ISSA Proceedings 1998 – The Changing Ethos Of Physicians And Implications For Their Ability To Persuade

• by: Shari Hoppin - University of Southern California

Physicians in the United States have enjoyed a particularly high social status during the 20th century. But increasing concern about patient autonomy and about noncompliance with prescribed regimens, as well as questions about whether doctors always act in the best interests of their patients, especially when health insurance companies are involved, have called into question the credibility and authority that physicians have enjoyed for so long. Large quantities of research about patient noncompliance have been produced in recent years (Donovan & Blake, 1992), accompanied by concerns about how patients may be persuaded to follow prescribed regimens. This concern about persuasion may be associated with changing perceptions about the character or authority of physicians in general.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric has been read as dividing artistic proofs or interior persuaders, for which the rhetorician constructs the material, into three forms of persuasive appeal: to reason (logos), to emotion (pathos), and to the speaker’s authority and character (ethos). In the Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 2, Aristotle states that character may be the most effective means of persuasion that speakers possess. Ethos involves presenting oneself so as to be believed, and plays a significant role in the success of a presentation (Welch, 1990: 139). In the context of practitioner-patient communication, it influences patients’ perceptions of their physicians and the likelihood that patients will be persuaded to follow medical instructions.
Until recently the medical profession has exercised dominant control over the markets and organisations in medicine that affect its interests, but the profession’s autonomy and dominance are now in jeopardy (Starr, 1982). Healers have not always been held in high regard. Ancient Roman physicians were primarily slaves, former slaves, or foreigners, and medicine was considered a low grade occupation; in eighteenth century England, physicians struggled for the patronage of the rich; even in the United States before 1900, many doctors found it difficult to make a living and had much less influence than they have enjoyed in the 20th century (Starr, 1982, pp. 6-7). The authority of physicians in the United States may now be eroding, following increased patient autonomy and the increasing use of physicians as administrators for health insurance companies. Starr (1982) has pointed out that: “The more administrative uses the state and other institutions find for professionals, the more they may simultaneously expand and undermine their authority” as patients wonder whether their welfare really comes first (p. 12). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Evaluating ‘Pros’ And ‘Cons’: More Or Less Polarised Opinions?

• by: Clara Maria M. Santos - Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.

1. Introduction
The experiment presented in this paper [i] was designed in order to examine whether providing subjects with arguments which supported each side of the case in a casual manner would lead the participants to revise their own point of view and to adopt a less polarised position. The findings from the study by Lord, Ross and Lepper (1979) run against this hypothesis. In their study, there were two groups of subjects who held opposing views on capital punishment. Each subject was asked to evaluate two invented studies, one claiming to demonstrate that capital punishment had a deterrent effect on the incidence of serious crimes and the other concluding that it did not. The studies assessed by the subjects used different methodologies. One was a comparison of crime rates in various states before and after the adoption of capital of punishment; the other compared the crime rates of neighbouring states with and without capital punishment. Subjects tended to be more critical about the study that disagreed with their position, whichever methodology it used. The results of Lord, Ross and Lepper’s (1979) study indicated that people’s beliefs became even more polarised in their original directions, following the evaluation of both supporting and contradicting evidence. It is hypothesised that, in the present experiment, the effect of asking people to evaluate evidence on their opinion may be associated with the type of topic they are dealing with and with the level of attachment to the issue in question. It was expected that the evidence evaluation procedure would have a greater effect on people’s opinions when the issue in question was not closely related to subjects’ basic values. By ‘basic values’ I mean those related to moral notions about life and human behaviour. In these cases, it is hypothesised that, contrary to the results of the previous studies, subjects’ opinion will be less polarised after the examination of the mixed evidence.
In order to investigate the hypotheses raised in this experiment, the participants were asked to give their opinion on two different issues: animal experimentation and the pros and cons of shopping at a supermarket or local shops. The former topic was regarded as having an ‘emotional’ content and being more likely to be related to subjects’ moral beliefs and the latter as being a less emotive topic. Subjects’ opinion on each topic was assessed before and after they had evaluated a list of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ and written down their comments on the two issues.

2. Method
2.1. Subjects
Twenty four subjects recruited from the student population of the University of Sussex (UK) were paid to take part in this study. Fourteen of the participants were female and the remain ten subjects were male. Their age ranged from 18 to 29 with an average of 22 years old. The selection of the subjects took into account their opinion on animal experimentation. Half of them were in favour of it and the other half did not agree with the use of animals in scientific experimentation.

