ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Implicitness Functions In Family Argumentation

1. Introduction
Argumentation is a mode of discourse in which the involved interlocutors are committed to reasonableness, i.e. they accept the challenge of reciprocally founding their positions on the basis of reasons (Rigotti & Greco Morasso 2009). Even though during everyday lives of families argumentation proves to be a very relevant mode of discourse (Arcidiacono & Bova, in press; Arcidiacono et al., 2009), traditionally other contexts have obtained more attention by argumentation theorists: in particular, law (Feteris, 1999, 2005), politics (Cigada, 2008; Zarefsky, 2009), media (Burger & Guylaine, 2005; Walton, 2007), health care (Rubinelli & Schulz, 2006, Schulz & Rubinelli, 2008), and mediation (Jacobs & Aakhus, 2002; Greco Morasso, in press).

This paper focuses on the less investigated phenomenon of argumentative discussions among family members. More specifically, I address the issue of the implicitness and its functions within argumentative discussions in the family context. Drawing on the Pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984, 2004), the paper describes how the implicitness is a specific argumentative strategy adopted by parents during dinner conversations at home with their children.

In the first part of the paper I will present a synthetic description of the basic properties of family dinner conversations, here considered a specific communicative activity type[i]. Subsequently, the current landscape of studies on family argumentation and the pragma-dialectical model of critical discussion will be taken into account in order to provide the conceptual and methodological frame through which two case studies are examined. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – The Latin Cross As War Memorial And The Genesis Of Legal Argument: Interpreting Commemorative Symbolism In Salazar V. Buono

ISSA2010LogoIn 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), a private organization, erected a Latin cross[i] on federal land in the Mojave Desert to memorialize the veterans of World War I.[ii] The Mojave Cross is located in the Mojave National Preserve, on land known as Sunrise Rock.[iii] The presence of the cross first became an issue in 1999, when the Park Service denied a request from a Utah man to add a Buddhist shrine to the land near the cross. Subsequently, in 2001, Frank Buono, a former Park Service employee, filed suit against the Park Service alleging the cross violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which sets parameters regarding the relationship between government and religion.[iv]

In 2002, the lower (trial) court found for Buono and ordered the Park Service to remove the Mojave Cross. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Ninth Circuit) agreed with the lower court, affirming the conclusion that “the presence of the cross on federal land conveys a message of endorsement of religion,” and permanently enjoined the government from maintaining the cross on federal land (Buono v. Norton, 2004). The Park Service prepared to remove it. Meanwhile, in 2001, the U.S. Congress prohibited the use of federal funds to remove the cross (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001). Then, in 2002, the Mojave Cross was designated a national memorial (Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2002).[v]  Congress again prohibited the use of federal funds to remove the cross (Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2003). And, finally, Congress transferred one acre of land, on which the Mojave Cross sits, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars with the requirement that if it ceased to be a war memorial the land would revert to the federal government (Pub. L. No. 108-87, 2003).[vi] The Ninth Circuit concluded that this last move was merely an attempt to circumvent the constitutional violation and thus stopped the transfer (Buono v. Kempthorne, 2007). The Department of Justice appealed this latter decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the government would have to tear down a “memorial.”[vii] The VFW filed an amicus brief arguing that if the Ninth Circuit’s opinion were to be affirmed, memorials in national cemeteries would have to be removed, including the Argonne Cross and the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice at the Arlington National Cemetery (Veterans of Foreign Wars et al., 2009). In contrast, the Jewish War Veterans of the United States filed an amicus brief arguing that the Mojave Cross is “a profoundly religious Christian symbol,” rather than a universal commemorative symbol of war dead, and that the federal government’s actions toward the cross and adjoining land underscores, rather than remedies, its endorsement of that religious symbol (2009, p. 5). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Argumentation Schemes In The Process Of Arguing

1. Introduction
A look to the literature of the last years should be enough to realize that argumentation is a very complex phenomenon with many sides and manifestations and that many of the, some times, contradictory considerations about several aspects relative to the matter have their source in this complexity.
The definition of argumentation, provided by van Eemeren (2001, p. 11), constitutes a good place to start our reflection now, i.e “argumentation is a verbal, social and rational activity aimed at convincing a reasonable critic of the acceptability of a standpoint by advancing a constellation of propositions justifying or refuting the propositions expressed in the standpoint”.
In this definition van Eemeren stresses the role of the argumentation as an activity, but most of the work done in the field is devoted to the analysis and evaluation of argumentations.

