Search

Abstract: Metaphors are emotionally engaging, influenc-ing the evaluation of arguments. The paper empirically in-vestigates whether metaphors in the premise can lead the evaluator to judge an ad hominem argument as sound when the arguer instead committed a fallacy. The results show that ad hominem arguments with conventional and positive metaphors are more persuasive compared to those with novel and negative metaphors. Arguments with conventional metaphors are also perceived as more am-biguous, but less convincing, and emotionally appealing. Additionally, participants believe in the conclusion more when the premise contains a positive rather than a nega-tive metaphor, which instead helps the evaluator detect the fallacy. Résumé: Les métaphores sont émotionnellement engag-eantes et ainsi influencent l’évaluation des arguments. L'article étudie empiriquement si les métaphores em-ployées dans la prémisse peuvent amener l'évaluateur à juger un argument ad hominem comme solide bien que ce sophisme soit commis. Les résultats montrent que les ar-guments ad hominem utilisant des métaphores conven-tionnelles et positives sont plus convaincants que ceux utilisant des métaphores nouvelles et négatives. Les argu-ments utilisant des métaphores conventionnelles sont également perçus comme plus ambigus, mais moins con-vaincants et émotionnellement attrayants. De plus, les participants croient davantage à la conclusion lorsque la prémisse contient une métaphore positive plutôt que néga-tive, ce qui aide plutôt l'évaluateur à détecter le sophisme.

Abstract: This paper aims to develop the criteria for assessing semantic arguments. However, while this notion constituted the core of ancient dialectics and is addressed in several approaches to argument analysis, the criteria for evaluating such arguments are insufficient. This paper intends to address this problem by combining the insights of classical and contemporary logic and testing them against some controversies involving controversial definitions or classifications. Through detailed case studies of the argumentative uses involving the (re)definitions of racism, war, peace, and feminism, we formulated and tested eight evaluation criteria that may be expressed as critical questions. Résumé: Cet article vise à développer les critères d’évaluation des arguments sémantiques. Cependant, bien que cette notion constitue le coeur de la dialectique ancienne et soit abordée dans plusieurs approches de l’analyse des arguments, les critères d’évaluation de ces arguments sont insuffisants. Cet article vise à résoudre ce problème en combinant les idées de la logique classique et contemporaine et en les testant par rapport à certaines controverses impliquant des définitions ou des classifications controversées. À travers des études de cas détaillées sur les usages argumentatifs impliquant les (re)définitions du racisme, de la guerre, de la paix et du féminisme, nous avons formulé et mis à l’épreuve huit critères d'évaluation qui peuvent être exprimés sous forme de questions critiques.

The paper discusses the role of systemic means of persuasion in argument evaluation. The core class of systemic means of persuasion is regress stoppers, whose fundamental function is to halt the infinite regress of justification by making claims, premises, or overall position expressed in a persuasive message more acceptable to a recipient. The paper explores how systemic means of persuasion contribute to the structure of arguments in the Toulmin model and serve as cues for heuristic processing of persuasive messages. It also presents the results of the stylometric analysis and statistical data on the usage of systemic means of persuasion in three corpora which suggest that systemic means of persuasion constitute strategies independent of the strategy based on explicit argumentation marked by inference indicators.

Abstract: In this essay, I make a plea for a wide-ranging, open perspective on the evaluation of arguments. This involves a more flexible understanding of what fallacies are and for what argu-ments may be used. I acknowledge the great wealth of argumentation theory, but bemoan the lack of systematic, re-peatable, and explainable evaluation procedures. I then go on to introduce the works which contribute to this spe-cial issue and explain how they assist in the fulfilment of my hopes. Résumé: Dans cet essai, je plaide en faveur d’une perspective large et ou-verte sur l’évaluation des arguments. Cela implique une compréhension plus flexible de ce que sont les sophismes et des arguments qui peuvent être utilisés. Je reconnais la grande richesse de la théorie de l’argumentation, mais je dé-plore le manque de procédures d’éval-uation systématiques, reproductibles et explicables. Je présente ensuite les travaux qui contribuent à ce numéro spécial et explique comment ils con-tribuent à la réalisation de mes espoirs.

