ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Tolerance And Intellectual Humility

• by: Regan Lance Reitsma - King’s College (Pennsylvania)

In A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues, the French moral philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville attempts to define tolerance, taken as a moral virtue, and to describe its most important features. Sponville defines tolerance as, to paraphrase, “active forbearance for the sake of another.” And he regards tolerance as a “limited,” “small,” and “necessary” virtue (Sponville 1996, pp. 157-172). Once properly understood, this definition and these descriptions strike me as spot on (after a minor modification to the definition).

Sponville also claims that it makes sense to consider tolerating something – say, the disrespectful tone of your colleague – only if you are uncertain whether your negative judgment – ‘his tone is disrespectful’ – is true. As Sponville puts it, “When a truth is known with certainty, tolerance is irrelevant,” and “Tolerance comes in only when knowledge is lacking.” In other words, if you “know” someone’s behavior is objectionable, tolerance has, as Sponville puts it, “no object.”

I’ll argue that this ‘uncertainty thesis’ falls to counterexamples, is unsupported by Sponville’s arguments, and is inconsistent with the other important features Sponville attributes to tolerance. The uncertainty thesis suggests that the only moral motive that might properly lead someone to choose to forbear is intellectual humility. Contrary to this thesis, the virtue of tolerance can be exercised, and properly so, from other moral motives, and even when we “know” the other person – your colleague, say – is in the wrong. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Language Of Democracy And Power, Spoken By Women: Challenging Political Exclusion Through Formal Argumentation

• by: Cindy Koenig Richards - Willamette University

1. Introduction
When Frans van Eemeren surveyed the state of argumentation theory in 1995 he concluded, “argumentative discussion is the main tool for managing democratic processes” and suggested that “argumentation should be valued as the elixir of life of participatory democracy” (p. 145). In the fifteen years since this statement, many studies have emphasized connections between argumentation and participatory democracy (e.g., Bohman 2001, Gutman and Thompson 1996, Keith 2007). For example, Hicks’ (2002) research illuminates how argumentation procedures not only govern political deliberation, but also “constitute … the reflexive, self-correcting agents who are able to create and sustain deliberative democracy” (p. 139). Hicks and other contemporary scholars examine and emphasize the value of the practice and study of argumentation in civic organizations (Forester 1996, Keith 2007, Weitzel and Geist 1998, Zompetti 2006), suggesting that one of the most effective ways to promote political skill and reduce inequality among citizens is to promote the use of formal methods of argumentation in municipal assemblies, clubs, and voluntary organizations (Hicks 2002, p. 234).

Yet other scholars such as Robert Roy Reed and Elsa Barkley Brown question the potential of the study and practice of formal methods of argumentation to foster equitable deliberation and democracy, particularly in civic organizations. In fact, several recent studies show that the use of parliamentary procedure, a method designed to aid groups in the efficient and democratic conduct of business, effectively limited participation–particularly the participation of marginalized citizens–in civic organizations and public debate. For example, Brown’s (1994) analysis of artifacts of civic organizations in the nineteenth century United States, reveals that when these organizations adopted Robert’s Rules of Order, a popular form of parliamentary procedure, “questions of qualifications for participation in the external political arena and internal community institutions” shifted dramatically (p. 135). In particular, these questions challenged the right of female and African Americans members to participate by pointing out “their unfamiliarity with parliamentary procedure or their inelegant ways of speaking” (p. 135). Thus, the introduction of parliamentary procedure precipitated a significant decline in the participation and power of such citizens. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Widening Applications Of Phronesis In The Clinic And Beyond

• by: John J. Rief - University of Pittsburgh

1. Introduction: The Rapprochement of Medicine and Argumentation
A fortuitous rapprochement of the epistemological foundations of medicine and the kinds of communication and argumentation involved in its dissemination to patients is currently underway (Jenicek, 2009; Jenicek and Hitchcock, 2005). However, this rapprochement  [i] has focused primarily on mapping the various attributes of argumentation in the clinical setting under the rubric of “clinical judgment” as a practice of physicians (Feinstein, 1967; Montgomery, 2006). It has not added much by way of detailing the aspects of patient argumentation and decision-making both with physicians and in contexts beyond the clinical setting. Utilizing Joseph Wenzel’s (2006) tripartite understanding of argumentation, I argue that current theories of medical argumentation focus on the development of an adequate “procedure” (p. 16) for determining sound clinical judgments or “products” (p. 16). Despite a recognition of the relationship between medicine and rhetoric (Leach, 2009; Lyne, 2001; J. Poulakos, 1987; Segal, 2005), medical practitioners and argumentation theorists have largely ignored the “process” (Wenzel, 2006, p. 15) of medical argumentation, its rhetorical or sausive dimension, especially in terms of patient reasoning, argumentative practice, and therapeutic performance. This is a problem, especially given such central bioethical constructs as respect for autonomy and informed consent, both of which require a reasoning, arguing, and active patient (Beauchamp and Childress, 2009; Faden and Beauchamp, 1986).

