nach oben

Argumentation

Erschienen in:

01.05.2008

Modality and its Conversational Backgrounds in the Reconstruction of Argumentation

verfasst von: Andrea Rocci

Erschienen in: Argumentation | Ausgabe 2/2008

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

The paper considers the role of modality in the rational reconstruction of standpoints and arguments. The paper examines in what conditions modal markers can act as argumentative indicators and what kind of cues they provide for the reconstruction of argument. The paper critically re-examines Toulmin’s hypothesis that the meaning of the modals can be analyzed in terms of a field-invariant argumentative force and field-dependent criteria in the light of the Theory of Relative Modality developed within linguistic semantics, showing how this theory can provide a more adequate model for exploiting the modals as indicators. The resulting picture confirms Toulmin’s intuition only in part: on the one hand the modals are always relational in nature and dependent on a contextual conversational background of propositions; on the other hand only epistemic-doxastic modals directly express a speech-act level inferential relation between a set of premises and a standpoint. Other modalities express relations (e.g. causal or final relations) better seen as part of the content of the argument whose argumentative relevance depends on the argumentation scheme employed. Thus non-epistemic modals function as argumentative indicators only indirectly.

Nächster Artikel Rationality, Reasonableness, and Critical Rationalism: Problems with the Pragma-dialectical View

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

van Eemeren et al. (2007) propose a more comprehensive list of relevant kinds of information, which follows systematically from the stages of the model of critical discussion. For the purposes of the present article it is not strictly necessary to consider this broader list.

In Houtlosser (2002) and van Eemeren et al. (2007) epistemic expressions modifying the force of the assertion are discussed in relation to the confrontation stage also as (indirect) indicators of the act itself of putting forth a standpoint in the confrontation. For instance, a weak assertive expression such as I believe can be used “to convey the speaker’s expectation that his assertive will not be immediately accepted by the interlocutor” (Houtlosser 2002, 174), at least, not without supporting arguments.

Although the view that epistemic modals can be extra-propositional has been supported by a number of semantic tests proposed by the authors cited, the current literature on modality is far from unanimous. There are, for instance, studies such as Papafragou (2006), which question the results of the semantic tests for propositionality and argue that, at least in the case of modal verbs, epistemic modality is, in fact, always part of the propositional content.

Linguistically encoded meanings are nearly always underspecified with respect to the proposition expressed by an utterance, and henceforth are dependent on the context of utterance for their “enrichment” (Cf. Carston 2002). However, the term context dependency in semantics is often used in a narrower sense to refer to those units whose linguistically encoded meanings contain precise contextual parameters, that is “empty slots” to be filled with particular types of contextual information. Indexicals (I, here, now etc.) are the the classic example of context dependent linguistic expression, but subtle semantic context dependency has been shown to characterize a much wider range of expressions (Cf. Récanati 1989). Toulmin’s analysis of the modals treats them as context dependent in the above sense and in this respect—we argue—is decidedly on the right track, anticipating an important aspect of the Relative Modality approach.

Toulmin has been rightly criticized (cf. van Eemeren et al. 1996, 155) for the vagueness of his use of the term logical type and its unclear relationship with field of argument and other notions in his model. One of the goals of our work on modality is also to contribute to a sound semantic typology of standpoints.

Earlier, more informal, approaches to the semantics of the modals that have several points of similarity with Kratzer’s are Wertheimer (1972) and White (1975). For a fairly comprehensive and technical account of the current state of the art in the theory of Relative Modality see Kaufmann et al. (2006).

