ISSA Proceedings 2006 – When You Don’t Have Anything To Prove. Strategic Manoeuvering And Rhetorical Argumentation

• by: Hilde van Belle - Lessius Hogeschool Antwerpen

‘Because deciding to smoke or not to smoke is something you should do when you don’t have anything to prove. Think it over.’ To smoke or not to smoke, that’s the question. Even the most notorious doubter in history is called upon in this smoky tragedy of legal limits versus free choice. The quoted Reynolds tobacco company advertorial is one of the examples Frans Van Eemeren and Peter Houtlosser bring in to present the integrated pragma-dialectical model. In Rhetorical Argumentation. Principles of Theory and Practice, Christopher Tindale (2004) puts forward a model of argument that is characterised as rhetorical. In the introduction to this project, Tindale mentions this ‘rhetorical turn’ of the pragma-dialectic school. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2000) consider rhetoric part of dialectic, as dialectic deals with abstract and general questions, whereas rhetoric deals with specific cases and with context, elements that are to be embedded in the general.
First I will present the pragma-dialectic method and Tindale’s project, then I will deal with Tindale’s comments on the integrated pragma-dialectic model. Finally I will put forward the Reynolds case for my own discussion on the position of rhetoric and reasonableness in the integrated pragma-dialectic model, and the relation between dialectical and rhetorical norms. I will show how the advertorial can function as a prototype for the very notion of the complex shifting of norms in argumentation.

1. The pragma-dialectic model
The pragma-dialectic theory combines an approach to language use drawn from pragmatics with the study of critical dialogue from a dialectical perspective. It defines dialectic as ‘a method of regimented opposition’ in verbal communication and interaction ‘that amounts to the pragmatic application of logic, a collaborative method of putting logic into use so as to move from conjecture and opinion to more secure belief’ (Van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2000, p. 297).
All argumentation is considered to be part of a critical discussion aimed at resolving differences of opinion. This discussion consists of four stages: the confrontation stage, the opening stage, the argumentation stage, and the concluding stage. The aim of the participants should be to solve a difference of opinion within the boundaries of reason. As for assessment, the reconstruction of speech acts should make it possible to test discussions against procedural rules. Any derailment of these rules is considered to be fallacious.
In 1999 Van Eemeren and Houtlosser developed a model for integration of a rhetorical component in the pragma-dialectic approach. Their arguments for this idea are based upon praxis: although one is principally engaged in a critical discussion to solve a difference of opinion in a reasonable way, speakers or writers will also work towards a solution in their own favor (eg.: ‘as favourable as possible/ resolving the difference in their own favour/ getting things their way/ have their point of view accepted/ that best serves their interests) (Van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2000, p. 295). The way people’s own interests direct and influence the resolution of a dispute is an element of effectiveness, which is called the rhetorical aspect of argumentation: strategic attempts to personally influence the resolution process. In general, rhetoric is called ‘the theoretical study of practical persuasion techniques’ (ibid., p. 297).
A second argument for the integration proposal follows out of this and is of a more general kind. The authors claim to bridge the historical gap between dialectic and rhetoric. As for the integration, this is how they see the relation between dialectic and rhetoric: ‘We view dialectic –in line with Agricola- as a theory of argumentation in natural discourse and fit rhetorical insight into our dialectical framework’. From this, it is clear that rhetorical moves operate within a dialectical framework. Effective persuasion must be disciplined by dialectical rationality. In other words, the effectiveness element that is extracted from argumentation praxis is accepted as long as it does not interfere with principles of critical discourse, and in case of conflict between the two, praxis must yield to principles.
The reconciliation ‘in which the parties seek to meet their dialectical obligations without sacrificing their rhetorical aims’ is called ‘strategic manoeuvering’: ‘In so doing, they attempt to exploit the opportunities afforded by the dialectical situation for steering the discourse rhetorically in the direction that best serves their interests.’ (ibid., p. 295). Those opportunities are to be found in every of the four stages and can be pinned down to topical choice, adaptation to the audience, and presentation. The key criterion for assessing whether a rhetorical strategy is ‘being followed’ in any stage is that of convergence. Reconstruction provides insight into the strategic manoeuvers carried out to reconcile rhetorical aims with dialectical commitments. The strategic manoeuvres prove to be acceptable or to involve a violation of the rules for critical discussion.
For a conclusion, which may be a grounding argument as well, Van Eemeren and Houtlosser bring up the concept of ‘no incompatibility’: strategic maneuvering does not automatically imply that the critical principles for resolving conflicts are abandoned (ibid., p. 297). A final argument for the integration model is formulated in the conclusion of the Reynolds article:
This example shows, by the way, not only that a pragma-dialectical analysis becomes stronger and more useful when rhetorical insight is incorporated, but also that a rhetorical analysis of argumentative discourse is more illuminating when it takes place in a well-defined dialectical framework. (ibid., p. 302) Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Definition And The Negotiation Of The Norms Of Discussion In Newsgroups: Which Communication Ideal?