What’s more, given the current rise in chronic conditions as well as their attendant modes of treatment, a conception of patient activation enhanced by communication skills and appropriate therapeutic habits of self-care seems both relevant and essential to modern medical practice. Understanding patients as mutual agents in their own health network is a central aspect of the Chronic Care Model (CCM) that has for some time been seen as the best model for delivering health care to chronic patients (Wagner, 1998) as opposed to the acute model that often seems to fail them (Kleinman, 1988; Morris, 1998). All of this points to the idea that patient skills and long-term habit formation, topics central to early debates about diabetes management (Feudtner, 2003; 2005), have not received enough attention in contemporary medical practice. Given that patients have a specific experiential relationship to their bodily states (both in times of health and when faced with disease) and that their treatment often involves more than simply following the advice of their physician, health practitioners are in need of a concept of patients as caregivers that accounts for their involvement in the clinical encounter as both decision-makers and rhetors. Such activities fall under the category of “lifestyle management” (Zylinska, 2009) through which patients seek to address their chronic disease conditions through the cultivation of skills, habits, and communicative acumen. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Innovation And Continuity In Agricola’s De Inuentione Dialectica

• by: Eddo Rigotti - USI-University of Lugano

1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the fundamental tenets of a text that has undoubtedly represented a relevant step in the evolution of argumentation studies: Agricola’s De inuentione dialectica[i]. My analysis is based on the first apparently “critical” edition, which appeared “post multas editiones” in Köln in 1557[ii], which not only offers a version of Agricola’s text according to the autograph manuscript of Agricola just recovered by Alardus Aemstelredamus, but also partially reproduces the commentaries of Phrissemius, Aemstelredamus and Hadamarius, compared and unified by Ioannes Nouiomagus.

After the structure of the volume, its theoretical perspective and its educational purposes are outlined, Agricola’s approach to the fundamental notion of locus is illustrated. The divergent use of the term habitudo by Agricola and by Medieval scholars and the removal from dialectical invention of maxims, which had been the central theoretical construct of the Medieval doctrine of loci, will allow us to consider and evaluate the polemical position of Agricola towards the Medieval tradition. Several innovative aspects of Agricola’s contribution are expounded: the elaboration of a new taxonomy of loci, a different, often more precise and useful, characterization of loci, in particular of the locus from definition, and the discovery of the relevant role played by loci not only in argumentation but also in exposition. Eventually we come to show that a reading of this text in the light of contemporary argumentation theory brings to light a surprising topicality and richness of concrete contributions, especially in some dialectical and rhetorical domains, like argument schemes, topical potential, presentational techniques. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Strategic Communication – How Governments Frame Arguments In The Media

• by: Patricia Riley & Thomas A. Hollihan - University of Southern California

Vice President Joe Biden visited Jerusalem in March, 2010 to attend a series of high profile and carefully planned meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior members of his government. The visit was designed to calm Israeli anxieties about U.S. commitment to Israel and to restart the peace talks with the Palestinians. Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel throughout his political career. Upon reaching Jerusalem, he gave a speech in which he pledged continuing support for Israel stating, “Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel” (cited by Bronner 2010). Only a few hours later the Vice President was stunned by the announcement that Netanyahu’s conservative government intended to build 1,600 new housing units for ultra-orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem on land that was claimed during the Six Day War. This announcement came despite the fact that the Obama administration had been pressing the Israeli government to halt the construction of any new settlements on land also claimed by the Palestinians as necessary for the creation of a viable Palestinian state (Bronner 2010; McCarthy 2010).

Over the next few days the controversy between the United States and Israel, two close allies, grew as new statements condemning or defending the decision and the manner and timing in which it was communicated were discussed in mediated public statements issued by the respective governments and their officials and in press accounts that both reported and analyzed these statements.

The situation prompted a series of carefully choreographed arguments from both governments as they attempted to communicate to a wide array of domestic and international audiences. The incident provides an interesting example of strategic communication in foreign policy, and specifically into the role of strategic media maneuvers in media diplomacy. This essay will: 1) discuss the notion of strategic communication and media diplomacy as a macro-context and how they have co-evolved in the new media environment; 2) critically examine the arguments in this case as examples of media maneuvering by government spokespersons in this controversy; 3) identify the tensions that were exposed, created, and eventually mitigated within the multiple domestic and international audiences who see themselves as stakeholders in this controversy; and 4) offer initial conclusions regarding the “lessons learned” for media diplomacy in a global environment. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Woodrow Wilson’s Economic Imperialism

• by: Jeremy Rogerson - A&M University Texas

Woodrow Wilson, elected President of the United States in 1912, faced an unprecedented challenge during his time in office. With much of the European continent engaged in the largest war known to mankind, the Wilson administration was forced to make the difficult decision of whether to involve the United States in armed conflict. Initially Wilson’s stance was to remain neutral, but over time, this changed. Historians have taken various positions when accounting for Wilson’s policy decisions. Many writers contend that benevolence toward other nations was at the core of Wilson’s policy proposals. According to Patrick Devlin, economics influenced his decisions, but Wilson’s high-minded idealism ultimately guided his policy. For N. Gordon Levin, Jr., ideology served as the underlying factor that guided Wilson, but he argues that economic motives played a key role as well.

My aim is to further the debate regarding Wilson’s decision to enter the United States into the Great War. To do so, I will proceed in two ways. First, I will examine what historians have said regarding Wilson and the driving forces behind his foreign policy. Second, I will “unmask” the public discourse of Woodrow Wilson and, following Kenneth Burke (1969), engage in “the use of rhetoric to attack rhetoric” in order to show how the motivating factor behind Wilson’s policy proposals can be reduced to merely economic concerns (p. 99). In so doing, I discover the ways in which these economic motives can be couched, or eulogistically covered, by other aims. Additionally, the inherent contradictions in Wilson’s discourse – and therefore policy – become even more apparent. What emerges I shall refer to as Wilson’s “economic imperialism.” Read more