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- Amounts to there being a presumption in favor of the premise. We have also argued that presumption is dependent on the sources which have vouched for a statement. We have further claimed that whether a source's vouching for a statement creates a presumption for it depends in part on what type of statement is being vouched for. Suppose a proponent P vouches for both of these statements: "There is a red apple on the window sill." "Horatio placed the red apple on the window sill to show his love for Ophelia." Intuitively (1)
- And Kruger (1)
- And necessary statements as the basic types of statement. We shall also give accounts of the distinguishing features of each type. In doing this (1)
- And proposed criteria for distinguishing types of statements involve serious philosophical difficulties. Building on the work of Sproule (1)
- And that part of the explanation consists in pointing out that the first statement is a description while the second is an interpretation. But this brings us to the issue of what types of statements are there and how we distinguish them. The field of rhetoric known as stasis theory addresses these issues. However (1)
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- Broadly speaking (1)
- But not for the first. I believe we can explain why this is the case (1)
- Different rhetoricians give different typologies of statements (1)
- Evaluations (1)
- Fahnestock and Secor (1)
- Interpretations (1)
- There is an air of controversiality or at least questionability about the second statement which does not apply to the first. We are inclined to ask for evidence for the second statement (1)
- We have argued that premise acceptability (1)
- We shall be giving a philosophical explication of these distinctions from stasis theory. We shall conclude by showing how this account of the various types of statements fits into an overall account of premise acceptability. (1)
- We shall distinguish descriptions (1)
- We shall present a specific typology of statements. In particular (1)
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Commentary On Hayes, A Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
Commentary On Hayes, A Francisca Snoeck Henkemans
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Introduction: The Importance Of Rhetoric For Argumentation, Christopher W. Tindale
Introduction: The Importance Of Rhetoric For Argumentation, Christopher W. Tindale
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Emotions, Reasons And Judgement, Leah Bradshaw
Emotions, Reasons And Judgement, Leah Bradshaw
OSSA Conference Archive
The paper considers an influential current in contemporary philosophy: the notion that judgments are formed as a consequence of emotive reaction. Philosophers such as Richard Rorty and Martha Nussbaum argue that moral and political principles such as universal human rights, and inherent human dignity, owe their persuasiveness to emotional responses of natural compassion and pity. Reason is accorded a secondary place as a justificatory apparatus for sentience. The paper aims to demonstrate both the incoherence and the political danger of this philosophical approach to judgment.
Argument As An Act Of Friendship, Neil M. Browne, R G. Hausmann
Argument As An Act Of Friendship, Neil M. Browne, R G. Hausmann
OSSA Conference Archive
Those who are said to argue are typically seen as annoying, domineering types who treat conversation as a duel in which the goal is in the words of Gerry Spence's recent bestseller, "to win every time." The most immediate manifestation of this resistance to argument as both inescapable and healthful comes from our students; even when they learn to appreciate and evaluate tropes at an advanced level, they still often wonder aloud, "Should I engage openly in argument?" This paper aspires to paste a happy face on the practice of argument as a partial antidote to this resistance.
The Argument Against Rhetoric, Daniel Cohen
The Argument Against Rhetoric, Daniel Cohen
OSSA Conference Archive
The rhetoric of logic reveals, we claim, that arguments are about force, ending only when one side submits. Rhetoricians, it is countered, are content to persuade, settling for agreement when truth is wanted—and all is fair in pursuit of consent. The choice between conceptual rape and seduction is a false choice. It is time to cut against the grain. We are distracted by the rhetoric of logic and gloss the logic of rhetoric. Rhetorical models for pluralistic discourses are vital, but fail as regulative ideals. The ideology of logic's rhetoric is unacceptable, but it is not immutable—so there may be …
Facework And Rhetorical Strategies In Intercultural Argumentation, Inga Dolinina, Vittorina Cecchetto
Facework And Rhetorical Strategies In Intercultural Argumentation, Inga Dolinina, Vittorina Cecchetto
OSSA Conference Archive
Intercultural discourse (especially via a lingua franca) adds a new dimension—facework (establishing of culture-sensitive politeness strategies)—to the theory and practice of argumentation from a number of perspectives: its specificity as compared to ordinary argumentational discourse, the interpretation of the concept of incommensurability, and the conduct of international negotiations. Politeness systems relevant for different cultures are not unpredictable, but represent linguistically and cognitively a highly generalised universal system which can be adopted by interlocutors and used in practical discourse. Politeness expressions are governed by linguistic components—by language forms of a certain type and by specific discourse patterns. The proper choice of …
Commntary On Dzialo, Christopher W. Tindale
Commntary On Dzialo, Christopher W. Tindale
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Commentary On Fisher, Jacqueline Macgregor Davies
Commentary On Fisher, Jacqueline Macgregor Davies
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Prolegomenon To A Pragmatics Of Emotion, Michael A. Gilbert
Prolegomenon To A Pragmatics Of Emotion, Michael A. Gilbert
OSSA Conference Archive
This paper begins the development of a pragmatics of emotion based on the pragma-dialectical programme, Externalization, Socialization, Functionalization, and Dialectification, applied to the emotional mode of argumentation. The first step points out a systematic equivocation within pragma-dialectics between the notion of argument and that of 'dialectics.' With this cleared, it is shown that each of the first three main assumptions can be altered to accommodate a non-logical mode of communication. However, dialectification, insofar as it is actually defining of the dialectical mode, must be created anew. A defining assumption for emotionality is presented as a replacement for dialectification.
