Argumentation: Perspectives and Approaches [Reprint 2011 ed.] 9783110869163, 9783110130263

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Argumentation: Perspectives and Approaches

Studies of Argumentation in Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis (PDA) This series contains reports on original research in both pragmatics and discourse analysis. Contributions from linguists, philosophers, logicians, cognitive psychologists, and researchers in speech communication are brought together to promote interdisciplinary research into a variety of topics in the study of language use. In this series several kinds of studies are presented under headings such as 'Argumentation', 'Conversation' and 'Interpretation'. Editors Frans Η. van Eemeren Rob Grootendorst University of Amsterdam Department of Speech Communication

Argumentation: Perspectives and Approaches Proceedings of the Conference on Argumentation 1 9 8 6

Frans Η. van Eemeren Rob Grootendorst J. Anthony Blair Charles A. Willard (eds.)

1987 FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht-Holland/Providence-U.S.A.

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ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

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6765 6765 6765 6765 6765

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7 3 5 9 1

(complete set) (volume 3> (this volume) (volume 3B) (volume 3A + 3B)

© 1986 by the authors No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in The Netherlands by ICG Printing, Dordrecht.

Contents

Introduction

1

PRAGMATIC APPROACHES 1 2 3 4 5

6

7 8 9

Marina Sbisä Acts of Explanation: A Speech Act Analysis 7 Robert L. Benjamin Utterance and Commitment: A Speech Act Analysis 19 Barbara Kryk The Problem of Deixis in Argumentation 27 Gisele Losier Argumentative Linguistic Analysis and Refutative Discourse 36 Antoinette Primatarova-Miltscheva Sequences with Concessive, Adversative, and Restrictive Sentences and Clauses and The Simulation of Dialogical Argumentation Patterns in Monological Discourse 43 Daniel Carroll, Anne-Marie Simon-VandenBergen and Sonia Vandepitte Mood and Modality in Political Interviews 53 Lita Lundquist Towards a Procedural Analysis of Argumentative Operators in Texts 61 Frans Η. van Eemeren and Tjark Kruiger Identifying Argumentation Schemes 70 Läszlo I. Komlosi and Elisabeth Knipf Negotiating Consensus in Discourse Interaction Schemata 82

CONVERSATIONAL APPROACHES 10 Mike Allen, Nancy Burrell and Paul Mineo Evaluating Definitions of Argument: Expert and Naive 93 11 Olga Kunst Gnamus Argumentation and Persuasion 103 12 Henk Pander Maat Arguer Goals and the Termination of Dialogical Arguments 13 Johannes Schwitalla Common Argumentation and Group Identity 119

110

VI

14 Marcel Μ.Η. Bax On the Impact of Involvement: The Expressive Encoding of Value Judgements and the Projection of Agreement in the Context of Conversation 127 15 Agnes Verbiest Confrontation in Conversations. An Approach of Conversational Discussions Based on the Theory of Van Eemeren and Grootendorst and on Conversational-Analytical Insights of Jackson and Jacobs 136 16 Pamela J. Benoit Orientation to Face in Everyday Argument 144 COGNITIVE A N D EMPIRICAL APPROACHES 17 E.P. Brandon Deductive Reasoning Ability, Error, and Education 155 18 H.P. van Ditmarsch Applications of Abstraction in Argumentation 162 19 Jean Caron and Josiane Caron-Pargue Towards a Psycholinguistic Approach of Argumentative Operators: The ' Thinking A loud' Procedure 170 20 Marcelo Dascal, Varda Dascal and Erika Landau The Art of Moving and the Art of Proving 179 21 Paul-Ludwig Völzing Some Remarks on the Development of Argumentation 187 22 Mary Louise Willbrand A Pragmatic Perspective for Investigating Reason Giving Across Ages and Situations 196 23 Renee A. Meyers and David R. Seibold Interactional and Non-Interactional Perspectives on Interpersonal Argument: Implications for the Study of Group Decision-Making 205 24 William L. Benoit and James J. Lindsey Argument Fields and Forms of Argument in Natural Language 215 25 Dale Hample and Judith M. Dallinger The Judgement Phase of Invention 225 RHETORICAL PERSPECTIVES 26

Paul D. Brandes The Relationship between Argument and Evidence in Aristotle's toric 237 27 Alan Brinton Ethotetic Argument: Some Uses 246 28 Lawrence J. Prelli and Roger Pace Stasis, Good Reasons, and the Small Group 255 29 Donka Alexandrova Rhetoric and the Theory of Argumentation 266

Rhe-

vii

30 Christopher Tindale and Leo Groarke Logic and Rhetoric: Groundwork for a Synthesis 274 31 Livio Rossetti How to Make a Paradox out of Something Lacking Paradoxical Qualifications - With Examples 283 32 A. Kibedi Varga Some Questions about the Rhetorical Analysis of Literary Texts 289 33 Peter van der Zwaal Psychoanalysis and Classical Rhetoric 295 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES 34 Charles E. Caton Is There an Epistemic Theophrastean Rule for Actual Arguments? 305 35 Steve Fuller and Charles Willard In Defense of Relativism: Rescuing Incommensurability from the SelfExcepting Fallacy 313 36 James Gasser Argumentation in Proof 321 37 Harald Wohlrapp Toulmin's Theory and the Dynamics of Argumentation 327 38 William D. Fusfield 'The Rules of Argumentation Aren't Validfor Me'... Either! An Additional Refutation of Wolfgang Kuhlmann's Attempted Transcendental-Pragmatic Final-Grounding of Ethics and Epistemology 336 39 Alan G. Gross The First Copernican: Rational Conversion as a Model for Scientific Change 347 40 John Furlong Rationality, Cognitive Science, and the Theory of Argumentation 357 41 P.J. van den Hoven The External Justification of a Dialectical Concensus 364 42 Mark L. Weinstein Reason and the Theory of Argument 372 43 William E. Murnion The Self-Corrective Process of Learning 381 44 Michael Astroh The Implicit Teleology of Human Communication and Experience 389 45 Norbert Gutenberg Argumentation and Dialectical Logic 397 FORMAL PERSPECTIVES 46 Denis Apotheloz Logical and Non-Logical Foundations of Argumentation 47 John E. Nolt Dilemmas of the Inductive/Deductive Distinction 418

