Counter Argument

180 Pages·2002·1.04 MB·English

Counter Argument

In Defence of Common Sense

Department of Languages and Culture
Roskilde University
Niels Młller Nielsen
Counter Argument

In Defence of Common Sense

A Ph.D. Thesis
In the Philosophy of Language

Department of Languages and Culture
Roskilde University
Contents

Chapter I
A CONTROVERSY IN ARGUMENTATION THEORY 1
REMARKS BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 1
PROLOGUE: THE SCIENCE WARS 1
NOTES ON THE TITLE 4
STATEMENT OF INTENT 6

INFORMAL LOGIC AND CONTEMPORARY ARGUMENTATION THEORY 7
INTRODUCTION 7
ANCESTRY OF INFORMAL LOGIC 8
THE DOMAIN OF INFORMAL LOGIC 10
CONDUCTIVE REASONING 13
POSTMODERN TRACES IN INFORMAL LOGIC 14
FALLACY THEORY AND DIALOGUE STUDIES 16
PRAGMA-DIALECTICS 18

BRIEF SURVEY OF THE DISSERTATION 21
METHOD: GOING SHOPPING 21
RESUME OF CRUCIAL POINTS AND CONCLUSIONS 21

Chapter II

RATIONALITY AND POSTMODERN THINKING 25
INTRODUCTION 25

PARADOXES OF RELATIVISM 26
REALITY VS. CONSTRUCTION 26
PROTAGOREAN RELATIVISM 28
A NON-VULGAR ABSOLUTISM 31
THE MYTH OF THE FRAMEWORK 32

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RATIONALITY? 37
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM: PHILOSOPHY OR METHODOLOGY? 37
QUOTE: REALITY. UNQUOTE. 39
AN OBJECTION TO CULTURAL RELATIVISM 41

A FORMAL CONCEPTION OF RATIONALITY 44
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS ARE INTENTIONAL 44
REASON 46
CO-OPERATION 48
RATIONALITY IS REASONED DIALOGUE 49

Counter Argument - In Defence of Common Sense
Ph.D. Thesis - Roskilde University - June 2000
Contents

Chapter III

LOGIC AND CRITICISM 54
INTRODUCTION 54
ARGUMENTS IN SOCIAL REALITY 54
SCIENTIFIC AND GENERAL KNOWLEDGE 54

CRITICAL RATIONALISM 56
THE INDUCTION PROBLEM 56
POPPER(cid:146)S SOLUTION: FALSIFICATIONISM 58
AN OBJECTION FROM INDUCTIVISM 61

FROM SCIENCE TO EVERYDAY ARGUMENT 65
ON POPPER(cid:146)S NOTION OF COMMON SENSE 65
THE LAWS OF THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE AND OF CONTRADICTION 68
FALSIFICATIONISM AND DIALOGUE 72

Chapter IV
THE CRITICAL-RECONSTRUCTIONAL APPROACH 75
INTRODUCTION 75
ON THE ORIGINS OF INFORMAL LOGIC 75
THREE PROBLEMS 77

THE DEDUCTION/INDUCTION DICHOTOMY 78
A CATEGORICAL MISTAKE 78
MODES OF INFERENCE 81
FROM BACKING TO WARRANT 83

OBJECT-LANGUAGE AND META-LANGUAGE 84
TARSKI(cid:146)S TRUTH 84
APPROXIMATION TO TRUTH REQUIRES INFINITE QUALIFICATIONS 86
REPLY TO A GENERAL CRITICISM OF FORMAL LOGIC 88

SUPREMACY TO USE OVER SYSTEM 92
ON THE PROBLEM OF FACE-VALUE READINGS 92
DOES THE EXPRESSION OF ARGUMENTS REFLECT THEIR INTERNAL STRUCTURE? 93
ON THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY 94
USED AND NEEDED ASSUMPTIONS 94
DISREGARDING THE ECONOMY OF LANGUAGE 95
SOME GENERAL REMARKS ON TOULMIN 98
IS TOULMIN A RELATIVIST? 99

THE RECONSTRUCTIVE APPROACH 100
DEDUCTIVISM 100
ASKING THE ARGUERS 104

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Contents

Chapter V

ON THE NATURE OF DIALOGUE 107
INTRODUCTION: THE STUDY OF DIALOGUE 107

THE CO-OPERATION PRINCIPLE 108
HOW CONVERSATION WORKS 108
THE THEORETICAL STATUS OF IMPLICATURE 114

MEANING AND INTENTION 116
ON THE MEANING OF (cid:145)MEANING(cid:146) 116
SPEECH ACT INTENTIONALITY AND COMMUNICATIVE INTENTIONALITY 119

