ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Fallacies And Context-Dependence: Considering The Strategic Maneuvering Approach

• by: Theodora Achourioti - University of Amsterdam

1. Introduction
Context considerations are germane to the evaluation of argumentative discourse: ‘fallacies’ are not something one is able to identify in vacuo. In order to determine whether the performance of a speech act is fallacious or not, much more has to be taken into account than simply the pragmatic meanings that the speech act generally communicates. For a fallacy to be detected, the argumentative force of the utterance has to be specified, and this is only possible if the move is situated in its surrounding dialectical setting. In performing the speech act of a question, for example, a fallacy will be committed when this question presupposes information that has not been established in the relevant context (fallacy of many questions), or when it contradicts propositions previously agreed upon (problem of inconsistency). For the analyst then, this means that the starting points pertinent to the argumentation need to be clarified before an evaluation is carried out. Whether a particular question counts as a fallacious move or not depends, crucially, on what the arguers can be assumed to have previously accepted. A question will not be fallacious just by itself.

Examples like the one above can be used to support the following general case: fallacies are context-dependent in that they are relative to the context at hand. Starting from this observation, the present paper sets out to investigate what context-dependence entails for dialectical theories of argumentation, that is, theories aimed first and foremost at evaluating argumentative discourse in light of well-defined dialectical standards. As it provides a unified perspective of the treatment of fallacies, the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation has been chosen as the theoretical framework (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1984, 1992a, 2004). This is explained further in the first section of the paper, where some of the difficulties that the analyst is confronted with in identifying fallacies are brought to the fore. The following section discusses in what sense context-dependence poses a theoretical challenge for dialectical theories of argumentation. This discussion is a necessary preliminary step before any suggestions are made as to how this challenge can be overcome. In the final section, the recently developed pragma-dialectical concept of strategic maneuvering is considered as a promising possibility to overcome this challenge (van Eemeren & Houtlosser 2002a, 2002b, 2003). It is argued that the promise of this approach lies in its interesting theoretical proposal to accommodate context-dependence by proposing an alternative account of what it means for fallacies to be relative to the context at hand. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Classes Of Moral Agent And The Art Of Persuasion In The Pali Nikayas

• by: Martin T. Adam - The University of Victoria

Not doing any evil (paapa)
Cultivating what is good (kusala)
Purifying the mind
This the teaching of the Buddhas
(Dhammapada 183)

Introduction
This paper is divided into two parts. The first part is a philosophical argument, based upon Buddhist principles, about the nature of early Buddhist moral thinking. I do not pretend that the arguments in this part of the paper were ever given by, or even occurred to, the Buddha or any Buddhist thinker. Rather, what I hope to show is that the arguments presented here are implicit in the teachings of the Pali Canon and serve to clarify the underlying principles in terms of which early Buddhists appear to have thought. Although my formulation is new, most of the points I make have made been before. I view this work as one of connecting the dots. I don’t believe my arguments would strike thinkers of the Theravada tradition as particularly controversial, but I do hope that they would be regarded as useful clarification. The second part of this paper concerns the extent to which the theoretical conclusions established in the first part are supported by solid textual evidence. One might well ask whether the shapes I discern are actually present, or are rather more like constellations in the night sky. This must always be a concern.
In the end, the arguments presented here will lead us to address the question of audience in the Pali Suttas asking whether it is possible to identify different modes of moral exhortation corresponding to different classes of moral agent. By “classes of moral agent” I have in mind the fundamental threefold distinction of ordinary person, noble disciple, and the liberated being. By “modes of moral exhortation” I mean both the vocabulary and the forms of persuasion employed in enjoining individuals to act in manner considered “good” and praiseworthy by the tradition. Thus the question concerns moral rhetoric in Buddhism.
That there are distinctions to be made among the various audiences entertained by the Buddha and his immediate circle is clear enough. One has only to think of the division between bhikkhus and bhikkhunis on the one hand and members of the laity on the other, as well as the many wanderers and ascetics who the Buddha engages in dialogue.

