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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)
Articles 31 - 60 of 114
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
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.
Persuasive Definition, Andrew Aberdein
Persuasive Definition, Andrew Aberdein
OSSA Conference Archive
Charles Stevenson introduced the term 'persuasive definition' to describe a suspect form of moral argument 'which gives a new conceptual meaning to a familiar word without substantially changing its emotive meaning'. However, as Stevenson acknowledges, such a move can be employed legitimately. If persuasive definition is to be a useful notion, we shall need a criterion for identifying specifically illegitimate usage. I criticize a recent proposed criterion from Keith Burgess-Jackson and offer an alternative.
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 …
Commentary On Allen, Ralph H. Johnson
Claim Strength And Burden Of Proof, Jeremy Bailenson, Lance J. Rips
Claim Strength And Burden Of Proof, Jeremy Bailenson, Lance J. Rips
OSSA Conference Archive
In this paper, we report results from experiments in which people read conversational arguments and then judge (a) the convincingness of each claim and (b) the individual speakers' burden of proof. The results showed an "anti-primacy" effect: People judge the speaker who makes the first claim as having greater burden of proof. This effect persists even when each speaker's claims are rated equally convincing. We also find that people rate claims less convincing when they appear in the first part of an argument than when they appear in isolation.
Commentary On Blair, Erik C W Krabbe
Aristotle’S Treatment Of Fallacious Reasoning In Sophistical Refutations And Prior Analytics, George Boger
Aristotle’S Treatment Of Fallacious Reasoning In Sophistical Refutations And Prior Analytics, George Boger
OSSA Conference Archive
Aristotle studies syllogistic argumentation in Sophistical Refutations and Prior Analytics. In the latter he focuses on the formal and syntactic character of arguments and treats the sullogismoi and non-sullogismoi as argument patterns with valid or invalid instances. In the former Aristotle focuses on semantics and rhetoric to study apparent sullogismoi as object language arguments. Interpreters usually take Sophistical Refutations as considerably less mature than Prior Analytics. Our interpretation holds that the two works are more of a piece than previously believed and, indeed, that Aristotle's treatment of fallacious reasoning presupposes the results of the formal theory.
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.
Commentary On Browne, Keeley & Hiers, Derek Allen
Commentary On Browne, Keeley & Hiers, Derek Allen
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
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.
Commentary On Clauss, Jim Gough
Eunoia On The Internet?: Usenet Newsgroups And The Subversion Of Rationality, Patrick Claus
Eunoia On The Internet?: Usenet Newsgroups And The Subversion Of Rationality, Patrick Claus
OSSA Conference Archive
Using Edward Damer's discussion of effective argumentation principles and Douglas Walton's discussion of argumentation dialogues, I consider arguments from several Usenet newsgroups, the largest collection of Internet discussion groups. In unmoderated newsgroups, participants can engage in open discussions and debates. However, with no central authority, the argumentation in many Usenet groups often degenerates into anarchy. Presenting examples where participants ignore standards of rational conduct and subvert attempts at goal-directed argumentation, I raise questions about the rhetorical nature of an unstructured discourse community. I also consider what the examples reveal about spontaneous argumentation and electronic communication.
Should We Assess The Basic Premises Of An Argument For Truth Or Acceptability?, Derek Allen
Should We Assess The Basic Premises Of An Argument For Truth Or Acceptability?, Derek Allen
OSSA Conference Archive
In this paper I challenge the currently fashionable view that we should assess the basic premises of an argument for acceptability rather than for truth, and argue in favour of recognizing premise-truth as a criterion of argument goodness in one important sense and premise-acceptability as a criterion of argument goodness in another important sense.
Commentary On Cohen, Michael Leff
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 …
Legal And Philosophical Fictions: At The Line Where The Two Become One, Michael G. Dzialo
Legal And Philosophical Fictions: At The Line Where The Two Become One, Michael G. Dzialo
OSSA Conference Archive
Anti-foundationalism is a central topic in recent legal scholarship. The critical legal studies movement (CLS) has mounted a strong challenge to the traditional belief that legal materials (constitutions, statutes, and precedents) determine legal outcomes and constrain judicial decisionmaking. This scholarship has overlooked, however, the degree to which the debate between traditional legal determinacy and anti-foundational indeterminacy is yet another manifestation of a continuous debate in Western thought—one that has its roots in pre-Socratic rhetoric and philosophy. My presentation traces the indeterminacy thesis back to the contest of ideas between Protagoras and Plato. I examine two well-known and related Protagorean notions: …
Commntary On Dzialo, Christopher W. Tindale
Commntary On Dzialo, Christopher W. Tindale
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Pathological Circularity: Deductive Validity And A Contextual Account Of The Fallacy Of Begging The Question, James G. Edwards
Pathological Circularity: Deductive Validity And A Contextual Account Of The Fallacy Of Begging The Question, James G. Edwards
OSSA Conference Archive
The purpose of this study is to provide an account of the fallaciousness of begging the question without thereby indicting as fallacious all otherwise acceptable deductively valid reasoning. The solution that we suggest exploits the intuition that all good arguments are weakly circular. The fallaciousness of begging the question is not that the reasoning is circular simpliciter. Rather, begging the question is a fallacy because the conclusion relies on an undischarged assumption that the audience cannot accept without further argumentation. In the face of such an argument the arguer might just as well have merely asserted the conclusion.