• by: Sacha Mandelcwajg & Michel Marcoccia - Tech-CICO/Université de technologie de Troyes

1. Introduction
Norms are at the core of research on argumentative discussion (Doury, 2003). There are two kinds of approaches to argumentation: descriptive and prescriptive approaches.
In a descriptive approach of argumentation, argumentative norms are built up by the speakers in their interactions (according to Plantin, 2002). It is noted that speakers have an argumentative/normative competence in daily life conversations. They can indeed:
– categorize the arguments they are faced with (this is an example, an analogy, an argument of authority, etc.),
– evaluate these arguments according to generally implicit criteria (this is a good example, a good analogy, an acceptable argument of authority),
– accept or reject arguments following this evaluation.

In a prescriptive approach to argumentative norms (Danblon, 2005): the aim is to distinguish a bad argumentation from a good one by trying to find pre-established rules: a rational, ethical, democratic argumentation versus manipulation and fallacies.
For example: in the pragma-dialectics model of van Eemren and Grootendorst (1996), we can notice the will to establish a “normative pragmatic” for “argumentative speech”.
Indeed, pragma-dialectics takes up Plato’s dialectics, Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, and Hamblin’s Fallacies (1970). So, the transgression of rules of logical and argumentative validity, the use of fallacies, belong to “evil” (Danblon, 2005).
This question is also of importance when we approach specificities of mediated communication by communication and information technologies (Marcoccia, 1998). It is indeed likely that Net users will take up to themselves a system of rules or refer to a set of external norms, in order to facilitate a good course of the dialogue in the newsgroups.

These rules are defined in two types of texts:
– the Netiquette, which is a set of communicative rules, with prescriptive and global aim. Communication rules, as defined by the Netiquette, are meant to be respected in any device of on-line discussions.
– charters of newsgroups, with rules limited to a local range, will be specific or not as far as the Netiquette is concerned.

In addition, Net users are often involved in conversational negotiations (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1984) during their discussions. We can indeed observe meta-communicative sequences relating to the rules of discussion: Net users themselves do propose how to express oneself, how to behave in a newsgroup, and what must be done or not. These sequences are generally warnings addressed to Net users having transgressed a rule.

To start with, this work will consist in clarifying the norms of discussion defined by the Netiquette and the newsgroup charter we have decided to study more particularly: fr.soc.politique. This is a political discussion newsgroup, non-moderate, that can be, at a first analysis, considered as an electronic form of public sphere. The observation of the messages posted in this newsgroup allows us to rank them as a hybrid kind: the ordinary political discussion (Marcoccia, 2003a).

During each phase of this analysis, we shall try to link the norms previously identified to four models of communication, which we shall regard as “normative”. These models are indeed regarded as major since they are at the root of a new reflexion on the rational norms at work in linguistic interactions:
– The Grice cooperation principle (1979), the rules of which aim at optimizing the intelligibility, the “interpretability” of messages.
– The politeness system elaborated by Brown & Levinson (1978), the purpose of which is to clarify the various means implemented by interacting people to spare their interlocutors’ faces.
– Habermas’ s ethics of discussion (1987) the normative purpose of which aims at making it possible to have a fully democratic and egalitarian communication.
– Van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s pragma-dialectics model (1996) the prescriptive position of which leads to a set of discussion norms guaranteeing its rational character.