407

viii

48

Lorenzo Pena Dialectical Arguments, Matters of Degree, and Paraconsistent Logic 426 49 Richard Hirsch Interactive Argumentation: Ideal and Real 434 50 Mark A. Brown Inference Rules for Generalized Quantifiers 442 List of Contributors

451

Introduction Frans Η. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, J. Anthony Blair and Charles A. Willard

A great many students of argumentation assembled in June 1986 in the Netherlands to attend the first International Conference on Argumentation of the University of Amsterdam. The Conference was called to cultivate the interdisciplinary study of argumentation and its applications. Its aim was to bring together argumentation scholars from around the world to listen to each other, to talk together, and in general to increase the exchange of ideas about argumentation. The three volumes in the series Studies of Argumentation, constitute the record of its formal presentations. The papers contained in these three volumes are certainly a mixed offering. They represent differences in disciplines, divergencies among research traditions, and cultural differences. By no means do they make up a unified body of knowledge. The conference's aim was to stimulate the flow of discourse across the main boundaries, not in the hope that one or another particular tradition would eventually subordinate the others but in the hope that cross-boundary communication among these traditions would strengthen them all. These Proceedings, as was the Conference, are truly international in scope. Europe is represented by scholars from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Great-Britain, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, West Germany and Yugoslavia; other continents, by contributors come from Israel and Morocco, Canada, the United States and the West Indies, and Australia - in fact, some 60 percent of the more than 150 papers read at the Conference were flown in, and as far as quantity goes the English-speaking world clearly outweighed the plurilingual Continentals. The geographical diversity of the theorists represented in these volumes is exceeded by the range of their intellectual backgrounds. There are philosophers and linguists, logicians and rhetoricians, speculative theorists and empirical researchers, generalists and specialists - and some who are all of these combined. Many work in Speech or Communication, or Philosophy departments, others came from institutes for educational research and development, colleges of Arts and Sciences, Psychology laboratories, and schools of Language or Social Studies (or their local equivalents). These scholars cultivate a striking diversity of disciplines, and favour a wide variety of professional organizations and movements, ranging from the American Forensic Association (AFA) and the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking (AILACT) on one side of the Atlantic, to, for example, the Centre Europeen pour l'Etude de l'Argumentation (CEEA) and the International Centre for the Study of Argumentation (SICSAT), on the other. As well, many theorists not committed to any organization or manifesto play a major role. The Conference objective of drawing different scholars together was clearly

2 successful. Its goal of stimulating the exchange of ideas and insights was sought by a programme which embodied as many aspects of argumentation theory as possible. Thus, the programme had several sections, each representing either a theoretical perspective on argumentation or a major topic of study by argumentation scholars. Those papers which were suitable for publication have been included in these Proceedings of the Conference. As a result, these volumes contain a smorgasbord: something for everyone. Although the merits of other arrangements: by country of origin, or by different traditions, are undoubted, their demerits are equally obvious. We have chosen to arrange the papers thematically - more or less according to the broad outlines of the Conference programme - in order to capture by their juxtaposition in the Proceedings the exchange of ideas that occurred at the Conference when scholars from different countries and traditions rubbed shoulders in the same section of the programme. The Proceedings are divided into three volumes. The papers read by the invited speakers, which have a more general interest for argumentation theory, are assembled in the first: Argumentation: Across the Lines of Discipline. The main themes which are already to be found in this volume, are elaborated on in the second and third volumes. Argumentation: Perspectives and Approaches stresses the theoretical aspects and Argumentation: Analysis and Practices the more practical ones. Argumentation: Across the Lines of Discipline, opens the trilogy. Its first three sections draw different perspectives on the study of argumentation. In (7) Logical and Dialectical Perspectives, are the papers by the philosophers and logicians Scriven, Barth, Johnson, Govier, Lorenz and Taha. They are joined, in (//) Rhetorical and Epistemological Perspectives, by their rhetorically and epistemologically oriented colleagues - Finocchiaro, Cox, Wenzel, Geissner, Meyer, Goodnight, Willard, Airaksinen and Parret. With ( I I I ) Pragmatic and Conversational Perspectives, are added the papers of the linguists and language philosophers - Kopperschmidt, Blair, van Eemeren, Jackson, Jacobs, Kline, Trapp & Yingling & Wanner, and Fogelin. The reward for this crisscrossing of disciplinary borders may well be the relocation of the boundary lines. In any case, the reader is given fair warning by this volume's title. Across the Lines of Discipline applies also to the last two sections of volume one, where the focus is on specific topics of argumentation studies. (IV) Argumentation Analysis, Evaluation and Fallacies, group together papers by Kienpointner, Hitchcock, William Benoit, Krabbe, McKerrow, Walton, Grootendorstand Woods, and (V) Applications of Argumentation Theory, contains the work of Vedung, Rieke, Tirkkonen-Condit, Paul, Weddle, and Hoaglund. In these two sections the authors deal with similar problems in the study of argumentation, but approach them with various intellectual backgrounds and from diverse starting-points. Argumentation: Perspectives and Approaches, the second volume, contains the papers which seem to relate most naturally to the three theoretical perspectives of volume one, but they have been subdivided further and ordered differently. Thus, corresponding to section III of volume one ('Pragmatic and Conversational Perspectives') are in volume two: (I) Pragmatic Approaches, with papers by Sbisä,

