STUDIES OF ARGUMENTATION

In the past decade, the study of argumentation has developed into a field of study in its own right.1 This evolution is achieved by an interdisciplinary venture of philosophers, formal and informal logicians, discourse and conversation analysts, communication scholars, and representatives of still other disciplines. Depending on the perspective on argumentative discourse that is taken as a starting point, different outlines of paradigms have been articulated. Basically, Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca’s new rhetoric, Stephen Toulmin’s analytic framework, Michel Meyer’s problematology, Charles Willard’s social epistemics, Anthony Blair and Ralph Johnson’s informal logic, John Woods and Douglas Walton’s post-standard approach to fallacies, Jean-Blaise Grize’s natural logic, Else Barth and Erik Krabbe’s formal dialectics, and several other theoretical contributions already constitute more or less worked-out frameworks for the study of argumentation.2
In North America as well as in Europe the study of argumentation has for a long time been dominated by the works of Toulmin and Perelman. Both Toulmin and Perelman tried to present an alternative to formal logic that is better suited to analyzing everyday argumentation. Both did so by taking the rational procedures of legal reasoning as a model to start from. In our opinion, however, the result is in neither case quite satisfactory. This is at least partly due to their ill-considered prejudice that for the analysis of argumentation logic has nothing to offer. Without paying any attention to modern developments, formal logic is equated with classical syllogistic logic or, just like that, declared inapplicable to ordinary arguments.
More importantly, for their parts, Toulmin’s and Perelman’s alternatives just as much fail to recognize argumentation as a phenomenon of ordinary language use that should be treated as such. By dealing with isolated arguments, and neglecting the pragmatic aspects of the verbal and nonverbal context of the speech event in which they occur, as for an alternative to formal logic Toulmin and Perelman have less to offer for the study of argumentation than they claim.
In The Uses of Argument, Toulmin (1958) provides a model that is supposed to reflect the structure of arguments. His model constitutes a description of the procedural form of arguments. According to Toulmin, this procedural form is “field-independent,” that is, independent of the nature of the issues to which the argumentation refers. The soundness of argument is, in his view, not primarily determined by its procedural form, but depends on the extent to which the backing renders the warrant acceptable. As the content of a backing–as opposed to its form–is related to the nature of the issue to which the argument pertains, Toulmin concluded that the criteria used in assessing the soundness of arguments must be field-dependent.
Apart from some major theoretical objections to Toulmin’s ideas, it is worth pointing out that it is difficult to apply his model to real-life argumentative discourse. For one thing, the crucial distinction between data and warrants is only really clear in certain well-chosen examples. In ordinary practice, if one tries to apply his definitions, the two types of statement are indistinguishable. This effectively reduces the model to a variant of the syllogism–or enthymeme, if the warrant remains implicit.3
In La Nouvelle RhĂ©torique, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958/1969) give a description of existing argumentation techniques. They reckoned argumentation to be sound if the intended effect ensues, that is agreement or more agreement with the proposed statements. Soundness, therefore, is here tantamount to effectiveness with the “target group.” In their publishing practice, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s theory boils down to a stocktaking of types of elements that can serve as “points of departure” or as “argumentation schemes” in persuading the audience, which can be a “particular” audience or the “universal” audience. As a criticism, it should be pointed out that the categories in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s catalog are not well-defined and not mutually exclusive. In addition, there are many other infirmities that prevent its unequivocal application in argumentation analysis.4
In the same way that Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca used rhetorical tradition as a basis for the development of a “new rhetoric,” protagonists of a “new dialectic,” such as Barth and Krabbe, set dialectic rules for arguing parties who wish to resolve their dispute by means of a critical dialogue.5 The methods used here that give shape to such a dialectic include those by Paul Lorenzen, Kuno Lorenz, and other members of the Erlangen School; ideas of argumentation theorists such as Rupert Crawshay-Williams and Arne Naess are also incorporated. The nomenclature of this argumentation theory is derived from Charles Hamblin (1970): “Dialectic” is interpreted as critical discussion aimed at concluding a dispute, and “formal” as strictly regulated.

COMPONENTS OF A RESEARCH PROGRAM

Scholars of argumentation are interested in how argumentative discourse can be used to justify or refute a standpoint in a rational way. In our opinion, argumentative discourse should therefore be studied as a specimen of normal verbal communication and interaction and it should, at the same time, be measured against a certain standard of reasonableness. If pragmatics is taken to be the study of language use, the need for this convergence of normative idealization and empirical description can be acknowledged by construing the study of argumentation as part of “normative pragmatics.”
A perspective on argumentative discourse is required that overcomes both the limitations of the exclusively normative approach exemplified in modern logic and the limitations of the exclusively descriptive approach exemplified in contemporary linguistics. Most modern logicians restrict themselves to nonempirical regimentation; most contemporary linguists, particularly discourse and conversation analysts, limit themselves to pure and “unbiased” observation. The study of argumentation, however, can neither be based, unilaterally, on experience nor on mere intellectual construction, but these two approaches must be closely interwoven in an integrating research program. This research program is to create a line of communication–a trait d’union–between the normative and the descriptive.6
In our view, scholars of argumentation should make it their business to clarify how the gap between normative and descriptive insight can be bridged. The complex problems that are at stake here can only be solved in an adequate way with the help of a comprehensive research program. As we envision it, this...