Abstract: This paper addresses the prob-lem of how to identify and evaluate argu-ments made in a nonverbal form. Such arguments may employ images, sounds, or a combination of these in a truly mul-timodal presentation. Here, we concen-trate on those which are classified as au-ditory, i.e. contain at least one premise or the conclusion in sound form. We pro-pose and test a solution whereby some el-ements of the Comprehensive Assess-ment Procedure for Natural Argumenta-tion (CAPNA) are modified to allow for the evaluation of auditory arguments. The results of this approach are illus-trated with the help of a number of au-thentic examples. Résumé: Cet article aborde le problème de la façon d'identifier et d'évaluer les ar-guments présentés sous une forme non verbale. De tels arguments peuvent uti-liser des images, des sons ou une com-binaison de ceux-ci dans une présenta-tion véritablement multimodale. Ici, nous nous concentrons sur les arguments classés comme auditifs, c'est-à-dire qui contiennent au moins une prémisse ou la conclusion sous forme sonore. Nous pro-posons et testons une solution dans laquelle certains éléments de la procédure d'évaluation globale de l'argu-mentation naturelle (CAPNA) sont mod-ifiés pour permettre l'évaluation des ar-guments auditifs. Les résultats de cette approche sont illustrés à l’aide de nom-breux exemples authentiques.

Abstract: In this paper, we contend that there are two ways of arguing, namely sincere and insincere arguing. We draw such a distinction, based on the felicity conditions of the complex speech act of arguing as modelled in van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s pragma-dialectical approach. We introduce a conversa-tional setting, which contains a speech act of arguing that does not count as in-sincere arguing, while being a sui gene-ris form of sincere arguing. We desig-nate it as “cooperative inquiry”. Finally, we show that argument evaluation plays a key role in determining whether an in-stance of arguing counts as either argu-ing sincerely or insincerely. Résumé: Dans cet article, nous affir-mons qu’il existe deux manières d’argu-menter, à savoir l’argumentation sincère et l’argumentation non sincère. Nous établissons une telle distinction, basée sur les conditions de félicité de l’acte de parole complexe consistant à argu-menter, tel que modélisé dans l’ap-proche pragma-dialectique de van Eemeren et Grootendorst. Nous intro-duisons un cadre conversationnel, qui contient un acte de parole d'argumenta-tion qui n'est pas considéré comme une argumentation non sincère, tout en étant une forme sui generis d'argumentation sincère. Nous la désignons comme « enquête coopérative ». Enfin, nous montrons que l’évaluation des argu-ments joue un rôle clé pour déterminer si un cas d’argumentation compte comme une argumentation sincère ou non.

Anthony Blair, who died in March of this year, may yet be remembered as the scholar who was instrumental in creating, developing and popularizing informal logic in the 1970s, and who then spent the rest of his career trying to decide what exactly it was he had discovered.

Arguments from fairness as described in Aristotle’s Rhetoric are usually taken to aim at mitigating the strictness of the law or, in terms of procedure, to favour the defendant. This paper considers a more inclusive interpretation, that is, that arguments from fairness can work both ways. In the example given in the Rhetoric, arguments from fairness are directed at a restrictive interpretation of the text. That may not be necessary however. Likewise, fairness may speak for the claimant. Two examples may support this conclusion: a judicial speech by Hyperides, and the doctrine of issues appearing in Hellenistic school rhetoric.

It is widely believed that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s theory of argumentation is vulnerable to the charge of relativism. This paper provides a more charitable interpretation of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s normative views, one that properly considers the historical trajectory of their work and a wider range of texts than existing interpretations. It is argued that their views are better characterized as a form of “contrastivism about arguments” than any kind relativism. This more accurate depiction contributes to ongoing efforts to revive interest in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s work as well as build bridges with trends in contemporary argumentation theory.

Generative AI appears to threaten argument creativity. Because of its capacity to generate coherent texts, individuals are likely to integrate its ideas, and not their own, into arguments, thereby reducing their creative contribution. This article argues that this view is mistaken—it rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of creativity. Within arguments, creative and critical thinking cannot be separated. Because creativity is enmeshed with skills such as analysis and evaluation, the use of generative AI in the construction of arguments, especially in the role as universal audience, has the potential to heighten, not diminish argument creativity.

The orthodox view holds that analogical arguments are a distinctive type of argument, while the eliminative view and its enhanced variant proposed in this paper contend that analogical arguments can be reducible to non-analogical arguments by eliminating the similarities proposition. This paper shows that the existing defense for the orthodox view fails to tackle the challenge posed by the eliminative view and its enhanced variant. The new defense for the distinctiveness of analogical arguments argues that an analogical argument is composed of both a conductive and principle-based argument. Consequently, analogical arguments remain irreducible, as the similarities proposition is not eliminated.