3 Benjamin, Kryk, Losier, Primatarova-Miltscheva, Carroll & Simon-VandenBergen & Vandepitte, Lundquist, van Eemeren & Kruiger, and Komlosi & Knipf; (II) Conversational Approaches, containing papers by Allen & Burrell & Mineo, Gnamus, Pander Maat, Schwitalla, Bax, Verbiest, and Pamela Benoit; and (77/) Cognitive and Empirical Approaches, which includes the papers of Brandon, van Ditmarsch, Caron & Caron-Pargue, Dascal & Dascal & Landau, Völzing, Willbrand, Meyers & Seibold, Benoit & Lindsey, and Hample & Dallinger. Relating to section / / o f volume one ('Rhetorical and Epistemological Perspectives'), volume two contains (IV) Rhetorical Perspectives, containing the papers of Brandes, Brinton, Prelli & Pace, Alexandrova, Tindale & Groarke, Rossetti, Varga and van der Zwaal; and ( V ) Epistemological Perspectives, with the contributions of Caton, Fuller & Willard, Gasser, Wohlrapp, Fusfield, Gross, Furlong, van den Hoven, Weinstein, Murnion, Astroh and Gutenberg. The closing section of the second volume, (VI) Formal Perspectives, with papers by Apotheloz, Nolt, Pena, Hirsch and Brown, corresponds most closely to the first section of volume one ('Logical and Dialectical Perspectives'). Argumentation: Analysis and Practices - volume three - collects the papers corresponding to the second part of volume one (IV 'Argumentation Analysis, Evaluation and Fallacies' and V 'Applications of Argument Theory'). Thus there is, first, (/) Argumentation Evaluation, with papers by Ulrich, Grennan, Fisher and Schellens, and (II) Fallacies, containing the papers of Rohatyn, Wreen, Biro and Maier. Second, there are four sections of papers on applying argumentation theory. (Ill) Legal Argumentation, includes papers on argument and law by Hynes Jr., Dellapenna & Farreil, Soeteman, Waaldijk, Seibert, Henket, Buchanan, Riley & Hollihan & Freadhoff, and Camp. (IV) Special Fields, covers different kinds of argumentation practices, varying from moral and aesthetic argumentation to argument in international organization, with papers by Garver, Manning, Bailin, Hudson, Brownlee, Berube, Tarnay, Zappel, Hazen and Walker. (V) Case studies, contains analyses of such specific argumentations as those concerning the SaccoVanzetti trial, the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war, and job interviews, with papers by Bruner, Simon-VandenBergen, Kaehlbrandt, Fiordo, Schuetz, Williams, KakkuriKnuuttila, Smit, Adelswärd and Futrell. Lastly, in (VI)Education in Argumentation, there are collected papers concerned with the teaching of argumentation by Nolen, Siegel, Langsdorf, Makau, Marshall, Norris & Ryan, and Collison. Each volume, Across the Lines of Discipline, Perspectives and Approaches and Analysis and Practices, is a valuable collection in its own right. Of course, these books can be read independently of one another, but just one or another alone will not suffice to get a good picture of the state of the art in argumentation theory. For that purpose, one has to read all of them. Their interconnectedness then, no doubt, becomes more distinct. This would already be a good result for the study of argumentation, for although falling short of the cross-fertilization and even the fusing of disciplines which are some argumentation theorists' dreams of the future, such an understanding is an indispensable starting-point for co-operation in the further development of argumentation theory, which is exactly the main goal of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA), founded at the end of the Amsterdam Conference. These three Argumentation volumes are the first step in realizing this goal.

Pragmatic Approaches

1

Acts of Explanation: A Speech Act Analysis Marina Sbisä

Many linguistic moves, both in discourse and in conversation, are endowed with an explanatory function.

But it is difficult, if not

impossible, to define such a function once and for all. rather that a number of

It seems

features, belonging to the communicative

situation, the linguistic context, the linguistic form and content of the act of explanation, may to varying degrees cooperate to make a certain speech act count as the explanation of something. The present work has not established notion of explanation. all

those

speech

"explanations." the Italian

a priori

limits to the

Its approach has been to take into account

acts

that

people

are

prepared

to

call

Of course, the investigation has been undertaken in

language and on Italian

texts; therefore, it is the

common usage and understanding of the Italian words corresponding to "explain" ("spiegare") and "explanation" provided the guidelines for this work. entries

"explain"

and

("spiegazione") which have

However, a comparison of the

"explanation,"

and

"spiegare"

and

"spiegazione" respectively, in some English and Italian dictionaries suggests that the notions in question do not differ significantly in the two languages. and magazines

But as for the examples, taken from

textbooks

(a number of examples from dialogues in television

serials have been examined but not quoted in this paper), it may well be the case that Italian textbooks and magazines differ from English and American ones with regard to the kinds of explanations they contain. Two kinds of things will be examined clearly

that are often considered as explanations

in some detail:

(i) speech act

exhibit an explanans-explanandum

sequences

that

relationship, and

(ii)

speech acts and/or speech act sequences that are metacommunicatively presented as explanations.

8 1.

A clear and relatively

explanandum

relationship

simple way to describe the explanansis proposed

by G.H. Von Wright.

He

distinguishes between: (i)

causal explanation, in which the explanans expounds either a

sufficient or a necessary condition of the state of affairs or event to be explained. (ii)

This is typical of the physical sciences.

teleoloqical explanation, in which the explanans expounds the

goal of the behavior

to be explained.

This

is typical

of

the

explanation of action. (iii)

quasi-causal

explanation, in which the explanans expounds

some circumstance that is related, although not nomically, state of affairs, event or behavior to be explained.

to the

It can be

found in historical explanations. (iv)

quasi-te1eologica1

explanation,

in which

the

explanans

expounds some effect with respect to which the state of affairs or event to be explained

is a necessary condition.

It is typical of

the biological sciences. The

presence

explanandum markers

are

in a text

relationships used:

of one

or more of

is apparent when

e.g. "because,"

these

explanans-

specific

linguistic

"in order

to,"

"so

that."

However, explanans and explanandum may be connected by the simple coordinative conjunction "and," or even by an appropriate punctuation

(full stop, colon).

use of

In these cases, the explanatory

value of the speech act or speech act sequence will be evident only if the explanans-explanandum

relationship turns out to be relevant

to textual cohesion or to the appropriateness of one or more of the related speech acts. an

analysis

of

the

The discussion of two examples will show that explanans-explanandum

relationships

made

according to the categories proposed by von Wright may be useful, but that in actual discourse these relationships are usually rather complicated, or even ambiguous. (1)

"(a) se si continuerä a perdere e molto nelle raffinerie, per un lungo periodo, (b) sarä sempre piu difficile avere le risorse finanziarie per fare i necessari investimenti nella ricerca di petrolio. (c) Questo e per me un motivo di grandissima preoccupazione, (d) perche fino alia fine del secolo avremo bisogno di petrolio in quantita simile a quello che consumiamo oggi. (e) Ε ogni anno il costo per trovare un barile di petrolio aumenta m o l t i s s i m o . ( f r o m an i n t e r v i e w to the P r e s i d e n t of the Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, L'Espresso, March 24, 1985).

