ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Novels As Arguments

• by: Gilbert Plumer - Law School Admission Council

 I tell you he [Abraham Lincoln] got more arguments out of stories than he did out of law books, and the queer part was you couldn’t answer ‘em – they just made you see it and you couldn’t get around it. (Tarbell 1907, p. 9)

The common view (at least among nonrehetoricians) is that no novel is an argument, though it might be reconstructed as one. This is curious, for we almost always feel the need to reconstruct arguments even when they are uncontroversially given as arguments, as in a philosophical text. What are we doing then? We are making the points as explicit, orderly, and (often) brief as possible, which is what we do in reconstructing a novel’s argument. Moreover, the reverse is also true. Given a text that is uncontroversially an explicit, orderly, and brief argument, in order to enhance plausibility, our first instinct is to flesh it out with illustrations and relationships to everyday life. In other words, we expand the premises. If this process is fictive (as with “thought experiments”) and orderly, it is story-telling. So there is intuitive reason to think that a novel can be an argument, whether the argument is taken as writ large or writ small – full or condensed.

Is this intuition true? This matters because if novels can be arguments, then perhaps the fundamental value and defense of the novel is that reading novels may be critical to one’s learning how to think. If novels can be arguments, then that fact should shape literary studies, and it should shape logic or argumentation studies. Ayers draws a useful distinction between two senses that the term ‘narrative argument’ might have: (a) a story that offers an argument, or (b) a distinctive argument form or structure (2010, pp. 2, 11-12, 36-37). After drawing further preliminary distinctions in section 1 below, in section 2 we will consider whether there is a principled way of determining or extracting a novel’s argument in sense (a). The views of such authors as Nussbaum and Fisher will be evaluated. The possibility indicated by (b) will be taken up in section 3. This possibility is particularly interesting for argumentation studies insofar as it seems that the source of an argument need not imply anything about the argument’s structure. It is only rarely claimed that fictional narratives themselves, as wholes, can exhibit a distinctive argument structure (form, scheme). We will consider Hunt’s view that many fables and much fabulist literature inherently have the structure of a kind of analogical argument. I will then propose what seems to be a better account, which takes some novels to inherently exhibit the structure of a kind of transcendental argument. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Solving Potential Disputes In Health Brochures With Pragmatic Argumentation

• by: Lotte van Poppel - University of Amsterdam

1. Introduction
Governmental institutions and non-profit organizations regularly publish health brochures and leaflets in which they offer health advice. The readers are, for instance, encouraged to improve their diet or are discouraged to consume alcohol. An obvious way to promote certain behavior is to point at the positive consequences of that behavior. To discourage certain behavior one can mention the negative consequences of that behavior.
By going into the desirable or undesirable effects, brochure writers try to remove possible doubt or opposition towards the given advice, so that the reader is more likely to accept it. In other words, an attempt is made to convince the reader of the standpoint that the given advice is acceptable. Pointing at the advantages or disadvantages of a promoted or discouraged course of action can thus be interpreted as argumentation that is given in support of a standpoint. This type of argumentation is called pragmatic argumentation. In example (1) we see a manifestation of this type of argumentation in a health brochure:
(1) Place your baby on the back to sleep from the very beginning. This will reduce the risk of cot death. (‘Reduce the risk of cot death’, UK Department of Health, 2007)

In the example, pragmatic argumentation is used to justify why it is desirable to place a baby on the back to sleep: this way of putting the baby to sleep namely has the desirable effect of reducing the risk of cot death.
Besides the standard positive form of pragmatic argumentation exemplified in (1), brochure writers have three more variants of this type of argumentation at their disposal. In this paper, I will examine what dialectical and rhetorical considerations steer the choices for one or the other variant in argumentative discourse in this specific context. To explain this, I will depart from the extended pragma-dialectical theory, developed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984, 1992, 2004) and Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002, 2006). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Argumentation Without Arguments

• by: Henry Prakken - Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University & Faculty of Law, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

1 . Introduction
A well-known ambiguity in the term ‘argument’ is that of argument as an inferential structure and argument as a kind of dialogue. In the first sense, an argument is a structure with a conclusion supported by one or more grounds, which may or may not be supported by further grounds. Rules for the construction and criteria for the quality of arguments in this sense are a matter of logic. In the second sense, arguments have been studied as a form of dialogical interaction, in which human or artificial agents aim to resolve a conflict of opinion by verbal means. Rules for conducting such dialogues and criteria for their quality are part of dialogue theory.

Both logic and dialogue theory can be developed by formal as well as informal means. This paper takes the formal stance, studying the relation between formal-logical and formal-dialogical accounts of argument. While formal logic has a long tradition, the first formal dialogue systems for argumentation where proposed in the 1970s, notably by the argumentation theorists Hamblin (1970,1971), Woods & Walton (1978) and Mackenzie (1979). In the 1990s AI researchers also became interested in dialogue systems for argumentation. In AI & Law they are studied as a way to model legal procedure (e.g. Gordon, 1995; Lodder, 1999; Prakken, 2008), while in the field of multi-agent systems they have been proposed as protocols for agent interaction (e.g. Parsons et al., 2003). All this work implicitly or explicitly assumes an underlying logic. In early work in argumentation theory the logic assumed was monotonic: the dialogue participants were assumed to build a single argument (in the inferential sense) for their claims, which could only be criticised by asking for further justification of an argument’s premise or by demanding resolution of inconsistent premises. AI has added to this the possibility of attacking arguments with counterarguments; the logic assumed by AI models of argumentative dialogues is thus nonmonotonic. Nevertheless, it is still argument-based, since counterarguments conform to the same inferential structure as the arguments that they attack. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Vagueness Of Language And Judicial Rhetoric