The distinction between necessitas consequentiae (or necessitas conditionata) and necessitas consequentis (or necessitas absoluta) is discussed in several passages of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. One well known instance is the passage of the Summa contra gentiles (lib. 1 cap. 67 n. 10) where Aquinas discusses whether God’s foreknowledge entails that every action happens necessarily, and therefore excludes human freedom. Aquinas argues that there is a necessity of the consequence from God’s foreknowledge of an action to the future happening of said action but this does not mean that the action becomes absolutely necessary. Aquinas uses perceptual evidence as an analogy: if I see that Socrates is sitting, then I must necessarily conclude that he is sitting, but my seeing does not make Socrate’s sitting an absolute necessity: “sicut necessarium est Socratem sedere ex hoc quod sedere videtur. Hoc autem non necessarium est absolute, vel, ut a quibusdam dicitur, necessitate consequentis: sed sub conditione, vel necessitate consequentiae. Haec enim conditionalis est necessaria: si videtur sedere, sedet.” (Summa contra gentiles lib. 1 cap. 67 n. 10, in Busa 2005).

Actually, the formulas in (17) and (19) provide the semantics of the relative modal operators indirectly, by translating them in terms of an absolute modal quantifier (□ and ◊ respectively) and of a truth-conditional connective (→ and ∧ respectively), for which a standard semantics is assumed. The semantic clauses in (18) and (20),on the other hand, define the semantics of the modals equivalently, through the relations of logical consequence, and logical compatibility, for which a possible world semantics can be given as in Kratzer (1991, 641): a proposition p is a logical consequence of a set of propositions A, if and only if p is true in all the worlds of the “universe” W in which all the propositions belonging to A are true; and analogously a proposition p is logically compatible with A, if and only if there is at least a world in W, where all the propositions of A and the proposition p are true.

I take this to be the main philosophical significance of the notion of proposition in possible world semantics. In the technical implementation of the theory the definition of proposition is, in fact, rather counterintuitive: a proposition is just a set of possible worlds, the set of worlds in which the proposition holds true, in which it is a fact. One of the reasons of the scarce intuitive appeal of this definition is that the theory takes the notion of possible world as primitive rather than the notion of possible state of affairs or possible fact.

The classification of conversational backgrounds and the formulation of the paraphrase schemes draw from a vast pool of analyses in the logical and linguistic traditions, which Rocci (2005a) discusses extensively. In drawing from this body of research the proposed paraphrase schemes make a number choices among partially alternative proposals, and I have added pointers to the relevant literature for the less obvious ones.

Another, better established, name for this kind of modality is alethic (Cf. Lycan 1994; Kronning 2001). However some authors, especially linguists, reserve the term alethic for purely logical necessity and possibility, which are only the most abstract of ontological modalities. So, we use ontological instead of alethic to avoid confusion. Kratzer (1981) speaks of these as realistic conversational backgrounds.

Note that strictly speaking epistemic conversational backgrounds, in the logician’s sense of the word, that is conceived as dealing with knowledge rather than with belief, should be treated, as Kratzer (1981) suggested, as a kind of ontological (realistic in Kratzer’s terminology) background: the background consisting of the facts that happen to be known by the relevant agent or by the relevant epistemic community. On the contrary, doxastic backgrounds are not a kind of ontological background. One of the main differences between our discussion of modal meanings and Kratzer’s is that hers does not use doxastic backgrounds to capture “epistemic” modal meanings, but uses instead a more complex apparatus (cf. Kratzer 1991, 643–645) making modality doubly relative to a true epistemic background (‘in view of the available evidence’), and to a second stereotypical conversational background (‘in view of the normal course of events’). Some interesting shortcomings of Kratzer’s strategy in accounting for the way an epistemic modal (must, in particular) is used in arguments are mentioned by Stone (1994). For a more thorough discussion of these theoretical options see Rocci (2005 a, b).

Cognitively, epistemic/doxastic modalities relate to the higher faculty of metarepresentation: that is the ability of an agent to represent one’s thoughts as representations distinct from the world, thus enabling the agent to cope with her partial and fallible access to the facts. In doxastic modalities the proposition φ is entertained as a metarepresentation—as a thought—and compared with the agent’s beliefs. For a detailed discussion of the role of metarepresentation in the linguistic-semantic analysis of epistemic modality see Papafragou (2000).