IMPLICATURAL REASONING AS A RECIPROCAL ACT 120
INTENTIONALISM AND INTERSUBJECTIVISM 120
A DOUBLE AGENCY OF CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE? 121
THE LOCUS OF CRITICISM: HEARER MEANING 125
RECONSTRUCTION BASED ON RELEVANCE 126

Chapter VI

COUNTER ARGUMENT 129
INTRODUCTION: PRAGMA-DIALECTICAL INSPIRATIONS AND PROBLEMS 129
REMARKS ON PRAGMA-DIALECTICS 129

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS FOR A COMBINED APPROACH 134
SEQUENTIAL AND HIERARCHICAL APPROACHES TO ARGUMENT 134
ROLES OF ARGUMENT 136
META-LANGUAGE AND META-ARGUMENT 138

PROPOSAL FOR A MODEL OF ARGUMENTATIVE DIALOGUE 142
THE RECONSTRUCTION/CRITICISM MODEL 142

AN APPLICATION OF THE MODEL 147
REFUTING CONTRADICTION 147
THE NEGOTIATED ARGUMENT 148
MUTUAL EXCLUSION: IMPLICATUM AND FORMAL REFUTATION 149
CHAINING AND PREFACING 153
FUNCTIONAL ROLES IN ARGUMENT 154

REMARKS BY WAY OF CONCLUSION 156
ARGUMENTS ARE PUBLIC PROPERTY 156
ARGUMENT ANALYSIS: A MIRROR OF EVERYDAY INTERACTION 156

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Contents

RESUM(cid:201) P¯ DANSK 158
MODARGUMENTER TIL FORSVAR FOR DEN SUNDE FORNUFT 158
GENERELT OM AFHANDLINGEN 158
RATIONALITET: OPG(cid:216)R MED RELATIVISMEN 158
KRITIK SOM DEN GYLDNE MELLEMVEJ 159
DAGLIGSPROGETS SIMPLE LOGIK 160
SAMARBEJDE OG FORPLIGTELSER 161
MODARGUMENTATIONENS V˘SEN 161

AFHANDLINGEN KAPITEL FOR KAPITEL 162
KAPITEL I: STUDIER I ARGUMENTATION OG VIDENSKABELIG KONFLIKT 162
KAPITEL II: PROBLEMATISERING AF SOCIALKONSTRUKTIONISMEN 163
KAPITEL III: LOGIK, KRITIK, FORNUFT 163
KAPITEL IV: P¯ VEJ MOD EN REKONSTRUKTIV DEDUKTIVISME 164
KAPITEL V: SPROG SOM RATIONELT SAMARBEJDE 165
KAPITEL VI: REKONSTRUKTION OG KRITIK I ARGUMENTERENDE DISKURS 165

REFERENCES 167

iv
CHAPTER I
A Controversy in Argumentation Theory
REMARKS BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
A contextualisation of the current thesis as a contribution to a larger debate about rationality,
in science as well as in day-to-day discourse.
Prologue: The Science Wars
In 1996, a North American scholarly journal, the well-esteemed Social Text, published
a paper1 by New York University physicist Alan Sokal, in which it was suggested that
an emerging field in physics known as Quantum Gravity is best understood in
postmodernist terms. Sokal(cid:146)s point is unequivocally post-modern, in that he firmly
rejects the self-proclaimed authority of traditional science, maintaining that scientific
discourse is but one discourse among dozens of other, competing discourses (some of
which are unjustly marginalised). To privilege one particular discourse (i.e. that of
traditional science) is simply not justified, maintains Sokal, as

(cid:133)scientific (cid:147)knowledge(cid:148), far from being objective, reflects and encodes the
dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it.
(Sokal (1996a), p. 2)

That objectivity is not even remotely possible as a scientific goal follows from the fact
that

(cid:133)physical (cid:147)reality(cid:148), no less than social (cid:147)reality(cid:148), is at bottom a social and
linguistic construct(cid:133) (Sokal (1996a), p. 2)

1 Sokal, Alan (1996a) (cid:145)Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of
Quantum Gravity(cid:146), pp. 217-252 in Social Text, vol. 46/47, Spring/ summer (1996). Page numbers
given here refer to downloads from www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal.

