Pascal’s wager: tracking an intended reader in the structure of the argument

Pascal’s wager is the name of an argument in favor of belief in God presented by Blaise Pascal in §233 of Thoughts. Ian Hacking (1972) pointed out that Pascal’s text involves three different versions of the argument. This paper proceeds from this identification, but it concerns an examination of the rhetorical strategy realized by Pascal’s argumentation. The final form of Pascal’s argument is considered as a product that could be established only through a specific process of persuasion led with respect to an intended reader with a particular set of initial beliefs. The text uses insights from the pragma‐dialectical approach to argumentation, especially the concept of rhetorical effectiveness of particular choices from the topical potential. The argumentation structure of Pascal’s wager is considered to be a reflection of the anticipated course of dialogue with the reader critically testing the sustainability of Pascal’s standpoint “You should believe in God”. Based on the argumentation reconstruction of three versions of the argument, Pascal’s idea of opponent/audience is identified. A rhetorical analysis of the effects of his argumentative strategy is proposed. The analysis is based on two perspectives on Pascal’s argument: it examines the strategy implemented consistently by all arguments and the strategy of a formulation of different versions of the wager

Branding and strategic maneuvering in the Romanian presidential election of 2004: A critical discourse-analytical and pragma-dialectical perspective

In this paper I analyse differences in the legitimation strategies used by and on behalf of the two presidential candidates in the elections of December 2004 in Romania, using a combination of Critical Discourse Analysis and pragma-dialectics. These differences are seen to lie primarily in the varieties of populist discourse that were drawn upon in the construction of legitimizing arguments for both candidates: a paternalist type vs. a radical, anti-political type of populism. I relate the success of the latter type to more effective strategic maneuvering in argumentation, part of more effective branding strategies in general, but also to existing types of political culture amongst the electorate and to social, economic circumstances. In CDA terms, I discuss the "Băsescu brand" as involving choices at the level of discourse, genre and style; in pragma-dialectical terms, I view its success as partly the effect of successful strategic maneuvering. I also place the success of this brand within the Romanian context at the end of 2004, where often questionable populist electoral messages were perceived as reasonable and acceptable, as fitting adjustments to the situation and even as means of optimizing the deliberative situation of the electorate

Legitimation and Strategic Maneuvering in the Political Field

This article combines a pragma-dialectical conception of argumentation, a sociological conception of legitimacy and a sociological theory of the political field. In particular, it draws on the theorization of the political field developed by Pierre Bourdieu and tries to determine what new insights into the concept of strategic maneuvering might be offered by a sociological analysis of the political field. I analyze a speech made by the President of Romania, Traian Băsescu, following his suspension by Parliament in April 2007. I suggest that the argument developed in this speech can be regarded as an example of adjudication and I discuss its specificity as an adjudication in the political field in an electoral campaign. I also try to relate legitimation as political strategy to strategic maneuvering oriented to meeting the contradictory demands of the political field, which I see—following Bourdieu—as involving a double political game, a game of democratic representation and a game of power

A Critical Discussion Game for Prohibiting Fallacies

The study of fallacies is at the heart of argumentation studies. In response to Hamblin’s devastating critique of the state of the theory of fallacies in 1970, both formal dialectical and informal approaches to fallacies developed. In the current paper, we focus on an influential informal approach to fallacies, part of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. Central to the pragma-dialectical method for analysing and evaluating argumentative discourse is the ideal model of a critical discussion. In this discussion model, a dialectical perspective on argumentation is combined with a pragmatic take on communicative interaction. By formalising and computationally implementing the model of a critical discussion, we take a first step in the development of software to computationally model argumentative dialogue in which fallacies are prohibited along the pragmadialectical norms. We do this by defining the Critical Discussion Game, a formal dialogue game based on the pragma-dialectical discussion model, executable on an online user-interface which is part of a larger infrastructure of argumentation software

Towards Computer Support for Pragma-Dialectical Argumentation Analysis

Computer tools are increasingly used to support the analysis of argumentative texts. Generic support for argumentation analysis is helpful, but catering to the requirements of specific theoretical approaches has additional advantages. Although the pragma-dialectical method of analyzing argumentative texts is widely used, no dedicated computational support tools exist. An outline is presented for the development of such tools, that starts with the formal approximation of the pragma-dialectical ideal model of a critical discussion

A Pragma-Dialectical Response to Objectivist Epistemic Challenges

The epistemologists Biro and Siegel have raised two objections against the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. According to the first objection the pragma-dialectical theory is not genuinely normative. According to the second objection the rejection of justificationism by pragma-dialecticians is unwarranted: they reject justificationism prematurely and they are not consistent in accepting some arguments (‘justifications’) as sound. The first objection is based on what we regard as the misconception that the goal of resolving differences of opinion cannot provide a normative approach. In response to the second objection we argue that in pragma-dialectics, the notion of argument, and related notions, are defined in a non-justificatory manner

A formal account of complex argumentation in a critical discussion

In this paper, I present a dialogue game approach to the argumentation stage of a critical discussion. This formal perspective on the pragma-dialectical ideal model is meant to facilitate a contribution of pragma-dialectical theorising to the field of argumentation and computation. The dialogue game is based on the technical rules for a critical discussion that relate to the argumentation stage, and I will show how sequences of moves in the dialogue game relate to complex argumentation structures

Fallacies in Transition: An Assessment of the Pragma-Dialectical Perspective

The paper critically investigates the pragma-dialectics of van Eemeren and Grootendorst, particularly the treatment of fallacies. While the pragma-dialectieians claim that dialectics combines the logical and rhetorical approaches to argumentation, it is argued here that the perspective relies heavily on rhetorical features that have been suppressed in the account and that overlooking these features leads to significant problems in the pragma-dialectical perspective. In light of these problems, the author advocates turning attention to a rhetorical account which subsumes the logical and dialectical

Procedural Reasonableness and Normativity of Argumentation : Pragma-Dialectical Responses to Epistemologist Objections

Pragma-dialectical argumentation theory has received criticism from epistemological argumentation theorists. While the former emphasizes argumentation as aimed at resolving differences of opinion through adequate procedures, the latter emphasizes that argumentation is aimed at reaching a justified conclusion of the argumentation. In this paper pragma-dialectics is analyzed and two objections considered. The first objection pertains to the pragma-dialectical definition of reasonable argumentation, the other to the lack of an account of normativity of argumentation in pragma-dialectics. It is argued that the objections are not convincing