Commentary On Johnson, Joseph Wenzel
The Dictates Of Reason: Bacon, Ramus, And The Naturalization Of Invention, Terri Palmer
The Dictates Of Reason: Bacon, Ramus, And The Naturalization Of Invention, Terri Palmer
OSSA Conference Archive
This paper will discuss the history of argumentation, specifically the location of the canon of invention in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At that time, scientists, logicians, and philosophers began to seek new means of constructing and presenting arguments. New logical schemes, such as set forth by Ramus in his Logike or Bacon in the Novum Organon, attempted to place the invention and structure of arguments on a more rational, epistemologically secure basis. This paper will explore the shifts in rhetoric and logic in Bacon's and Ramus's work, with some reference to Wilson's Rule of Reason and Art of Rhetoric.
Commentary On Reed & Long, Mark Vorobej
A Way To Describe And Evaluate Thought Experiments, Or Trying To Get A Grip On Virtual Reality, Lawrence G. Souder
A Way To Describe And Evaluate Thought Experiments, Or Trying To Get A Grip On Virtual Reality, Lawrence G. Souder
OSSA Conference Archive
The use of thought experiments seems to provoke much controversy, often in the form of charges of appeals to intuition. The notion of intuition, however, is vaguely defined in both the context of thought experiments and in philosophy in general. This vagueness suggests that the description of thought experiments is incomplete, and thus the prospect for their evaluation remains unfulfilled. Previous analyses of thought experiments have come largely from philosophy where the focus has been on truth value and validity. But these approaches seem to view argument monologically; no accommodation of an audience response like intuition is possible. I try …
Commentary On Boger, David Hitchcock
Commentary On Govier, Ralph Johnson
Commentary On Halsall, Hanns Hohmann
Commentary On Kominar, Jerome Bickenbach
Commentary On Kominar, Jerome Bickenbach
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Outdoing Lewis Carrol: Judicial Rhetoric And Acceptable Fictions, Gwen C. Matthewson
Outdoing Lewis Carrol: Judicial Rhetoric And Acceptable Fictions, Gwen C. Matthewson
OSSA Conference Archive
This paper examines the functions of narrative within written legal argumentation. My purposes are these: 1) to repudiate common assumptions that differentiate "argumentation" and "storytelling" in the law; 2) to begin to theorize anew how legal argumentation functions; 3) to explore the difficulties of evaluating the law's argumentative narratives, and 4) to trace some of the anxiety that judges themselves reveal about their roles as storytellers. I conclude that narrative is necessary to law's claims to authority, even as it complicates our understandings about how legislative policy decisions produce effects, and even as judges themselves seek to mask its importance.
Good Arguments And Fallacies, Bruce Russell
Good Arguments And Fallacies, Bruce Russell
OSSA Conference Archive
To understand what a fallacy is one needs to understand what a bad argument is and what it is for an argument to appear good. I will argue that from an intuitive standpoint a good argument should be understood in roughly the way Richard Feldman has proposed, that is, as an argument that gives people reason to believe its conclusion. However, I will also argue that an externalist condition that requires that the premises really do support the conclusion must be added to the internalist account which only requires that a person be justified in believing the premises support the …
Commentary On Secor, Raymie Mckerrow
On ‘Burdens’ Of Proof In Ordinary Language Argumentation, Christopher Thomson
On ‘Burdens’ Of Proof In Ordinary Language Argumentation, Christopher Thomson
OSSA Conference Archive
Various textbooks in logic and rhetoric seem content to treat the notion of the burden of proof as if it were a simple obligation associated with the act of proffering statements for another's consideration. Nevertheless, we can uncover cases in argumentation where both sides champion statements but only one side bears a burden of proof. I believe that an explanation for this difference in emphasis will involve distinguishing between two different (but not unrelated) burdens of proof that can come to bear in the course of an argument.