We want to stress here that the expressions “rational activity” or “reasonable critic” are related, most of the time, with probable or defeasible truth (Walton, Reed & Macagno, 2008). As Zarefsky (1996, p. 53) pointed out “argumentation should be regarded as the practice of justifying decisions under conditions of uncertainty”. The uncertainty may be relative to the cognitive environment of the interlocutors, as defined by (Tindale, 1999), or it could be an intrinsic quality of the issue in question, as a consequence of the influence of many unknown or difficult to foresee factors. Even if some times there is enough data to reach an unarguable conclusion, the opposite is much more frequent in everyday situations because ordinary argumentations deal, in most of the cases, with issues in which ethical or aesthetic values, personal tastes and other subjective feelings play a decisive role. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Are Motivational Thoughts Persuasive And Valid?

ISSA2010Logo1. Introduction
In this paper, I would like to examine the rhetorical status of the 1948 Human Rights declaration.
In order to do this, I first go back to Perelman’s theory of argumentation by shedding a light on its juridical thought. This approach will question the status of “natural law” from a rhetorical point of view, as it is expressed in the 1948 Human Rights Declaration, considered as an expression of natural law today.

Second, I describe four levels of belief expression, and their discursive and rhetorical functions, as they appear in the Human Rights charter:
– a literal level
– a conventional level
– a fictional level
– a motivational level

It will be argued that such a complex construction is possible thanks to rhetorical skills that are shared by every speaker and hearer.
Finally, I analyze the human rights charter’s first article in the light of four levels of representation. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – “The Truth And Nothing But The Truth?”: The Argumentative Use Of Fictions In Legal Reasoning

ISSA2010Logo1. Introduction: the concept of legal fiction [i]
In eighteenth-century England, as we can see from a notorious story reproduced in different contemporary pieces of writing in the philosophy and history of law (Perelman 1999, p. 63; Perelman 1974, p. 348; Friedman 1995, p. 4, part II), the provisions of the criminal law insisted on the death penalty for every culprit accused of “grand larceny”. According to the same law, “grand larceny” was defined as the theft of anything worth at least two pounds (or 40 shillings). Nevertheless, in order to spare the lives of the defendants, the English judges established a regular practice which lasted for many years, to estimate every theft, regardless of its real value, as though it were worth 39 shillings. The culmination of that practice was the case when the court estimated the theft of 10 pounds, i.e. 200 shillings, as being worth only 39 shillings, and thus revealed an obvious distortion of the factual aspect of that, as well as of many previous cases.

The said situation and the corresponding judicial solution of it represent one of the most utilized classical examples of the phenomenon of what is called “legal fiction” (or more adequately in this case, “jurisprudential fiction”). This concept designates a specific legal technique based on the qualification of facts which is contrary to the reality, that is, which supposes a fact or a situation different from what it really is, in order to produce a certain legal effect (Perelman 1999, p. 62; Salmon 1974, p. 114; Foriers 1974, p. 16; Delgado-Ocando 1974, p. 78, 82; Rivero 1974, p. 102; de Lamberterie 2003, p. 5; see also Smith 2007, p. 1437,  Moglen 1998, p. 3, part 2 A). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2010 – Meta-Argumentation: Prolegomena To A Dutch Project

What I want to do in this essay is to discuss the notion of meta-argumentation by summarizing some past work and motivating a future investigation (which, for obvious reasons, I shall label the “Dutch” project). The discussion is meant to make a plea partly for the theoretical and methodological importance and fruitfulness of meta-argumentation in general, and partly for approaching from the viewpoint of meta-argumentation a particular (Dutch-related) topic that is especially relevant on the present occasion for reasons other than methodology and theory. I hope that the potential appeal of this aspect of the essay – combining methodological orientation and theoretical conceptualization with empirical and historical content – will make up for whatever shortcomings it may possess from the point of view of substantive detail about, and completed attainment of, the Dutch project.

1. Historical Context of William the Silent’s Apologia (1581)
In May 1581, the States-General of the Low Countries met here[i] in Amsterdam to draft a declaration of independence from Philip II, King of Spain, who had ruled this region since 1555. In the course of the summer, this congress moved to The Hague, where the declaration was concluded at the end of July. This declaration is called the “act of abjuration”, meaning that these provinces were thereby abjuring their allegiance to the King of Spain.[ii] Read more

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