Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Institutionalized Argumentative Reasonableness - Commentary On Reijven, Jean H.M. Wagemans

OSSA Conference Archive

No abstract provided.

Institutional And Institutionalized Fallacies: Diversifying Pragma-Dialectical Fallacy Judgments, Menno H. Reijven

OSSA Conference Archive

To improve argumentative discourse, it is necessary to make fallacy judgments which take into consideration the social practice in which argumentation occurs. In this paper, I propose four meta-categories for fallacies to study the connection of fallacies to their institutionalized discourse. Using the first 2016 U.S. Presidential Debate as a case study, I show how this framework can be used to propose improvements to argumentative contexts.

Normative Argumentation Theory Without Fundamental Principles, Eugen Octav Popa

OSSA Conference Archive

In this paper I develop and defend a form of argumentative normativity that is not based on fundamental principles. I first argue that research agendas that aim to discover (or claimed to have discovered) fundamental principles of ‘good’ argumentative discourse share one crucial weak spot, viz. circularity. I then argue that this weak spot can be avoided in a pancritical (Bartley, 1984) view of normativity.

On Being Objective: Hard Data, Soft Data And Baseball., Michael A. Gilbert

OSSA Conference Archive

“Objective” is a term that has a long and sometimes tumultuous history and a wide range of meanings. The sense in which I am interested here is the one that refers to ways of thinking, and especially the explicit criticism of an argument or judgment as not being “objective,” as exemplified in the following.

• You’re not being objective.
• You have to look at it objectively.
• Objectively, the best choice is…
• Being objective, I’d have to say…

Implicit in these statements is an ideology that denigrates emotion and other communicative aspects in favour of an idealized sense of fact, data and …

Towards Computer Support For Pragma-Dialectical Argumentation Analysis, Jacky Visser

OSSA Conference Archive

Computer tools are increasingly used to support the analysis of argumentative texts. Generic support for argumentation analysis is helpful, but catering to the requirements of specific theoretical approaches has additional advantages. Although the pragma-dialectical method of analyzing argumentative texts is widely used, no dedicated computational support tools exist. An outline is presented for the development of such tools, that starts with the formal approximation of the pragma-dialectical ideal model of a critical discussion.

Identifying Argumentative Acts Within The Classroom Amongst Engineering Students, Juan Fernando Barros-Martinez

OSSA Conference Archive

Students’ arguments surrounding a scientific topic are analyzed. This analysis comes from research developed in the classroom where dialogic interaction was promoted. The purpose of this study has not only been to identify argumentative elements used by students during the sessions but principally to the process of discussion. Three different ways have been proposed for this analysis: speech acts, acts of argumentative process and acts of learning process, with the intention of establishing relationships between them.

Argumentative Patterns In Discourse, Frans H. Van Eemeren, Bart Garssen

OSSA Conference Archive

This paper discusses the ways in which argumentative discourse prototypically manifests itself. As a consequence of the institutional preconditions applying to the strategic manoeuvring taking place in specific communicative activity types, certain context-dependent argumentative patterns of standpoints, argument schemes and argumentation structures can be observed. Because of their interest in the extent to which argumentative discourse is context-dependent, pragma-dialecticians are out to discover such specific patterns. As a case in point, the authors discuss some institutionally motivated argumentative patterns in parliamentary debate in the European Parliament.

Argumentative Functions Of Visuals: Beyond Claiming And Justifying, Assimakis Tseronis

OSSA Conference Archive

Up until now, the study of the argumentative role of visuals has been restricted to the formal concept of argument as product, consisting of premises and conclusion. In this paper, I adopt the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation as a social and discursive activity in order to explore argumentative functions of visuals that go beyond claiming and justifying. To do this I pay attention to the visual form and to the interaction between the verbal and the visual mode in argumentative discourse.

A Formal Account Of Complex Argumentation In A Critical Discussion, Jacky Visser

OSSA Conference Archive

In this paper, I present a dialogue game approach to the argumentation stage of a critical discussion. This formal perspective on the pragma-dialectical ideal model is meant to facilitate a contribution of pragma-dialectical theorising to the field of argumentation and computation. The dialogue game is based on the technical rules for a critical discussion that relate to the argumentation stage, and I will show how sequences of moves in the dialogue game relate to complex argumentation structures.

The Editorial Meeting Discussion As An Argumentative Activity Type, Marta Zampa

OSSA Conference Archive

A still uninvestigated argumentative reasoning hides behind news texts, in the discussions surrounding the writing process. I try to fill this gap by reconstructing how newsroom decision-making functions from a combined argumentative and discourse analytical perspective. In order to do so, I analyze the editorial meeting discussion about a potential news item and its production as an argumentative activity type, using a French- and German-language corpus collected at the Swiss public broadcast service.

‘Cognitive Systemic Dichotomization’ In Public Argumentation And Controversies, Marcelo Dascal, Amnon Knoll, Daniel Cohen

OSSA Conference Archive

We describe and analyze an important cognitive obstacle in inter- and intra-community ar-gumentation processes, which we propose to call 'Cognitive Systemic Dichotomization' (CSD). This social phenomenon consists in the collective use of shared cognitive patterns based upon dichotomous schemati-zation of knowledge, values, and affection. We discuss the formative role of CSD on a community’s collec-tive cognition, identity, and public discourse, as well as the challenges it raises to reasoned argumentation, and how different approaches to argumentation undertake to face this obstacle to the reasonable debate of issues of public concern.