9 Here, there are two linguistic markers of explanation, "uti motivo di" (connecting (a) and (b) as an explanans to (c) as an explanandum); and "perche" (connecting (c) as an explanandum to (d) and (e) as an explanans).

Thus, (c) seems to be explained twice, but only the

former explanation tion.

has a clear status as a quasi-causal

Should we consider

explanans

(a),

(b),

(d) and

(of the quasi-causal kind)?

explana-

(e) as one

complex

In this case, (d) and

(e)

would not be directly connected to (c), but their conjunction would quasi-causally explain the fact that the causal relationship between (a) and (b) quasi-causally explains (c). (2)

(a) La guerra (b) mise a nudo tutta la debolezza della nazione: (c) mancavano armi, vestiti, scarpe, vagoni e carri per le truppe; non vi erano sufficienti scorte alimentari, (d) e la gente moriva di fame e di s t e n t i . 2 (from a history textbook).

Here,

we

find

a colon

explanation markers.

and

Thus,

the

conjunction

(c) and

with respect to assertion (a)-(b):

"e" as

potential

(d) may count as an explanans

they explain how the weakness of

the nation referred to (the Russian Empire before the revolution) was made evident.

Other explanation relationships can also be found

in this passage:

(a) is causally related to (b), and

Intuitively, revealed.

(c) to (d).

(a) explains why the weakness of Russia was

suddenly

As for (c) and (d), the actual presence of a relationship

of explanation depends on the topic which the reader

is

focusing

attention on.

If we focus attention on people dying, (c) causally

explains

If we focus attention on the conditions of

(d).

described

by

(c),

life

(d) illustrates or exemplifies their gravity.

Here, as in other examples examined in this paper, the text contains a network

of potential explanans-explanandum

relationships, which

may give rise to actual explanations depending upon the that it is relevant for the receiver to ask. the relationshisp between

(a)-(b) and

questions

Notice, moreover, that

(c)-(d) is not reducible

any one of the relationships described by von Wright:

to

therefore,

his typology is not an exhaustive one for the purposes of discourse analysis. 2.

One of the reasons why a typology of explanations of the kind

proposed by von Wright is not exhaustive, is that it does not take into account those explanations, which consist of clarification of meaning.

This, however,

is a complex

field,

which

includes

10

definitions language),

of

the

meaning

clarification

of

linguistic

expressions

(in a

of meaning in context, more detailed or

easier paraphrases, exemplifications (which may be endowed with the function

of

justifying

performative statements.

prefixes,

or

substantiating

quasi-comments

or

some

claim),

and

metacommunicative

Linguistic markers include expressions such as "that

is," "namely," "for example," verbs like "mean," and various speech act verbs; explanans and explanandum are often connected by the use of punctuation: be noted

parentheses, a colon, and commas.

that sometimes

It should also

explanations of this kind are explicitly

requested by the interlocutor (as in interviews); similar questions can also be inserted in a text by its author, in order to emphasize the receiver's need for the following explanation. As for explanations of the definition kind, it is interesting to draw a distinction

between

the clarification

of the sense of a

linguistic expression (in a natural or in a technical language), and the exposition of the relevant features of its referent.

Contrast:

(3)

il partito bolscevico (la parola significa "maggioranza")

(4)

il partito bolscevico, il partito che con piü forza poneva il problema della rivoluzione (from history t e x t b o o k s ) . 3

Some appositions clarify in which respect the mention of a certain thing (event, notion,...) is relevant to further discourse: (5)

The

Nel 1914, (a) la Russia, (b) la nazione piu grande del mondo, (c) con una popolazione di 170 milioni di abitanti, (d) era un paese debole e arretrato. (from a history textbook). 4 information

about

the population

(c) explains why Russia is

described as the greatest nation in the world, which the apposition (b) explains in which respect it is relevant to consider Russia (a), if one is to understand the importance of what the text is going to say, that is, of value at

least

(d).

Examples and lists may have an explanatory

in three senses:

they

may

paraphrases of some general assertion, features

of various

expression substantiate 1977). (6)

referents

applies, a related

and

claim

they may

to which

they

may

detailed

illustrate the

a certain

also

(or other

offer more

motivate,

speech act)

linguistic justify

or

(cf. Aston,

For example, quotation (5) continues: II potere restava in mano alio Zar e a una ristretta cercia nobili e borghesi r i c c h i . 5

di

11 This

statement

explains

(which opens a whole

how

country

is

the

to

be

justifications relationship described When what

assertion

understood,

between

(a)-(b)

explanations meant

and

of

and

speech

(either

by

motivations

justifications,

or or

"with

typology derived most

acts

of

which

the

a

weak

same

and

time

are

not merely

devices and

goals"

are

or

etc.

(2)

which

The

can

the

speech

explanations

content

by

therefore

either

both),

tell act

or

but

are

reported

by

by

be

"on

as

what

performed,

or

of the

count

"why,"

was

quasi-causal

What

the one

teleological

action.

problems with motivations

Consider the following

some

(5a)-(5d).

or justifications

is t h a t they a r e o f t e n c o m b i n e d w i t h e x p l a n a t i o n s

action,

backward

gives

example

propositional

j u s t a s is t h e c a s e w i t h

the

in

statements)

from von Wright becomes useful once more.

often

explanations, One

was

(c)-(d)

acts

the

force-indieating

finds

at

similar

way.

i1locutionary grounds,"

Russia

of

f o r the p e r f o r m a n c e of the s p e e c h a c t

in a n a n a l o g o u s

was

that

sequence

those

speech

of

of

acts

speech

the

acts,

themselves.

example:

(7) "(a) r i t e n g o estremamente pericoloso, per tutti, cio che accade a Teheran. (b) L a r i v o l u z i o n e k h o m e i n i s t a , c h i a m i a m o l a c o s i e b a s a t a sul f a n a t i s m o r e l i g i o s o , n o n h a a l c u n f o n d a m e n t o p o l i t i c o e sociale. (c) Q u i n d i e i n c o n t r o l l a b i l e e p u o c a u s a r e incredibili g u a i " 6 ( P a n o r a m a , F e b r u a r y 17, 1 9 8 5 ; i n t e r v i e w to S . P e r e s ) . H e r e the c o u p l e the e v a l u a t i v e (c)

(b)-(c) c l e a r l y p l a y s the r o l e of a j u s t i f i c a t i o n speech

themselves?

explain

the

Do

or use

The most speech the

performed

the

characteristics

characteristics

motivate evaluation 3.

act

(c)?

common way

act

sequence

speech

act

stated

as

constituting

verb

"to

"to

is

an

an

illocutionary

is

tackled below in

effect

"spiegare").

in

Does

(b)

(b)

We

shall verb;

act,

and

not

in

such

here

depends a

case?

is

Italian,

discuss

this

(b)

speech

explanation

(or,

act to the

whether

on

question

and

causally

statement

present a

a n a c t of

explain"

illocutionary

("spiegare")

utterances of

(c)?

about

whether will

be

(4.).