The World Game, June, 9, 2006. Retrieved August 15, 2006 from http://www6.sbs.com.au/socceroos/index.php?pid=st&cid=71987 .

Practical inferences are sometimes said to be “neither deductive nor inductive in nature” (Walton 2006, 300). This characterization certainly holds for the vast majority of practical inferences, which are typically defeasible. It is however interesting to show that inferences based on the simplest practical inference scheme discussed by Walton can be treated as deductive under the assumption of the consistency of the set of goals of the agent. In practice, this assumption cannot be always maintained and several complications arise. Further complications concern the difference between the modal must and the modal ought when used in practical reasoning. We hope to discuss these issues in detail in a forthcoming paper entirely devoted to the treatment of modalities in practical reasoning.

For a more detailed discussion of the collocation of anankastic modality with respect to constitutive rules see Conte (1988, 1993).

“Epistemic modality is the modality of curious people like historians, detectives, and futurologists. Circumstantial modality is the modality of rational agents like gardeners, architects and engineeers. A historian asks what might have been the case, given all the available facts. An engineer asks what can be done given certain relevant facts.” (Kratzer 1991, 646).

On the meta-cognitive nature of epistemic modality see also the interesting remarks in Papafragou (1998).

This line of explanation of the evidential constraints of epistemic modals is fully developed, with respect to Italian modals, in Rocci (2005a).

“In the confrontation stage of a critical discussion, it becomes clear that there is a standpoint that is not accepted because it runs up against doubt or contradiction, thereby establishing a [...] difference of opinion” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, 60).

This investigation of modals in argumentative texts is being carried out, in particular, in the context of a research project concerning argumentation supporting predictions in economic-financial newspaper articles (Cf. Rocci and Palmieri 2007).

Here a final note is due with respect to this article’s relationship with Toulmin’s contribution. The fact that a large share of this article is devoted to discuss and, in part, to refute views that Toulmin expressed 50 years ago can only be taken as a sign of the intellectual vigour and vitality of his thought. We do not dare to dream that, in 50 years, our own contribution could be considered wrong in such an interesting and insightful way.

Busa, R.S.J. 2005. Index Thomisticus. In Corpus Thomisticum, eds. E. Alarçon and E. Bernot, Pamplona: Fundación Tomás de Aquino. Available online at: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/ [Last visited: 11/29/2007].

Cartson, R. 2002. Thoughts and utterances: the pragmatics of explicit communication. Oxford: Blackwell.

Conte, A. 1988. Eidos. An essay on constitutive rules. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities. 11: 251–257.

Conte, A. 1993. Deontisch vs. anankastisch. In Rechtssystem und praktische Vernunft, eds. R. Alexy and R. Dreier, 102–109 (Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 51, 1993.). Wiesbaden: Steiner.

Conte, M.-E. 1995. Epistemico, deontico, anankastico. In Dalla pragmatica alla sintassi. Modalità e modi nell’acquisizione di seconde lingue, eds. A. Giacalone Ramat, G. Crocco-Galèas, 309–316. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.

Dendale, P. 1994. Devoir épistémique, marqueur modal ou évidentiel ? Langue Française 102: 24–39.CrossRef

Dendale, P., and W. De Mulder. 1996. Déduction ou abduction: le cas de devoir inférentiel. In L’énonciation médiatisée, ed. Z. Guentchéva, Louvain/ Paris: Peeters.

Doherty, M. 1987. Epistemic meaning. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer.

Ennis, R.H. 2006. Probably. In Arguing on the Toulmin Model. New essays in argument analysis and evaluation, eds. D. Hitchcock, B. Verheij, Dordrecht: Springer.

Faller, M.T. 2002. Semantics and pragmatics of evidentials in Cuzco Quechua. PhD Thesis, Stanford: Stanford University.

Freeman, J.B. 1991. Dialectics and the macrostructure of arguments. A theory of argument structure. Berlin/New York: Foris.