The Normative Impotence Of Ideal Models, John Woods
The Normative Impotence Of Ideal Models, John Woods
OSSA Conference Archive
In the methodology of theory construction, the concept of "intuitions" is commonly assigned a central role. This is especially true of philosophical and social scientific theories or rational human agency. An equally important trait of such accounts is the theorist's employment of "ideal models" or rational agency. It is frequently supposed that the concept of intuitions and the concept of ideal models link in such a way as to give rise to a coherent and load-bearing notion of "objective normativity." This paper shows, with reference to a wide range of contemporary theories, (a) that the employment of ideal models is …
Commentary On Hicks, Eveline Feteris
Differences Between Argumentative And Rhetorical Space, Ralph Johnson
Differences Between Argumentative And Rhetorical Space, Ralph Johnson
OSSA Conference Archive
The issue I address in this paper is the age-old problem of the relationship between logic and rhetoric. More specifically, I ask the question, how do logic and rhetoric differ in their approaches to the study of argumentation? What makes this question timely are the changes that logic has undergone in the last 25 years. In this paper, I develop the idea that an argument is the central event in what I call argumentative space. I present a conception of argumentative space as a subspace within rational space and seek to provide a rough characterization of the main features of …
Commentary On Russell, Richard Feldman
Rhetoric And Reason In The Civil Science Of Thomas Hobbes, William Mathie
Rhetoric And Reason In The Civil Science Of Thomas Hobbes, William Mathie
OSSA Conference Archive
In successive versions of Hobbes's political teaching we see a changing account of the nature of rhetoric, or eloquence, and of the dangers it poses for political life. In his Leviathan Hobbes expresses a new confidence that the causes of political dissolution can in principle be entirely eradicated. I argue that Hobbes's new hope is based on his account of the problem of rhetoric and of the solution to that problem developed in Leviathan. I also examine two recent and important accounts of Hobbes's understanding of rhetoric by Quentin Skinner and David Johnston.
Persuasion Monologue, Chris Reed, Derek Long
Persuasion Monologue, Chris Reed, Derek Long
OSSA Conference Archive
The emphasis in most process-oriented models of argumentation is placed heavily upon analysis of dialogue. The current work puts forward an account which examines the argumentation involved in persuasive monologue, drawing upon commitment-based theories of dialogue. The various differences between monologue and dialogue are discussed, with particular reference to the possibility of designing a monologue game in which commitments are dynamically incurred and updated as the monologue is created. Finally, the computational advantages of adopting such an approach are explored in the context of an existing architecture for the generation of natural language arguments.
Rhetoric And The Unconscious, Michael Billig
Rhetoric And The Unconscious, Michael Billig
OSSA Conference Archive
This paper develops the ideas of rhetorical psychology by applying them to some basic Freudian concepts. In so doing, the paper considers whether there might be a 'Dialogic Unconscious'. So far rhetorical psychology has tended to concentrate upon conscious thought rather than on the unconscious. It has suggested that thinking is modelled on argument and dialogue, and that rhetoric provides the means of opening up matters for thought and discussion. However, rhetoric may also provide the means for closing down topics and, thereby, provide the means of repression. It will be suggested that language is not merely expressive but it …
The Role Of Rhetoric In Rational Argumentation, Nicholas Rescher
The Role Of Rhetoric In Rational Argumentation, Nicholas Rescher
OSSA Conference Archive
The structure of this discussion will be tripartite. First it will set out a way of distinguishing between rhetoric and strictly rational argumentation. Next it will consider some of the ramifications of this proposed way of looking at the matter—in particular what its implications are for rationality and for rhetoric, respectively. Finally it examines how this perspective bears on the project of philosophizing. The paper's ultimate aim, accordingly, is to consider what light such an analysis can shed upon philosophy and philosophizing.
Arguing From Ignorance, Jonathan Adler
Arguing From Ignorance, Jonathan Adler
OSSA Conference Archive
Arguments from ignorance should be schematized: It has not been proven false that p. So it is possible that p. So, it is reasonable to believe p. Also, in opposition to standard views they should be distinguished from burden of proof and absence of evidence arguments. Much of the persuasiveness of such arguments can be located in the slippery uses of "possible." Besides equivocations on "possible" the argument is a fallacy for two reasons. First, the possibility implied by the first premise does not yield the serious possibility that is needed for establishing the conclusion. Second, ignorance is never sufficient …