Inference in Argumentation: A Topics-Based Approach to Argument Schemes

349 Pages·2019·6.43 MB·English

by  Eddo Rigotti

Argumentation Library
Eddo Rigotti
Sara Greco
Inference in
Argumentation
A Topics-Based Approach to Argument
Schemes
Argumentation Library
Volume 34
Series editor
Frans H. van Eemeren, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Leiden
University, The Netherlands
Editorial Board
Maurice A. Finocchiaro, University of Nevada, USA
Bart Garssen, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
David Zarefsky, Northwestern University, USA
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5642
Eddo Rigotti Sara Greco
(cid:129)
Inference in Argumentation
A Topics-Based Approach to Argument
Schemes
123
EddoRigotti SaraGreco
Institute of Argumentation, Institute of Argumentation,
Linguistics andSemiotics Linguistics andSemiotics
Universitàdella Svizzera italiana(USI) Universitàdella Svizzera italiana(USI)
Lugano,Switzerland Lugano,Switzerland
ISSN 1566-7650 ISSN 2215-1907 (electronic)
Argumentation Library
ISBN978-3-030-04566-1 ISBN978-3-030-04568-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04568-5
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To our students and colleagues
and
To those who wish to venture into this
research with us
Preface
Why We Wrote This Book
Thisvolumeintroducesatheoreticalproposalbasedonfifteenyearsofresearchon
inferenceinargumentation.Thefruitofourwork,calledtheArgumentumModelof
Topics (henceforth: AMT, see Rigotti and Greco 2006, 2010), has the ambition of
providing a theoretical and methodological tool to analyze the inferential config-
uration of arguments, as supported by loci. This book is the result of a shared
endeavorandpresentsresearchontheAMTthatthetwoauthorshavedevelopedin
continuous dialogue over the years, starting in September 2004.1 The two authors
of this book are responsible for the foundation of the AMT and its presentation in
this monograph (including possible mistakes). Yet, throughout the years, the dia-
logue around this model has been animated by other colleagues at the Institute of
Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics in the Università della Svizzera italiana
(USI)inLugano(Switzerland),especiallyAndreaRocciandRudiPalmieri,2andby
othernationalandinternationalcolleagues.Tomentionbutthemostimportantand
stable contributors to this stimulating dialogue, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont and
her colleagues at the University of Neuchâtel, Frans van Eemeren and his col-
leagues at the University of Amsterdam, Sara Cigada, Maria Cristina Gatti, and
Giovanni Gobber at the Catholic University of Milan (Italy) were continuously
involved.
TheAMTisanchoredincontemporaryargumentationstudiesandintendstobea
tool for students, scholars, and analysts of argumentation interested in the analysis
1In this sense, the authorship of the book is shared between the two authors. However, Eddo
RigottiwrotethefirstversionofChaps.1–3andSects.4.1–4.5ofChap.4;SaraGrecowrotethe
first versionof Chaps. 5,7,8,plusSect.3.4 ofChap.3andSects. 4.6and4.7within Chap.4.
Chapter6andthePrefacewerewrittenjointly.
2Notably,asaconcretesignofthiscontinuousdialogue,inChap.8(Sect.8.2)wereportpartofa
scientificpaperontheAMTwrittenbyourcolleaguePalmieri(2012).Wearegratefultoboththe
authorandtheeditorsofthejournalILCEA,whokindlygranteduspermissiontotranslateitfrom
FrenchintoEnglish,andtore-elaborateandreproducepartoftheoriginalcontents.