Hengeveld, K. 1988. Illocution, mood and modality in a functional grammar of Spanish. Journal of Semantics 6: 227–269.CrossRef

Houtlosser, P. 2002. Indicators of a point of view. In Advances in pragma-dialectics, ed. F. van Eemeren, Amsterdam/Newport (Virgina): SicSat/Vale Press.

Hugues, G.E., and M.J. Cresswell. 1968. Introduction to modal logic. London: Methuen.

Kaufmann, S., C. Condoravdi, and V. Harizanov. 2006. Formal approaches to modality. In The expression of modality, ed. W. Frawley. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Kratzer, A. 1977. What must and can must and can mean. Linguistics and Philosophy 1/1: 337–355.CrossRef

Kratzer, A. 1981. The notional category of modality. In Words, worlds and contexts. new approaches in word semantics, eds. H.J. Eikmeyer, H. Rieser, Berlin: De Gruyter.

Kratzer, A. 1991. Modality. In Semantik/Semantics, eds. A. von Stechow, D. Wunderlich. Berlin/ New York: De Gruyter.

Kronning, H. 1996. Modalité, cognition et polysémie: sémantique du verbe modal devoir. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.

Kronning, H. 2001. Pour une tripartition des emplois du modal devoir. In Les Verbes modaux, eds. P. Dendale, J. van der Auwera, Cahiers Chronos. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Lewis, D. 1979. Scorekeeping in a language game. Journal of Philosophical Language, 8: 339–359 (reprinted in S. Davis (ed.) Pragmatics: a reader, Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1991: 416–427).

Lycan, W.G. 1994. Modality and meaning. Dordrecht ; Boston etc.: Kluwer Academic Publ.

Lyons, J. 1977. Semantics II. Cambridge/London/New York/Melnbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Nuyts, J. 2001a. Epistemic modality, language, and conceptualization: a cognitive-pragmatic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Nuyts, J. 2001b. Subjectivity as an evidential dimension in epistemic modal expressions. Journal of Pragmatics, 33: 383–400.CrossRef

Palmer, F.R. 2001. Mood and modality. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Papafragou, A. 1998. Inference and word meaning: the case of the modal auxiliaries. Lingua, 105: 1–47.CrossRef

Papafragou, A. 2000. Modality: issues in the semantics-pragmatics interface. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Papafragou, A. 2006. Epistemic modality and truth conditions. Lingua 116: 1688–1702.CrossRef

Pinto, R. 2001. Generalizing the notion of argument. In Argument, inference and dialectic. Collected papers on informal logic, ed. R. Pinto, Dordercht/ Boston/ London: Kluwer.

Récanati, F. 1989. The pragmatics of what is said. Mind and Language, 4.

Rigotti, E. 2003. La linguistica tra le scienze della comunicazione. In Linguistica e Nuove Professioni, eds. A. Giacalone Ramat, E. Rigotti, A. Rocci, Milano: Franco Angeli.

Rigotti, E. 2005. Congruity theory and argumentation. In Argumentation in dialogic interaction. Studies in Communication Sciences, eds. M. Dascal, F.H. van Eemeren, E. Rigotti, S. Stati, A. Rocci, 97–118. Special Issue.

Rocci, A. 1997. Inferenza ed enunciazione nella semantica dei modali. L’analisi linguistica e letteraria 2: 535–553.

Rocci, A. 2000 a. L’interprétation épistémique du futur en italien et en français: une analyse procédurale. In Inférences directionnelles, représentations mentales et subjectivité, Cahiers de Linguistique Française, ed. J. Moeschler, 22: 241–274.

Rocci, A. 2000 b. La modalità epistemica e l’inferenza nel discorso. Ph.D. Thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan.

Rocci, A. 2005a. La modalità epistemica tra semantica e argomentazione. Milano: Pubblicazioni dell’ISU –Università Cattolica.