2.2. Material
The materials involved two lists of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ associated with animal experimentation and the idea of shopping at a supermarket or local shops. The list regarding the issue of animal experimentation included general supports for each side of the case based on arguments often used by subjects in previous experiments (Santos, 1996). The list for the ‘supermarket versus local shop’ issue was presented within the context of the hypothetical case of the construction of a new supermarket in the countryside. Each list contained six statements in favour and six against the subject in question. In both cases, the lists were introduced by a short comment on the associated subject. The introductory comment on each topic and its corresponding list of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ were written on the same page and can be seen below: Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Evasion In Question-Answer Argumentation: An Empirical Extension

• by: Leah Polcar & Scott Jacobs - University of Arizona

1. Introduction
1.1. Rationale
Dialectical theories of argumentation feature question and answer sequences as one basic procedure for building and testing arguments (Hamblin, 1970; Walton, 1989a). In their simplest, ideal forms, questions call on respondents to refine an informational ground presupposed by the question and to commit to the truth of the refined proposition (cf. Bolinger, 1957; Carlson, 1985). Yes/no questions call on the respondent to provide assent (“Yes”) or dissent (“No”) with a questioned proposition. “Are these clothes dirty?” presupposes that either these clothes are dirty or these clothes are not dirty, and the respondent is called upon to commit to one or the other proposition. Alternative questions call on the respondent to select from among a set of exhaustive and mutually exclusive alternatives. “Is this theory a rhetorical, dialectical, or logical approach?” presupposes that this theory is one and only one of the following: this theory is a rhetorical approach, or this theory is a dialectical approach, or this theory is a logical approach. The respondent is called on to commit to one or another of those propositions. WH-questions presuppose some proposition containing a variable (the WH-word/phrase) with an open range of values. For example, “Where is Baluchistan?” presupposes that Baluchistan is somewhere. The respondent is called on to declare a proposition that further specifies the value of the WH-variable (who with someone, where with somewhere, how with somehow, what with something, and why with some reason).

And overlaid on these structural constraints on content are additional pragmatic constraints (see Grice, 1975). What counts as a proper and fitting answer to a question depends upon a mutual understanding of the information space carved out by a question and of the activity for which the information is used. What counts as a relevant, informative, and even truthful or straightforward answer depends upon the purpose of the question, and what is taken to be problematic and what is taken for granted. Thus, “Central Asia” may not be an informative answer to the question “Where is Baluchistan?” if the questioner wants to know where Pakistan exploded its nuclear test bomb but may be informationally sufficient if the questioner wants to know where the extinct giant mammal, the Baluchithere, once lived. Or again, the question “Are these clothes dirty?” may get a quite different truthful answer depending on whether the purpose of the question is to obtain information in deciding whether or not they should be drycleaned, added to the current load of laundry, worn for hanging around the house, or worn to a party.
While there is considerable complexity in the circumstances of their use – as well as complexities and variations in the form of questions themselves – the basic point to see is that questions elicit from respondents pragmatic commitments to propositions. Moreover, questions elicit commitments in ways that pragmatically constrain the kind of propositions the respondent can properly select for commitment. And from these constraints, the informational ground of dialogue is refined and positions may be tested.
Of course, the success of even the simplest idealized question-answer argumentation depends upon clear questions with uncontroversial presuppositions and straightforward, truthful answers to those questions. In practice, questions are often complex, their points opaque, their presuppositions loaded with controversial assumptions. Under less than ideal conditions an appropriate and fitting answer may actually require a reply that is not simple, direct, straightforward, and obviously to the point. Hedging, qualifying, elaborating, and framing answers, and various ways of correcting and pre-empting questions often are cooperative contributions to a complicated situation. Then again, often they are not.

Through the dynamics of questions and answers interlocutors may find themselves faced with defending equally unwelcome choices of position, committed to unanticipated conclusions, forced to abandon positions in which they have a vested interest, or simply compelled to disclose information they would rather not provide. Rather than embrace such consequences, respondents may construct utterances that bend, break, bruise or abandon the principles of cooperative engagement.
Argumentation theorists have long acknowledged that complicated questions of various sorts constitute fallacies that impair argumentative discourse (cf. Walton, 1989a; 1989b; 1991). But they have been less quick to take up systematic problems in answers. This paper examines a type of complicated answer that also constitutes what we think is a fallacy of argument: evasive “answers”. Evasive “answers” are, from our point of view, a subclass of the more general class of answer avoidances. Though they appear to be answers to the question asked, evasive “answers” are not really answers at all (thus the scare quotes). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Validity Of Distributed Inference; Towards A Formal Specification Of Validity Criteria In Argumentative Models

