Argumentation最新文献

{"title":"“Deliberative Context” Is not the Whole Story of Deliberative Reasoning: the Site C Case of Disagreement Management in Indigenous Consultations","authors":"Oxana Pimenova","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09669-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09669-w","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Deliberative context matters in producing deliberative reasoning, but it is not destiny in adversarial reasoning exchanges. The motivational effects of positionally dominant arguers can undermine even the well-structured context regarding the epistemic diversity of evidence sources and low disagreement costs. Giving an example of government-led reasoning over the Site C Clean Energy Project, the paper employs a sequential conversation analysis to unveil the patterns underlying the adversarial exchanges between the project proponent, officials, and Indigenous communities. Under the “deliberative” reasoning context as represented by the Site C Deliberative Rules Configuration Matrix, the state-affiliated Joint Review Panel alternated between rebutting and reflective responses in its conclusions across 63 topics of disagreement between the project’s proponent and Indigenous communities adversely affected by the dam. The Panel’s responses are consultative outcomes, representing the culmination of Panel-led deliberations between the Site C proponent and Indigenous communities. The split of these outcomes without a clear majority trend suggests a lack of prescriptive, normative relationships between rules and the rhetorical choices of dominant arguers. The deliberative reasoning context has no deterministic effect on the likelihood of the Panel’s officials engaging in deliberative dialogue with Indigenous arguers. Although reflective responses were plentiful, they were insufficient to achieve meaningful responsiveness to Indigenous concerns. These findings align with Ostrom’s perspective on rules as a contextual structure that does not guarantee particular reasoning outcomes but influences the reasoning dynamics (practices) of participants whose <i>response choices</i> are shaped by the motivational effects of a specific reasoning situation. The findings also promote the practice-based approach to argumentation (Goodwin 2007), illustrating how response patterns in disagreement illuminate the actual (one-sided and two-sided) nature of reasoning interactivity between positionally unequal opponents without diverting attention to external structures or assigning normative weight to the “deliberative” reasoning context.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 3","pages":"451 - 489"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145073547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Fallacy of Unbeatable Force","authors":"Roberto Pizarro Contreras","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09666-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09666-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article aims to characterize the fallacy of unbeatable force as an argument whose flawed structure grants an illusion of invulnerability to a phenomenon or entity whose power is perceived in an exaggerated manner by the subject, thereby inducing their subordination. First, its philosophical roots are explored in the thought of Thomas Hobbes, particularly in <i>Leviathan</i>, where the notion of omnipotent authority plays a central role. The argument that defines this fallacy is then presented and formalized, allowing for an initial characterization of it as a material fallacy—one whose flaw lies in the content of its premises rather than in its structure. However, given the limitations of traditional conceptions of fallacies, this study will be complemented by contemporary approaches, such as epistemic, dialectical, and dialogical perspectives, which help to understand the functioning and implications of the fallacy of unbeatable force in broader argumentative contexts. Finally, the analysis is expanded in light of emerging neurocognitive approaches, which suggest that the fallacy in question transcends its discursive dimension, manifesting as a cognitive mechanism of (self)subordination and long-term control. This mechanism operates as a dual shield: on the one hand, it withdraws subjects, overprotecting them; on the other, it safeguards the entity to which superior power is attributed from any critical scrutiny, thereby reinforcing its dominant position.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 3","pages":"371 - 392"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145073835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Morality-in-Speech Conception of Reasonableness Unveiled from Confucian Classics","authors":"Linqiong Yan","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09657-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09657-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As a fundamental issue in the study of argumentation, the conception of reasonableness is still open to discuss under different contexts. This paper attempts to unveil the unique morality-in-speech notion of reasonableness embedded in the Confucian classics. It first exposes the relation between speech and morality conveyed in the two Confucian classics—<i>The Analects of Confucius</i> and <i>Mencius</i>, where speech and morality are supposed to be intertwined with each other in that one’s speech reflects one’s morality and that one with morality should keep away from artful or sophistical speech as well as immoral deeds. Mencius, reputed for his fondness of argumentation in his times—the Warring States period (c. 453 BC—221 BC) of ancient China, proclaimed that he was adept at words (<i>zhiyan</i>), that is, being good at identifying, analyzing, and evaluating words, especially the four types of sophistical words—<i>bici</i> (biased words), <i>yinci</i> (overblown words), <i>xieci</i> (deviant words), and <i>dunci</i> (evasive words). After the moral foundation of Mencius’ argumentation is expounded, especially the normative dimension of Confucian morality—the Confucian virtue and deontic ethic of humaneness and righteousness, his argumentative discourse against those sophistical words is specifically reconstructed and analyzed by employing the pragma-dialectical model of critical discussion. By