Logic or rhetoric in law?

One of the most crucial questions in the philosophy of law deals with the very nature of legal reasoning. Does this reasoning belong to logic or to rhetoric? This debate, increasingly centered on rhetoric, is not merely a question of language use; it covers and indicates a more basic choice between formal legalism — focusing on rational deduction from the law — and pragmatic judiciarism — focusing on reasonable debate in the court. Today, it is necessary to circumscribe the respective fields of logic and rhetoric in the language of law, while showing how they are sometimes complementary in the resolution of legal problems. But, even when we have acknowledged the need for a rhetoric accompanied by logic, we have to define that rhetoric cautiously. I confront a narrow rhetoric, often called argumentation, with a wider one of interrogative nature. There are two conceptions of rationality at stake. Their comparison enables us to raise the question of the foundation of law, as a locus to use arguments, as well as to solve social problems.     

Subordinating Truth – Is <Emphasis Type="Italic">Acceptability</Emphasis> Acceptable?

Argumentation logicians have recognized a specter of relativism to haunt their philosophy of argument. However, their attempts to dispel pernicious relativism by invoking notions of a universal audience or a community of model interlocutors have not been entirely successful. In fact, their various discussions of a universal audience invoke the context-eschewing formalism of Kant’s categorical imperative. Moreover, they embrace the Kantian method for resolving the antinomies that continually vacillates between opposing extremes – here between a transcendent universal audience and a context-embedded particular audience. This tack ironically restores the very external mediation they thought to obviate in their aim to ‘dethrone’ the absolutism and totalitarianism of formal logic with a democratic turn to audience adherence, the acceptability of premises and inferential links, and a contextual, or participant-relative, notion of cogency.     

儿童电视动画片播放效果的研究

本研究运用心理学的研究方法、测量手段和建构因果模型的统计方法 ,评价了儿童电视动画片的传播效果。研究包括三个步骤 :1确定效标和影响动画片传播效果的特征 ;2提出假设的因果关系模型 ;3对模型进行估计、检验和修正。本研究的主要结果是 :动画片的内容和观众的家庭教育状况对观众看动画片的收获有着显著的正效应 ,观众的收视状况对收获有较大的负效应 ;动画片的内容、形式对于观众对动画片的态度有着积极的直接效应 ;态度和收获之间的因果关系是单向的 ,即态度影响收获 ;建立的因果模型能较好地预测和评价儿童电视动画片的传播效果     

Some consequences ofThe New Rhetoric: A critical study

This review article examines some aspects of the legacy of Perelman'sThe New Rhetoric as reflected in two volumes of his collected essays in the new edition of his Works as well as in a memorial volume edited by Michel Meyer and the acts of a colloquium sponsored by Meyer's Center for Argumentation.     

Manipulations in argumentation

In public and political practice, argumentation involves verbal manipulations, which have not been sufficiently studied in modern argumentation theory. This paper proposes to analyse such manipulations as speech acts, by means of the pragmadialectical theory of argumentation.     

Rhetoric and the Reception Theory of Rationality in the Work of Two Buddhist Philosophers

Although rhetoric is not a category of ancient Indian philosophy, this paper argues that Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, 2 eighth-century Indian Buddhist philosophers, can nonetheless be seen to embrace a rhetorical conception of rationality. That is, while these thinkers are strong proponents of rational analysis and philosophical argumentation as tools for attaining certainty, they also uphold the contingent nature of all such processes. Drawing on the categories of the New Rhetoric, this paper argues that these Buddhist thinkers understand philosophical argumentation to be directed at a universal audience of rational beings, where this universal audience is not an actual audience but a rhetorical one constructed through the author’s particular and historically contingent conception of what counts as rational. A reception theory of rationality is one that holds that the rationality of an argument depends upon its acceptance by a rational audience. When philosophers recognize the historically contingent nature of what counts as rational, they can embrace a reception theory of rationality that neither reduces the rational to mere opinion nor restricts it to a single, absolute, and timeless standard.

参照性交流中的“听者设计”

“听者设计”一直是参照性交流研究领域中的热点。参照性交流过程中交流者通常会根据对交流同伴共享信息的评估来调整自己的行为,但是这些调整什么时候以及怎样发生的机制问题仍然存在争论。重点评述了“听者设计”的已有研究角度和研究进展,并归纳总结了参照惯例视角、记忆和注意视角、交流情境视角的研究观点。未来研究应扩展已有研究设计,以深入探查“听者设计”的形成、获得、发展变化过程,以及其与参照性交流其他限制因素间的相互作用;需要结合行为证据和眼动、脑成像证据等以帮助揭示“听者设计”过程的行为特点与认知机制。     

对性别助长假设的初步验证:在场观众的性别影响作业效绩吗?

为了检验金盛华于1989年提出的“性别助长假设”,采用现场实验探讨观众魅力对性别助长效应的干涉作用。32个中专学生(男女各半)在4种观众条件下测试BAH时间。结果表明,观众条件对女性被试的作业效绩无影响;而高魅力异性观众的在场能助长男性被试的效绩,而低魅力的异性观众在场会削弱其效绩。因此,性别助长效应受到诸多因素(如被试的性别、观众的魅力)的干涉,男性易出现助长现象,且高魅力的异性观众才对作业效绩具有助长作用。     

自我监控性作为性别助长效应的干涉变量

采用双手调节器操作任务进一步验证“性别助长”假设。20个自我监控者与20个我行我素者(男女各半)分别按抵消顺序接受两种实验处理：男性观众和女性观众。结果表明,异性观众可以助长男性被试的操作速度,而削弱女性被试的操作速度;对于作业效绩也存在着同样的交互作用;自我监控性是性别助长效应的一个重要干涉变量,男自我监控者表现出明显的异性助长,女自我监控者表现出明显的异性抑制,而我行我素者没有表现出明显的观众效应。由于自我监控性对相应的异性效应有一种放大作用,可知性别助长效应的基础是以印象管理动机为主。     

Strategic Maneuvering through Persuasive Definitions: Implications for Dialectic and Rhetoric

Persuasive definitions – those that convey an attitude in the act of naming – are frequently employed in discourse and are a form of strategic maneuvering. The dynamics of persuasive definition are explored through brief case studies and an extended analysis of the use of the “war” metaphor in responding to terrorism after September 11, 2001. Examining persuasive definitions enables us to notice similarities and differences between strategic maneuvering in dialectical and in rhetorical argument, as well as differences between the role of strategic maneuvering in normatively ideal argument and in actually existing argument. This will avoid the double standard of comparing ideal dialectic with actual rhetoric, or vice versa. The results of the analysis suggest possibilities for a rapprochement between dialectical and rhetorical approaches to argumentation.