ISSA Proceedings 2002 – The Rabbit In The Hat: Where Do Dialectical Rules Come From?

• by: Hans Vilhelm Hansen - Department of Philosophy, University of Windsor

It is my guess that what most of us identify with the Pragma-Dialectical theory is the set of  rules for Critical Discussions, or as they were originally styled, the “code of conduct for rational discussants.” (1984: 151)  I think these rules individually, and as a set, have a great deal of intuitive plausibility in their favour. Therefore, in this essay, I propose to look at the rules and ask where they come from, what it is that justifies them, and how they hang together?

By way of historical background, we should recall that the first rules for argumentation were not developed in Amsterdam. Some have found rules of argumentation in Aristotle’s Topics; the Medievals had stylized, rule-governed games of disputation (Rescher 1977: 1-2); Whately, in the nineteenth century, explicitly relies on rules of argumentation in his discussion of  ad hominem arguments (Hansen 1995: 405-06).  More recent but less well-known authors have also proposed rules of argumentation. One interesting set of rules is found in James Johnson’s Logic and Rhetoric.  Johnson defined ‘argumentation’ as the kind of rhetoric “which tries to convince us of a certain point of view or attitude.” (Johnson 1962: 143) Since the activities of convincing and the discovery of facts are independent endeavours we are surprised to see that a few pages later the function Johnson ascribes to argumentation is “to discover the truth, that is, to establish facts.” (Johnson 1962: 147). Johnson apparently belonged to that benign age in which it was thought that once the facts were made plain, conviction was inevitable.

James Johnson’s ten “elementary ground rules,” lightly edited, are these:
J1. Be sure that your statements are accurate representations of what you really think. [Unless your words assert clearly the opinions you hold, you cannot convince anyone of your point of view nor can you test and confirm that view for your own benefit.  Say what you believe.]
J2. Define the areas of agreement and disagreement between yourself and those whose views you oppose. Do not waste time arguing over things you are really agreed upon.
J3. Never, never argue about established facts. Look them up in one or more authorities.
J4. Be sure you know whether the argument is founded upon differences of opinion concerning causation, obligation, evaluation, or generalization. [The evidence you present to support your view must be determined by the nature of the disagreement.]
J5. Summon up from memory, collect from reliable sources, and compare from common experiences between yourself and your opponent all relevant data or evidence, not just evidence to support your point of view. [You are supposed to be finding out facts, not humiliating an enemy.]
J6. Keep yourself emotionally detached and stay cool. [Lost tempers do not win arguments. The tone of your voice or your written composition must stay moderate and composed. Remember the Biblical injunction, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.”]
J7. Examine all evidence thoughtfully and objectively. [Use what you know about the principles of logical order to arrange and evaluate all information pertinent to the issue.]
J8. Stick to the issue or question under discussion. [… Failure to do so can result in a fallacy such as ignoring the question, ad hominem or begging the question.]
J9. Do not appeal to the emotions of your opponent or your readers when you find yourself being tested intellectually. [… It is a fallacy to appeal to pity, or fear, or patriotism, or “just plain folks.”]
J10. Reach whatever conclusions seem justified by the evidence calmly considered. If you think the evidence insufficient, then postpone your decision until more evidence is available.
J11. If you decide your original decision was wrong, admit it and accept the right one. [No one loses face by admitting his mistakes.] (Johnson 148-49) Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Table Of Contents

ISSA Proceedings 1998 

Frans H. van Eemeren et al – Preface
Aakhus, M. – Reconstruction games: Assessing the resources for managing collective argumentation in groupware technology
Aldrich, A.W. – Framing Blame and Managing Accountability to Pragma-Dialectical Principles in Congressional Testimony
Amossy, R. – The argument ad hominem in an interactional perspective
Azar, M. – Refuting counter-arguments in written essays
Baaske, K. – Arguing Over Values: The Affirmative Action Debate and Public Ethics
Baker, M. – The function of argumentation dialogue in cooperative problem-solving
Balter, S.J. – ‘The Search for Grounds in Legal Argumentation: A Rhetorical Analysis of Texas v Johnson’
Bedau, H.A. – What are the ‘Anarchical Fallacies’ Jeremy Bentham Discovered in the 1789 French: Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen?
Beer, F.A. & De Landtsheer, C. – Metaphorical politics: mobilization or tranquilization?
Berkenbosch, R. & Van der Geest, I. – Practical guidelines for justifying decisions about major projects
Birrer, F.A.J. – Asymmetry in the dialogue between expert and non-expert
Blair, J.A. – Walton’s argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning: A critique and development
Brandon, E.P. – What’s Wrong with God?
Branham, R. – Abolitionist reconstructions of July Fourth
Brashers, D.E., Haas, S.M. & Neidig, J.L. – Satisfying the Argumentative Requirements for Self Advocacy
Cattani, A. – Bad Reasoning, Good Humor
Chan, W. – Wittgenstein and Cognitive Psychology
Cohen, D.H. – How To Lose an Argument
Coleman, E. – Acts of argumentation: beyond spoken dialog
Collins, C.A. & Schmid, J.D. – The Power and Perceived Truthfulness of Visual Arguments in U.S. Political Campaign Biofilms
Conley, T.M. – The Renaissance Roots of Perelman’s Rhetoric
Craig, R.T. & Sanusi, A.L. – “I’m Just Saying …”: Discourse Markers of Standpoint Continuity
Danblon, E. – Is Praise a kind of Advice? Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Metaphorical Politics: Mobilization Or Tranquilization?

