Abstract
In this chapter van Eemeren, Garssen and Meuffels explore the possibilities of effectiveness research within the pragma-dialectical framework of argumentation. The introduction of the concept of strategic maneuvering into the pragma-dialectical theory makes it possible to formulate testable hypotheses regarding the persuasiveness of argumentative moves that are made in argumentative discourse. After summarizing the standard pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, van Eemeren, Garssen, and Meuffels explain what the extension of the pragma-dialectical approach with strategic maneuvering involves and discuss the fallacies in terms of the extended pragma-dialectical approach as derailments of strategic maneuvering. Then they give an empirical interpretation of the extended pragma-dialectical model in which they report the testing of three hypotheses which formulate preliminary conditions for effectiveness research within the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory and the results of the tests they consecutively carried out.
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Notes
- 1.
Because a procedure regulating the resolution of a difference must consist of a system of rules covering all speech acts that need to be carried out to resolve a difference of opinion, the procedure should relate to all four stages that are to be distinguished in a critical discussion.
- 2.
Each of the pragma-dialectical rules constitutes in principle a distinct norm for critical discussion.
- 3.
A comparison shows that fallacies which were traditionally only nominally lumped together are now either shown to have something in common or clearly distinguished, whereas genuinely related fallacies that were separated are now brought together. In addition, the pragma-dialectical approach also enables the analysis of thus far unrecognized and unnamed “new” obstacles to resolving a difference of opinion on the merits.
- 4.
What kind of advantages can be gained by strategic maneuvering depends on the particular stage one is in. In the confrontation stage, for instance, the dialectical objective is to achieve clarity concerning the issues that are at stake and the positions the parties assume. Each party’s strategic maneuvering will therefore be aimed at directing the confrontation rhetorically towards a definition of the difference that highlights precisely the issues this party wants to discuss. In the argumentation stage, where the standpoints at issue are challenged and defended, the dialectical objective is to test, starting from the point of departure established in the opening stage, the tenability of the standpoints that shaped the difference of opinion in the confrontation stage. Depending on the positions they have taken, the parties will maneuver strategically to engineer rhetorically the most convincing case – or the most effective attack, as the case may be.
- 5.
This means in practice that the argumentative moves concerned are not in agreement with the relevant criteria for complying with a particular dialectical norm. These criteria are determined by the soundness conditions the argumentative moves have to fulfill to remain within the bounds of dialectical reasonableness in the argumentative context in which they are made and they may vary to some extent according to the argumentative activity type in which they occur.
- 6.
The difference between legitimate manifestations of strategic maneuvering and manifestations that are fallacious is that in the latter case certain soundness conditions applying to that way of strategic maneuvering in a particular context have not been met.
- 7.
All the same, it is of course necessary to make the distinction. To mark the importance of the distinction between non-fallacious and fallacious strategic maneuvering most clearly, we do not use the same labels indiscriminately for the fallacious as well as the non-fallacious moves, as others do, but reserve the traditional – often Latinized – names of the fallacies, such as argumentum ad hominem, for the incorrect and fallacious cases only.
- 8.
We follow O’Keefe’s definition of persuasion: persuasion is “a successful intentional effort at influencing another’s mental state through communication in a circumstance in which the persuadee has some measure of freedom” (2002, p. 5). For the differences between effectiveness and persuasiveness and our use of the terms rationality and reasonableness, see van Eemeren 2010, p. 39 and p. 29, respectively.
- 9.
With words like ‘know’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘aware’ we don’t mean that ordinary arguers have any conscious, articulated knowledge of the pragma-dialectical rules, let alone any theoretical sophistication (with the possible exception of the burden of proof rule, they certainly don’t have, as we showed in Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness 2009, pp. 219–224). With these words and expressions we only mean that their discussion behavior (or assessment and judgment of discussion behavior) can be modeled as being sensitive to the pragma-dialectical rules and thus be couched in terms of these rules.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
Table 21.1 in which an overview is given of the empirical results of the project Conceptions of Reasonableness, stems from Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness (i.e. 9.6 on page 223).
- 13.
With the exception of the logical variant of the ad consequentiam fallacy, all differences in reasonableness between a particular fallacy and its non-fallacious counterpart are statistically significant – ordinary arguers not very often regard the reductio ad absurdum as a type of sound argumentation, just as they hardly see that the fallacy that copies this sound argumentation (namely the logical variant of the argumentum ad consequentiam) is an obvious fallacy. In some cases in Table 21.1 no effect size is reported – in those cases ES could not be computed, due to the specific characteristics of the chosen design. Moreover, from the data presented in Table 21.1 (and equally in Table 21.2) one may not infer that fallacies such as the tu quoque-variant are regarded as reasonable moves. In Table 21.1 we abstracted from the specific discussion context in which the fallacies were offered to the participants, but in a scientific discussion context the tu quoque fallacy is invariably judged as an unreasonable move.
- 14.
Notice that there is an enormous range in the judged unreasonableness of the various fallacies: the physical variant of the argumentum ad baculum, for example, is regarded as an absolute unreasonable move, while the tu quoque variant of the ad hominem fallacy tends to be considered as a reasonable move (provided we abstract from the specific discussion contexts in which this fallacy was presented). Such data make sense: threatening the other party in the discussion with brute physical violence is the example par excellence of irrational, unreasonable behavior, while committing a tu quoque fallacy has at least in some discussion contexts the appearance of being reasonable: serious participants in a conversation may be expected to show some consistency between their (past and present) words and deeds.
- 15.
The three hypotheses are in fact closely connected with the theoretical views on the relationship between argumentation and persuasiveness in the sense of convincingness expounded in van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984).
- 16.
Cf. van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s (1984, pp. 63–74) analysis of rational perlocutionary effects.
- 17.
According to Wittgenstein, “at the end of reasons comes persuasion” (cited in Fogelin 2005, p. 9).
- 18.
We think, in fact, that it is not too bold to conclude that the empirical results reported in this article lend credibility to the general idea that reasonableness plays an important part in rhetorical persuasiveness, even to the extent that, in principle, reasonableness may be considered a necessary condition for the rational version of persuasiveness that van Eemeren and Grootendorst dubbed convincingness (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 48).
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Acknowledgments
This paper is based on our joint contribution to the 7th ISSA Conference in Amsterdam (van Eemeren et al. 2011) and van Eemeren’s contribution to the colloquium “Persuasion et Argumentation” in Paris (September 7, 2010).
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van Eemeren, F.H., Garssen, B., Meuffels, B. (2012). The Extended Pragma-Dialectical Argumentation Theory Empirically Interpreted. In: van Eemeren, F., Garssen, B. (eds) Topical Themes in Argumentation Theory. Argumentation Library, vol 22. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4041-9_21
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