vii
viii Preface
of argument schemes.3 The roots of the AMT, however, ramify throughout the
centuriesand involvescholars suchasAristotle,Cicero, Boethiusandthetradition
of topics afterward. We have divided this book into two parts. Part I contains the
reconstruction of these roots. Part II presents and discusses the AMT against the
backdrop of this tradition. In other words, we make a theoretical proposal to our
community of argumentation scholars while also explaining where this proposal
comesfrom.InthewordsofwriterW.SomersetMaughan(1938,Thesummingup),
“Traditionisaguideandnotajailer”:Suchhasbeenourattitudeandpolicyinthe
relationship with the past tradition presented here. This means that, while
acknowledging and reviving historical contributions, the AMT is not a synthesis
of the past, but a novel and autonomous proposal for which we take full respon-
sibility as authors and scholars. As a corollary, our reconstruction of the past in
Part I of the book only covers the most significant contributions from a theoretical
point of view; we do not have the ambition to cover all of the authors who have
contributed to dialectic (logic) and rhetoric, and we do not take philology as our
main aim (other authors have published valuable critical editions of ancient
manuscripts,whichwewillciteineverychapter).Ourgazeonthepastmaintainsa
contemporary focus: Starting from the problem of inference in argumentation as
modern argumentation scholars would tackle it, we go back throughout the cen-
turies and consider those contributions that, in our view, should be included in
contemporary dialogue. We put ourselves in dialogue with the different authors
within a kaleidoscopic tradition, trying to draw the most important contributions
from it while consciously rereading them in light of our own proposal.
Several reasons have brought us to base the presentation of our model on a
reconstructionofprecedingaccounts.Aboveall,wefeelthatthepotentialofseveral
aspectswithin previousresearch ontopicshasnotyetbeenadequately considered.
Forexample,someauthorshavebeenoverlooked;forotherauthors,suchasCicero
and Aristotle, albeit everybody agrees that their contribution to the study of argu-
mentationingeneralandofinferenceinparticularisimmense,someaspectscould
be better illuminated. A further gap in the current literature on argumentation
schemes, as we understand it, regards a historical account of how the tradition of
topics has been progressively abandoned in educational programs and in scientific
accounts in continental Europe after the Middle Ages and then how it has been
eventually revived. Our historical account contributes to explaining what has
remained of topics and for what reasons.
In what follows, before discussing the core elements of our model for the
analysis of inference in argumentation, we will briefly introduce our general the-
oretical view of argumentation and specify what we mean by inference.
3Itislargelyacknowledgedthatthetheoreticalconceptofargumentschemes,whichreferstothe
inferential configuration of arguments in modern and contemporary argumentation studies, is
somehow (at least from a functional viewpoint) the heir of topoi–loci (see Braet 2005 on this
point).
Preface ix
Argumentation in Communication: A Dialogic Perspective
Ourbookdeals withaveryspecificphenomenon:inference.Onourinterpretation,
inference regards how arguments support standpoints; i.e., how the degree of cer-
tainty attributed to an argument is transferred to an uncertain standpoint.
Before detailing the basic definitions that we assume in this volume, it is
important to say that we adopt the pragma-dialectical model (van Eemeren and
Grootendorst 1984, 2004; van Eemeren 2010) as a general framework for under-
standing argumentation. This does not mean that we completely comply with this
modelandthatwedonothaverevisionstopropose.Onthecontrary,aswelayout
the definition of inference and argument in this Preface, differences in our posi-
tioning from the pragma-dialectical account will surface. Most importantly, the
proposal of the AMT offers a different account of argument schemes than
pragma-dialectics. Additionally, in other publications we have articulated our dis-
tance from pragma-dialectics in other important regards. To mention but one
example, Sara Greco, together with colleagues, developed an understanding of the
notion of issue in argumentative discussions, attributing it a primacy over the
pragma-dialecticalnotionofastandpoint,especiallyinthecontextofcollaborative
argumentation(Greco2016;SchärandGreco2018;Grecoetal.2017;Schär2018).
Despite these differences, however, there are important reasons why we frame
theAMTwithinapragma-dialecticalframework.Asastartingpoint,theAMTdoes
not intend to be a complete model of argumentation: It focuses on inference only,
more precisely, on the standpoint–argument relation. This is the limited extent
oftheintendedreachofourcontribution:Inasense,wewillonlytrytoilluminatea
micro-spot, leaving many things out. Thus, the AMT is compatible with
pragma-dialectics, so to say, in extensional terms, as pragma-dialectics covers a
much broader territory than the AMT.