But in this paper we are particularly concerned with the classification of persons according to their proximity to nirvaa.na. As is well known, aside from the Tathaagata himself, there are the three basic classes of person listed at numerous points in the Pali Canon. There is, first of all, the ordinary person (puthujjana), one who has not experienced the life-transforming insight into selflessness that alone guarantees liberation. Secondly, there is the noble disciple (sekha), who has had this experience – this first intimation of nirvaa.na, and who is, as a consequence assured of final liberation in a maximum of seven lives. He is one who has entered the supramundane path. [i] Finally there is the liberated being (arahat), who has not only eliminated the wrong view of “self” but also entirely eradicated even the subtlest traces of the inclinations towards craving and conceit to which a lingering sense of self may be attached, and upon the basis of which rebirth occurs. [ii] It is my view that to properly understand Buddhist moral thinking, and therefore Buddhist moral discourse, moral conduct (siila) in early Buddhism must be analyzed in relation to these different classes of person. Why?
The prima facie response is that just as persons can be distinguished on the basis of their proximity to nirvaa.na, spiritual purity and insight, so too there must be theoretical differences in connection with their inner moral lives. If their subjective worlds differ, it is only natural that their respective experiences of moral conduct will also differ. The central idea, then, is that differences in spiritual development affect the phenomenology, and therefore the correct description, of the moral conduct associated with each kind of agent. Although this suggestion seems reasonable, it requires further justification. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – Visual Arguments In Film

• by: Jesús Alcolea-Banegas - Universitat de València

1. Introduction
New developments in the study of the argumentation have been addressed to extend to contexts beyond those with which it was initially preoccupied. One significant point has been the recognition that important realms of argument exist outside the verbal and written arguments. One of these is found in the visual argumentation. In this context, Birdsell and Groarke (1996) defend that some visual images are arguments, but of a non-propositional kind. Blair (1996) maintains that images can have propositional content and qualify as propositional arguments, since the propositions and their argumentative functions are expressed visually. The controversy affects to the paradigm of arguments as verbal entities, a paradigm which is centred on arguments understood as products that people do when argue. This is the logical dimension of argument. But we may consider the rhetorical dimension that allows us to understand the process of arguing as a natural process in the persuasive communication.

In our opinion, that controversy is unnecessary. We assume that some images function as arguments intended to persuade viewers. As our concern is cinema, we think that the contextual factors, the filmmaker’s aims and characters’ emotions are crucial for determining the meaning of visual arguments in film and eventually for persuading audience to accept the thesis the filmmaker wanted to establish. We know that rational argument is not omnipotent. The power of persuasion which this argument possesses might be impressive, but inferior to the direct force of images. Vision and images go together in allowing this driving force. According to Gorgias, our spirit is moulded even in its character through vision, “for the things we see do not have the nature which we wish them to have, but the nature which each happens to have; through sight the soul is impressed even to its core” (2003, p. 82). As Carl Theodor Dreyer (1999, pp. 60 and 90) used to say, cinema is a visual art and images reach viewer’s consciousness easier than words. Images have a great influence on our state of mind, and filmmakers cause emotions and passions with the intention of touching us. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Effects Of Textual And Graphical -Textual Argumentation Software As Cognitive Tools On The Development Of Argumentation Skills

• by: Habibe Aldağ & Ahmet Doğanay - Çukurova University

1. Introduction
We live in a complex world full with the problems and conflicts. Whether the problem or the conflict exist for an hour, for a year or more; whether the problem at hand is a professional one or totally an individual one; people have to comprehend the complexity, solve problems, make decisions to be able to live in a society. In solving problems, making decisions, formulating opinions, people are required to have developed argumentation skills. Thus, teaching students to be rational thinkers and good problem solvers becomes an important function of school curricula in a complex society. Despite its importance, even high school or university students are not skillfull at constructing reliable, cogent arguments (Kuhn, 1991; Cerbin, 1988; Woods, 1989; Applebee, Langer, ve Mullis, 1986; Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1982; Aldağ, 2005). While Kuhn is signaling a change from learning with hands-on activities to learning with argumentation in science (Kuhn, 1991); the question of how to teach argumentation skills in educational settings is still a topic of disscussion. Until 1960’s, traditional logic courses is offered to students for mastering argumentation skills (Johnson & Blair, 1994). However, criticizing that the traditional logic is incomplete as a tool of rationality, Toulmin published “Uses of Argument” in 1958.