Confrontation between these models and the norms extracted from the analyzed corpora (Netiquette, charter and newsgroups) will enable us to know if Net users have a real concern for the norms of discussion within newsgroups, and to specify the communication ideal defended by these norms. While respecting, violating, or defining norms, are the Net users animated by an ideal of comprehension and clarity, courtesy, equity or even rationality of the discussion? Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – A Pragma-Dialectical Analysis Of Online Political Argumentation

• by: Mathieu Chaput & Milton N. Campos - Université de Montréal

1. Argumentation and Online Political Discussions
In recent years, we have witnessed a growing interest for the practice of argumentation using electronic conferencing systems.[i] Research has been conducted to understand how this asynchronous technology could facilitate the learning and practice of argumentation in the classroom (Marttunen, 1994, 1997; Marttunen & Laurinen, 2002 ; Schroeder & Zarinna, 1999), and Campos (2003, p. 300) even argue that “networked (many-to-many) communication has unique cognitive characteristics that are bound to collaborative argumentation”.
However, literature on argumentative practices in online political groups is much more limited. Most frequently, studies of political discussions online are bounded in the larger problematic of the ‘Internet and the Public Sphere’ and refer to the work of Habermas (1989) on argumentation and public deliberations in bourgeois society. Although general conclusions tend to be pessimistic, these studies note a high level of argumentation in online discussions (for a review in French, see Chaput, forthcoming). But on a closer look, one can find that their analysis is restricted to measuring the number of arguments in messages, and thus considering argumentation strictly as a product, which implies in turn to neglect the argumentation as process (cf. Blair & Johnson, 1987).

Our study aims therefore to understand the dynamic dimension of argumentation in online conferencing systems, by adopting what Plantin (2005, chap. 4) refers to as the “dialogical model of argumentation” in which interlocutors confront opposing viewpoints. We thus adopted the pragma-dialectical approach for it proposes “a systematic theory of argumentation” (cf. van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2003) and, as we thought, can account for the high level of interactivity occurring in online discussion groups. For that purpose, we selected four (4) discussion threads from a lively online group in the Canadian province of Quebec called Politiquébec – a contraction of the words ‘politics’ and ‘Quebec’- whose mission is “To provide a space for constructive discussions about political issues in Quebec”.
Following a brief description of the pragma-dialectical method of analysis we used in this study, we present a synthesis of our results and identify some characteristics of networked communication that can complicate the resolution of critical discussions. Finally, we discuss the specifics of political argumentation and provide some appreciation of the pragma-dialectical method of analysis for online argumentative discourse.

2. Theory, Method and Data
Critical Discussion: Inspired by critical rationalism and speech act theory, Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (1984, 1992) propose a theory of argumentation as critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion and going through four stages. During the confrontation stage, a viewpoint expressed by a party is put in doubt or rejected by another party; in the opening stage, the parties implied adopt the roles of protagonist and antagonist and respectively engage to defend or criticize the disputed statement. Common points of departure and rules are accepted at this stage. During argumentation stage, each party presents arguments to criticize or defend the disputed proposition, and finally, in the conclusion stage, we assist at the end of the dispute if the proposition is abandoned by the protagonist or the antagonist abandons its critique of the standpoint. As noted by pragma-dialecticians, critical discussion should be considered primarily as a tool for analysis:
The critical discussion model is a theory of how discourse would be structured if it were purely resolution oriented. It is not a theory of how discourse is structured nor is it a claim about what functions are or are not pursued in actual argumentation. Nevertheless, it plays an important role in the analysis of actual argumentation (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson & Jacobs, 1993, p. 26; italics added by the authors). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Arguing Against The Capitalist State: The Rhetorical And Ideological Struggles Of Eugene Victor Debs

• by: Geoffrey D. Klinger - DePauw University

“No man in America has been more hated, and few have been so much loved as Eugene V. Debs.”  (Max Ehrmann)