More importantly, we assume the idea from pragma-dialectics that argumenta-
tion is a dialogic and social process, in which different parties try to solve a
differenceofopiniononthemerits,intheefforttoachieveareasonableresolution.
As van Eemeren et al. (2014: 6) put it,
Argumentationisnotaimedatmakingtheaddresseeacceptastandpointautomatically,as
may happen in persuasion based on sentiments or prejudice. Instead, it is aimed at con-
vincing the addressee of the acceptability of the standpoint by making them see that
mutuallysharedcriticalstandardsofreasonablenesshavebeenmet.Tryingtoconvincethe
addresseebymeansofargumentationreliesontheideathattheotherpartywillapproach
the argumentation constructively, judging its soundness reasonably (van Eemeren et al.
2014:6).
These words echo a fundamental and optimistic view of interpersonal dialogic
exchange, which we have already commented upon in Rigotti and Greco (2005),
andwhichmightultimatelybetracedbacktoaprinciplethatAristotleenunciatesin
his Rhetoric:
x Preface
…buttrueandbetter[facts]arebynaturealwaysmoreproductiveofgoodsyllogismsand,
inaword,morepersuasive(…).Andifitisarguedthatgreatharmcanbedonebyunjustly
usingsuchpowerofwords,thisobjectionappliestoallgoodthingsexceptforvirtue,and
mostofalltothemostusefulthings,likestrength,health,wealth,andmilitarystrategy;for
by using these justly one would do the greatest good and unjustly, the greatest harm
(RhetoricI,1354b-1355a,translationfromKennedy1991:35).
This kind of approach is perfectly in line with our shared interest in argumen-
tationindifferentcontextsofcommunicativeactivity(RigottiandRocci2006)and
with a discourse-analytical, empirical approach to the analysis of real-life argu-
mentative discourse. This intersection characterizes the research that both of the
authors have conducted, jointly and independently, for more than a decade. In
particular,Grecoisinterestedinthepotentialofargumentativedialogueasameans
to prevent or resolve escalated interpersonal conflict (Greco Morasso 2011; Greco
2018),andintheareaofcollaborativeargumentationininterpersonalrelationships.
These research focuses are compatible with the pragma-dialectical ideal of rea-
sonableresolutionofadifferenceofopinion.Insum,theAMTistobeunderstood
asaprocessofzeroinginonthestandpoint–argumentinferentialrelation,butinthis
bookweframeitwithinawiderframeworkofargumentationasacriticaldiscussion
(van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, 2004), which is realized in differing com-
munication contexts and practices (Rigotti and Rocci 2006).
AfurtherreasonwhytheAMTiscompatiblewithadialogicalapproachsuchas
pragma-dialectics isthat we acknowledge that arguments areconstructed insuch a
wayastobeinherentlydirectedtowardanaddressee(oranaudience).Inparticular,
the fact that the AMT, as we will explain below, explicitly foresees material–
contextual premises, depending on culture and on context, introduces this dialogic
principle into the inferential structure of each argument, i.e., within its (explicit or
implicit) premises. In this sense, the AMT, despite being a model focused on the
micro-level, is intrinsically informed by a dialogical view of argumentation.
Notably, some of the authors we consider throughout Part I of this volume do
not share this dialogical approach. In fact, some of them have a dialogical–di-
alecticalargumentationscenarioinmind(notably,Aristotle),whileothers(e.g.,see
Agricola in Chap. 4) conceptualize inference as a process that extends beyond the
limits of dialogic argumentation. Throughout this book, we openly adopt the dia-
logic and communication-based concept of argumentation that we have just
described, but when some author makes an interesting remark about how some
notionsdevelopedwithinargumentationmightbeofusetodescribeotherformsof
inference, we take note of this. To conclude, in Chap. 7 (Sect. 7.9), we explicitly
discuss the reach of the notion of locus within and outside social argumentation.
Inference in Argumentation
We will now briefly introduce the main concepts at the core of our approach to
inference in argumentation. By inference in argumentation we mean how a single
argumentsupportsastandpoint,whichisthemainscopeoftheAMT.Wetakethe