A Theory of Normative Reasoning Schemes

Abstract

The argument of the chapter is that the theory of normative reasoning schemes constitutes at least one part of the theory of probative reasoning—reasoning the inferences of which are neither deductively valid nor quantitatively inductively strong, yet which, nonetheless, can be cogent. Normative reasoning schemes capture the structure of such reasoning, including its warrants, and thereby display how such inferences are rational, even though they are not logical entailments and not scientific inductions. This rationality is not left to “intuition,” but in each case can be traced to a particular way in which rationality is manifest. The application of normative reasoning schemes requires an understanding of these local manifestations of rationality, often in considerable specific detail, for such rationality is highly contextual, and the conditions of its exercise are, accordingly, specific to those contexts. These conditions are monitored by the so-called critical questions that theorists have associated with reasoning schemes, and these critical questions thus play an integral role in the application of these schemes.

Reprinted, with permission, from H.V. Hansen & C.W. Tindale (Eds.), Argumentation at the Century’s Turn, Proceedings of the Third Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation Conference, Brock University, 1999. CD-ROM.