"To explain" way

in

what

stated

to m e t a c o m m u n i c a t i v e l y

verb

explaining

(a); b u t

O r m a y b o t h t h i n g s b e s a i d to b e the

corresponding explain"

in

of

climatic

such

as

change."

"I

c o u l d p e r h a p s b e u s e d in a explain But

it

o r i n t r o d u c e a s e q u e n c e of u t t e r a n c e s

the

death

is m o r e

of

often

performative

dinosaurs used

to

as

an

announce

(by the s p e a k e r h i m / h e r s e l f

or

12 by a n o t h e r s p e a k e r ) , w h i c h h a s to c o u n t a s , o r w h i c h c o n t a i n s , s o m e s p e e c h a c t of e x p l a n a t i o n . The following example may be c o n s i d e r e d as

typical:

(8)

(a) p e r i b i o l o g i n o n e s i s t e d o s e di r a d i a z i o n i c h e p o s s a essere c o n s i d e r a t a innocua per una cellula. (b) " B a s t a c h e una s i n g o l a p a r t i c e l l a radioattiva alteri un singolo gene del DNA (c) p e r c h e ci s i a u n r i s c h i o " (d) s p i e g a B e r n a r d C o h e n , d e l l ' u n i v e r s i t ä di P i t t s b u r g . (e) " L e s e q u e n z e geniche dei cromosomi infatti possono venire amputate, s p o s t a t e , i n v e r t i t e , d u p l i c a t e (f) e n e i p u n t i di r o t t u r a possono insorgere m u t a z i o n i " ? ( P a n o r a m a , M a y 18, 1 9 8 6 ) .

The by

use the

of

the

name

speech act

and

the

verb

credentials

the e x p e c t e d e x p l a n a t i o n . ly e x p l a n a t o r y : reported sufficient

of

condition

of

(d)

"authority"

the

(a);

Consideration

of

accompanied

who

moreover,

biological

risk

exemplifies how particles can alter the genes the k i n d of b i o l o g i c a l

is h e r e

is

to

(b)

give

genuine-

( b ) - ( c ) - ( e ) - (f) j u s t i f i e s t h e

biologists

of

the

in

H i s r e p o r t e d s p e e c h is, h o w e v e r ,

the s e q u e n c e

opinion

"spiega"

formerly

expounds

mentioned

by

(b); a n d

(f)

(c),

(e)

specifies

risk.

further

examples

of

reported

speech

introduced

b y " s p i e g a " c o n f i r m s the i m p o r t a n c e of the r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n of

explanation

with

which

and

the

physicians,

the

speaker

and

role is

of

"expert"

endowed.

politicians

or

any as how

Curiously

clear an

enough,

businessmen

things

really

relationship act

example

addressor

speech show

and

act

the

official with

covering

cf

so

what

on.

and

sequence

but

has

(9)

authority

scientists,

official

In

these

addressee as

"interactional"

counts

really

an

that

roles

meaning

nevertheless

cases

it

or

is

characterizes of

be

exhibit

happened,

explanation.

p r e v a i l i n g o v e r the " c o n t e n t " m e a n i n g b a s e d o n t h e andum

acts

that an explanation will

structure,

example

are,

between

or

will

for

of

follows does not necessarily

explanans-explanandum

explanation,

speech

what

or

Interviews

are often introduced by the announcement given.

a

One

of the the

more

"explanation"

explanans-explan-

relationship. (a) l ' a t t e n z i o n e d e l l o s c i e n z i a t o m i l a n e s e si e c o n c e n t r a t a sulla d e r i v a dei continenti. (b) " Q u a n d o la P a n g e a , l ' u n i c o g r a n d e c o n t i n e n t e c h e r a c c o g l i e v a 200 m i l i o n i di a n n i fa t u t t e le t e r r e e m e r s e , si f r a n t u m o , " s p i e g a , "le 'isole' c h e iniziarono ad andare alia deriva erano costituite da terre relativamente piccole c i r c o n d a t e d a l l ' a c q u a e s o l c a t e de mari interni. Era proprio questa preponderanza del mare a r e n d e r e il c l i m a di q u e s t i c o n t i n e n t i - i s o l a p a r t i c o l a r m e n t e mite." (c) "Si c r e o , " a f f e r m a P i n n a , " l a t i p i c a p o p o l a z i o n e de ambiente s t a b i l e . " (d) " Q u a n d o i c o n t i n e n t i rallen-

13

t a r o n o , s i n o q u a s i a f e r m a r e , la l o r a d e r i v a , " d i c e P i n n a , "la t e n s i o n e d e l l a c r o s t a t e r r e s t r e c a l d . C o m p a r v e il c l i m a tipicamente c o n t i n e n t a l e : L'ambiente divenne instabile. O r a e r a n o f a v o r i t i q u e i " p r o g r a m m i di v i t a " che p r e v e d e v a n o poche specie con tanti individui in g r a d o di n u t r i r s i di molti cibi diversi. I dinosauri erano l'esatto contrario e p e r i r o n o " 8 ( L ' E s p r e s s o , M a y 18, 1 9 8 6 ) .

