ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Missiles As Messages: Appeals To Force In President Obama’s Strategic Maneuverability On The Use Of Chemical Weapons In Syria

• by: Ronald Walter Greene & Jay Alexander Frank - Department of Communication Studies, University of Minnesota, USA

Abstract: In the aftermath of the Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, President Obama proposed a military response that would send “a message” via missiles. This paper explores the way that such a message blurs the line between force and persuasion in diplomatic argument, complicating the normative assumptions of argumentation theory and underwriting the conditions of possibility for Obama’s strategic maneuverability in the context of diplomatic argument.

Keywords: Diplomatic Context, Ad Baculum, Violence, Power, Presidential rhetoric.

Between August 21 and September 10, 2013 President Obama provided a rationale for military strikes in response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus. This period was punctuated by a White House assessment that the Syrian Government was responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Ghota, and two speeches by President Obama on the use of military force. The first speech came on August 31, and requested Congressional authorization to use military force against the Assad regime. The second came on September 10 amidst indications that Congress might not authorize the use of force against Syria. The second speech, however, called for Congress to postpone the vote in order for a joint U.S.-Russian diplomatic effort to “push” Assad to give up his chemical weapons. Our concern is primarily with the communicative dimensions of this “shift” between military action and diplomatic negotiations. To that end, it is useful to recall a series of events which led up to these moments.

The Syrian uprising against Bashar al-Assad began in March of 2011 was among a series of protests against authoritarian regimes in North Africa and Southwest Asia. By April of that year Assad had committed himself to a military response to the uprising. In August, President Obama claimed that Assad had lost his legitimacy to rule and called for him to step down. The U.S. imposed deep sanctions on the Assad regime going so far as to close its embassy in Syria (Harding, Mahmood, & Weaver, 2012). By early 2012, Assad’s forces had shelled opposition forces in the city of Homs, and the protests of March 2011had transfigured into an armed rebellion. As the situation escalated, President Obama rejected directly arming the rebellion but also warned the Assad regime that the use of chemical weapons would be a tragic mistake. By August of 2012 President Obama had drawn a “red line” on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons, noting that any violation of the so called “red line” would change U.S. policy regarding military intervention in Syria.

When Obama was asked by Chuck Todd whether or not he envisioned “using [the] US military, if simply for nothing else, the safe keeping of the chemical weapons, and if you’re confident that the chemical weapons are safe?” Obama responded by saying that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculations about military engagement.

I have, at this point, not ordered military engagement in the situation. But the point that you made about chemical and biological weapons is critical. That’s an issue that doesn’t just concern Syria; it concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us. We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is when we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation (The White House, 2012). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Disruptive Definition As A Method Of Deterritorialization In Modern Argumentative Contexts

• by: Allison Hailey Hahn, Communication Studies, Baruch College, City University of New York, USA

Abstract: This paper proposes the concept of disruptive definitions as a tool to territorialize, deterritorialize, and reterritorialize argumentative space. Upon exploring definitional scholarship, I investigate the argumentative strategies of herders along the Mongolian/Chinese border. Then, I ask how cross-border protest movements have used disruptive definitions to deterritorialize and reterritorialize government definitions of citizenship. Finally, I juxtapose these protests to Deleuze and Guattari’s nomadology to investigate the complex terrain of political struggle in our hyper-globalized, internetworked society.

Keywords: Argumentation, China, definition, identity, Mongolia nomadology, protest, territorialization

1. Introduction
In this paper, I propose the concept of disrupting definitions as a tool to territorialize, deterritorialize, and reterritorialize argumentative space. Specifically, I examine arguments made by herders along the Mongolian/Chinese border where argumentative space is territorialized by governments that define identity by residency. Communities have resisted this territorialization through cross-border protest movements using what I call disruptive definitions, those that define identity by culture, religion, history, or access to open space to deterritorialize and reterritorialize argumentative space. To better understand the effect of these new argumentative spaces, I juxtapose this analysis to Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphor of nomadology to explore the process of culture and identity meaning making among modern herding communities. From this study, I argue that deterritorialization-by-definition may produce radically expanded argumentative definitions that can be used as tools to investigate the complex terrain of political struggle in our hyper-globalized, internetworked society. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Testing The Relationship Between Argument And Culture

• by: Michael David Hazen - Department of Communication, Wake Forest University, USA

Abstract: This paper proposes a framework for testing the relationship between argument and culture. The framework is based on the ideas that: 1) the minimal requirement for what constitutes argument across different cultures is the idea of argument as “linkage”, and 2) that arguments can be conceptualized in terms of the context of messages. A short exploratory analysis of a data set is used to illustrate the framework.

