767 research outputs found
Forms of Authority and the Real Argumentum ad Verecundiam
We ordinarily distinguish between the authority exercised by an expert and that exercised by a commander. Nevertheless, prior argumentation theorists have been unable to articulate fully the grounds on which we make this distinction. In this paper, I propose a principle for distinguishing types of authorities. I argue further that on this principle, Locke\u27s argumentum ad verecundiam represents a third type, reducible neither to command nor expertise. Finally, I point to significant instances of this third appeal to authority, especially in Roman legal and political discourse
What, in Practice, is an Argument?
Theorists\u27 conceptions of argument inevitably color their interpretations of argumentative discourse. In this paper, I will try to reach past our theories and capture a conception of argument held by practitioners. Using methodologies from corpus linguistics, I will identify what participants in the U.S. congressional debate over entry into the first Gulf War took to be an argument
The Public Sphere and the Norms of Transactional Argument
An outsider to argument theory, should she look through the rich outpouring of our recent work, might be amused to find us theorists not following our own prescriptions. We propound our ideas, but we don\u27t always interact with each other--we don\u27t argue. The essays by William Rehg and Robert Asen make promising start on rectifying this difficulty. I want to discuss them, first, to show how they acknowledge in exemplary fashion a pair of challenges I think we should all be addressing; and next to consider their specific responses
Conceptions of Speech Acts in the Theory and Practice of Argumentation: A Case Study of a Debate About Advocating
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
Walter Lippmann, the Indispensable Opposition
Lippmann and Dewey both confronted the problem of how to get the nation’s highly successful science to have impact in the public sphere. Dewey’s solution to the problem is well known: an underspecified form of communication which would transform the Great Society beyond the understanding of any individual into the Great Community where policies could be wisely chosen. Lippmann was more uncompromisingly pessimistic, doubting the ability of anyone–including himself–to master the range of knowledge necessary to make fully informed decisions. Nevertheless, there is a legitimate role for even uninformed publics to participate in civic deliberations: they act as adjudicators of debates in which the contending experts demonstrate their reasonability
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