Review of: Frans H. van Eemeren (2015): Reasonableness and Effectiveness in Argumentative Discourse: Fifty Contributions to the Development of Pragma-Dialectics, Cham (CH), Springer (= Argumentation Library, 27), 880 pp.

Excerpt

This is a book I am sure many of us wanted to see. Every scholar in the world who works in the field of argumentation studies knows the name of Frans van Eemeren and has heard of the tag ‘pragma-dialectics’. What not everyone is aware of is the sheer amount and variety of research associated with that name and this tag. Even though van Eemeren and his multiple collaborators in what is known as the Amsterdam School have been publishing a long string of books in pragma-dialectics over the years, the fact of the matter is that at the same time van Eemeren, alone or in collaboration, has been busy pouring forth an astounding amount of papers (over 300 actually) which either extended or deepened the pragma-dialectical research program, and are chock full of aperçus, arguments, and results that are not contained in those books. The book under review, almost 900 pages long, is the first publication to allow us a glimpse into the workshop of pragma-dialectics in its full glory. …