The virtues and vices of argument are now an established part of argumentation theory. They have helped direct attention to hitherto neglected aspects of how we argue. However, it remains controversial whether a virtue theory can contribute to some of the central questions of argumentation theory. Notably, Harvey Siegel disputes whether what he calls ‘arguments in the abstract propositional sense’ can be evaluated meaningfully within a virtue theory. This paper explores the prospects for grounding an account of argument evaluation in arguers’ virtues and vices by examination of a corresponding debate in virtue ethics: Can an ethics of virtue guide our actions? It is thereby argued that an affirmative answer is possible: virtues suffice for argument evaluation.

This article discusses Harvey Siegel’s general justification of the epistemological theory of argumentation in his seminal essay “Arguing with Arguments." On the one hand, the achievements of this essay are honoured—in particular, a thorough differentiation of the different meanings of ‘argument’ and ‘argumentation,’ the semantic justification of the fundamentality of arguments as sequences of propositions, and the detailed critiques of alternative theories of argumentation. On the other hand, suggestions for strengthening the theory are added to Siegel's expositions, which make different perspectives within the epistemological theory of argumentation recognisable.

This paper is a response to H. Siegel’s “Arguing with Arguments” from a rhetorical perspective on argumentation. First I address Siegel’s concept of ‘argument in its abstract propositional sense’ and attempt to show that it is not at all an obvious object that should unquestionably be the privileged focus of argumentation theory. I then defend C. W. Tindale’s rhetorical perspective on argumentation against some of Siegel’s misreadings and also some of his legitimate disagreements regarding the relations between persuasion and rational justification and the way we should understand the source of argumentative normativity.

‘Argument’ has multiple meanings and referents in contemporary argumentation theory. Theorists are well aware of this but often fail to acknowledge it in their theories. In what follows, I distinguish several senses of ‘argument’ and argue that some highly visible theories are largely correct about some senses of the term but not others. In doing so, I hope to show that apparent theoretical rivals are better seen as collaborators or partners, rather than rivals, in the multi-disciplinary effort to understand ‘argument,’ arguments, and argumentation in all their varieties. I argue as well for a pluralistic approach to argument evaluation and argumentative norms, since arguments and argumentation can be legitimately evaluated along several dimensions, but urge that epistemic norms enjoy conceptual priority.

In Memoriam for Professor Michael Scriven

In this paper, a reaction is presented to Siegel’s claim that the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation ignores or neglects epistemological viewpoints that he finds vital to any normative theory of argumentation. The focus is on the most important problems in Siegel’s argument: 1) the ambiguity of the term ‘argument’ and the alleged negligence of this ambiguity in pragma-dialectics; 2) the critical rational perspective of the pragma-dialectical account; and 3) the alleged negligence of the “abstract propositional sense” of argument in pragma-dialectics.

In making analogical arguments about actions, is more similarity between the source and target cases always better? No: all things considered, more similarity is not always better, even if the similarities are all relevant. The reason is that the context of the argument, including emotional considerations, modulates the selection of the source case to service the goals of the argument. If the goals of the argument include persuasion and even modifying someone’s emotional state, increasing the overall similarity between the source and target may be counterproductive.

Our goal is to analyze the distinction between factual statements and opinions from a philosophical—specifically an epistemological—perspective. Section 1 reviews the most common criteria for drawing the distinction, which while inadequate, as explained in Section 2, still plays an important cultural and political role. In Section 3, we argue that the difference between factual statements and opinions does not involve a single criterion. Instead, the conceptual structure of the terms ‘fact’ and ‘opinion’ is analogous to that of natural kinds—terms with multiple dimensions. We expect that improved theory will lead to improvements in pedagogy, decision-making, and public discourse. But these consequences are not our chief focus.

The aim of this paper is to challenge the idea that Toulmin’s main focus in The Uses of Argument is to critique formal deductive logic. I first try to challenge the argument that, on the basis of what Toulmin says about analytic arguments, it is impossible to determine exactly what they are. I will then attempt to determine the basic contours of analytic arguments. Finally, I will conclude that the concept of an analytic argument involves epistemological assumptions to which formal logicians are in no way committed by the nature of their discipline.

This paper provides methodological tools and considers the reasons why it is difficult to address the controversial question, “Are fallacies frequent?” After preliminary remarks on the need to clarify the meaning of both ‘fallacy’ and ‘frequency,’ this paper shows that the emphasis on whether fallacies occur frequently is recent and bound to contemporary definitions that make it a necessary condition. Then, it discusses three different, debated empirical approaches that are intended to support the claim that fallacies are frequent. All of them raise doubts or objections or are even controversial from a methodological point of view. Ultimately, more empirical research is needed to answer this question.

How is intellectual virtue related to critical thinking? Can one be a critical thinker without exercising intellectual virtue? Can one be intellectually virtuous without thereby being a critical thinker? How should our answers to these questions inform the instruction of critical thinking? These were the questions informing the 2023 Charles McCracken endowed lectureships given at Michigan State University by Professors Harvey Siegel and Jason Baehr. This brief commentary introduces their respective papers, which appear in the current issue of Informal Logic.