Perelman As Educational Facilitator: The Reals Of Rhetoric And The Acquisition Of Rational Discourse, Maged El Komos
Perelman As Educational Facilitator: The Reals Of Rhetoric And The Acquisition Of Rational Discourse, Maged El Komos
OSSA Conference Archive
The paper approaches current problems pertaining to university students' written and spoken communication by suggesting how thought and expression are rhetorical in nature. It then proposes that ideas in Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's The New Rhetoric, and Perelman's The Realm of Rhetoric, are consistent with the view presented and suggests that they can serve as a means of developing the capacity for reasoned communication through an emphasis on the individual student's relation to discourse practices and communities.
Commentary On El Komos, Claude Gratton
Commentary On Feteris, Leo Groarke
Commentary On Browne & Hausmann, Herbert Simons
Commentary On Browne & Hausmann, Herbert Simons
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Is Reasoning Gendered?, Linda Fisher
Is Reasoning Gendered?, Linda Fisher
OSSA Conference Archive
The relevance of feminism for argumentation has been the subject of lively debates recently. I explore the viability of applying feminist categories to argumentation with a focus on the relevance of gender in reasoning and rationality. Arguing from the view that particular practices of reasoning are gendered, as operating within a gendered socio-political context, I examine the implications of conditioned reasoning for a conception of reason. Are reasoning and rationality in some fundamental sense conditioned, e.g., gendered? I argue for a conceptualization of reason as a structural complex whose character can be conditioned yet is non-relativistic.
Housing Rhetoric: Argumentation And City Planning, David Flemming
Housing Rhetoric: Argumentation And City Planning, David Flemming
OSSA Conference Archive
When architects, designers, and planners map out the physical space of our urban and regional geography, they also map out the discursive space of our everyday lives. This paper is an exploration of the rhetorical norms implicit in contemporary urban design. I examine three theories of the "good city": Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), and Peter Katz's The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (1994). I close by proposing a set of civic problems shared by designers and rhetoricians.
Commentary On Flemming, Ernest Sternberg
Commentary On Flemming, Ernest Sternberg
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
What Types Of Statements Are There? A Philosophical Look At Stasis Theory, James B. Freeman
What Types Of Statements Are There? A Philosophical Look At Stasis Theory, James B. Freeman
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
The Rhetorical Burden Of Expert Witnesses, Neil M. Browne, Terri J. Keeley, W J. Hiers
The Rhetorical Burden Of Expert Witnesses, Neil M. Browne, Terri J. Keeley, W J. Hiers
OSSA Conference Archive
When judges and juries hear from expert witnesses, what exactly do they expect to hear? In other words, as an audience what purpose do they have for the communication? Just what rhetorical burden is the expert expected to bear? The theme of our paper is that the Frye and Daubert rules that dominate legal argument about the use of expert witnesses are both flawed. Neither shows adequate respect either for what Billig calls "the argumentative aspect of social life" or the inescapable hermeneutic and perspectival problems highlighted by the rhetoric-of-the-human-sciences movement.
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.
Belief Sets And Commitment Stores, Roderic A. Girle
Belief Sets And Commitment Stores, Roderic A. Girle
OSSA Conference Archive
In this paper we compare central elements of Dialogue Logic and Belief Revision theory. Dialogue Logic of the Hamblin/Mackenzie style, or Formal Dialectic, contains three main features. First, there is a rule governed interaction between dialogue participants—the minimal case being two participants. Second, each participant has a commitment store which changes as the dialogue progresses. Third, the changes in the commitment store are governed by rules for additions and withdrawals of material. Withdrawal of material is one major source of difficulty in proposing rules for commitment store change. The classic Belief Revision theory is the AGM (Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson) …