• by: Federico Puppo - University of Trento

1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the relationships between the vagueness of language and judicial rhetoric. To this end, the discussion will be organized as follows.
1) I shall briefly analyse the vagueness of language, seeking to show its nature and characteristics. It will obviously not be possible to analyse all the various theories of vagueness. Hence the discussion will be restricted to a number of fundamental issues.
2) I shall then concentrate on legal controversy and on the logical method that regulates its conduct: that is, the rhetorical method. I shall expound the theory developed in Italy by Francesco Cavalla, according to which the rhetorical method is a rigorous logical procedure, structured in different and successive phases, and in which the rhetorician/lawyer must gradually persuade the audience to agree with his argument.
3) I shall thus analyse the various phases of the rhetorical method – which is a combination of topic, dialectic and rhetoric – to clarify how the rhetorician persuades the audience to agree with him and overcomes the objections of the adverse party. I shall pay particular attention to the relationship between rhetoric and truth.

2. The vagueness of language
The first thing that strikes one when studying vagueness is that it is not susceptible to a single definition. Various theories have sought to explain the nature of vagueness and each of them has furnished its own definition of vagueness. It is not possible here to examine these various theories (on which see Williamson 1994). However, there is a broad definition of vagueness which is presumably acceptable.

“Very roughly, vagueness is deficiency of meaning […]; there is general agreement that predicates which possess borderline cases are vague predicates” (Sorensen 1985, pp. 134-5). This can be understood very well if one considers the classic example of vagueness: that of the sorites paradox. What is it the exact number of grains of wheat necessary to form a heap? We do not know. In fact, if I pile up grains of wheat, a heap will be gradually formed. But I cannot know or say which grain of wheat is the one that changes the non-heap into a heap. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – A Semantic Structure For Points Of View: About Linguistic Constraints On Argumentation

• by: Pierre-Yves Raccah - CNRS France

With almost no exception, all the approaches of argumentation acknowledge that utterances and discourses of natural languages play a role in argumentation; this role, which can be called “argumentative power”, is often considered to comprise argumentative orientation and argumentative force (see, for instance, Ducrot 1973). Pieces of evidence that the structure of natural languages constrain the possible argumentative power of utterances and discourses have been discussed since the mid ‘70s, in connection with so called ‘grammatical words’, like connectives or operators, mainly (but not only) within the framework called “Argumentation Within Language” (AWL) initiated by Oswald Ducrot (see, for instance, Anscombre and Ducrot (1976), Bruxelles et al. (1979), Ducrot (1980), Kay (1990)).

Oddly enough, according to their initiators, these discussions seemed to suggest that, because natural languages constrain argumentation, semantics should be ‘pragmaticized’. In this paper, I will show that that suggestion is a mistake, even from the point of view of AWL, and that there are strictly-semantic constraints on the argumentative power of discourses, imposed by those language units. In addition, I will give more evidence that language units constrain argumentation in a very precise way, and will show that not only ‘grammatical words’, but also all kinds of usual lexical items impose precise constraints on the argumentativity of the utterances in which they appear. To achieve this aim, I will introduce two technical concepts related to the usual blurry notions of point of view, and ideology, respectively; though the aim of the paper is not to give precise definitions of these concepts, the discussion will give elements for such definitions. In any case, the relationship between argumentation and those two concepts will be clarified, leading to a precise characterization of what semantic constraints on argumentation could look like. Several practical consequences of this approach will be discussed and, in particular, consequences on the notion of metaphor and its role in argumentative discourses. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Paradox Of Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues

• by: Karen Rasmussen - California State University, Long Beach

In the one hundred and eleven years since the creation of the Spokane Indian Reservation in 1881, not one person, Indian or otherwise, had ever arrived there by accident.
Reservation Blues, p.3.

Sherman Alexie’s (1995) (Spokane/Coeur d ‘Alene) Reservation Blues (RB), the saga of the rise and fall of an American Indian blues  band named Coyote Springs, opens as a “black stranger” with a “guitar slung over his back” stands at a “crossroads,” waving “at every Indian that [drives] by” until Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the “misfit storyteller of the Spokane Tribe” (pp. 3, 5),[i] stops. Characters, scene, and their conversation intimate the novel’s trajectory:
“Are you lost?”
“Been lost a while, I suppose.”
“You know where you’re at?”
“At the crossroad,” the black man said (pp. 3-4).

The visitor is bluesman Robert Johnson, not dead in 1938 as advertised, but alive and seeking an “[o]ld woman [who] lives on a hill.” He needs her help because he “sold [his] soul to the Gentleman so [he] could play . . . [his] damn guitar better than anybody” (pp. 5, 8). The historical Johnson[ii]  was the paradigmatic blues artist: a “trickster, hoodoo man, . . . the devil’s son-in-law, too lazy and too proud to work for a living” (Pearson, 1984, p. 122). Johnson leaves his guitar behind because it rules “its possessor like a drug” (Pasquaretta, 2003, p. 286),  ascending the Spokane reservation’s Wellpinit Mountain to find respite with Big Mom, a pan-Indian figure who’s been around for centuries and who’s not only “a part of every tribe” (p. 199) but also “the teacher of . . . [the] great musicians who shaped the twentieth century”- Elvis, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Diana Ross, Paul McCartney (p. 201). Johnson’s guitar, which fixes itself and talks to people, continues to wreck havoc as it impacts the fate of Coyote Springs. Populated by more or less normal beings as well as supra-natural figures, RB literally is a blues-based work that embodies an argument grounded in paradox that warrants Alexie’s contention that a “shared history of pain and oppression between African-Americans and the First Nations. . . gives Natives the right to perform the blues, and the knowledge to perform it well” (Cain, 2006, p. 2). Read more