Classical rhetorical topics and contemporary historical discourse

This paper suggests a specific contribution of contemporary history and philosophy of science to the theory of history. The pragmatic in the technical sense of analysis of use and user aspects of scientific discourse, and the pragmatist, in the sense of a focus on utility as canon, dimensions of modern philosophy of science illumine the structure of historical inquiry. Simply put, the structure of writing produced by the historical discipline is argumentative. Further, the nature of the historical argumentative strategies is best described by reference to classical rhetorical, to topical modes of argument.     

Rules for argumentation in dialogues

In this article it is pointed out what kind of rules for communication and argumentation are required in order to make it possible to resolve disputes in an orderly way. In section 2, Gricean maxims and Searlean speech act conditions are integrated in such a way that five general rules for communication can be formulated. In section 3, starting from Lewis's definition of convention, it is argued that the interactional effect of accepting is conventionally linked with the complex communicative act complex of argumentation. In section 4, the rules for argumentation are placed in a dialogical perspective.     

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.     

The Rational Reconstruction of Argumentation Referring to Consequences and Purposes in the Application of Legal Rules: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective

In this paper, the author develops an instrument for the rational reconstruction of argumentation in which a judicial decision is justified by referring to the consequences in relation to the purpose of the rule. The instrument is developed by integrating insights from legal theory and legal philosophy about the function and use of arguments from consequences in relation to the purpose of a rule into a pragma-dialectical framework. Then, by applying the instrument to the analysis of examples from legal practice, it is demonstrated that the instrument can offer a heuristic and critical tool for the analysis and evaluation of legal argumentation that can ‘bridge’ the gap between more abstract discussions of forms of legal argumentation on the one hand, and legal arguments as they occur in actual legal practice on the other hand.     

The Vicious Circle Theorem – a Graph-Theoretical Analysis of Dialectical Structures

This article sets up a graph-theoretical framework for argumentation-analysis (dialectical analysis) which expands classical argument-analysis. Within this framework, a main theorem on the existence of inconsistencies in debates is stated and proved: the vicious circle theorem. Subsequently, two corollaries which generalize the main theorem are derived. Finally, a brief outlook is given on further expansions and possible applications of the developed framework.     

Argumentation, the Visual, and the Possibility of Refutation: An Exploration

Taking the possibility of visual argumentation seriously, this essay explores how refutation might proceed. We posit three ways in which images can refute and be refuted in a mixed-media environment: (1) dissection, in which an image is broken down discursively; (2) substitution, in which one image is replaced within a larger visual frame by a different image; and (3) transformation, in which an image is recontextualized in a new visual frame. These strategies are illustrated in an analysis of three American documentary films on abortion.     

Logic and Rhetoric in Legal Argumentation: Some Medieval Perspectives

While the formal treatment of arguments in the late medieval modi arguendi owes much to dialectic, this does not remove the substance and function of the argumentative modes discussed from the realm of rhetoric. These works, designed to teach law students skills in legal argumentation, remain importantly focused on persuasive features of argumentation which have traditionally been strongly associated with a rhetorical approach, particularly in efforts to differentiate from it dialectic as a more strictly scientific and logical form of reasoning. This also sheds some light on the relative roles logic and rhetoric play in the legal discourse of our own time. In their approach to persuasive legal discourse, the modi arguendi stand between the argumentative rhetorics of Antiquity and the rhetoricized dialectics of the Renaissance, and by linking the minute technicalities of professionalized law with broad general considerations of justice, utility, nature, and emotion, they mediate between the modem trend towards atomized field-specific rhetorics and the classical idea of a unified civic rhetoric.     

The Role of Rhetoric in Rational Argumentation

The structure of this discussion will be tripartite. First it will set out a way of distinguishing between rhetoric and strictly rational argumentation. Next it will consider some of the ramifications of this proposed way of looking at the matter – in particular what its implications are for rationality and for rhetoric, respectively. Finally it examines how this perspective bears on the project of philosophizing. The paper's ultimate aim, accordingly, is to consider what light such an analysis can shed upon philosophy and philosophizing.     

Formal aspects of Legal reasoning

This paper discusses the functions of deductive justification in ideal reconstructions of judicial reasoning. It departs from the point of judicial reasoning: explaining and justifying the judicial decision. It argues that deductive validity is not enough for good judicial argument. On the other hand, deductive justification is necessary, not only for easy cases but for hard cases as well. It draws some consequences for the concept of jumps in legal reasoning and for the traditional distinction between internal and external justification.     

Arguing about the ethics of past actions: An analysis of a taped conversation about a taped conversation

In the face of widespread cynicism as regards the possibilities for reasoned and reasonable adjudication of ethical differences in the postmodern age, this essay proposes a dialogic, reconstructive rhetoric as a vehicle for jointly arguing about the ethics of past actions, and looks to the friendship circle as a model arena for the playing out of such a rhetoric. Analyzed by way of illustration is a conversation among four good friends about the ethics of another, surreptitiously taped, conversation between two of those friends.The author wishes to thank Barbie Zeltzer and Micheal Krippondorf, both of Temple University, fot thier comments. Abridged versions of this paper were presented at the Iowa Conference on Narrative in the Human Sciences,1990 and at the England Symposium in Narratives in the Social Sciences. Commentaries at these conferences were also very useful.