ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Good Argumentation Without Resolution

• by: Jean Goodwin - Northwestern University

1. Introduction
Three lines of inquiry have converged on a single conception of the function, end or aim of argumentation: that argumentation is the rational method for resolving differences of opinion. This conception has of course received its clearest expression in the works of our conference hosts, the Amsterdam school of pragma-dialectics. “Inspired by Karl Popper’s critical rationalism” for scientific inquiry (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Henkemans et al. 1996 (“FAT”): 274), the pragma-dialecticians have grounded their project in an ideal model of argumentation, the critical discussion. Critical discussions serve to resolve disagreements in a way that is “recognized by both parties as correct, justified, and rational” (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson & Jacobs 1993 (“RAD”): 25). A standpoint is advanced; criticisms are raised against it and responses developed; when the opponent is convinced to accept or the proponent convinced to withdraw the standpoint, the process concludes. In the pragma-dialectical view, argumentation is to be evaluated according to its contribution to the critical discussion, that is, its contribution to resolving the disagreement. Rules of argumentative engagement are justified because they secure this goal and particular argumentative moves excluded as fallacies because they hinder it (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992 (“ACF”): 104).
The same conception has emerged within the tradition of scholarship associated with the teaching and practice of collegiate debate in the United States, and especially in the work of Douglas Ehninger. Ehninger starts from the Deweyian notion that we best solve social problems through group discussion and argues that this ideal encompasses also the more adversarial procedure of debate. Debate too is a critical – that is, reflective, reason-actualizing – and cooperative method for settling differences (Ehninger 1958: 27). “The function of debate,” Ehninger affirms, “is to enable men to make collective choices and decisions critically when inferential questions become subjects for dispute” (Ehninger & Brockriede 1963: 15). This is a normative, not an empirical, claim. If debate does not always resolve disagreements, it is a result of human failings, not of a weakness in the method; participants in a debate must discipline themselves to meet its strictures, not use it as an instrument to achieve victory (Ibid.: 17-9).
A third line of inquiry has been pursued by political theorists swayed by Habermas (cf. Habermas 1996, Cohen, 1989, Manin 1987). Seeking to establish the legitimacy of democratic political institutions, some theorists have shifted from looking for principles to which all rational citizens must consent to looking for procedures through which such a universal and rational consensus can be attained. These, they agree, are procedures of speech, and in particular, the procedures of deliberation. Though other speech acts are involved in deliberation – for example, speech securing the free flow of information throughout society – it is clear that one of the central activities of deliberation is arguing. The deliberation theorists thus implicitly adopt a conception of argumentation in which argumentation ideally performs the function of rationally and therefore legitimately resolving differences of opinion. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Argument, Adversariality, And Controversy

• by: Trudy Govier - University of Calgary

In this paper I wish to explore the relationship between adversariality and controversy. My interest in this subject stems from two sources: first from those feminist critics who have claimed the fact that arguing, and thus derivatively, arguments, have an unduly adversarial caste; second, from my conviction that controversy is in many respects necessary and healthy.
For those not familiar with the feminist allegations, the following choice passage may offer a sense of their charges: “Without batting an eye the ancient rhetors, the men of the church, and scholars of argument from Bacon, Blair and Whately to Toulmin, Perelman and McLuhan, have taken as a given that it is proper and even necessary human function to attempt to change others.” According to this author, argument is the essential part of a belligerent context in which contestants seek mastery of each other. To argue is to adopt a male centered verbal means of exercising power over others (Gearhart in Hynes, 1995: 464).
Respondents to such allegations have tended to agree with the feminist assumption that adversariality is negative, while contending that adversariality is nevertheless not an intrinsic and inevitable feature of argument (Ayim in Govier, 1988; Ayim, 1991; Nye 1991; Govier, 1995; Cohen 1995). Such respondents – present author included – have pointed out that despite the prevalence of militaristic metaphors for describing argument, non-militaristic metaphors do exist. And people may offer arguments in recognition of difference and out of respect for those who do not share their views.
Reflecting on adversariality, which like many others I had assumed to be of negative value, and controversy, which like some others, I had assumed to have important positive value, I came to ask myself whether adversariality was a necessary element of controversy – whether, in effect, my views on adversariality and controversy were consistent.