• by: Richard Starmans - Tilburg University

1. Introduction
Many disciplines, including gametheory, the theory of social choice, conversation analysis, social psychology and organization theory are in some way or another concerned with distributed inference. Roughly put, this notion refers to those patterns of reasoning, arguing or deciding where more than one agent affects (the outcome of) the process of reasoning, arguing or deciding. These agents may fulfill different roles, they may have distinct knowledge, preferences and even conflicting interests, but they are interdependent as well. They are aware that moves and choices of other agents may influence their own interests and they may even adopt their choices and preferences to the expected choices of the others.
However, in order to act in a rational way and to achieve individual or collective goals, this idea of “mutual awareness” usually is not enough. Quite often, agents are urged to commit themselves to some form of joint activity or cooperation. We are aware that this very generic description of distributed inference includes many divergent and hardly related models in the field of reasoning. Indeed, also much work in modern argumentation theory can be qualified as such (Barth 1991). However, for our purposes this description suffices.
Without adhering to a radical argumentativism like Ducrot and Anscombre (all language-use is argumentative) we believe there is a raising conviction that important types of distributed inference are primarily argumentative and consequently should be modeled as such. In (Starmans 1996b) the role of argumentation theory in Artificial Intelligence was reviewed and some relations between both fields were explored. Furthermore, many formal approaches to commonsense reasoning, including (Loui 1991) (Vreeswijk 1993) (Hage 1993) (Starmans 1996a) and (Verheij 1996) adopt argumentative insights, concepts and methods. But also in organization theory, business communication and qualitative marketing research various diagnostic and evaluative instruments or tools have been developed, that can be considered as argumentative: they can be analyzed as a verbal and social goal-oriented activity, a process of constructing, weighing and combining arguments and counterarguments. They include Porter’s 5-forces model (Porter 1980) and the so called MABA-analysis (Market-Attractiveness Business-Assessment), a well-known method in portfolio analysis. What’s more, some of these models can be reconstructed rather easily as a critical discussion. (Starmans, forthcoming).

In our doctoral dissertation (Starmans 1996a) it was argued that formal models of distributed inference should be based on a suitable, integrated theory of argumentation. A mere eclecticism of concepts and ideas taken from argumentation theory does by no means provide a solid foundation for developing such models. In this paper we focus on one related and significant problem, that seems to be a bottleneck in the before mentioned models as well; the validity of distributive argumentative models. How can these inferences be validated and what concept of validity do we require?
Unfortunately, the term validity is not unproblematic. It has many uses, meanings and dimensions in logic, argumentation theory and social science, and none of these fields possesses a monopoly of its use.
Avoiding the extensive literature on the topic, in this paper we will focus on one aspect of the problem of validity in distributive argumentative models, that is closely related to the idea of intersubjective validity. Since this notion deals with the conformity between the model’s components and the “values, standards and objectives actual arguers find acceptable” (Barth 1982), an important question is: what role, does the initial knowledge of different agents play in the ultimately accepted arguments and conclusions.

How can these “initial commitments” be combined, integrated, adopted or aggregated? Debates may proceed in different ways, but one cannot validate specific moves or rather the entire procedure without representing requirements regarding these initial commitments. It is argued that in order to validate the process of argumentation, these validity criteria have to be represented in a declarative, i.e. non-procedural way. It is shown that this can be achieved by defining an aggregation function and by specifying formal properties of it. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – The Strategies And Tactics Used By F.W. De Klerk And Nelson Mandela In The Televised Debate Before South Africa’s First Democratic Election

• by: Paul J. Schutte - Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education

1. Introduction
1.1 Research questions and method used
Presidential debates began as an innovation in the 1960 election campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. Since then televised debates have become a permanent and major part of the election process in the United States (Nimmo & Sanders 1981: 273). A similar debate took place between President Nelson Mandela (then, leader of the African National Congress, ANC) and the former President F. W. de Klerk, (then, leader of the National Party, NP) before South Africa’s first fully democratic election. It is highly probable that this debate – a first for SA – will set an example for similar debates. With the second election for the new SA in 1999, it seems apposite to do research on this trend-setting debate.

This study is a step in understanding and evaluating the processes involved in debating. From this analysis might come further discussions to improve the quality of debating and argumentation, in order to enrich democracy and allow citizens to make well informed decisions.
The focus of this paper is on the discursive logic or rational aspect of the message (Smith 1988:268), namely the verbal strategies and tactics. Therefore, this study endeavours to answer the following questions:
* Which verbal strategies and tactics have been used by the two debaters?
* Are there significant similarities and/or differences?
* Were they more “issue” or more “image” oriented?