• by: Francis A. Beer & Christ’l De Landtsheer - University of Colorado & University of Amsterdam

Politicians tend to express themselves indirectly. Sometimes they do so because they live in a totalitarian society, in which free expression is prohibited. Political crisis and war or severe economic crisis also affect directness and explicitness of political rhetoric. Politicians in prosperous democratic society, however, also see advantages in indirect or non-literal linguistic strategies. Commercialization of society, media, and politics reinforce this trend. Floating voters form an increasing segment of the electorate and politicians want to attract these voters by means of indirect statements with limited political content.
Metaphors are a form of indirect communication that has many advantages for politicians who know how to use them and when. Why is it that metaphors are essential to political rhetoric and mass communication? What does metaphorical reasoning include? How do politicians use metaphorical reasoning? How do social scientists deal with the study of metaphors in politics?

1. Metaphorical Reasoning and Cognitive Blending
Contemporary theory and research in cognitive science have widened scientific interest in metaphors, a literary device with ancient roots. Cognitive schema theory suggests that the mind generates virtual simulations, similar to computer software programs that interpret the physical world. Appropriate external stimuli activate these internal schemata, which help us understand and react. Human action and reaction are thus mediated by schema-driven cognition. Metaphors reflect and drive these schemata. Metaphor is thus both a facet of language and a dimension of cognition.
According to traditional Aristotelian theory, metaphors were linguistic phenomena that included the substitution of one word for another. The Oxford English Dictionary seems to follow this path when it defines metaphor as “the figure of speech in which a name or descriptive term is transferred to some object of different form, but analogous to, that to which it is properly applicable” (OED 2).
Going beyond this, modern metaphorical theory has created terminology to denominate elements of the metaphorical expression. In this lexicon,(A) is the topic, tenor, or target, the ground, which is the actual subject of discussion; (B) is the source or vehicle, which is an idea from a different sphere of life, which is literally used to describe the subject (A); between (A) and (B) exists a blended space producing tension (C). The interaction between these two ideas (A) and (B) generates a new, figurative, blended meaning (C), and a new view upon the subject. Older theories of metaphorical comparison and substitution neglect (C), the value added by the fusion of (A) and (B), which is at the core of the interaction theory (Turner and Fauconnier, 1995; Lakoff and Turner 1989; Ortony, 1984). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Practical Guidelines For Justifying Decisions About Major Projects

• by: Rinke Berkenbosch & Ingeborg van der Geest - University of Amsterdam & Delft University of Technology

1. Introduction
Quite a few American inventions have become a worldwide success: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is one of them. This policy instrument was introduced in 1970 by President Nixon, through the National Environmental Policy Act. Today, EIAs are applied in almost every country in the world.
An EIA is carried out before work is started on a major project, such as the construction of a railroad, highway or airport. The purpose of an EIA is to rationalize the decision-making process involved with such a project. In order to achieve that purpose, the parties involved are obliged to follow certain rules when exchanging information. These rules can be seen as a code of conduct: they specify the rights and obligations of the project proponent, the competent authority that has to decide on the project, and the citizens and interest groups that make use of the possibility of public participation (Wood 1995, Robinson 1992).

What Environmental Impact Assessment comes down to is that the decision-making process is divided into two successive discussions.
In the first discussion, the main role is played by the project proponent, who has to draft a public document – an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). An example of an EIS that was written in the United States is the one about a controversial plan to transform the top of Mount Graham, Arizona, into a so-called astrophysical area studded with telescopes (United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 1988). A Dutch EIS about a very controversial project is that concerning the extension of Schiphol Airport by means of adding an extra runway (Project Mainport en Milieu Schiphol, 1993a). In documents such as these, the project proponent has to explain his plans and indicate any reasonable alternative options for the proposed activity. Furthermore, he has to forecast and evaluate the effects of the project and of the alternative options. The project proponent’s forecasts and value judgements are not taken for granted: they have to be substantiated by arguments which support the accuracy of the predictions and the acceptability of the value judgements.
The EIS serves as the input for the second discussion, in which the competent authority takes the lead. The competent authority has to decide whether or not the project may be carried out and, if so, in what way. This means that the competent authority has to choose between the alternative options described in the EIS. The final decision is then made public in a so-called Record of Decision (ROD), which has to be supported by argumentation showing that the information provided by the EIS played an important role in the decision-making process. This argumentation is also required so that opponents of the project may challenge the decision in a court of law; to be able to criticize a decision successfully, it is necessary to know the grounds for the decision (Wood 1995: 183). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Calculating Environmental Value: The Displacement Of Moral Argument

