Abstract
After an introduction and definition of the concept of argumentation the general objective of argumentation theory as a discipline is described and specified. Next, some crucial concepts of argumentation theory are discussed: standpoint, unexpressed premise, argument scheme, argumentation structure, and fallacy. Then the research program of argumentation theory is explained, consisting of a philosophical, a theoretical, an empirical, an analytical, and a practical component. The chapter is concluded by a brief overview of the various approaches that give shape to the dialectical and the rhetorical perspectives on argumentation.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for example, the Handbook of argumentation theory (van Eemeren et al. 2014: 1–7), on which this chapter is largely based.
- 2.
See van Eemeren et al. (2014: 3–6).
- 3.
The terms rational and reasonable often seem to be used interchangeably, but we think that it is useful to make a distinction between acting rationally in the sense of using one’s faculty of reason and acting reasonably in the sense of utilizing one’s faculty of reason in an appropriate way.
- 4.
Following Barth and Krabbe (1982: 75), we call the prerequisites for reasonable argumentative discourse higher order conditions. The conditions pertaining to the participants’ state of mind are second order conditions and the conditions pertaining to the circumstances third order conditions (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004: 189).
- 5.
These two dimensions are reflected in the dual reasonableness standard for argumentative discourse: adequacy for resolving a difference of opinion (“problem-validity”) and intersubjectively acceptability (“conventional validity”) (Barth 1972; Barth and Krabbe 1982: 21–22). Whereas problem-validity is basically a theoretical matter, conventional validity can only be established empirically.
- 6.
The descriptive aims of argumentation theory are often associated with the “emic” study of what is involved in justifying claims and what are to be considered good reasons for accepting a claim viewed from the “internal” perspective of the arguers while the normative aims are associated with the “etic” study of both matters from the “external” perspective of a critical theorist.
- 7.
- 8.
For a definition of the notion of a standpoint in terms of the identity and correctness conditions of the speech act of advancing a standpoint, see Houtlosser (2001: 32).
- 9.
For the pragmatic resources that can be used in accounting for the reconstruction of unexpressed elements in argumentative discourse, see van Eemeren (2010: 16–19).
- 10.
- 11.
The principle of “dissociation”, which Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca also discuss, is not related to argument schemes (van Rees 2009).
- 12.
In informal logic there is also an approach based on the Toulmin model (Freeman 1991).
- 13.
A one-to-one translation of the pragma-dialectical argumentation structures in terms of those distinguished in informal logic is, in spite of clear similarities, complicated by the different conceptualizations.
- 14.
- 15.
Until the 17th century, dialectica was generally the usual name for logic (Scholz 1967: 8).
- 16.
For Aristotle’s syllogistic logic, dialectic and rhetoric we refer to his collected works (Aristotle 1984).
- 17.
See O’Keefe (2002).
- 18.
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van Eemeren, F.H. (2018). Argumentation Theory as a Discipline. In: Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Argumentation Library, vol 33. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95381-6_1
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