On the Very Concept of an Enthymeme

An enthymeme is often defined as an argument with a missing component or an argument with an unexpressed component. Roy Sorensen, in “Are Enthymemes Arguments?”, argues against the possibility of enthymemes being arguments at all, but he assumes that arguments are abstract objects. I shall present and explore some more metaphysically neutral arguments against enthymemes as arguments and ultimately conclude that while not conclusive, the most viable option is Sorensen’s—enthymemes are not arguments

Implicit dialogical premises, explanation as argument: a corpus-based reconstruction

This paper focuses on an explanation in a newspaper article: why new European Union citizens will come to the UK from Eastern Europe (e.g., because of available jobs). Using a corpus-based method of analysis, I show how regular target readers have been positioned to generate premises in dialogue with the explanation propositions, and thus into an understanding of the explanation as an argument, one which contains a biased conclusion not apparent in the text. Employing this method, and in particular ‘corpus comparative statistical keywords’, I show how two issues can be freshly looked at: implicit premise recovery; the argument/explanation distinction

Enthymème et débats parlementaires

The enthymeme is a truncated syllogism that exerts persuasion not only through its logical construction but mainly through what remains unsaid. Whenever a premise is left unstated, "the hearer supplies", as Aristotle says, what is missing. As the audience feel more willing to believe it, the rhetor does not need to persuade them since it is the audience that persuade themselves. One can easily imagine the use made of enthymemes in political debates, which is why we focus on the enthymeme strategy applied in 2003 by Tony Blair to persuade MPs of the need for Great- Britain to take part in the war in Iraq.L'enthymème est un syllogisme tronqué qui agit par la persuasion non seulement grâce à sa construction logique, mais essentiellement par ce qu'il implique de non-dit. Chaque fois qu'une prémisse est omise, "l'auditeur supplée", selon Aristote, ce qui est absent. Comme l'auditoire est alors plus disposé à croire cette prémisse, l'orateur n'a pas à le persuader puisque c'est l'auditoire qui se persuade. On peut facilement imaginer l'usage fait des enthymèmes dans les débats politiques, c'est pourquoi notre étude porte sur la stratégie des enthymèmes mise en oeuvre en 2003 par Tony Blair pour persuader les Membres du Parlement de la nécessité qu'a la Grande-Bretagne de prendre part à la guerre en Irak

Finding enthymemes in real-world texts: A feasibility study

Enthymeme reconstruction, i.e. the task of reformulating arguments with missing propositions, is an exciting task at the borderline of text understanding and argument interpretation. However, there is some doubt in the community about the feasibility of this task due to the wide range of possible reformulations that are open to humans. We therefore believe that research on how to define an objective ground truth for these tasks is necessary before any work on the automatic reconstruction can begin. Here, we present a feasibility study for the task of finding and expanding enthymemes involving a fortiori arguments in real-world texts, and we show that given a sufficiently strict reformulation of the human annotation task, substantial agreement can be achieved. We split the task into three sub-tasks: 1. deciding whether a candidate text span really represents an enthymematic argument, 2. classifying the type of a fortiori argument concerned and 3. describing the missing premise in natural language. In a case study involving the two authors of this paper as annotators, we test a specific type of a fortiori arguments, the let alone construction, for its suitability for reaching high agreement in all three stages of the task. We also discuss pragmatic effects of let alone and how they relate to argumentation theory

Teaching the enthymeme: On becoming a critical-rhetorical consumer of verbal and visual arguments

In this chapter we consider the enthymeme: first of all, what it entails, and secondly, how to best teach it in a lecture format in order to help people become critical, rhetorical consumers of both verbal and visual enthymematic arguments. In the section of what enthymemes entail, we systematically proceed through a range of argument-related phenomena. The first of these is the theoretical basics of the enthymeme and its connections to formal logic and in particular the syllogism. Next, we consider the rhetorical praxis of the enthymeme, including discussions on its relations to persuasion and argumentation theories. Thereafter, we discuss the multimodality of the enthymeme with examples from digital and social media, looking at advertisements and memes. We then move on to the importance of the use of enthymemes in storytelling. Lastly, we consider how enthymemes can still work in a silent world. Taking an umbrella view, we then consider why it is that enthymemes work so well in persuasive situations. Here, we especially focus on the role of the recipient and how he/she can become willingly involved in his/her own (self)-persuasion. In the final section of this chapter, we produce a pedagogical proposal, drawing on all the previous sections as to how the enthymeme might best be taught, and why. We adhere to the philosophy that knowing what enthymemes are, how they work, and also that they are around us every moment of the day, in both verbal and visual modes, can help to equip us with the tools that we will need to become a productive critically thinking member of society. In rhetorical citizenship terms, it is our goal to help people become critical, rhetorical consumers of both verbal and visual enthymematic arguments. This is important, not merely for its own good, but for the greater good of our discursive society

No More Charity, Please! Enthymematic Parsimony and the Pitfall of Benevolence

Why are enthymemes so frequent? Are we dumb arguers, smart rhetoricians, or parsimonious reasoners? This paper investigates systematic use of enthymemes, criticizing the application of the principle of charity to their interpretation. In contrast, I propose to analyze enthymematic argumentation in terms of parsimony, i.e. as a manifestation of the rational tendency to economize over scant resources. Consequences of this view on the current debate on enthymemes and on their rational reconstruction are discussed

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