Counter Argument - In Defence of Common Sense
Ph.D. Thesis - Roskilde University - June 2000
Chapter I
A Controversy in Argumentation Theory

Based on such philosophical assumptions, the paper proceeds to envisage a new,
(cid:145)liberatory(cid:146) science that eventually will not only (cid:145)(cid:133)liberate human beings from the
tyranny of (cid:147)absolute truth(cid:148) and (cid:147)objective reality(cid:148)(cid:133)(cid:146), but which will also be
instrumental in disarming oppressive powers currently manifested in society.
The paper inarguably plays on a range of well-established postmodernist or social
constructionist dogma, albeit somewhat radically. Sokal(cid:146)s high profile could have been
seen as a welcome contribution from the side of (cid:145)hard(cid:146) science to the postmodernist
tradition, were it not for the events taking place soon after publication. Shortly after
the release of Social Text(cid:146)s spring/summer edition, Lingua Franca featured another
paper by professor Sokal, this one entitled (cid:145)A Physicist Experiments With Cultural
Studies(cid:146)2. The paper opens in this way:

For some years I(cid:146)ve been troubled by an apparent decline in the standards
of intellectual rigor in certain precincts of the American academic
humanities. But I(cid:146)m a mere physicist: if I find myself unable to make head
or tail of jouissance and diffØrance, perhaps that just reflects my own
inadequacy.
So, to test the prevailing intellectual standards, I decided to try a modest
(though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North
American journal of cultural studies - whose editorial collective includes
such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross - publish an article
liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the
editors(cid:146) ideological preconceptions?
The answer, unfortunately, is yes. (Sokal (1996b), p. 1)

Sokal then continues by referring interested readers to his article in Social Text. What
had seemed to be a radical yet serious, programmatic article, was really nothing but
skilful arrangements of fashionable phrases and clichØs, unsupported arguments
claiming highly dubious relationships between physical concepts and political, social,
and cultural phenomena, and, occasionally, sentences whose only merit is grammatical
well-formedness. The article, in its almost complete lack of logical coherence, is built
instead on a massive appeal to authority (complementing 109 footnotes with 218
entries into the citations list!). To most observers, the elaborate parody lucidly revealed
the obscurity of post-modern thinking: If scholars of great reputation would allow a
paper of no scientific value to be made available to the public, then what kind of
science do these scholars represent? Seductive but confused, post-modern philosophy
seemed to have nothing to offer to anyone seriously occupied with understanding the
nature of things.

2 Sokal, Alan (1996b) (cid:145)A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies(cid:146), pp. 62-64 in Lingua Franca,
may-june (1996). Page numbers given here refer to downloads from
www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal.
2
Chapter I
A Controversy in Argumentation Theory

Undoubtedly, the incident (now often known simply as (cid:145)The Sokal Affair(cid:146)) represents
the fiercest offensive to date in the so-called (cid:145)science war(cid:146)3 going on between
sociological and humanistic traditions of (cid:145)postmodernist(cid:146) and (cid:145)social constructionist(cid:146)
persuasions on one side, and the traditional conceptions of rationality and science on
the other. Sokal did not just argue, but indeed demonstrated, that at least the particular
journal in question did not possess the editorial credibility expected of serious scholarly
or scientific fora. The generalising conclusion (along with an unavoidable (cid:145)emperor(cid:146)s
new clothes(cid:146)-analogy) was close at hand: Postmodern studies (social constructionism,
cultural studies, post-structuralism, etc.) provide habitats for intellectual sloppiness and
confused thinking.
Obviously, the deception had its ethical problems, and a defensive response from
Social Text editors Bruce Robbins and Andrew Ross brought up problems related to
the status of Social Text as a non-refereed (cid:145)little magazine(cid:146) not predominantly
committed to science, but to politics. The joke was ill-placed, according to the editors,
since Social Text is (cid:145)(cid:133)an editorial millieu with criteria and aims quite remote from that
of a professional scientific journal(cid:146)4. Surely, this is a good point. Sokal(cid:146)s point,
however, is equally good: the infamous article was not just an original piece of
nonsense, it was also based on a vast amount of quotations of an equally nonsensical
nature which were notably not manufactured, but in fact meticulously checked and
verified quotations of highly esteemed post-modern thinkers from France and North
America5.
If nothing else, the Sokal Affair serves to make an important point: in many academic
circles there is a pronounced tendency to let go of the scientific and scholarly ideals of
clarity, coherence and validity, gaining scholarly approval instead through the use of
inconspicuous imagery and fashionable clichØs. As I hope it will become evident, the
theme of this study, argumentation, is a discursive phenomenon, and hence it should be
illuminated by theories dealing with language and discourse. This should not be a
problem were it not for the fact that most contemporary theories of discourse are by
and large products of the postmodern tradition, complete with all the shortcomings of
rigour and clarity which the Sokal affair testifies to. In particular, it is a problem in the
case of argumentation, which is a field with a strong dependence on the existence of an
ideal of what it is to be (cid:145)rational(cid:146), an ideal that cannot, and should not, be thought of
merely as a (cid:145)discursive construct(cid:146). In chapter II, I am going to examine postmodern
thinking in more detail, insisting that it is possible to deal with discourse as a
phenomenon existing in a world that is otherwise independent of our perception of it,
and our language about it. I am going to say that while discourse is greatly influenced
by the social context in which it appears, and while it may to some extent serve to