Eugene V. Debs As An Orator
Just over 100 years ago, in 1904, the Democratic Socialist Party tapped Indiana native Eugene Victor Debs[i] to serve as their candidate for the upcoming Presidential election. While an outspoken critic of capitalist economics and the U.S. government, and a strong supporter of workers’ rights, Debs was reluctant to accept this invitation. Eventually, he relented and ran a vigorous and, by some measures, highly successful campaign. This was his first of five Presidential campaigns. Perhaps the most significant event of his campaigns was a speech that Debs delivered in Canton, Ohio, in 1918. Because of this speech, Debs was arrested and charged with treason under the Espionage Act of 1917 for voicing his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I. He continued his fifth run for the Presidency from prison, the first and last time any person had ever done so. Remarkably, for that election, he received nearly one million votes, tripling the previous total of the Democratic Socialists from the election of 1900.
In more than just a metaphorical way, Debs was the voice of the working class. His entire life was devoted to advancing the cause of the working class against the excesses of the capitalist state. He first advanced this cause through the politics, but when it was obvious that the ideological structures of the political system resisted and then rejected his anti-capitalist argumentation, he had no choice but to turn to the legal system for recourse.
At his trial for treason, Debs chose to represent himself, and presented one of the most highly regarded speeches in the history of American Public Address. Indeed, Americanrhetoric.com ranks his “speech” to the jury as the 34th most influential and memorable speeches of all time. In this essay, I will carefully examine the three speeches that cluster around this rhetorical situation: the Canton speech, the speech to the jury, and the speech to the judge. While the speech in the courtroom failed at the legal level given the complicity of law and politics in reinforcing the power of the state, it succeeded in its broader rhetorical appeal. Importantly, Debs constructed tropes of working class rhetoric that resonated with a wider audience. This teaches us something about the law and legal argumentation, namely, that even “losing” arguments, or minority opinions, serve a significant role in legal and political culture. And this also teaches us something about justice, a concept that is perhaps best understood rhetorically, not something that is a natural function or part of the legal system. Indeed, Debs never doubted that justice was on his side, despite the contrary conclusions of a closed political and legal system. Writing on the life of Eugene Victor Debs, Bernard Brommel (1978) observed:
He used his voice and pen to aid workers in important strikes, union organizational battles, five Socialist presidential campaigns, cases defending imprisoned workers, free speech contests, and in other controversial issues ranging from women’s rights, birth control, child labor, to the threat of automation. Throughout these fifty-two years of agitating, Debs kept his enthusiasm for the causes that he thought just. (p. 200)[ii]

1. From Canton To The Courtroom: Law, Politics, and War
Debs was scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Ohio state convention for the socialist party on June 16, 1918. The rhetorical situation was politically charged. As Brommel (1978) recounts, “While a crowd of 1,200 waited in the hot afternoon sun, federal agents circulated through the audience asking to see draft cards” (footnote omitted) (p. 151).
Almost as if he sensed what was to come, Debs began his speech with an eerie sense of foreshadowing. Pointing to a jail, Debs mused, “They have come to realize, as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make Democracy safe for the world” (Brommel, 1978, p. 151)[iii]. Indeed, Allen (1989) notes, “He was testing, daring the federal government to arrest him under what he perceived to be the immoral, unjust, and ill-conceived Espionage Act of 1917” (p. 88).

In the speech, Debs highlighted inconsistencies between “official Washington attitude” toward Germany and the war. He noted that the American government had supported the Kaiser in the years before World War I. This was one of the main themes of his speech. In all, Debs made six references to war:
1. The master class has always declared war; the subject class had always fought the battles.
2. The working class furnishes the corpses but never has a voice in declaring war or in making peace.
3. If the war would end, Rose Pastor Stokes would be released.
4. Workers should know that they exist for something better than slavery and “canon fodder.’
5. The government maintains that workers should grow war gardens as a patriotic duty while an official report shows that fifty-two percent of the tillable soil is held out of use by war “profiteers.” 6. When the “war press says war,” every pulpit in the land “will say war.” (Brommel, 1978, p. 152) Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Shaming Into Argumentation

• by: Beth Innocenti Manolescu - University of Kansas

1. Introduction
I submit that appeals to shame, here defined as a concern for reputation, may be not only relevant to but make possible argumentation with reluctant addressees. Traditionally emotional appeals including shame appeals have been classified as fallacies because they are failures of relevance (Govier 2005, p. 198; van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 134); we ought to believe or act based on the merits of a case rather than because we feel shame or some other emotion. However, Walton (1992, 2000) among others has argued that emotional appeals are not inherently fallacious, that they may also be strong or weak arguments, and that critics ought to evaluate them based on the inferential structure of the practical reasoning they involve as well as on the type of dialogue in which they occur.
In what follows I aim to build on Walton’s insights that critics ought to attend to the practical reasoning involved in and the context of emotional appeals. Specifically, I argue, first, that to analyze and evaluate emotional appeals critics ought to attend to the discourse strategies that arguers actually use rather than relying on reconstructions alone. Second, I argue that to analyze and evaluate emotional appeals critics ought to consider context more broadly than the type of dialogue. Doing so enables critics to assess proportion in emotional appeals as well as the practical reasons they create, and to better understand complex argumentation such as political discourse.