Here

the

"spiega"

first

(explains),

phenomenon merely the

gives

under

describes

contrary, of

intervention

his

"afferma"

Prof. Pinna,

the

speaker

discussion, the

namely,

environment

second

climatic an

but

by

change,

explanation ("states")

and

to

and

his

the

does why

not

introduced

yet

they

end

of

dinosaurs,

("says").

are

It w i l l

He

t h a n w h a t h e is s a i d to " e x p l a i n . "

objected

initial

"spiega"

is

intended

to

undeniable

widely

shared

actually

in

personal

(b)

the

scientific

explains,

continental

4.

that

drift

by

is),

knowledge

the

way,

while

in

(though scientific)

he

introduced

by

speaks

(on

what (c)

the

but also

(d)

It c o u l d

in

which

the

the r e c o g n i t i o n speaker

gives

however,

an

examples

quoted

above,

possible

for

to m a k e

the

us

communicative

addressor p a r t of

of

which

he the

advances

his

own

in o u r a n a l y s i s , a s s p e e c h a c t s

of the c o m m u n i c a t i v e

some

information

that

to

relationships;

situation

the

incomplete

as well some

as

the a d d r e s s e e . present

to

some There

that

description.

from other

other

texts

tentative the

kind

of

one with

authority

possess. But

from

examined,

suggestions.

the it

is

(i)

In

recognized

authority

of

the

need

informed

on

the

is no r o o m f o r

something

as

addressee

a u t h o r i t y or at least w i t h an

relationship,

corresponds

is n o f e e l i n g

of

what

far s u p e r i o r to a n y w h i c h the a d d r e s s e e m i g h t p o s s i b l y is,

a possessor

devices;

s o m e k i n d of u n c o n t r o v e r s i a l This

it

and

(ii) t h r o u g h the r e c o g n i t i o n of e x p l a n a n s - e x p l a n a n d u m through

the

recognized:

(i) by a n u m b e r of l i n g u i s t i c (iii)

be

However,

means

he

far

introduce

basis

"Pangea"

and

as

that

claims.

A c t s of e x p l a n a t i o n a p p e a r ,

can make themselves

scientist

the

causes

where

w h o l e d i s c o u r s e a n d t h u s d o e s n o t n e e d to b e r e p e a t e d . is

On

the

be n o t i c e d

more controversial, the

perished.

(d),

w h a t the s c i e n t i s t s a y s a n d s t a t e s is m o r e e x p l a n a t o r y , that

the

developed.

intervention

by

explain

(c), w h e r e h e e x p o u n d s third

"dice"

is

dinosaurs

in w h i c h

intervention

(b),

to

be

"explanation"

is u n k n o w n ,

unclear,

if

there

difficult

14

to understand, and so on, which the addressee cannot know, clarify, understand

by

him/herself.

Thus

the

journalist

puts

his/her

questions to an expert assuming that there is some ignorance, lack of clarity, misunderstanding, or curiosity among the public about those themes, and that expert's authority will eliminate or satisfy it.

Of course, such an assumption may sometimes be wrong, or at

least in part, but the additional implicit communication "you need to

know

or understand

receiver explicitly

all

this"

questions

is not

cancelled,

and rejects

it.

unless

the

The case of

the

scientist looking for an explanation of some phenomenon seems to be a counterexample to this analysis only in so far as one does

not

realize that the two roles of addressor and addressee are played by the

same actor,

framework

but

they

are

different

nonetheless.

In

this

it can be understood why texts produced within contexts

where the need of knowing,

understanding,

and

so on is

already

institutionally presupposed, easily lend themselves to be considered as texts that explain something. (ii) Is explaining

an i 1 locutionary

act?

Well, apart

from its

fortunes in speech act theory/9 it seems to me that it produces a conventional particular,

change

in the modal

interaction.^0 be described roughly

in the context

of

the utterance,

and,

in

competencies of the participants in the

As I have argued in Sbisä (1984), such changes can with

reference

corresponding

to four main

to the Austinian

illocutionary

classes of

exercitives, commissives, and behabitives.

types,

verdictives,

I should

like to say

that explaining shares some of the features of verdictives (in that it gives

the addressee

features of

a piece

exercitives

of knowledge)

(in that

and

it presupposes

some the

of

the

speaker's

authority, and places onto the receiver an obligation--although

a

weak one--to use the explanation in order to satisfy his/her real or supposed cognitive needs. either

one of

Of course, in actual acts of explanation

the characteristics

of

this

rough model

can

be

emphasized.

For example, a scientific explanation of some natural

phenomenon

is, for scientists, something to be tested, discussed,

challenged; there satisfied

with

is no obligation, not even a weak one, to be

it.

In this sense, explanation looks more like a

verdictive than like an exercitive. the

mass

media,

the

teacher's

But the expert's explanation in explanations

at

school,

the

explanations of one's own actions or speech acts given in order to

15 avoid misunderstanding,

all

have

hypothesis

verdictive),

while s c i e n t i f i c d i v u l g a t i o n appears as explanation,

indication

s e n s e of (iii)

that

exercitive

sense

Here,

I

have

leaving

explanations

can

interaction.

Thus,

actions,

limited

aside be

my

claim

is

other

found,

analysis fields

like

or

perhaps

scientific

statement

the

most

attitudes,

repair

the

misunderstanding.

field.

However,

in m o r e

detail.

language

or

by w h i c h

behavior

seem

discourse

and

(a is

common

fictional

On

possible

it w o u l d

to

basis

of

extend

certainly

explanations

our

account

to p r e v e n t ,

examples

not

for

avoid

or

referred

to

conclusions

be w o r t h w h i l e

where

face-to-face

individuals

in o r d e r

reported

activity

I have not taken into account those

intentions,

it w o u l d

to

of

real

their own and other people's here,

a

a

an

"explanation."

discourse,

of

the

as

where

intensity

explanatory

reported

(9),

of

character.

is

example

degrees

exercitive

an

Our

to v a r i o u s

to

this

to i n v e s t i g a t e

it

NOTES 1.

(a) if w e c o n t i n u e t o l o s e m u c h m o n e y , a n d a l o t o f i t , i n o i l - r e f i n e r i e s , o v e r a l o n g p e r i o d , (b) it w i l l b e m o r e a n d m o r e d i f f i c u l t to f i n d t h e f i n a n c i a l r e s o u r c e s to m a k e t h e n e c e s s a r y i n v e s t m e n t s in the s e a r c h for o i l . (c) T h i s is f o r m e a s o u r c e of g r e a t w o r r y , (d) b e c a u s e w e s h a l l n e e d q u a n t i t i e s o f o i l s i m i l a r to w h a t w e c o n s u m e n o w u n t i l the e n d of the c e n t u r y . (e) A n d e v e r y y e a r the p r i c e of f i n d i n g a b a r r e l o f o i l i n c r e a s e s drastically."

