called for such an accounting as a way to talk about the “throughput” of what he characterized as the “cowboy economy” (Boulding 1970: 97). Eric Freyfogle’s denominator is “free-market environmentalism,” and he identifies as its purpose “to structure resource-use decision making so that decisions respond, not to bureaucratic mandates, but to the more disciplined signals of the market” (Freyfogle 1998: 39). Costanza and his colleagues illustrate this purpose in the opening sentence of their report: “Because ecosystem services are not fully ‘captured’ in commercial markets or adequately quantified in terms comparable with economic services and manufactured capital, they are often given too little weight in policy decisions” (Costanza et al.1997: 253; sa Breslow 1970: 102-103).

The co-authors of the report in Nature, in their individual productions, represent a substantial voice on the academic side of this trend (Costanza et al. 1997: 260), but this is not arcane academic theory. Paul Hawken, co-founder of Smith and Hawken, makes precisely the same argument from a commercial perspective. “In order for a sustainable society to exist, every purchase must reflect or at least approximate its actual cost, not only the direct cost of production but also the costs to the air, water, and soil; the cost to future generations; the cost to worker health; the cost of waste, pollution, and toxicity” (Hawken 1993: 56). As for political manifestations of free-market environmentalism, Freyfogle points to the U.S. Read more