Leo Groarke

Deductivism Within Pragma-Dialectics

The present paper elaborates a deductivist account of natural language argu-ment in the context of pragma-dialectics. It reviews earlier debates, criticizes some standard misconceptions in the literature, and argues that the identification and analysis of deductive argument schemes can be the basis of a compelling theory of argumentative discourse.

Affirmative action as a form of restitution

Though the common sense defense of affirmative action (or “employment equity”) appeals to principles of restitution, philosophers have tried to defend it in other ways. In contrast, I defend it by appealing to the notion of restitution, arguing (1) that alternative attempts to justify affirmative action fail; and (2) that ordinary affirmative action programs need to be supplemented and amended in keeping with the principles this suggests.

Navigating the Visual Turn in Argument

In 1996, Argumentation and Advocacy published a groundbreaking issue devoted to visual argument. It was the first collection of essays on the subject. Twenty years later, we consider some of the doubts about the possibility of visual argument that were discussed in that first issue. We argue that these doubts have been answered by the last 20 years of research on visual argument, and we look at some of the key theoretical and applied issues that characterize this burgeoning subfield in the study of argument.

Some Sources for Hume's Account of Cause

The history of ideas encompasses many questions that extend beyond the interpretation of the views of particular thinkers. 1 Among other things, they include questions about the relationship between the views and ideas of different times and questions about the intellectual milieu in which thinkers develop their perspectives. Hume addresses the former concerns in The Natural History of Religion and, in a more implicit way, the latter in a letter in which he tells his friend Michael Ramsay that the metaphysical parts of the Treatise will be understandable if one reads Malebranches Recherche, Berkeleys Principles, Bayles Dictionary, and Descartess Meditations.2 In the present paper, we address such questions as they relate to Humes account of cause, discussing the extent to which his views are anticipated by ancient thinkers (in particular the ancient skeptics) and the extent to which available accounts of their views may have contributed to the development of Humes own thinking. There is, we argue, a clearer anticipation of Hume in ancient thinking than usually imagined-one which probably contributes, in at least an indirect way, to Humes thinking on the subject.

Johnson on the Metaphysics of Argument

This paper responds to two aspects of Ralph Johnsons Manifest Rationality (2000). The first is his critique of deductivism. The second is his failure to make room for some species of argument (e.g., visual and kisceral arguments) proposed by recent commentators. In the first case, Johnson holds that argumentation theorists have adopted a notion of argument which is too narrow. In the second, that they have adopted one which is too broad. I discuss the case Johnson makes for both claims, and possible objections to his analysis.

The Persuasion Machine

The aim of this chapter is to explore the problems and challenges of creating a ‘Persuasion Machine’ that is intended to engage a user in an argument in order to persuade her of some point of view. The approach is to start with a focus upon breadth, and to bring structure to an ill-structured problem. From there, for each component and each subproblem, the linguistic, computational, rhetorical and argumentation-theoretic theory drivers are integrated, to develop scaffolding and solutions that work not only as an environment in which to assess new theoretical developments, but also as a route to implementation and evaluation.