2.

(a) T h e w a r (b) r e v e a l e d a l l the w e a k n e s s of t h e n a t i o n : w e a p o n s , c l o t h e s , s h o e s , c a r r i a g e s a n d w a g o n s for the t r o o p s l a c k i n g ; f o o d s u p p l i e s w e r e i n s u f f i c i e n t , (d) a n d p e o p l e from hunger and privations.

3. t h e B o l s h e v i k p a r t y (the w o r d m e a n s " m a j o r i t y " ) the B o l s h e v i k party, the party which put w i t h the p r o b l e m of r e v o l u t i o n (...) 4. I n 1 9 1 4 , (a) R u s s i a , w i t h a p o p u l a t i o n of country.

greater

(c) were died

strength

(b) the g r e a t e s t n a t i o n in the w o r l d , (c) 170 m i l l i o n , (d) w a s a w e a k a n d b a c k w a r d

5. P o w e r w a s s t i l l i n t h e h a n d s o f the C z a r a n d of n u m b e r of n o b l e m e n a n d r i c h m i d d l e - c l a s s p e r s o n s .

a

restricted

16

6. (a) I m a i n t a i n t h a t w h a t is h a p p e n i n g in T e h e r a n is extremely d a n g e r o u s , for e v e r y b o d y . (b) The Khomeini r e v o l u t i o n , as we m a y c a l l it, is b a s e d o n r e l i g i o u s f a n a t i c i s m , and lacks any political and social foundation. (c) T h e r e f o r e , it i s n o t controllable, and it can cause an incredible a m o u n t of trouble." 7. (a) according to b i o l o g i s t s , there exists no a m o u n t of r a d i a t i o n that can be c o n s i d e r e d as h a r m l e s s for a cell. (b) "It is enough that one single radioactive particle a l t e r s one single DNA gene (c) for there to be s o m e r i s k " (d) e x p l a i n s B e r n a r d Cohen, of the University of Pittsburg. (e) The genie sequences of the c h r o m o s o m e s m a y b e a m p u t a t e d , d i s p l a c e d , i n v e r t e d , o r d u p l i c a t e d (f) and at the points w h e r e a rupture has occurred, m u t a t i o n s may arise." 8. (a) the M i l a n e s e scientist focuses a t t e n t i o n on the c o n t i n e n t a l drift. (b) "When the P a n g e a , t h e s o l e g r e a t c o n t i n e n t w h i c h a s s e m b l e d 200 m i l l i o n y e a r s ago all e m e r s e d lands, broke into fragments," he explains "the 'islands' that b e g a n to drift were formed by relatively small lands surrounded by water and crossed by inland seas. It was just this p r e p o n d e r a n c e of the sea that m a d e the c l i m a t e of these i s l a n d s - c o n t i n e n t s especially m i l d " , (c) "A k i n d of p o p u l a t i o n t y p i c a l o f s t a b l e environments d e v e l o p e d " states Pinna ". (d) "When the c o n t i n e n t s slowed d o w n their drift, and nearly stopped," says Pinna, "the tension of the c r u s t of t h e e a r t h d e c r e a s e d . The typical c o n t i n e n t a l climate appeared. The e n v i r o n m e n t b e c a m e u n s t a b l e . N o w t h o s e 'life p r o g r a m m e s ' w e r e favored, w h i c h involved few species w i t h many individuals able to feed on many d i f f e r e n t foods. D i n o s a u r s were exactly the o p p o s i t e and they perished." 9. E x p l a i n i n g is listed by A u s t i n as an e x p o s i t i v e illocutionary act (1975: 163), while Searle (1975) and B a c and H a r n i s h ( 1 9 7 9 ) d o n o t s e e m to t a k e it i n t o a c c o u n t . H o w e v e r , S e a r l e d o e s not e x p l i c i t l y d e f i n e it as a v e r b w h i c h d o e s n o t m a r k a n i l l o cutionary p o i n t of its own (1975: 28). 10. For my view of the illocutionary act and its conventional effect, cf. Sbisä (1986, in press). F o r my use of the n o t i o n of "modal competence," cf. G r e i m a s and Courtes (1979), S b i s ä (1984). REFERENCES A u s t i n , J. L. ( 1 9 7 5 ) . How to Do T h i n g s w i t h edition). London: O x f o r d University Press.

Words

(second

A s t o n , G. (1977). C o m p r e h e n d i n g value. A s p e c t s of the structure of argumentative discourse. Studi Italiani di L i n g u i s t i c a teorica e a p p l i c a t a , 6/3, 465-509. B a c h , K. a n d R . M . H a r n i s h ( 1 9 7 9 ) . Linguistic communication S p e e c h Acts. C a m b r i d g e , Mass. and London: MIT Press.

and

G r e i m a s , A. J. and J. C o u r t e s (1979). Semiotique: Dictionnaire reasonne de la theorie d u langage. Paris: Hachette.

17

S b i s ä , Μ. (1984). 8, 93-112.

On

illocutionary

types.

Journal

of

Pragmatics,

Sbisa, Μ. (1986). S p e e c h acts and context change. In Th. T. B a l l mer, ed., Process L i n g u i s t i c s . Tübingen: N i e m e y e r (in press). S e a r l e , J. R. (1975). A t a x o n o m y of i l l o c u t i o n a r y a c t s . In J. R. Searle, Expression and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. von

W r i g h t , G. H. (1971). Explanation NY: Cornell University Press.

and U n d e r s t a n d i n g .

Ithaca,

2 Utterance and Commitment: A Speech Act Analysis Robert L. Benjamin

If, as Wittgenstein has maintained, the world is indeed everything that is the case, then the words you and I utter seriously must relate in some way to that world--describing it, trying to change it, or telling anyone who will listen how we feel about it.

There are of

course more refined taxonomies of motive than those suggested above. Speech act philosophers and linguists (Searle 1969, Lyons, 1977) have identified (as forces of utterance) assertions, questions, requests, promises, advice, warnings, greetings, congratulations, and perhaps others.