In the fall of 1997 Stephen Toulmin gave a lecture in Amsterdam. He called his lecture “The Importance of Dissent,” but it had been advertised under the title “The Importance of Controversy.” Toulmin’s lecture dealt with political dissent, and the importance for societies of allowing that dissent. Toulmin mentioned the many intellectuals, including Canada’s Charles Taylor, who are currently stressing the importance of community and cultural identity. He noted that the quest for community and roots may go too far in the direction of exclusivism, cultural conformity, and even virulent nationalism. Toulmin noted that leaders may take on power and seek to insulate people from alternative currents of thought. In his lecture, he argued that dissent and dissenters are especially important  for avoiding conformity and exclusivism, and for the building of bridges and establishment of common ground between different communities and groups. In short, Toulmin defended the political and ethical value of dissent.
I had expected Toulmin to address a rather different range of questions. While contemplating the advertised title, I had come to wonder about the value of intellectual controversy and the relationship between controversy and adversariality. But Toulmin had his own ideas and did not do my work for me. Thus I must face the task myself. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Normative Argumentation In A Pluralist World

• by: Keith Graham - University of Bristol

In this paper I discuss a problem for normative reasoning which arises from the particular circumstances of a pluralist world. I attempt to clarify the nature of the problem and consider possible responses to it. I then make suggestions about the form and content which a solution to the problem must possess.
In section 1 I introduce three simple thought experiments as an aid to fixing the nature of the problem. In section 2 I distinguish universalist responses from those of a more extreme form, and indicate why universalist responses are preferable. In section 3 I suggest that the problem is a strictly normative one rather than a strictly moral one. In section 4 I point out the difficulties in some recent universalist theories. In section 5 I propose a universalist theory based on the materiality of human beings.

1. The pluralist context
In order to see why normative argumentation becomes problematic in a pluralist world, it is useful to conduct the following three thought experiments.
1. Imagine that the world contains only two human communities. They are geographically separated and their members never come into contact or even know of one another’s existence. Community A is deeply religious, and its members observe a strict sabbatarianism. They also believe that it is natural for women to be the subordinates of men, so that obedience is regarded as an appropriate relation between a woman and her husband, and women are barred from the same kind of participation in public life as men. Finally, they regard abortion as one form of murder, and treat it as such. Community B is wholly secular. Its members believe that they have a right to dispose of their leisure time as they see fit as long as they do not infringe the right of others to act similarly. They believe that women and men are equal and strive to ensure that women are represented in public office in just the same way as men. They believe that a woman has a right to control over her own body, and regard the choice of abortion at will as one manifestation of that right.
2. Imagine now that members of A and B do come into contact, but in a peripheral way. Perhaps they have occasion to trade and in that way they come to learn about their differing views about the world, but otherwise they continue to live their lives separately from one another.
3. Imagine finally that there continue to be A persons and B persons but that there are no longer two separated communities. There is just one geographical area, and A persons may live next door to B persons.

In example (1) there is, in one clear sense, disagreement between communities A and B. Their respective members hold beliefs which are the contradictories of one another. In another clear sense there is no disagreement. Since they do not even know of one another’s existence, there is no occasion when an A person makes a claim which a B person then goes on to deny.
In example (2) there is liable to be disagreement in the second sense as well as the first. A persons and B persons may well take issue with one another where they differ, so that one will deny what the other asserts. But if we imagine that contact between the communities is minimal, the disagreement may not issue in conflict of any further kind.
In example (3) there will not merely be disagreement in the two senses distinguished. There will be practical difficulties directly connected with the beliefs of A persons and B persons. In acting on the respective beliefs they hold, A persons and B persons will come into conflict. They will be respectively committed to realising states of their world which cannot jointly be realised, and those commitments will arise directly from their beliefs. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – What Makes The Reductio Ad Absurdum An Important Tool For Rationality?

