ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Reasonableness And Strategic Maneuvering In Cold-War Editorial Argumentation

• by: Darrin Hicks & Justin Eckstein - University of Denver, Denver, Colorado

Over the last 150 years the New York Times, quite arguably the most influential newspaper in the world, has invoked the concept of reasonableness 746, 762 times (not counting adverbial uses, such as reasonably) to describe people and the decisions they make, the objects they construct, the processes they design, and, of course, the arguments they make and have. Turning to the editorial page, the official record of the Times’ judgments on the meaning of important political events and their attempts to persuade policymakers how to respond to them, we find 22, 314 invocations of reasonableness. The editorial page’s use of reasonableness matters because of its influence on elite decision-making, its significant inter-media agenda setting function, and because it explicitly purports to represent and cultivate a public voice. The Times’ editorial page is one of the few self-avowed organs of what John Rawls calls public reason. John B. Oakes, the page’s editor from 1956-1977, went as far as defining the “editorial we”, the voice of the editorial page and by extension its readers, as nothing short of the “community of the reasonable and responsible.” Where Rawls (1996) points to the U.S. Supreme Court as the exemplar of public reason, we point to the Times editorial page. The Times editorial page too gives public reason “vividness and vitality in the public forum,” though much more frequently and directly (237). This does not imply the page’s attempts to embody public reason are without controversy, far from it. The editorial page is a rhetorical battleground where what counts as public reason, and thus what counts as reasonable, is defined and debated. It speaks as advocate and advisor, interlocutor and instructor. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – “I Have Like A Message From God” – The Rhetorical Situation And Persuasive Strategies In Revival Rhetoric

• by: Mika Hietanen - Åbo Akademi University

1. Nokia Missio
Nokia Missio is a Christian revival movement that began in the Lutheran church in Nokia, Finland, after the charismatic awakening of the vicar, Markku Koivisto, in 1991. He began to hold revival meetings that featured intense praise and prayer and the use of spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongues and healing through prayer. This was in considerable contrast to traditional Lutheran meetings (Juntunen 2007; Pihkala 2007; Nokia Missio n.d.). Soon, tensions arose between the Nokia revival and the rest of the Lutheran congregation. Koivisto then founded Nokia Missio, a registered association, but remained a minister of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church.

The bishop of Tampere repeatedly called the practise and theology of Koivisto in question (Pihkala 2007 & 2006; Koivisto 2007; Aro-Heinilä 2006, pp. 130–131). With Nokia Missio the discussion about the place of charismatic Christianity within the Lutheran church reached an acute stage (Laato 2001, p. 1). It should be noted that, for most Finns, Christianity is known in its Lutheran and non-charismatic form (97 % of those who belong to a religious group or church in Finland, belong to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church; Väestö n.d.; Uskonto Suomessa n.d.). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Powerful Arguments: Logical Argument Mapping

• by: Michael H.G. Hoffmann - Georgia Institute of Technology

1. Introduction
We all know that deductively valid arguments form only a very small subset of all possible arguments. If we would try to provide a complete overview of all forms of arguments people are using in all areas of life, it would hardly be a good idea to focus only on the few well-known argument schemes of propositional and categorical logic. However, the goal of representing all possible argument forms in a complete system of argument representation is not all what argumentation theory is about. Another legitimate part of argumentation theory is to develop argument representation systems for specific purposes.  This has been done, for example, by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969 <1958>) for arguments whose primary purpose is to persuade somebody; by the pragma-dialectical approach for arguments whose primary function is reaching consensus (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004); and by the epistemological approach to argumentation for arguments whose “standard function” is to justify knowledge and truth claims (Lumer 2005a, 2005b; Goldman 1999).

In contrast to these approaches to argumentation, I am interested in argument visualization systems whose primary purpose is to stimulate reflection and to confront people with the limits of their own understanding; that is, to stimulate critical reflection on one’s own assumptions, especially those that usually remain hidden. I would like to discuss argument visualization systems that focus on reflection under the heading of “reflective argumentation.” This comes close to the way Tim van Gelder defines “deliberation”: an activity, performed collectively or individually, that is “aimed at determining one’s own attitude” (van Gelder 2003, p. 98; see also van Gelder 2007). The central idea of reflective argumentation can be captured by a nice quote by Andre Maurois that Paul Kirschner, Simon Buckingham Shum, and Chad Carr used as a motto for their seminal book Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-making: “The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one’s opinion but rather to know it” (Kirschner, Buckingham Shum, & Carr 2003, p. vii). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Argumentation Schemes In Proverbs

