Greco Morasso, Sara

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CommentaryComments on Strategic Maneuvering: A SyntheticRecapitulationSARA GRECO MORASSOFaculty of Communication Sciences, University of LuganoVia G. Buﬃ 13, Lugano CH 6900, SwitzerlandE-mail: sara.greco@lu.unisi.ch1. INTRODUCTIONVan Eemerens and Houtlossers paper is inspired by an articulatedresearch programme on strategic manoeuvring, supported by the DutchNational Science Foundation, in which the Amsterdam school of argu-mentation is currently involved. The notion of strategic manoeuvringwas introduced by van Eemeren and Houtlosser (1999, 2002) as anintegration of the pragma-dialectical model of critical discussion (vanEemeren and Grootendorst, 1992) that allows accounting for the argu-ers personal desire to win the cause (rhetorical aim), which, in actualargumentative practices, is always coupled with their commitment tomaintain a standard of reasonableness (dialectical aim). The tensionbetween the arguers dialectical and rhetorical aims develops along thefour stages of critical discussion; the running research programme, inparticular, focuses on a move belonging to topical potential in theconfrontation stage: the exclusion of a standpoint. The confrontationstage is characterized by the identiﬁcation of a diﬀerence of opinion,constituted by a standpoint and some form of disagreement on thatstandpoint (doubt or contradiction); in the confrontation stage, thus,the diﬀerence of opinion is delimitated; the exclusion of a standpointmay occur in this context. Dialectical and rhetorical conditions of areasonable use of such a move are investigated in the programme.In relation to van Eemerens and Houtlossers contribution, provid-ing a rich topical potential of aspects to comment on, I have chosen tofocus on two particular perspectives, about which some of the resultselaborated by the Lugano group within the project Argumentum1 maycontribute to the research endeavour on strategic manoeuvring.2. ANALYSIS OF THE STANDPOINTQualitative evaluation of the dialectical and rhetorical conditions of asound exclusion of a standpoint turns out to be extremely delicate; onArgumentation (2006) 20:393–398  Springer 2007DOI 10.1007/s10503-007-9029-zthe one hand, in fact, the freedom rule of critical discussion guaranteesthat each arguer can put forward any standpoint; on the other hand, italso entails that any antagonist has the right to challenge the stand-point which the arguer has put forward, in relation to both its asser-tive content, and its presuppositions, which the protagonist has takenfor granted. This entails that a standpoint can be excluded from thediscussion if it is not relevant to it. The analysis of the ontologicalconstituency of the standpoint, thus, turns out to be functional to thedelimitation of reasonable confrontation stage. Here, the example ofan historical controversy2 will be brieﬂy discussed in order to show therelevance of such an analysis.After the discovery – or conquest – of America by the Europeans, avivid controversy arose about the nature of American Indians. If Indi-ans, those beings whose customs (such as practicing human sacriﬁces)had provoked a real culture shock for the new comers, were humanbeings, they had to be treated as human beings; on the opposite, ifthey were inferior creatures, they could be reduced to slavery. For thepresent purposes, we only analyse the standpoint ‘‘Indians are not hu-man beings’’. At a ﬁrst level, the analysis can focus on the strict ontol-ogy of the standpoint (Rigotti, this volume). Congruity theory (Rigotti,2005) oﬀers the tools for semantic analysis of predicates which appearin the standpoint. At the lexical level, in the case of ‘‘Indians are nothuman beings’’, semantic analysis allows categorizing human as a one-place predicate which can be congruously applied only to a livingbeing. Indeed, the deﬁnition of this predicate turns out to be the verycontroversial point of the discussion: by the way, this problem pro-voked a real cultural evolution in the Spanish culture of the time, andits signiﬁcance is still present nowadays3. According to the doctrine ofstatus causae, the above-mentioned standpoint evokes an issue of deﬁ-nitio. The Aristotelian tradition would interpret this problem throughthe doctrine of classes of predicates – categories – and functions ofpredicates in the ontological structure – predicables. In our case, thepredicate human being is to be ascribed to the category of substance.This deﬁnition could be structured recalling the predicables of genus(animated being), and