This paper explores the relationship between intellectual virtues and critical thinking, both as such and as educational ends worth pursuing. The first half of the paper examines the intersection of intellectual virtue and critical thinking. The second half addresses a recent argument to the effect that educating for intellectual virtues (in contrast to educating for critical thinking) is insufficiently action-guiding and therefore lacks a suitable pedagogy.

(1) Is the rational person eo ipso intellectually virtuous? (2) Is the intellectually virtuous person eo ipso rational? In what follows I answer both questions in the negative.

I argue that different argumentative practices require participants to categorize themselves in different modes. Accordingly, I distinguish four types of argumentation: rational argumentation, intergroup argumentation, intragroup argumentation, and, finally, personal argumentation. An inescapable implication of my approach to deliberation is that deliberation presupposes the self-categorization of participants in the same ingroup. Deliberation does not require, however, the group to antecede the deliberation process, and a distinctive feature of successful public deliberation is its capacity to produce social identification with the deliberative group. Thus, identity negotiation is an important part of deliberative processes.

This work is a revision of the False Dilemma Fallacy (FDF). The formalized model (FM)of this fallacy has as its centerpiece a valid disjunctive syllogism, but the disjunctive premise is presumed to be false, thus making the argument unsound. Our revised model (FM2.0) focuses on the formal structure by comparing the given vs. the real argument, which is unsound because of its invalidity. This approach we believe is more pedagogically useful and a better explanation of the fallacious nature of the FDF. It extends the identity of “formal fallacy” to the FDF. The abstract is formatted in two columns. The English abstract goes on this side.

Disagreement has garnered attention in a variety of academic disciplines, but its counterpart agreement is deserving of much more attention than it has received. This paper begins by reviewing some of the existing literature directly discussing agreement. Inspired by these conversations, I then provide a typology of basic types of agreement followed by a more general discussion of its nature. The aim of the paper is to provide conceptual clarifications and a framework for discussing and analyzing agreement wherever it may be found.

Simple explanations are very often inadequate and can encourage faulty inferences. We examined college students’ explanations regarding illegal immigration to determine the prevalence of single-factor explanations. The form of students’ explanations was predicted by their responses on a simple three-item forced-choice multivariable causal reasoning task in which they selected the strongest evidence against a causal claim. In a further qualitative investigation of explanations by a sample of community adults, we identified positive features among those who scored high on this multivariable causal reasoning task. We consider limitations of single-factor reasoning and means of encouraging more comprehensive explanations to support claims.

The rhetorical function of whataboutism is to redirect attention from the specific case at hand. Although commonly used as a rhetorical move, whataboutisms can appear in arguments. These tend to be weak arguments and are often instances of the tu quoque fallacy or other fallacies of relevance. In what follows, I show that arguments involving a whataboutist move can take a wide variety of forms, and in some cases, they can occur in good arguments. I end by considering how whataboutist arguing in social justice contexts can be harmful to arguers and to the audiences for their arguments.

This article reviews Fernando Leal and Hubert Marraud’s How Philosopher’s Argue: An Adversarial Collaboration on the Russell-Copleston Debate (Springer 2022).

Many have argued that it is impossible to determine criteria to identify good arguments. In this contribution, we argue that it is at least possible to identify features of objectively bad arguments. Going beyond Blair and Johnson’s ARS criteria, which state that reasons must be acceptable, relevant, and sufficient, we develop a list of eight criteria with instructions for how to apply them to assess arguments. We conclude by presenting data from two empirical studies that show how frequently students violate these criteria in lab conditions and “in the wild.”

The aim of this paper is to highlight an interdependence between procedural and agential norms that undermines their neat separation when appraising argumentation. Drawing on the munāẓara tradition, we carve a space for sequencing in argumentation scholarship. Focusing on the antagonist’s sequencing of critical moves, we identify each sequence’s corresponding values of argumentation: coalescence, reliability, and efficacy. These values arise through the mediation of virtues and simultaneously underpin procedural as well as agential norms. Consequently, an ambiguity between procedure and agent becomes apparent. This ambiguity hints at the potential for a virtue theory of argumentation that draws on procedural norms.

The use of numerical arguments has become part and parcel of evidence-based policymaking, serving increasingly as scientific evidence which is used to back up policy decisions and to convince citizens of the acceptability of those decisions. But numerical arguments and their quality and potential persuasive role in the specific institutional context of policymaking have received little treatment within argumentation theory. This paper endeavours to explain the forms, functions, and quality of numerical arguments in policymaking.