• by: Menashe Schwed - Ashkelon Regional College

This paper presents a summarized chapter from a study on the Reductio ad Absurdum, in which its logical, semantical and epistemological aspects are analyzed. I here focus on the neo-rationalistic motivation behind this research. The following analysis is only a partial report, in need of further study.
Traditional rationality is the quest for certainty and knowledge. It characterizes specific beliefs which are derived on the basis of appropriate reason and specific appropriate principles of assessment. The story of its failure is the story of the success of skepticism. One of the answers to the skeptical challenge on rationality is the conceptual shift from the notion of ‘verification’ to that of ‘refutation’. However, if refutation is understood as certainty regarding the falsity of the refuted, then this shift is only superficial, and does not solve the basic challenge. Certainty regarding a falsity is no less subject to the skeptical challenge than certainty regarding truth. My proposal to a solution to this problem is based on a modification to the common epistemological understanding of the Reductio ad Absurdum mode of argumentation. The key idea is to see refutation as conditional reasoning instead of absolute or certain, and to see rationality as focusing on the process of reasoning instead of its outcome.
The intense criticism on the notion of verification and the shift to that of refutation is best known through the work of Karl Popper. The paradigmatic examples of this shift, elaborated by Popper and his followers, pertain to science. The notion of refutation is, however, by far more problematic when it comes to philosophical controversies. There aren’t notions of crucial experiment and of fact of the matter in the non-empirical contexts of philosophical controversies, even in principle.
The Reductio ad Absurdum mode of argumentation is a basic logical tool in the procedure of refutation. The application of refutations to philosophical controversies must, therefore, account for the structure and function of the Reductio ad Absurdum. In a Reductio ad Absurdum, one starts by assuming the truth of a thesis ‘p’ (see first below). The meaning of the thesis ‘p’ is analyzed by way of deriving a series of consequences ‘q1’ to ‘qn’ implied by the assumed thesis. This clarification of the meaning of the thesis ‘p’ ends in the derivation of the consequence ‘a’. The consequence ‘a’ becomes an absurdity, however, in light of an external additional assumption regarding the truth of its negation ‘not-a’. The ensuing contradiction ‘a and not-a’ leads to the conclusion that the thesis ‘p’ is not true, namely that ‘not-p’.

I want to begin my suggestion with the following problem: From a logical point of view, every indirect argument scheme of inferring a conclusion from a given set of premises, such as the Reductio ad Absurdum, can be rephrased as a direct and constructive one. In what sense, then, is the Reductio ad Absurdum preferable to a direct proof that ‘not-p’ ? The Reductio ad Absurdum can be interpreted or understood in at least three ways, of which only one makes it preferable to a direct proof. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Viciousness And Actual Infinity In Aristotle’s Infinite Regress Arguments

• by: Claude Gratton - University of Nevada

Aristotle sometimes presents an infinite regress argument without showing us how its infinite regress is derived, or why its infinite regress is vicious. An infinite regress is vicious if it entails either a false statement or an unacceptable consequence. Given his omissions, we sometimes hastily grant that there is an infinite regress, and that it is somehow vicious. In this paper I will not address the derivation of his infinite regresses, but simply assume that they are entailed, and focus my attention on their viciousness.
Aristotle’s notion of the infinite can appear to be involved in establishing the viciousness of an infinite regress in an infinite regress argument in the following way. An infinite regress entails the statement that (1) there are actually infinitely many entities. Given the extent to which he argues against the existence of actual infinities in his philosophical works[i] (especially in Book 3 of the Physics)[ii], it is reasonable to suspect that Aristotle tacitly uses the statement, (2) actual infinities do not exist, in the infinite regress arguments where he does not explicitly discuss the viciousness. The conjunction of these two statements shows that an infinite regress entails a false statement, and consequently shows that the infinite regress is vicious.
My goal is to suggest a different interpretation: we can establish the viciousness of most infinite regresses in Aristotle’s works without assuming that he tacitly uses the claim that actual infinities do not exist. The evidence that I will advance will not prove that my interpretation is the only one, but it will show that in some cases a closer fidelity to the texts obliges us to see that Aristotle’s objections against infinite regresses need not follow from his notion of the infinite.
I have a number of reasons supporting this interpretation. First, in the cases where Aristotle explicitly discusses the viciousness of infinite regress, he does not make use of that claim. These are found in the On Interpretation 20b32-21a7, Physics 225b34-226a6 and 242b43-53, On Generation and Corruption 332a26-333a15, Metaphysics 1006a 6-10 and1007a33-b3, Nicomachean Ethics 1094a18-22.
Secondly, in some cases where Aristotle doe not explicitly discuss the viciousness of an infinite regress, one can establish the viciousness without making use of his claim that actual infinities do not exist. I will describe different ways in which one can discover these alternative interpretations.