Keywords: argument, contexts, culture, Edward Hall, linkages

1. Introduction
The relationship between argument and culture has not been a common topic of consideration in the field of argumentation. The traditional view was that argument was a universal process that fundamentally operated the same everywhere. In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the relationship between argument processes and culture, which has been manifest in an increasing use of “culture” in theoretical treatments of argumentation (e.g. Johnson, 2000), consideration of argument in non-Western traditions (Jensen, 1992; Combs, 2004), and studies of argumentation practices in various societies (Hornikx & Hoeken, 2007; Hazen & Inoue, 1991). However, even with this increased attention, what is missing in the literature is a systematic attempt to relate argument to culture. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – The Linked-Convergent Distinction

• by: David Hitchcock, Department of Philosophy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Abstract: The linked-convergent distinction introduced by Stephen Thomas in 1977 is primarily a distinction between ways in which two or more reasons can directly support a claim, and only derivatively a distinction between types of structures, arguments, reasoning, reasons, or premisses. As with the deductive-inductive distinction, there may be no fact of the matter as to whether a given multi-premiss argument is linked or convergent.

Keywords: argument structure, coordinatively compound argumentation, convergent, linked, Monroe C. Beardsley, multiple argumentation, Stephen N. Thomas, support

1. Introduction
Once upon a time introductory logic textbooks did not mention the linked-convergent distinction. See for example Cohen and Nagel (1934), Black (1946), and Copi (1978). Stephen Thomas was the first one to draw it, in 1977.[i] Thomas took the term ‘convergent’ from Monroe Beardsley’s earlier textbook, from which come also the terms ‘divergent argument’ and ‘serial argument’ (Beardsley, 1950, p. 19). A contrast concept was already implicit in Beardsley’s recognition that a reason that “converges” along with one or more other reasons on a conclusion might itself consist internally of more than one coordinate premiss. Thomas refined Beardsley’s concept of convergence, made the contrast concept explicit, coined the term ‘linked’ for it, and supplemented Beardsley’s convention for diagramming convergent reasons with a convention for diagramming the linkage among the coordinate premisses of a multi-premiss reason. Independently of Thomas’s innovation, Michael Scriven (1976, p. 42) introduced a similar distinction, with a different diagramming convention, but used the term ‘balance of considerations’ to describe an argument with a convergent support structure. Johnson and Blair (1977, p. 177) and Hitchcock (1983, pp. 49-52) appropriate Scriven’s way of making the distinction. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – A General Rule For Analogy

• by: Robert Hümmer - Department of German Linguistics, Otto-Friedrich-University, Bamberg, Germany

Abstract: The following contribution attempts to introduce a number of candidate descriptions that can render an argument from analogy deductive. The starting point is the much–discussed notion that one of the argument’s premises could comprise a ‘general rule’ which helps guarantee the conclusion’s necessity. Taking Wohlrapp’s (2008) pragmatic approach to the issue, the general rule in analogy can be described in terms of its contribution to satisfy individuals’ need of orientation.

Keywords: argument from analogy; argument structure; deductive analogy; general rule; orientation; pragmatism; Wohlrapp

1. The rule issue with arguments from analogy

Imagine, Anna is a student who comes to see her professor during office hours saying

1. I need an extension on my paper

and

2. My classmate got an extension, too .

Evidently, what Anna is using here is an argument from analogy: it crucially relies on relevant similarity of two cases and it obviously comprises the characteristic general structure known at least since Aristotle (2003, 1131f):

A : B = C : D

A and B are properties of case I (Anna’s classmate’s case) and C and D are properties of case II (Anna’s case). Anna lets us know that her classmate (A) got an extension (B) and that Anna herself (C) should get an extension (D). But how does this work? Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Internal Logic: Persuasive Form And Hierarchy In Kenneth Burke

• by: David Isaksen, Department of English, Texas Christian University, USA

Abstract: According to Kenneth Burke, language contains highly persuasive structures that are not necessarily detectable at the level of arguments. Every author or speaker constructs a unique vocabulary where words are given different nuances of meaning and operate within networks of form and hierarchies of values. These structures form an “internal logic” or a “pattern of experience” which creates both vertical and horizontal convergence. Burke’s unique method of analysis, “indexing,” reveals these implicit argumentation structures.

Keywords: Aesthetic truth, equations, god-terms, hierarchies, indexing, internal logic, Kenneth Burke, literary form, persuasive form.

1. Introduction
In Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse, Eemeren conducts a brief review of the field of rhetoric and the most cited rhetorical scholars. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Toulmin, Zarefsky, Fahnestock, and Kennedy are most cited and discussed, whereas Kenneth Burke is only given a few passing remarks. The few times Kenneth Burke is mentioned he is credited with expanding the definition of rhetoric from “persuasion” to “identification” (Eemeren, p. 74) and being part of the theoretical foundation for Fahnestock’s research on rhetorical devices. I think this is much less attention than Kenneth Burke deserves from students of argumentation. What I hope to do with this presentation is to show how Burke gives us the vocabulary to discuss some central persuasive features of texts, which I will call “persuasive form” and “hierarchy,” and also gives us the critical tools we need to analyze these features. Read more