John Woods and Brent Hudak’s theory on arguments by analogy (1989), although correct in its meta-argumentative approach, gives rise to problems when we consider the possibility of weighing reasons. I contend that this is an outcome of construing the relationship between the premises and the conclusion of arguments compared in argumentation by analogy as inferences. An interpretation in terms of reasons is proposed here. The reasons-based approach solves these problems and allows the theory to be extended to account for a particular variant of argumentation by analogy in which the subjects of comparison are not arguments, but weighings of reasons.

he best arguments are distinguished by more than logical validity, successful rhetorical persuasion, or satisfactory dialectical closure. Argument appraisal has to look beyond the premises, inferences, and conclusions; it must consider more than just the objections and replies, and resolutions that satisfy the arguers might not satisfy outside critics. Arguers and their contexts can be important factors for assessing arguments. This conclusion is reached by considering several scenarios in which similar arguments—up to and including complete word-for-word identity—merit different critical responses.

In this paper, we devise a network that consists of argumentation schemes and critical questions that participants in debates can use to easily construct arguments that attack or support former arguments. As a prototype, we build a potential network of argumentation schemes and critical questions with a practical reasoning scheme at its center. The usefulness of a NASCQ in constructing and reconstructing complex arguments and in formal argumentation is also explored along with argumentation more broadly.

This paper is focused on the practice of unsolicited, reflective diary writing as an act of externalizing internal dialogue. I suggest that it should be analyzed as an argumentative practice from the point of view of pragma-dialectics. In the first part of the paper, I demonstrate that internal communication can be examined from the perspective of pragma-dialectics because it is in line with its meta-theoretical principles (especially socialization and externalization). In the second part, I suggest that reflective diary writing should be conceived of as an argumentative activity type. I show that this practice is a conventionalized activity type that is preconditioned by implicit norms governing the conduct of argumentation.

In this paper I question the primacy of argumentation relying solely on logic by showing how the body and mind are deeply connected and as a result how communication and argumentation are a product of this mind/body connection. In particular, I explore the physicality of argumentation through the research and writings on gestures and the embodied mind. Michael Gilbert’s theory of multi-modal argumentation provides the general approach for this elaboration.

In the issue, Michael Gilbert first considers the history and development of his theory before Leo Groarke helpfully clarifies the differences and affinities between multi-modal and multimodal argumentation. Then, each of Gilbert’s modes is explored in a separate critical study, with David Godden attending to the logical mode, Linda Carroza to the emotional, Claudio Duran the visceral, and Christopher Tindale the kisceral. A final paper by Marko Novak applies the theory (particularly the kisceral mode) to the field of law. Together, these papers offer readers an opportunity to review the range of ideas associated with Gilbert’s model, and set the grounds for continuing research on this important theory.

Of the different modes that characterize Michael Gilbert’s multi-modal theory of argumentation, the kisceral is in many ways the most challenging to understand and employ. It appears to bypass the processes of reason that have dominated accounts in the Western tradition, diverting us toward the private worlds of hunches and gut reactions. This paper explores the nature of kisceral arguments, comparing them to the way intuition operates in William James’ examination of mystical experience. Having provided an account of kisceral arguments and their operation, the discussion turns to the even more challenging issue of how such arguments should be evaluated.

On Gilbert’s multi-modal theory of argumentation, the “logical” is but one among many modes of argument, including the emotional, the visceral (physical), and the kisceral (intuitive). Yet, I argue that, properly understood, the logical is not one mode among many. Rather, it is better understood as the uber-mode of argument. What Gilbert calls the “logical mode” of argument—a linear, orderly, highly verbalizable, way of arguing—is made possible only to the extent that the logic of some space of reasons has been articulated. The “anti-logical” penchant of multi-modal argumentation is not found at the object-level—in its countenancing “non-logical” modes of argument, but at the meta-level—in its resistance, as a mistaken embracing of the “logical” mode, to using the logics governing the different modes to self-regulate the course of our arguings.

Gilbert's kisceral argumentation is, roughly speaking, about arguing based on intuitions. In the forefront of such a (rhetorical) model are arguers and audiences, who resolve disagreements using kisceral arguments. Intuitions as reasons were more important in pre-modern law, when the law was not as explicit, precise, and determinate as today. Law influenced by religion or religious law was a typical example. In our much more secular modern era, intuitions are more or less subordinated to the (legal) logical mode of arguing. However, in tough legal cases, when logic "runs out," it is values that decide them. Not surprisingly, neuroscience and cognitive psychology have shown a strong connection between values and intuition.