species (human being), and then focusing on thespeciﬁc diﬀerence distinguishing humans from non-humans.The identiﬁcation of the problematic aspect through the analysis ofthe standpoint is fundamental for the understanding of the confronta-tion stage, since it is necessary for evaluating the relevance of thestandpoint itself to the discussion. In fact, when the standpoint is situ-ated in the context of a communicative act, the relevance of its prob-lematic aspect to the wider context of the discussion (which includesprotagonist, antagonist, and context) can be evaluated. In terms ofCongruity theory, a pragmatic predicate, namely connective predicate,394 S. G. MORASSOdeﬁnes the standpoints function in relation to the protagonist and tothe antagonist (Figure 1).In this context, a possible move for supporting the exclusion of thestandpoint ‘‘Indios are not human beings’’ from discussion, is focusingon the fact that no human being is in the position to evaluate the hu-man nature. Such a move would question the congruity of the arguerin relation to the standpoint; according with the doctrine of statuscausae, the discussion would turn into a translatio, i.e. into a disputeabout the ‘‘jurisdiction of the court’’ (about the pragmatic context ofthe standpoint).The contextual ontology of the standpoint is also to consider throughthe analysis of the standpoints relation with other utterances (Rigottiand Greco, 2006). Doctrine of causes, doctrine of oppositions andsemantic paradigms can be taken into account; if this kind of analysisis applied in a mixed dispute, it can contribute to highlighting the logi-cal relations between the diﬀerent standpoints advanced.Generally speaking, from all the aspects concerning the ontology ofthe standpoint, it is possible to evaluate the standpoint itself, ﬁndingout its problematic aspect, and then identifying its relevance to theissue, and to its pragmatic context. This function brings us to arguethat the analysis of the standpoint is an analytic tool bound to thesound development of the confrontation stage (Figure 2).Moreover, a relevant feature of standpoints is the fact that, as theyare statements whose acceptance has to be argued for (ibid.), theyalways contain a borderline between what has been already ascer-tained and what is still problematic. The borderline between ascer-tained and problematic can pose a problem about the relevance of thestandpoint to the issue of the discussion. As mentioned above, theprotagonists and the antagonists roles diﬀer in this respect, becausethe antagonist has the right to cast doubt on what the protagonist pre-supposes, whereas the protagonist cannot re-discuss what has alreadybeen ascertained. On this ﬁne line the evaluation of the reasonablenessof excluding a standpoint from the discussion is often evaluated:ConPredSpeaker(Protagonist) (…Utterance -1) U0(Standpoint)(…U+1) Hearer(Antagonist)Presuppositions related either to single arguments or to n-uples of them Figure 1. General structure of a connective predicate (adapted from Rigotti, 2005).COMMENTS ON —STRATEGIC MANEUVERING 3953. STRATEGIC MANOEUVRING WITH ACTIVITY TYPESA second line of research suggested by van Eemerens and Houtlosserspaper concerns the notion of strategic manoeuvring in relation to thetypology of activity types (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2005). Researchon argumentation in the perspective of communication sciences hasbrought to light the necessity of a precise consideration of the communi-cation context where the argumentative discussion takes place (Rigotti,this volume). The notion of context is articulated into an institutionaliseddimension, or activity type (interaction ﬁeld and interaction scheme), andan interpersonal dimension. The interaction ﬁeld is deﬁned as institutiona-lised organization with its goals; within the interaction ﬁeld, diﬀerentinteraction schemes are activated to reach these goals. If considering thehuman implementing subjects that cover the institutionalised rolesrequired by the activity type, the interpersonal dimension of contextemerges, which can also signiﬁcantly contribute to the development ofarguments.As van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2005) have pointed out, activitytypes impose boundaries on strategic manoeuvring in actual argumen-tative discussions. In this perspective, the discussion is interpreted asalready inscribed in a precise activity type; another ‘‘preliminary’’ levelof strategic manoeuvring could be identiﬁed, which concerns the selec-tion of interaction schemes to be applied in a