• by: Sarah Hoffmann - University of Bamberg

1. Proverbs and argumentation
It is widely known and accepted that proverbs can fulfil argumentative functions in communication. Mostly, the argumentative force of proverbs is ascribed to their authority as pieces of popular folk wisdom. In terms of argumentation theory that would mean that proverbs are arguments from authority themselves which derive their persuasiveness from their broad acceptance among speakers.
In view of this interpretation, proverbial argumentation has often been criticized alongside a growing general scepticism against authorities and tradition especially since the 70ties of the last century. Proverbial argumentation seemed to have lost most of its persuasiveness, since arguments whose credibility is based only on tradition and their publicity among the folk were systematically doubted and questioned.

Nevertheless, proverbs are still common language devices among speakers – not only in ironic or playful language use. And although the argumentative function of proverbs was initially described as only one among several other pragmatic functions, Kindt (2002) has shown that even those seemingly non-argumentative functions contain implicit argumentation initiated by the use of the proverb. One of his examples is the complex speech act of consolation which includes mostly a relativization of the event that is complained about. The relativization itself is often justified by a reason, e. g. the mentioning of the proverb Every beginning is difficult relativizes the importance of the event by describing it as an inevitable but time-limited handicap. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – On The Concept “Argumentum Ad Baculum”

• by: Michael J. Hoppmann - Northeastern University

1. Introduction
The aim of this paper is to question the value of the concept of the so-called “argumentum ad baculum” (appeal ‘to the stick’). This aim is distinct from the purpose of many earlier works that focused on analyzing whether appeals to threat are or are not fallacious and under which circumstances they might be justified (e.g. Wreen 1989, Levi 1999, Kimball 2006, Walton & Macagno 2007). Instead, this paper investigates whether there is a consistent phenomenon at all that can be called “ad baculum”.[i]

Of course, it must be recognized that any term (such as “ad baculum”) that is established and widely used in argumentation theory and rhetoric has a presumption of usefulness. It is therefore the burden of those who doubt the usefulness of the concept to show that it does significantly more harm than good for the discipline.[ii] Nevertheless, there are circumstances under which this burden of proof can indeed be satisfied. If a term obscures rather than explains the essential qualities of the phenomenon or phenomena it describes, then a discipline may be well advised in changing or abandoning it. One instance in which this might be the case is terms that unite concepts by addressing accidental rather than essential qualities. In the worst case these kinds of terms will unite phenomena under themselves that have very little in common with each other and only share one accidental quality.

To illustrate this point in an extreme case: I might observe that all of my friends by the name of Markus are very thin, nearly anorexic. I might even confirm this observation by looking for more Markuses and finding that most of them are also rather skinny. And I might even be statistically right in my belief that the average Markus is slimmer than the average citizen (due to, for example, the popularity of that name in a certain cohort or social group that is also prone to skinniness or anorexia). Still, I would be ill advised to talk of a “Markus figure” when describing the physique of somebody or analyzing the relationship between “Markusness” and skinniness because the group in question is united only by an accidental quality. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Variations of Standpoint Explicitness In Advertising: An Experimental Study On Probability Markers

• by: Jos Hornikx - Radboud University Nijmegen

1. Introduction
Empirical research has demonstrated that variation in standpoint explicitness matters. In several research reports, explicit articulations of a standpoint or conclusion have been compared to more implicit articulations. Meta-analyses of such reports (Cruz, 1998; O’Keefe, 1997, 2002) have shown that messages with explicitly stated standpoints are more persuasive than messages without such standpoints. Such effects were not found for advertising messages, for which the conclusion – buy this product – seems relatively straightforward, regardless of the articulation of the conclusion (Cruz, 1998).

There are different ways in which explicit conclusions may be articulated, one of which is the use of probability markers. Advertising research has compared hedges (which mark a standpoint as moderately probable) and pledges (which mark a standpoint as very probable). In this study, it was investigated whether the reputation of the brand affects the persuasiveness of hedges and pledges. Based on a study conducted by Goldberg and Hartwick (1990), it was expected that hedges would be more persuasive for low-reputation brands, whereas pledges would be more persuasive for high-reputation brands. This expectation was put to a test in an experiment. Read more