Arguers’ Obligations: Another Perspective

Abstract

Recent work by (Ralph Johnson (1998, 2000, 2001) has made the question of arguers’ obligations an important one on the agenda of argumentation theory. I first heard Johnson address that topic when I responded to the paper he presented at the conference on Argumentation and Rhetoric sponsored by the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA) in May, 1997 (Johnson, 1998; Wenzel, 1998). In that paper Johnson discussed some differences he perceived in the approaches of logic and rhetoric to the demands of argumentation. One important difference, he claimed, is that logic requires that, in addition to the main argument in support of one’s claim or position, the “illative core” as he calls it, the arguer must also construct a “dialectical tier.” The dialectical tier would consist of the arguer’s replies to “dialectical stuff” that has come to cluster around the argument; such dialectical material would include objections, criticisms and alternative positions. The telos of rational persuasion demands the dialectical tier, not only because the audience addressed may be aware of criticisms of and objections to the arguer’s position, but also because ignoring them would not be fully rational, even when the objections and criticisms may be unknown to the immediate audience or interlocutor. Without the dialectical tier, an argument would fail to meet the requirement Johnson calls manifest rationality. Like a judge who must avoid even the appearance of partiality while administering justice, “arguers are under a similar constraint in argumentative space, where rationality must not only be done, but it must be seen to be done, and where anything that compromises the appearance of rationality must be avoided” (1998, 4).