exclusively summarizing the argumentational strategies used all at the argumentation stages of the corresponding critical discussions, like slippery slope argument, argument by refutational analogy, and argument by dissociation, this paper elaborates in details how Mencius managed to integrate Confucian morality into his argumentation. It is concluded that Confucian morality of humaneness and righteousness is associated both with an individual’s self-cultivation and with benefiting a society, that “morality” in the morality-in-speech conception of reasonableness can be a universal term without a premodifier, and that this newly elaborated morality-in-speech conception of reasonableness is argumentation oriented, which distinguishes itself from the agent-based virtue argumentation theory and the (speech) act-based pragma-dialectical theory by incorporating an agent’s morality into his speech acts. Under the morality-in-speech reasonableness conception, the general criterion for reasonableness is whether argumentative speech acts align with the commonly endorsed morality or virtues under cultural contexts. Accordingly the specific evaluation criteria for reasonableness and fallacies must also be morality-related, where the context-independent codes of conduct for critical discussion proposed in the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation can be resorted to as an important foundation in the future research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 2","pages":"241 - 277"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145165070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Role of Culture in Shaping Chinese Argumentation Theories: A Comparison of Argumentation in Chinese and Greco-Roman Classical Rhetorical Traditions","authors":"Xi Li","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09662-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09662-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Classical Chinese argumentation theories were shaped by Chinese rhetorical traditions and played a crucial role in the evolvement of Chinese culture. This paper explores three key themes defining argumentation theories in the classical Chinese context and contrasts them with similar but different themes in Western argumentation traditions. The paper will draw implications for understanding the important role played by Chinese classical argumentation theories in the development of Chinese culture and how those theories contrast with theories of rhetoric, argumentation, and persuasion in the West.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 2","pages":"295 - 311"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145163163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Foregoing Charity in the Classroom","authors":"Kamil Lemanek","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09665-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09665-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This work advocates for an alternative to the principle of charity when teaching critical thinking or informal logic. It provides a brief reconstruction of the principle in the context of argumentation before moving to demonstrate some of the shortcomings associated with different approaches to it in the literature. It argues for placing emphasis not on charity but on the interpretative competence that underlies charity. Doing so avoids the difficulties associated with the principle as such while still fostering the conditions for exploring the kinds of advanced interpretations the pursuit of charity typically yields.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 3","pages":"357 - 370"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-025-09665-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145073690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Evolution of Bianzheng in Modern Chinese Argumentation: From Reasoning to Correlation","authors":"Lingling Xia,&nbsp;Lu Liu","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09664-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09664-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study traces the evolutional manifestations of <i>bianzheng</i> in modern Chinese argumentative practices from the twentieth century onwards, focusing on three principal forms. The first form of <i>bianzheng</i> operates as a translational counterpart to Western dialectic, specifically engaging with Aristotelian dialectical mechanisms that prioritize inductive reasoning (epagōgē) and deductive syllogism (sullogismos). The second form of <i>bianzheng</i> deviates from this logical sense and is reconstructed philosophically mainly based on Hegelian dialectic with an integration of the worldviews of change and relation in traditional Chinese thinking. The third form of <i>bianzheng</i> is further retrofitted with traditional Chinese thinking, shifting from philosophical reconstruction to rhetorical reconstruction in Chinese argumentation with a focus on the rejection of essential readings of things and events. And this form of <i>bianzheng</i> is systematically illustrated in Chinese argumentation in the twenty-first century, embracing holism, dynamic contexts and mutual becoming of the two opposites. This paper goes further to compare cultural connotations of Aristotelian dialectic, Hegelian dialectic and the third form of <i>bianzheng</i> based on the method of “comparative cultural hermeneutics”(Ames 2023a: 119). It argues that Aristotelian dialectic and Hegelian dialectic presuppose the One negating the many and the One dominating the many respectively. Yet the third form of <i>bianzheng</i> embraces the notion of “the inseparability of the one and the many” (Ames 2021a: 218), entailing “correlative thinking”. It deals with the production of new meaning, which is realized by aspectual language.