In some cases the infinite regress entails an easily identifiable implicit statement that is obviously false, and that is unrelated to Aristotle’s belief that actual infinities do not exist. Consider the following. Some hold that the soul is divisible, and that we think with one part and desire with another. If, then, its nature admits of its being divided, what can it be that holds the parts together? Surely not the body; on the contrary it seems rather to be the soul that holds the body together; at any rate when the soul departs the body disintegrates and decays. If, then, there is something else which makes the soul one, this would have the best right to the name of soul, and we shall have to repeat for it the question: Is it one or multipartite? If it is one, why not at once admit that the soul is one? If it has parts, once more the question must be put: What holds its parts together, and so ad infinitum (On the Soul 411b5-13).
The goal of this infinite regress argument is to reject the claim that the soul is divisible. If an infinite regress were entailed, it would consist of an infinite succession of unifying parts of a soul. A necessary condition for something to “have the best right to the name of ‘soul’” (411b10) is that it unify all the parts of a soul. Though each one of the infinitely many parts of the soul contributes to the unification of the soul, no single part by itself makes the soul unified. Hence, none of those part satisfies the sufficient condition. So, the regress entails the false (for Aristotle) statement that there is no soul.
A further infinite regress argument occurs later in the same book.
Since it is through sense that we are aware that we are seeing or hearing, it must be either by sight that we are aware of seeing, or by some sense other than sight. But the sense that gives us this new sensation must perceive both sight and its object, viz. color: so that either there will be two senses both percipient of the same sensible object, or the sense must be percipient of itself. Further, even if the sense which perceives sight were different from sight, we must either fall into an infinite regress, or we must somewhere assume a sense which is aware of itself. If so, we ought to do this in the first case (On the Soul 425b11-17). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – A General Theory Of Public Argumentation: Death And Rebirth?

• by: Bruce E. Gronbeck - The University of Iowa

For some time, coteries of philosophers, rhetoricians, social theorists, and various other students of public reasoning have thought and written about the possibility of resurrecting the presumably dead practice of rational public argumentation. They have sought, in the words of James Crosswhite (1996: 70), “not to expose [public arguments] for the wretched things they are, but to reveal the intrinsic hopes carried by the practice of argument.” They have pursued optimistic answers to questions that Michel Foucault (1993:18-19, qted. in Crosswaite 1996:13) asserts have been central to philosophy and critical thought since the eighteenth century: “What is this Reason that we use? What are its historical effects?
What are its limits, and what are its dangers? How can we exist as rational beings, fortunately committed to practicing a rationality that is unfortunately crisscrossed by intrinsic dangers?” More specifically, I have argued (1998) that most western general theories of argumentation have been grounded in understandings of specific relationships between knowers and the known:
* ideas as the contents of minds
* evidence as external to minds
* inference as grounded in both mental and linguistic operations, that is, as reflective of mental activity yet materialized in particular kinds of language use.
Those three epistemological assumptions were the foundations of the philosophy of science and then public argument theory that grew up in the nineteenth century (see Fuller 1993: esp. ch. 1), making argumentative discourse – a kind of logical talk – the link between the knower and the known, and hence the mechanism for reasoned decision making as it ought to occur in the worlds of all knowers from all eras of human existence.
Such assumptions have been under attack at least since Kant sought to collapse the Cartesian dichtomy between knowing and being and since Nietzsche declared the end of philosophy. Following World War I, there were concerted drives to save public, rational argumentation by eliminating fallacious reasoning (Lasswell 1928), by neutralizing and concretizing interpersonal talk[i], and by making the verifiability principle a weapon for distinguishing between sense and non-sense in all arenas of human affairs (e.g., Ayer 1936/1962). Read more