2. Attending to actual discourse strategies
When analyzing and evaluating emotional appeals, critics ought to attend to the discourse strategies arguers actually use rather than relying on reconstructions only for two main reasons. First, examining the strategies arguers actually use enables critics to assess the proportion (Brinton 1988a, 1988b, 1994) or intensity of the emotional appeal. This is necessary because ordinary arguers make judgments about whether the emotional intensity “fits” the contours of the argumentation, the subject matter, and the occasion. More is at stake here than social norms. An appeal that attempts to make an act seem to be more shameful than it is, or an appeal of overwhelming intensity may shut down dialogue. It is a fallible sign that the arguer may not understand the nature of the occasion, subject matter, or addressees’ interests. The lack of propriety thus creates a reason for addressees to conclude that the argument does not deserve serious consideration. Because, other things being equal, addressees may risk little in ignoring such an argument, lack of propriety may foreclose the possibility of dialogue.
How is it possible to evaluate the proportion of emotional appeals? Brinton has proposed that “[p]erfectly appropriate rhetorical embellishment would reconstruct the situation for us in such a way that we experience it in exactly the same way we would experience it as first-hand observers” (1994, p. 40). In this way amplification may “somehow actually help to provide grounding, or count among reasons for misericordia” or other emotions (1994, pp. 39, 40). Ethical considerations enter as Brinton, following Aristotle, suggests that how one is affected is a sign of one’s virtue; if one’s feelings hit the mean, then one has an appropriate level of virtue (1994, pp. 36-37; 1988a, p. 78; 1988b, pp. 209-11). This kind of judgment can ground a critic’s assessment of the appropriateness of an emotional appeal.

This method of analysis and evaluation would work in cases where the “rhetorical embellishment” is designed to make addressees virtual spectators of some circumstances, event, character, and the like. However, most techniques of rhetorical amplification are not best understood as being designed to recreate the situation in a way that enables addressees to experience it as if they were first-hand observers. Any number of techniques may serve to amplify and argue: allusion, antithesis, repetition, and exclamation are a few examples. Therefore, it is necessary to use a method of analysis and evaluation that may incorporate the full presentational design of the emotional appeal.
A second reason for examining the discourse strategies arguers actually use is that doing so enables critics to provide a fuller explanation of why an appeal may be compelling or not in a given situation. Presumably arguers could design a message in such a way that a reconstruction is redundant because it matches the actual message design. But most of the time reconstructions do not match message design. As Jacobs (2000) has put it, a reconstruction “is what could have been said, but wasn’t. The puzzle is, why wasn’t it said that way in the first place” (p. 265). In addition, a traditional analysis tends to focus almost exclusively on intellectual force alone. If the support for each premise is acceptable, relevant, and sufficient, and if the argument addresses critical questions, then it may be judged as a reasonable argument. This kind of analysis and evaluation explains why an argument ought to be intellectually compelling in the mind of a single individual. But intellectual force alone is not always sufficient for belief or action. A theory of argumentation ought to be able to explain pragmatic force – how all discourse strategies in argumentation may work to reasonably pressure addressees to do something (Manolescu 2005a, 2005b). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Ad Hominem Argument In The Bush/Kerry Presidential Debates

• by: Michael Leff - University of Memphis

“Do you believe that you could do a better job than President Bush in preventing another 9/11 attack on the United States?”[i] This question, directed toward Senator Kerry by moderator Jim Lehrer, opens the 2004 Presidential Debates in the United States. The issue Lehrer raises seems appropriate and unremarkable, since in the aftermath of 9/11, security had become a dominant concern in American political discourse. The phrasing of the question, however, offers a less obtrusive but perhaps more important measure of the political atmosphere. Lehrer does not focus upon policy or party or ideology but instead asks for a direct comparison between the Senator and his opponent and thus gives priority to the persons who are competing in the debate. Moreover this strong emphasis on the two individuals accurately reflects the tenor of the whole campaign and anticipates the later course of all three debates. These debates center on persons, and in this direct and literal sense, their arguments rest upon ad hominem considerations.
This arrangement of priorities reverses the normal expectations in argumentation studies, where the propositions advocated by the arguer represent the focal concern for evaluation, and the persona of the arguer is, at best, a secondary consideration. To consider the debates from an argumentative perspective, therefore, requires an alteration in perspective and a revision or expansion of existing conceptions of the role of character in argument. And so I need to begin by reviewing some of these conceptions in an effort to open space for my purpose, which is to present a realistic analysis of the debates that maintains contact with traditional interests in argumentation scholarship.