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 2","pages":"313 - 333"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145161643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Something We All Accept: Sincerity Conditions in Argumentation by Fiction","authors":"Erik Vellinga","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09661-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09661-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In contemporary literature on argumentation, it is well-established that various genres of fiction can be used to present argumentation. For instance, in political satires, authors argue why a certain political situation is undesirable. Similarly, authors of fables argue—by means of animals as characters—that certain behaviour is desirable or unacceptable. Characteristically, authors of fiction create a fictional world in which their narratives take place. This collides with the sincerity conditions of the speech act complex of argumentation: preliminary conditions that should be satisfied for argumentation to be performed correctly. Firstly, these sincerity conditions require the arguer to believe that their standpoint is acceptable. Second, the arguer should believe that the statements they make to justify their standpoint are acceptable and third, the arguer should believe that these statements constitute an acceptable justification of their standpoint. As such, when argumentation meets fiction, the sincerity conditions do not align: how can authors—as arguers—actually believe that their uttered statements are acceptable, if these statements are oftentimes not true? The aim of this paper is to show both how proponents can accept propositions in fiction while still following argumentation’s sincerity conditions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 3","pages":"335 - 355"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10503-025-09661-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145073574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“Then why not Show the Evidence?” Concluding Maneuvering by Appealing to Ignorance at China’s Diplomatic Press Conferences","authors":"Peng Wu,&nbsp;Jing Ping","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09659-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09659-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Drawing upon the pragma-dialectical treatment of ‘appeal to ignorance’, the neutral counterpart of the fallacious <i>argumentum ad ignorantiam,</i> this article aims to reveal how this kind of argumentative move is used as a mode of concluding maneuvering by the spokespersons in their replies at China’s diplomatic press conferences. As expounded in Wu (2019a, 2019b, 2023), in responding to the journalists’ questions, the spokespersons conduct as a matter of fact simultaneously two critical discussions: one with the critics quoted by the journalists, the other one is with the international general public that may be deemed their primary audience. The first critical discussion is instrumental to the spokespersons in convincing the international general public of their stances in the second critical discussion. As the research results show, in the critical discussion with the critics, the Chinese spokespersons prototypically use three types of appeal to ignorance in the concluding stage, while in the critical discussion with the international general public they use the appeal to ignorance in the empirical counterpart of the argumentation stage with the aim to undermining or even negating the critics’ credibility/reliability before the international general audience.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 2","pages":"171 - 192"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145171212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Japan’s Strategic Maneuvering in the Fukushima Controversy: The Argumentative Move from the Contaminated Water to the Treated Water","authors":"Hiroko Okuda","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09663-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09663-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study examines the evolution of arguments surrounding Japan’s administrative decision to release the radioactive wastewater that the Tokyo Electronic Power Company (TEPCO) initially pledged to store and lower the radiation levels on its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site. In so doing, it focuses specifically on how Japan selected the argumentative move to reconcile the technical and public dimensions of the disagreement about the issue of Fukushima water in strategic maneuvering. The study will provide a critical insight into how Tokyo sought to establish a common ground to release the officially-called “Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) treated water” for the reconstruction of Fukushima. In support of dialectical reasonableness drawn from the sphere of scientific arguments in which a premium is placed on techno-efficiency, the treated water became recontextualized in a technical and administrative sense not just to be distinguished from the contaminated water in a rhetorically effective way, but to be more generally and more relevantly accepted in a wider public.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 2","pages":"193 - 212"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145170652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Chinese Argument from Qi 氣 and the Place of Ethos in the Kisceral Mode","authors":"Jianfeng Wang","doi":"10.1007/s10503-025-09656-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10503-025-09656-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The invention of the term <i>kisceral</i> by Michael Gilbert opens a vast field of human communication that correlates to the intuitive, the religious, the spiritual, the imaginative, and the mystical. However, the ingenuity of the coinage <i>kisceral</i> seems to be inherent with problems, i.e. linguistic fuzziness originating from the Japanese loanword, and conceptual ambiguity of argument from ethos, which are subject to endless reinterpretation by Michael Gilbert himself and others. The source of the problems comes partly from the Japanese loanword <i>ki </i>気 and partly from the contemporary readings of the Aristotelian mode of arguing from ethos. A case-based close reading of <i>zhengqi ge</i> 正氣歌 (<i>The Song of the Righteous Qi</i>) speaks to the long tradition of Chinese philosophy of <i>qi</i> 氣, from which originates the argument from ethos, and argument from sign that centers on the power of judgment.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46219,"journal":{"name":"Argumentation","volume":"39 2","pages":"279 - 294"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145168116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}