Arts and Humanities Commons^™

What Makes Us Change Our Minds In Our Everyday Life? Working Through Evidence And Persuasion, Events And Experiences., Jens E. Kjeldsen

OSSA Conference Archive

We know almost nothing about the reasoning that makes people change their minds in everyday life. Which role do arguments play in contrast to personal relations and ethos? Are people persuaded to change, or does change rather follow personal experiences? This paper examines the epistemologies people use to rhetorically work through their opinions, when moving from one conviction to another. The paper is based on research interviews with people who have changed their minds.

Doing Things With Arguments: Assertion, Persuasion, Performance, Blake D. Scott

OSSA Conference Archive

In “Three Perspectives on Argument,” Wenzel argued that scholars should orient their research around the well-known triad of rhetorical, dialectical, and logical perspectives on argument. Despite the success of Wenzel’s triad in orienting pluralistic research, he nonetheless maintained that an “eventual synthesis” of the three perspectives was both possible and desirable. In this paper I reconsider Wenzel’s idea by asking what might be preventing such a synthesis today. I argue that one obstacle to this is a common philosophical assumption about rhetoric that opposes assertion to persuasion, truth to effectiveness. Following Barbara Cassin, I challenge this assumption and consider how …

Commentary On Mckeon On Argument, Inference, And Persuasion, Daniel H. Cohen

OSSA Conference Archive

No abstract provided.

Argument, Inference, And Persuasion, Matthew W. Mckeon

OSSA Conference Archive

I move beyond Pinto’s (2001) discussion of arguments as invitations to inference by highlighting how arguments can guide the performance of inferences that they do not express. This motivates a distinction between two types of persuasive force arguments can have in terms of two different connections between arguments and inferences. I use this distinction to explain how an epistemically bad argument can rationally persuade addressees of its conclusion.

The Persuasive Ineffectiveness Of Arguing And Arguments, J. Anthony Blair

OSSA Conference Archive

Arguments intended to persuade have a chequered success record. Quite aside from failing to resolve deep disagreements, they are an inefficient means of persuasion in commerce and politics. The persistence of competing schools of thought in numerous fields of scientific and scholarly theorizing, despite argued advocacy, also raises questions about arguing’s persuasive effectiveness. Yet humans are irredeemably reason-expecting and reason-giving creatures. This paper offers some possible explanations of this paradoxical situation.

Persuading And Convincing, Adelino Cattani

OSSA Conference Archive

I’ll propose a distinction based on historical, theoretical, and linguistic considerations between:

- two different ways of inducing a change of mind, that is persuading and convincing.

- two different ways of proving, that is rhetorical argumentation and logical-experimental demonstration.

There is a tendency to keep a distance from persuasion in favor of conviction. In everyday language, the difference between the two terms appears clear, and it is a distinction developed theoretically by many authors from Plato and Kant to Perelman. In particular:

1. Persuasion is centered chiefly on the speaker: it enhances one’s will and ability to modify …

Deep Disagreement As Intellectual Colonialism, David Hitchcock

OSSA Conference Archive

Robert Fogelin has introduced the concept of a deep disagreement as one that makes rational argumentation impossible. People who think of themselves as enlightened may use this concept to dismiss the positions and arguments of those who seem to them misguided. I argue that there is always a basis for a rational discussion between people who disagree. If there are no external impediments to argumentative discussion, it is a form of intellectual colonialism to abandon argument for non-rational persuasion on the basis of a diagnosis of deep disagreement.

Negotiation As A Disagreement Management Tool, Diego Castro

OSSA Conference Archive

Can we negotiate our way out of disagreements? When the chances of persuading the counterpart are low, it might be possible to shift a persuasion to a negotiation dialogue. But what are the conditions for that shift? I will argue that, at least, the following conditions must hold: the disagreement must be practical rather than theoretical; and the parties must be willing to make a sacrifice. When that happens, disagreements can be negotiated, and such negotiation will be a type of practical argumentation.

Conspiracy And Bias: Argumentative Features And Persuasiveness Of Conspiracy Theories, Steve Oswald

OSSA Conference Archive

This paper deals with the argumentative biases Conspiracy Theories (henceforth CTs) typically suffer from and pursues two goals: (i) the identification of recurring argumentative and rhetorical features of conspiracy theories, which translates into an attempt to elaborate their argumentative profile (see Hansen 2013); (ii) the elaboration of a cognitively-grounded account of CTs in terms of their persuasiveness.

To fulfil goal (i), I examine online instances of different cases of CTs (the Moon hoax, 9/11 as an inside job, chemical trails). Building on the general rhetorical features of CTs identified by Byford (2011: 88-93), I elaborate a first argumentative profile surveying …

“Strategically Wrong”: Bias And Argumentation, Cristian Santibanez Yanez

OSSA Conference Archive

The brain is composed of mutually inconsistent modules that contain contradictory beliefs. What consequences could this view have on argumentation? In order to sketch an answer, first the family of concepts of what is called generalized deception is discussed; then, this discussion is applied to the problem of the social influence bias to observe both how the mind works strategically wrong and what kind of arguments are used within this mental design in a social argumentative context.

What We Hide In Words: Value-Based Reasoning And Emotive Language, Fabrizio Macagno

OSSA Conference Archive

There are emotively powerful words that can modify our judgment, arouse our emotions and influence our decisions. This paper shows how the use of emotive meaning in argumentation can be explained by showing how their logical dimension, which can be analysed using argumentation schemes, combines with heuristic processes triggered by emotions. Arguing with emotive words is shown to use value-based practical reasoning grounded on hierarchies of values and maxims of experience for evaluative classification.

Defining Functions Of Danish Political Commentary, Mette Bengtsson, Mary L. Kahl

OSSA Conference Archive

In Denmark political commentary is still a relatively new phenomenon. This paper analyzes the metadiscourse in relation to political commentary to identify the different understandings that have coalesced around political commentary as a genre. I argue that people in different positions (e.g. citizens, politicians, journalists, political editors, chief editors and political commentators themselves) emphasize different explanations for the rise of the genre and thereby functions of political commentary as part of an argumentative strategy favouring their own interests.

Structure Of Persuasive Communication And Elaboration Likelihood Model, Katarzyna Budzynska, Harry Weger Jr

OSSA Conference Archive

The aim of the paper is to propose a framework for the structure of persuasive communica-tion based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) by Petty and Cacioppo, the Inference Anchoring Theory (IAT) by Budzynska and Reed and the Interpersonal (IP-) Argumentation Model by Budzynska. The ELM suggests that there are two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. IAT assumes that com-munication acts generate their contents and inferences by means of illocutionary connections. The model of IP-argumentation provides the general representation of arguments in which the proponent refers to com-munication acts of some participant of communication. The paper discusses where exactly …

Deepening Disagreement In Engineering Education, Robert Irish, Brian Macpherson

OSSA Conference Archive

This paper argues that deep disagreements stem from conflicting worldviews. In particular, I examine how recent moves in engineering education contribute to deep disagreement by inculcating stu-dents into valuing the environment as a key stakeholder in engineering design. However, some graduates who value the environment meet resistance from employers who hold a more traditional engineering worldview, which regards the environment as an externality. Clashing worldviews can, as Robert Fogelin posited, render rational resolution to argument impossible. Disputants must consider the emotional and rhetorical as means to move toward productive ground for argument. I offer two moves from classical rhet-oric–making an …