Abstract
After differentiating between (“emic”) interpretive and judgment relevance of argumentative moves, on the one hand, and (“etic”) analytic and evaluative relevance of argumentative moves, on the other hand, descriptive empirical research of argumentative discourse is reported. First attention is paid to qualitative research of argumentative indicators that are used by ordinary arguers in interpreting argumentative moves. Next an overview is provided of quantitative experimental research concerning the identification of argumentative moves. A separate section is devoted to the comprehensive pragma-dialectical research project concerning ordinary arguers’ standards of reasonableness and the conclusions that can be drawn from it regarding the potential conventional validity of some representative parts of the code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse. The chapter concludes with the introduction of empirical research of hidden fallaciousness in argumentative discourse that is caused by the mimicking of reasonable argumentative moves.
This chapter is primarily based on van Eemeren et al. (1989) and van Eemeren et al. (2009, 2012a, b).
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Notes
- 1.
For these distinctions, see van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004: 69–73). Judgement relevance is a new addition.
- 2.
- 3.
There is one exception to this general conclusion: ordinary arguers hardly ever see the reductio ad absurdum as a type of sound argumentation, just as they hardly ever see its fallacious counterpart, the logical variant of the argumentum ad consequentiam , as a fallacy.
- 4.
In drawing this conclusion the logical variant of the argumentum ad consequentiam and the tu quoque variant of the argumentum ad hominem are not taken into consideration.
- 5.
This critically-inspired effectiveness research is the pragma-dialectical alternative to non-dialectical persuasion research .
- 6.
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van Eemeren, F.H. (2018). Descriptive Studies of Argumentative Discourse. In: Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Argumentation Library, vol 33. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95381-6_5
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