certain interaction ﬁeldto reach a speciﬁc goal.Suppose, for instance, that a problem emerges in a city council, andthat the mayor imagines that the diﬀerent opinions may degenerateFigure 2. Diagram for evaluating the borderline between ascertained and problematiccontent in the standpoint (Rigotti and Greco, 2006).396 S. G. MORASSOinto conﬂicts, if he does not intervene in advance. He manoeuvres bychoosing the most appropriate interaction scheme to ﬁnd a solutionfor the problem; the best choice would be in this case reminding par-ties of their shared goals (their commitment towards the city commongood) and make them engage in a process of joint problem-solving. Ifhe cannot avoid that a conﬂict arises, he can try to propose a media-tion or arbitration. Eventually, if the conﬂict has escalated, only asolution through adjudication could be feasible. The mayors choicesare part of his strategic manoeuvring, which aims at reaching his goalby an activity type which reasonably ﬁts the involved interaction ﬁeld.Such a manoeuvring occurs in a monological argumentation (Rigotti,2005) which shapes the mayors process of decision making.However, strategic manoeuvring with activity types does not neces-sarily take place in an inner discussion; indeed, it might also be part ofa collective decision making process (the discussion in a board ofdirectors of a business, or in a newspaper editorial oﬃce, etc.).Such a reﬂection brings to light that often a chain of argumentativediscussions can be identiﬁed, whereby the boundaries of strategicmanoeuvring in a certain discussion are inﬂuenced by preceding dis-cussions activated in the same interaction ﬁeld. Here, the analysis ofthe institutional constrains on argumentation turns out to be decisive.NOTES1 Argumentum (www.argumentum.ch) is a project providing online courses on argumenta-tion to which the universities of Lugano, Neuchaˆtel and Geneva collaborate.2 The argumentative relevance of this historical controversy has been brought to the atten-tion of the Argumentum team by A.N. Perret-Clermont (Andriessen et al., 2004).3 The phenomenon of mixed race people in South is often evoked as a consequence of theacknowledgment of the Indians human nature. The respect for other cultures is largelyestablished in modern times; nevertheless debates about the nature of human beings are stillpresent in other contexts, as suggested by E. Schiappa (2002).REFERENCESAndriessen, J., et al.: 2004, ‘DUNES – Dialogic and ArgUmentative Negotiation Edu-cational Software Pedagogical Realization – the Case, Journal of Digital Contents1(1), 46–50.van Eemeren, F. H. and P. Houtlosser: 1999, Strategic Manoeuvring in ArgumentativeDiscourse, Discourse Studies 1, 479–497.van Eemeren, F. H. and P. Houtlosser: 2002, Strategic Maneuvering: Maintaining aDelicate Balance, in F. H. van Eemeren and P. Houtlosser (eds.), Dialectic andRhetoric: The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis, pp. 131–159, KluwerAcademic Publishers, Dordrecht.COMMENTS ON —STRATEGIC MANEUVERING 397van Eemeren, F. H. and P. Houtlosser: 2005, Theoretical Construction and Argumen-tative Reality: An Analytic Model of Critical Discussion and Conventionalised Typesof Argumentative Activity, in D. Hitchcock and D. Farr (eds.), The Uses of Argument.Proceedings of a Conference at McMaster University, 18–21 May 2005, Ontario Societyfor the Study of Argumentation, Hamilton, pp. 75–84.van Eemeren, F. H. and P. Houtlosser: this volume, Strategic Maneuvering: A SyntheticRecapitulation.van Eemeren, F. H. and R. Grootendorst: 1992, Argumentation, Communication andFallacies: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale,NJ.Rigotti, E.: 2005, Congruity Theory and Argumentation, in M. Dascal, F. H. vanEemeren, E. Rigotti, S. Stati and A. Rocci (eds.), Argumentation in Dialogic Interac-tion, Special Issue of Studies in Communication Sciences, pp. 75–96.Rigotti, E. and Greco, S.: 2006, Topics: the Argument Generator, in E. Rigotti et al.,Argumentation for Financial Communication, Argumentum eLearning module,www.argumentum.ch.Rigotti, E.: this volume, Relevance of Context-Bound Loci to Topical Potential in theArgumentation Stage.Schiappa, E.: 2002, Evaluating Argumentative Discourse from a Rhetorical Perspective.Deﬁning ‘‘Person’’ and ‘‘Human Life’’ in Constitutional Disputes over Abortion, inF. H. van Eemeren and P. Houtlosser (eds.), Dialectic and Rhetoric: the Warp andWoof of Argumentation Analysis, pp. 65–80, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.398 S. G. MORASSO

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