1. Ad hominem, Ethos, and Ethotic Argument
One traditional conception of argumentation (associated with what is called the “standard treatment”) hardens the distinction between arguer and argument to the point that ad hominem appeals are treated categorically as fallacies. From this perspective, rational inquiry requires strict attention to the quality of the argument qua argument, and any reference to the person making the argument constitutes an irrelevant distraction. This position, of course, virtually exiles campaign debates from the domain of rational argument and leads us to view them as exercises in “mere rhetoric,” designed to manipulate opinion with little regard for the substance of the issues and without any relation to normative principles of reasoning. And in fact, the debates are routinely treated in this way by much of the public, by the press, and even by scholars who study them. It is not an accident that the large and diverse scholarly literature on U.S. presidential debates contains very few entries devoted to argumentation.

A more recent approach to ad hominem argument, developed by Douglas Walton (1998, 2000, 2001), Alan Brinton (1985, 1986, 1995), Trudy Govier (1999) and others, offers a more fluid conception of the relationship between arguer and argument than the standard treatment allows. On this view, the character, commitments, and actions of an arguer often are relevant to the assessment of an argument, and hence ad hominem considerations, while they may sometimes be irrelevant, often are legitimate and appropriate resources for rational argumentation. But, while these revisionist positions allow space for assessing the role of persons in arguments, they still maintain a focus on the proposition or stand-point of the advocate rather than on the advocate per se. Brinton, for example, explains that ad hominem argument deals with an arguer, a proposition endorsed by the arguer, and the proposition itself, and a “logically healthy” ad hominem draws a conclusion only about the second element in this sequence. That is, the reasoning proceeds from characteristics of the arguer to a judgment about the propriety or legitimacy of that arguer’s advocacy of the proposition (Brinton 1995, p. 214).
David Zarefsky (2003) productively complicates this view of the relationship between person and argument by demonstrating the potential interaction between two species of ad hominem that normally receive separate treatment. Contemporary theorists divide ad hominem arguments into a number of types, the two most prominent of which are the direct or (the misleadingly named) abusive ad hominem and the circumstantial ad hominem. Direct ad hominem raises doubt about an arguer’s position because of some character flaw (e.g. Jones is a pathological liar, and therefore his testimony is unreliable). Circumstantial ad hominem calls attention to an inconsistency between the arguer’s position and the arguer’s actions (e.g. Mayor Jones has given himself a raise, and therefore he ought not to claim that the budget crisis justifies salary cuts for all city workers), or an inconsistency between the arguer’s position and other commitments that the arguer has made (e.g. Congressman Jones has repeatedly supported the principle of equal rights for all citizens, and so he ought to not support a ban on gay marriage). For the most part, informal logicians have classified arguments as belonging to one or the other of these types and treated them in isolation. Zarefsky, however, uses the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore (the case that decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election) to indicate how the two may be linked together.
Zarefsky argues that the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore inconsistently departs from the justices’ prior commitments in four respects, and thus it stands open to circumstantial ad hominem critique. He then adds that the circumstantial inconsistency warrants a direct ad hominem judgment, since a decision so much “at odds with … prior commitments” raises a legitimate question about the basis for the decision and supports the conclusion that it is based on political preferences rather than legal principle (2003, p. 307). In this case, then, Zaraefsky holds that circumstantial considerations provide logical grounds for a charge of direct or abusive ad hominem.
This effort to connect a typology of arguments with the character of arguers nudges the study of ad hominem into territory more familiar to rhetoricians than to informal logicians. The tendency is hardly surprising given Zarefsky’s disciplinary affiliation (note the ad hominem here) and his conviction that “personal character is intrinsic to argument” (2003, p. 307). This view, of course, follows from a long-standing rhetorical interest in ethos (character) as a mode of proof, and Zarefsky’s essay implicitly supports Alan Brinton’s cogent but neglected appeal for argumentation scholars to explore the relationship between the study of ad hominem argument and rhetorical ethos (Brinton, 1985, 1986). Read more