In order to answer these questions the so-called Humanistic approach has been used. According to Smith (1988:269), this approach generates descriptive and inferential information, but its principal contribution consists of interpretations and criticism. In a certain sense this is a qualitative case study of a communication artefact (Watt & Van den Berg 1995:256; Marshall & Rossman 1995:124).
The following method has been used:
A verbatim transcription of the debate from video;
1. the strategies that Martel (1983:62-72) identified, as well as Rank’s model (Larson 1995: 15-21) have been used to identify and apply tactics and strategies;
2. a descriptive analysis (De Wet 1991:160) to indicate similarities or differences in the use of strategies and tactics;
3. an evaluation of the descriptive analysis.

1.2 Election background
The analysis must be viewed against the particular context of this debate. This election was not a normal one, but the first fully democratic election with a regime change. According to political scientist Theo Venter (1998) it was a so-called “designer” election, because the result was a forgone conclusion. The ANC’s take-over had been built on their high legitimacy because of the struggle against apartheid, where as Mr. De Klerk (hence: De Klerk) and the NP enjoyed deligitimation in the eyes of the masses. President Mandela (hence: Mandela) knew the ANC was the majority party and indeed they won the election gathering 62.7% while the NP got 20,3% of the votes. One can assume that Mandela’s goal was to reassure his supporters, or simply to avoid doing anything that might jeopardise their support.

De Klerk, on the other hand, wanted a strong as possible opposition against the ANC: “We need a balance of power. There is only one party (NP) which can form the balance of power against the ANC”. Both of them knew beforehand that the ANC would win. The margin of winning was in doubt. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – ‘Blocking The Enthymeme’ – Does It Unblock Identity Problems In Argumentation?

• by: Linda D. Horwitz - Northwestern University

“There are some men. . . so wild and boorish in feature and gesture, that even though sound in talent and art, they cannot enter the ranks of the orators (Cicero 1942, 1988: 81).”

This is a quote from Cicero’s De Oratore. Cicero argued that appearance trumps oratorical skill, thereby keeping otherwise articulate people from being able to effectively use their discursive powers. Cicero did not suggest that these “wild and boorish” men would be unsuccessful orators, instead, their appearance served as an insurmountable barrier forcing their silence. While acknowledging the effect of a speaker’s appearance on a rhetorical situation, Cicero removes appearance from the realm of rhetoric. This position is consistent with rhetorical theory both before Cicero and today.
The appearance of a speaker has been largely ignored within the field of rhetoric. When appearance is addressed, it usually serves as background information rather than an analytic focal point. One reason for this may be that much of rhetorical criticism engages texts that are in written form and removed from the original speech situation. This explanation is inadequate because text-based rhetorical criticism allows contextual readings, based on both textual and extra-textual historical information. Therefore, there must be another reason. I hypothesize that appearance is not considered rhetorical. When I use the term rhetorical, I am referring to an Aristotelian definition of rhetoric. According to Aristotle, rhetoric is composed of arguments constructed by the speaker during the speech (artistic proofs) made up of enthymemes and examples. I turn to Aristotle in part because his well-known handbook, The Rhetoric, is the oldest known treatise on rhetoric, and because his theory of rhetoric serves as the cornerstone of the contemporary incarnation of rhetorical studies.
Aristotle did not discuss the physical appearance of orators. He argued that a speaker’s character (ethos) is constructed during the speech with words (Aristotle 1954, 1984: 24). Aristotle maintained that there was a clean separation between a person’s public identity and his/her private identity. It is also important to note that the cultural perspective from which Aristotle wrote required that to be an orator one must be a male Greek citizen. The specific appearance issues with which I am concerned, namely race, gender, and ethnicity, were not relevant in ancient Athens.
However, it is time for rhetoricians to stop regarding appearance issues as being the realm of rhetoric and, therefore, not our theoretical responsibility. Visual characteristics can, and do, prevent otherwise articulate speakers from effectively addressing audiences. In the multi-cultural world in which we live, it cannot be the case that discourse is only persuasively powerful for those born looking a certain way. If rhetoric, as a field of study, dooms to failure all people who are not completely void of non-dominant features, then the field itself is doomed.
Fortunately, appearance does function rhetorically. If we understand how it works, we can create rhetorical strategies which will allow all people, regardless of their appearance, to use their discursive powers effectively. A speaker’s appearance, although unchanging, has different meanings to different people in different situations. According to Stuart Hall, race (and by extension gender and ethnicity) are “floating signifiers.” Hall’s “floating signifiers” are signifiers whose meaning can never be fixed because they are based on relations not essences (Hall 1996). The inability to fix the signification of a person’s appearance makes it contingent. This contingency designates appearance as potentially rhetorical. Read more