Rocci, A. 2005b. Epistemic readings of modal verbs in Italian: the relationship between propositionality, theme-rheme articulation an inferential discourse relations. In Crosslinguistic views on tense, aspect and modality, eds. B. Hollebrandse, A. van Hout, C. Vet, 229–246, Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi (Cahiers Chronos 13).

Rocci, A. 2005c. Connective predicates in monologic and dialogic argumentation. In Argumentation in Dialogic Interaction. Studies in Communication Sciences, eds. M. Dascal, F.H. van Eemeren, E. Rigotti, S. Stati, A. Rocci, 97–118. Special Issue.

Rocci, A. 2006. Le modal italien dovere au conditionnel : évidentialité et contraintes sur l’inférence des relations de discours argumentatives. Travaux Neuchâtelois de Linguistique (TRANEL) 2006/45: 71–98.

Rocci, A. 2007a. Epistemic modality and questions in dialogue. The case of the Italian interrogative constructions in the subjunctive mood. In Tense, mood and aspect. Theoretical and descriptive issues, eds. L. de Saussure, J. Moeschler, G. Puskas. 129–153, Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi (Cahiers Chronos, 17).

Rocci, A. 2007b. Modality and its conversational backgrounds in the reconstruction of argumentation. In Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, eds. F.H. van Eemeren, J.A. Blair, Ch.A. Willard, B. Garssen, 1185–1194. Amsterdam: SicSat.

Rocci, A., and R. Palmieri. 2007. Economic-financial news stories between narrative and forecast. Paper presented at IPRA 2007 10th International Pragmatics Conference – Göteborg, Sweden, 8–13 July 2007 as part of the panel Les narrativités médiatiques.

Searle, J.R. 1969. Speech ats. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Snoeck-Henkemans, F.A. 1997. Analysing complex argumentation. Amsterdam: SicSat.

Snoeck-Henkemans, F.A. 2001. Argumentation, explanation and causality: an exploration of current linguistic approaches to textual relations. In Text representation: linguistic and psycholinguistic aspects, eds. T. Sanders, W. Spooren, J. Schilperoord, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Toulmin, S.E. 1958. The uses of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

van Eemeren, F.H., and R. Grootendorst: 2004. A systematic theory of argumentation. The pragma-dialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

van Eemeren, F.H., P. Houtlosser, and F. Snoeck-Henkemans. 2007. Argumentative indicators in discourse. A pragma-dialectical study. Dordrecht: Springer.

van Eemeren, F.H. et al. 1996. Fundamentals of argumentation theory. A handbook of historical backgrounds and contemporary developments. Mahwah (New Jersey): Lawrence Erlbaum.

Walton, D.N. 1990. Practical reasoning: goal-driven, knowledge-based, action-guiding argumentation. Savage (Maryland): Rowman and Littlefield.

Walton, D.N. 1996. Argument schemes for presumptive reasoning. Mahwah (New Jersey): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Walton, D.N. 2006. Fundamentals of critical argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wertheimer, R. 1972. The significance of sense: meaning, modality and morality. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

White, A. 1975. Modal thinking. Oxford: Blackwell.

Titel: Modality and its Conversational Backgrounds in the Reconstruction of Argumentation
verfasst von: Andrea Rocci
Publikationsdatum: 01.05.2008
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Argumentation / Ausgabe 2/2008
Print ISSN: 0920-427X
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-8374
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-007-9065-8

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 2/2008

Pragmatic Reflexivity in Self-defeating and Self-justifying Expressions

Douglas Walton, Dialog Theory for Critical Argumentation

“Eat your Hamburger!”—“No, I don’t Want to!” Argumentation and Argumentative Development in the Context of Dinner Conversation in Twenty Swedish Families

Rationality, Reasonableness, and Critical Rationalism: Problems with the Pragma-dialectical View

Purpose, Argument Fields, and Theoretical Justification

Variation in the Use of Pronouns as a Function of the Topic of Argumentation in Young Writers Aged 11 Years