Assessing relevance

This paper advances an approach to relevance grounded on patterns of material inference called argumentation schemes, which can account for the reconstruction and the evaluation of relevance relations. In order to account for relevance in different types of dialogical contexts, pursuing also non-cognitive goals, and measuring the scalar strength of relevance, communicative acts are conceived as dialogue moves, whose coherence with the previous ones or the context is represented as the conclusion of steps of material inferences. Such inferences are described using argumentation schemes and are evaluated by considering 1) their defeasibility, and 2) the acceptability of the implicit premises on which they are based. The assessment of both the relevance of an utterance and the strength thereof depends on the evaluation of three interrelated factors: 1) number of inferential steps required; 2) the types of argumentation schemes involved; and 3) the implicit premises required

Dialectical Profiles and Indicators of Argumentative Moves

In this paper the authors give a brief overview of the theoretical background of their research project “Linguistic indicators of argumentative moves.” Starting from the pragma-dialectical ideal model of a critical discussion, they design dialectical profiles for capturing the moves that may or must be made at a particular stage or sub-stage of such a discussion. They explain how these dialectical profiles can be methodically exploited for systematically identifying the verbal expressions that can be indicative of any of these moves in argumentative practice

Does taste counts as evidence in argumentation?

This paper is intended to answer the question of whether taste represents some kind of evidence in argumentation. To do this, the text is divided into four parts: first, the relationship between the technique of reconstruction and the definitions of argumentation is exposed. Second, different borderline cases that limit the use of this technique are discussed. Third, a dialogue where the argument appeals to taste is presented as another borderline case. Fourth, the role of taste as evidence (ground) for the analyzed argument is explored

“I Suppose You Meant to Say ...”: Licit and Illicit Manoeuvring in Argumentative Confrontations

When interlocutors start to talk at cross purposes it becomes less likely that they will be able to resolve their differences of opinion. Still, a critic, in the confrontation stage of a discussion, should be given some room of manoeuvre for rephrasing and even for revising the arguer’s position. I will distinguish between licit and illicit applications of this form of strategic manoeuvring by stating three soundness conditions

Implicatures and hierarchies of presumptions

Implicatures are described as particular forms reasoning from best explanation, in which the para-digm of possible explanations consists of the possible semantic interpretations of a sentence or a word. The need for explanation will be shown to be triggered by conflicts between presumptions, namely hearer’s dialogical expectations and the presumptive sentence meaning. What counts as the best explanation can be established on the grounds of hierarchies of presumptions, dependent on dialogue types and interlocutors’ culture

Arguing for Different Types of Speech Acts

Assertives have a word-to-world ‘direction-of-fit’: their illocutionary point is that the word should fit the world. Directives and commissives have a world-to-word direction-of-fit: their illocutionary point is to make the world fit the word. Arguments in politics and practical argumentation generally are often about directives or commissives, and many of these cannot meaningfully be reconstructed as assertives. Nevertheless, many theorists of argumentation proceed, tacitly or explicitly, as if all arguments must be about assertives, thereby obfuscating matters