1.1 Toulmin Model of Argumentation
Toulmin suggests that Aristotelian logic with mathematical syllogisms, simply doesn’t fit for the daily arguments. Claiming that the theoretical argument is irrelevant to the assessment of practical argument, he distinguishes between “practical and analytic arguments (Toulmin, 1958). In analytic arguments, arguers ground their claims on abstract, unchanging and universal principles; thus, the conclusion of an analytic argument such as “Socrates is mortal”, is limited only with the premises of “All men are mortal and Socrates is a man.”. Our interest in analyzing argument in traditional logic is to decide whether we have a valid argument or not on the basis of premises.
In practical arguments, arguers ground their claims in the context of a particular situation. A practical argument involves mostly an inference from some data to the conclusion of the argument. While arguer implicitly states warrant, audience have to consider how warrant applies to this inference. Therefore, we do not have to limit our arguments to universally acceptable knowledge, rules or conclusions; on the contrary, we even use our beliefs, opinions or the conditions of that particular situation to make a decision on how valid the argument is. Thus, in daily life we counter not with the valid or invalid arguments, but we counter with more or less reliable argument on which we could decide to some extent. Thus, Toulmin developed an explicit model of argumentation for practical purposes (Toulmin, 1958). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Risk Of Arguing From Persuasion To Dissuasion

• by: J. Francisco Álvarez - Universidad Nacional de Educación

Bounded rationality theories are essentially characterized by incorporating limits of knowledge, resources and time as a central feature of the conditions in which we adopt our decisions. Connections between advanced systems of processing information and our usual manner of arguing allow us to analyze some argumentative strategies as quick mechanisms that reduce costs of information in a way that is not too different from the simple and frugal heuristics, as defended by R. Selten or G. Gigerenzer (Gigerenzer and Selten 2001; Gigerenzer, Todd, and ABC Research Group. 1999), that seem to play a salient role in the adoption of decisions in conditions of uncertainty.[i]
Taking part in an argumentative process, accepting it as a decision-making mechanism, implies taking some risks if you are not an omniscient agent. The possible dissuasive strength of argumentation arises as part of a procedural decision device and it can help us to show and account for some discursive strategies employed by agents in their argumentative activities.
Some of the problems that come into view when we try to understand polemics and types of polemics may be solved by attending to both participants’ spaces of values and the zone where these spaces overlap. A first step, an empirical one, could be to delineate the boundaries of the space of values that participants try to occupy. Their goal is not, or not only, to optimize some singular variables (such as truth, rhetoric force or consistency), but also to satisfy a set of values that they regard as important; their own authorship or agency could even be one of these values. For example, it could make a difference whether we obtain an inaction compromise from another agent after a dissuasion process (possibly including some argumentative interactions) or reach a superficially similar result after a simple refusal due to the proper conviction of the other agent.

I hope that, with some tools from ancient rhetoric, the philosophy of economics, and computer science, we can analyse, for example, the continuum between refutation and reputation (Dascal 2001, 2002; Dascal 2003) and some other non-traditional epistemological questions. There are two key ideas. First, some features of the context could generate rules. Usually, we are prone to ascribe these rules solely to the participants’ cognitive capabilities, but these rules could also be constructed as the output of the relationships themselves.  Second, we do not need to assume that participants in the dialogue are provided with absolute and common knowledge (each one knows what the others know), with all the time and all the computational capabilities possible, and both unlimited knowledge and unlimited memory store. Instead, all we need are some flesh and blood human beings in contextual interactions. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2006 – The Challenging Force Of Dissuasion

• by: Rodica Amel - University of Bucharest

« Si, au contraire, on prend comme concept général de départ, non celui de monde, mais celui de culture, la question revêt aussitôt tout autre aspect.»
Ernest Cassirer, La philosophie des formes symboliques, I : 21

The issue: Our study takes as its starting point the general concept of culture, just as stated in the above quotation in French: “[il] prend comme concept général de départ celui de culture”, trying to analyze the dissuasive force of those ideas that are dominant within the social life and exercise a negative pressure upon a creative mind. The particular aspect of dissuasion we are interested in is neither discursive, nor explicit, but active in the form of an implied argument, the power of which has normative authority.
The premise: The argumentative force of dissuasion belongs to the doxastic field (the belief field) and has axiological foundations[i].
A remark: This paper continues our research within the field of argumentative dialectics, and the topics of several studies of ours count as premises of the present approach: (a) the mechanism of decidability in doxastic thinking follows the constitutive process of the moral object (Amel, 1999)[ii]. If our inquiry has in view only the argumentative behavior with reference to cultural notions, we are compelled to emphasize that the respective system of notions is characterized by argumentatative authority and presents the danger of promoting a prejudicial judgment; these considerations introduce two further premises: (b) we may judge authority as being sometimes a valid argument and sometimes a fallacious one (Amel, 2004); (c) from the point of view of the conversational logic, the preconceived idea has all the features characterizing the category of presupposition (it is a pre-judgment).
Actually, our contribution represents ‘une prise de conscience culturelle’, grasped in its dialectical unrest. Read more