• by: James Darsey - Northern Illinois University

They took all the trees and put ‘em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar-and-a-half just to see ‘em
Joni Mitchell

“Big Yellow Taxi”

Rather, money endangers religion in that money can serve as universal symbol, the unitary ground of all action. And it endangers religion not in the dramatic, agonistic way of a “tempter,” but in its quiet, rational way as a substitute that performs its mediatory role more “efficiently,” more “parsimoniously,” with less “waste motion” as regards the religious or ritualistic conception of “works.”
Kenneth Burke

A Grammar of Motives
In May, 1997, Robert Costanza and a group of colleagues published in Nature the results of a meta-analysis of studies designed to measure the economic value of the environment. Perhaps due to the dramatic nature of their findings – they estimated the annual value of ecosystem functions and services at probably around $33 trillion in U.S. dollars compared to annual global gross national product of about $18 trillion – the report received considerable publicity, including coverage in the United States on National Public Radio and in the New York Times (Costanza, et al. 1997; Stevens 1997). Though the figures are stark, and probably startling to most, the fundamental argumentative strategy, the justification of environmentalism on purely economic grounds, a striking and controversial departure from traditional appeals for the defense of the environment, is part of a quietly growing trend. Kenneth Boulding, in the 1960s, called for such an accounting as a way to talk about the “throughput” of what he characterized as the “cowboy economy” (Boulding 1970: 97). Eric Freyfogle’s denominator is “free-market environmentalism,” and he identifies as its purpose “to structure resource-use decision making so that decisions respond, not to bureaucratic mandates, but to the more disciplined signals of the market” (Freyfogle 1998: 39). Costanza and his colleagues illustrate this purpose in the opening sentence of their report: “Because ecosystem services are not fully ‘captured’ in commercial markets or adequately quantified in terms comparable with economic services and manufactured capital, they are often given too little weight in policy decisions” (Costanza et al.1997: 253; sa Breslow 1970: 102-103).

The co-authors of the report in Nature, in their individual productions, represent a substantial voice on the academic side of this trend (Costanza et al. 1997: 260), but this is not arcane academic theory. Paul Hawken, co-founder of Smith and Hawken, makes precisely the same argument from a commercial perspective. “In order for a sustainable society to exist, every purchase must reflect or at least approximate its actual cost, not only the direct cost of production but also the costs to the air, water, and soil; the cost to future generations; the cost to worker health; the cost of waste, pollution, and toxicity” (Hawken 1993: 56). As for political manifestations of free-market environmentalism, Freyfogle points to the U.S. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Burden Of Proof: A Negociable Argumentative ‘Chore’

• by: Marianne Doury - GRIC – Université Lumière-Lyon 2

The allocation of burden of proof is a very classical argumentative issue. This paper does not propose general reflections on the principles which rule this allocation, but rather tries to show how, when engaged in face-to-face argumentation, speakers themselves deal with this question.
I will first evoque briefly how the question of the burden of proof is treated within the frame of judicial argumentation as well as ordinary argumentation. I will then indicate how it can be articulated with a global description of a rhetorico-argumentative situation. Finally I will show, through a case study, how the allocation of burden of proof is negotiated within a specific polemic: the media debate about parasciences (astrology, parapsychology, ufology, etc.).

1. The burden of proof allocation rules
The general principle which governs the allocation of burden of proof in ordinary argument is that argumentative scaffolding falls to the speaker who challenges the doxa, while his opponent enjoys the weight of what is supposedly admitted.
Thus, if two speakers disagree, one claiming that 2 + 2 = 5 whereas the other assumes that 2 + 2 = 4, it falls to the first one to argue his claim, not to the second one. Moreover, the one who promotes an unlikely claim must prove the validity of this claim, and should not ask his adversary to prove it to be false; such an attitude would lead to an ad ignorantiam fallacy.
The first consequence entailed by this general burden of proof allocation rule is that it is governed by a principle of inertia: since presumptions play in favour of what exists, only change requires to be justified.
The second consequence of this rule is that the burden of proof allocation is setting-dependent, since what is considered as doxastic on a given matter may vary with the audience.
The general allocation rule may also be associated with additional sub-rules which condition its application within some specific settings. In particular, within the judicial area, the burden of proof is tightly linked to the presumption of innocence: the prosecutor assumes the burden of proof, and any reasonable doubt must be in favour of the prosecuted. In this specific setting, using the adversary’s failure to prove a proposition p (the guilt of X) as an argument in favour of non-p (the innocence of X) is not considered as fallacious.
Perelman insists on the fact that the allocation of burden of proof within the legal area also plays in favour of inertia: “il est conçu de manière à ratifier, jusqu’à plus ample informé, les faits tels qu’ils sont”.[i] Read more