Jean Goodwin

Argument Has No Function

Douglas Walton has been right in calling us to attend to the pragmatics of argument. He has, however, also insisted that arguments should be understood and assessed by considering the functions they perform; and from this, I dissent. Argument has no determinable function in the sense Walton needs, and even if it did, that function would not ground norms for argumentative practice. As an alternative to a functional theory of argumentative pragmatics, I propose a design view, which draws attention to the way participants strategically undertake and impose norms on themselves in order for their arguments to have force.

Students' Perspectives on Debate Exercises in Content Area Classes

The recent movement to promote debate across the curriculum presumes that debate-like activities in content-area classes can enhance disciplinary learning as well as core skills. Yet students in such classes may resist debate activities if they believe (1) debate promotes hostility; (2) debate disadvantages demographic groups preferring noncompetitive communication styles; or (3) debate is too unfamiliar. The present study elicited end-of-term written evaluations of debate-like activities in a 70-student class on rhetorical traditions. Students in the class worked in small groups to prepare debates on issues arising from lectures and reading. Teams presented debates during weekly discussion section meetings; those not debating acted as judges and wrote explanations of their decisions. Thematic analysis of the student responses indicated that, while a few students expressed discomfort with the competitiveness of the activities, most were laudatory. Results point to the value of debate-across-the-curriculum for promoting small group communication and for fostering divergent perspectives on course topics.

Forms of Authority and the Real Ad Verecundiam

This paper provides a typology of appeals to authority, identifying three distinct types: that which is based on a command; that which is based on expertise; and that which is based on dignity. Each type is distinguished with respect to the reaction that a failure to follow it ordinarily evokes. The rhetorical roots of Lockes ad verecundiam are traced to the rhetorical practices of ancient Rome.

Cicero's Authority

On a stray planet in an out-of-the-way corner of the universe live odd beings with patterns of behavior odder still. It can be frequently observed that one of them stands before another, moving its limbs or producing some sounds, and the other responds apparently quite as the first expected. But why? Why should these feeble motions have such force? This puzzle or wonder is presented to us conspicuously in the phenomenon we know as authority. Authority is exercised most starkly in transactions similar to the following:

Comments on `Rhetoric and Dialectic from the Standpoint of Normative Pragmatics'

When faced with a topic like ‘dialectic and rhetoric,’ the student of rhetoric is, I suppose, by trained incapacity disposed to view it as ‘dialectic versus rhetoric’ and to take up arms in defense of her much-maligned Dame. The pleasures and payoffs of zealous advocacy, after all, have not waned even through 2,500 years. Unfortunately, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with my adversary’s proposal for union, or at least detente, between the dialectical and rhetorical inquiries into argumentation. I want to begin, therefore, by reiterating five theses Jacobs has nailed up for us, before closing with what I see as the major area of continued difference in viewpoints. Thesis 1. The common thrust of both rhetorical and dialectical inquiries into argumentation ‐ what provides discipline to the nondiscipline of argumentation studies ‐ is as Jacobs says our shared commitment ‘to come to grips with real messages in theoretically productive ways.’ Our work must be stubbornly loyal to the ‘real messages,’ always complex and situated; our work must also be ‘theoretically productive,’ aiming for precise and increasingly comprehensive conceptualizations. Thesis 2. Argument itself is however only one subset or aspect of the ‘real messages’ we ought to be examining. Since in Gricean terms all communication works by inducing the auditor to make specific inferences, it is tempting to reconstruct any communicative act as an argument with an inherent and (moreover) sound inferential structure. When, for example, Willard’s hotel doorman scowls at the bum who wants to enter, the bum is supposed to infer that he should get out of there; it is tempting to say that that’s the doorman’s ‘implicit’ and ‘nonverbal’ argument (1983, p. 53). But this temptation must be resisted. The doorman has not made an argument. ‘Arguments’ as Jacobs puts it, are only those ‘fundamentally linguistic entities that express in a special way propositions that stand in particular inferential relations to one another.’ So not all discourse is argument, much less good argument, nor should it be interpreted as argument. Thesis 3. Nevertheless, careful attention to nonargumentative aspects of discourse is vital for argumentation studies, because nonargumentative

Conceptions of Speech Acts in the Theory and Practice of Argumentation: A Case Study of a Debate About Advocating

Abstract Far from being of interest only to argumentation theorists, conceptions of speech acts play an important role in practitioners’ self-reflection on their own activities. After a brief review of work by Houtlosser, Jackson and Kauffeld on the ways that speech acts provide normative frameworks for argumentative interactions, this essay examines an ongoing debate among scientists in natural resource fields as to the appropriateness of the speech act of advocating in policy settings. Scientists’ reflections on advocacy align well with current scholarship, and the scholarship in turn can provide a deeper understanding of how to manage the communication challenges scientists face.

Actually Existing Rules for Closing Arguments

F. H. van Eemeren, B. Garssen (eds.), Pondering on Problems of Argumentation, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9165-0_20,

Three Faces of the Future

Why should we consider the far future when we deliberate? The question puzzles both philosophers and advocates. I isolate from civic discourses three motivations: love of children, obligation to heirs, lust for fame among posterity. All embody the future in persons related to us: the faces of the future.