3 The term (cid:145)science war(cid:146) has become increasingly prominent in recent years to denote the
philosophical and political discussion of what is to count as (cid:145)science(cid:146), (cid:145)pseudo-science(cid:146), (cid:145)non-science(cid:146)
etc. To my knowledge, the term was first used in this sense in Ross (1995).
4 Response by Social Text editors Bruce Robbins and Andrew Ross (no title) in Lingua Franca,
July/August 1996.
5 Sokal(cid:146)s file of prominent thinker(cid:146)s unintelligible - or downright deceptive - theorizing on physical
and mathematical issues was not exhausted in the Social Text paper. Quotations from such thinkers as
Lacan, Kristeva, Virilio, Baudrillard and Latour are compiled and commented on in Sokal &
Bricmont (1998).
3
Chapter I
A Controversy in Argumentation Theory

constitute that very context, it is never fully constituted by, and constitutive of,
external reality. This prologue can be seen as choosing sides in the science war: There
is an on-going discussion in argumentation theory, I will argue, which is a small-scale
reflection of the science war, and this discussion centres on the status of the concept
rationality. This study is faithful to the idea that there is such a thing as (cid:145)rationality(cid:146),
and that science, and any other activity where we relate ourselves to the world, the
norms of society, and to each other, is meaningless without it.
Notes on the Title
This study is entitled Counter Argument, which means two things: the text is a counter
argument, and it is about counter argument. As for the first meaning, the text is
intended to reconstruct and criticise positions from which it is argued that rationality,
in particular the rational use of language, is relative to whichever situational setting
language is used in. A counter argument of this kind need not be only destructive; this
counter argument is also meant to provide constructive proposals for an understanding
of rational argumentation. But above all, this study is about argumentation and the
ongoing evaluations of arguments in conversations: I am going to propose that the
conversational counter argument displays rational criteria for argument criticism,
criteria that are not relative to situational setting.
The subtitle, In Defence of Common Sense6, implies that there is such a thing as
(cid:145)common sense(cid:146), and that, somehow, it needs defending. This, in turn, seems to further
suggest that some other party holds the opinion that there is some mode of being,
reasoning and communicating in the world which is superior to the everyday, ordinary
common sense. Indeed, such assumptions and suggestions are fully intended. But like
the title, the subtitle is also deliberately ambiguous, and I will begin by showing why I
think that it should be so. First of all, the term (cid:145)common sense(cid:146) is not a very frequent
term in academic writings, as it seems to be beyond definition. The Oxford Companion
to Philosophy7 has no suggestion as to a precise meaning or application of the term:

common sense (...) It seems likely that common sense defies definition;
certainly no one has succeeded in giving a satisfactory definition, and very
few have tried. (...)

However, the dictionary continues, (cid:145)[i]t is clear that the creative intellect needs some
constraints other than logic since the conclusions of metaphysical thought need tests of
acceptability other than consistency, and sheer intellectual intuition is unlikely to
provide enough.(cid:146) This hint at a concept of (cid:145)common sense(cid:146) implies that logic is not a
part of it (cp. (cid:145)constraints other than logic(cid:146)), but rather that the intellect uses logic, but
requires common sense as a supplement, in order to be sufficiently (cid:145)constrained(cid:146). In my
framework, a comparable idea is proposed: logic is complementary to communication,

6 No intertextual reference to G. E. Moore(cid:146)s (cid:147)A Defence of Common Sense(cid:148) in his Philosophical
Papers (1959), London, is intended.

7 Honderich, Ted (ed.) (1995) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford & New York: Oxford
University Press.
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