Despite the undeniable impact of speech act doctrine on

various theories of argument, theorists have still concentrated their major attention on the nature of argument; or, where the focus has been structural or linguistic, on the relation between utterances rather than on what one is doing when one makes such utterances. In this paper I identify and analyze three kinds of utterance common to argument:

(1) assertion, (2) prediction, and (3) value.

In each case I consider the probable force of the utterance, and the reader/listener Is asked to note the persistent theme of commitment (similar to the "sincerity condition" present in felicitous speech acts) which emerges in the analysis. But first, some distinctions are in order.

I view argumentation

as a process, one which produces individual arguments.

In this paper

I use the term "argument" to refer to a piece of discourse composed of a claim and at least one reason for accepting or believing it. Inasmuch as this is a speech act analysis, I should make clear that I

19 regard illocutionary force as a property of a single speech act and not (necessarily) of compounds or combinations thereof which may together comprise an argumentative episode.

In recent years several

writers (e.g., Kopperschmidt, 1980, van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1984) have developed thorough speech act analyses based on a compound illocution of argumentative sequences.

While such analyses may be

ultimately profitable, I believe they come too soon.

We must first

learn more about the forces of individual utterances made in argument.^

As indicated above, I will devote this brief effort to that

task. Assertion.

Let us start by excluding definitions from the class

of assertives to be studied.

This would seem not to be necessary;

but so prevalent is the habit in informal arguments of mixing definition and claim, that a clear-cut separation is essential. The utterance of definition is performative: illocutionary act of defining. this term as follows:...".

It performs the

It says in effect "I hereby define

The fact that reported definitions (from

some authority) may be offered does not alter their performative status.

Less obvious, and perhaps more controversial, are some of

the felicity conditions which would seem to follow.

When S offers

definition D to H: (a) It is not obvious to both S and Η how S is expected to use the defined terra. (b) S intends to abide by D. (c) D is not capable of truth or falsity. (d) Η may refuse to accept D, but cannot prove D to be wrong. (e) In the absence of rejection of D by Η, Η is expected to produce and receive arguments in accordance with D. One might quarrel with almost any of these conditions.

What is

important is that the language-clarifying and language-using functions be kept distinct:

their illocutionary forces are diametrically

opposite, their only commonality lying in commitment—to fidelity to definitions, to belief of assertives. Definition aside, formal argumentation is mostly assertion.

Most

of our arguments are couched in claims about the world, with an Implied commitment to the truth of these claims.

Although assertives

20 were not a part of Austin's (1962) original notion of doing things with words, their status and felicity conditions as illocutionary acts are generally accepted.

Searle (1969) states, as an essential

condition for S's assertion of P, that it count as "...an undertaking to the effect that Ρ represents an actual state of affairs."

Toulmin

(1969) made a quantum leap from traditional logic when he allowed for qualification of assertlves and suggested appropriate language for such qualification.

Unfortunately assertivee sometimes hide qualifi-

cations, or even additional claims, within the cloak of simple assertive language.

And because, when this happens, a separate

illocution is taking place, careful speech act analysis is required. First, the unadorned assertive making an unadorned claim.

When I

argue "My opponent is mistaken," the felicity conditions for such acts are:

Preparatory (1) 1 have evidence...for the truth of the

proposition I've generated, (2) It is not obvious to me and my opponent that s/he already knows...; Sincerityt position; Essential;

I believe the pro-

Counts as an undertaking to the effect that the

proposition represents an actual state of affairs. So far the application of speech act doctrine has told us nothing we didn't already know.

But serious assertlves in the argumentative

process are seldom matters of absolute fact; and qualification changes the nature of assertlves In Important ways.

Apart from the

obvious clausal mechanisms with which Toulmin Illustrates his models, our language provides us with many devices for modifying our claims without always seeming to.

One such device is the sentence adverb.

In a paper delivered some years back I argued—impressing nobody, as I recall--that sentence adverbs (those which are said to modify entire sentences rather than components) are best understood by studying their illocutionary impact upon the parent statement (Benjamin, 1981).

I offered six categories of such forces, at least

two of which are important in argumentative assertion.

Since we are

concerned with commitment, we should look first at those adverbs which alter conviction level (van Eemeren, 1984, p. 107). When I utter the statement "My opponent is mistaken," I am committed to its truth.

Insert "probably" or "possibly" or "conceivably"

and the commitment has been lowered in varying degree.

In speech act

21 language, the felicity conditions no longer apply.

Insert "suppos-

edly" or "presumably" or "allegedly" and I am no longer on the hook for any commitment to veracity of the core proposition.

Paradoxi-

cally (slci), the Insertion of "surely" or "certainly" or "undoubte d l y " — w o r d s which ought etymologically to remove all doubt—actually announce to all the world that I'm not sure.

(This last phenomenon

is particularly noticeable in informal conversation:

"Surely you

locked the door before you left!" means "I'm beginning to doubt that you locked the door.") When my commitment to truth _ie complete, however, a different category of sentence adverb may intrude to suggest the inevltlbillty of believing as I do.

When I accuse my opponent of being "clearly"

(or "obviously" or "manifestly" or "patently") mistaken, I am not only laying my commitment on the line but also implying that anyone with brains ought to agree.

The appearance of the "ought" factor

introduces a value element which will be considered briefly later. Whether tempering conviction level or insisting on certainty, then, the sentence adverb--or any of a half-dozen similar devices-quietly exerts its influence on the core claim.

Their perlocution-

ary Impact in an argument is, I believe, yet to be measured. Prediction.

At first glance there seems to be no need to treat

prediction apart from assertion.

Assertives and predlctlvee both

make c l a i m s — t h e former, of the present or past; the latter of the future.

But one's commitment to a predictive must surely be weaker

than to most assertives, particularly in matters of fact.

(Factual

matters of the present and past are usually easy to commit to; while predictlves of tomorrow's rising of the sun and the stock market are not equally attractive.)

But to understand the lllocutionary force

of a predictive we must first separate it from that of a promise (Lyons, 1977, p. 728). When I say "I will be there at nine," I am probably making a promise.

(The "shall" and "will" distinction of traditional grammar

Is virtually extinct in American English.) to strike out," I am surely predicting.

When I say "He is going

But what about "Under our

plan, bills will be paid from the general fund"?

Am I proposing,

predicting, promising, or perhaps some combination of these acts?

22 Grammarians used to say "Statements of the future worded in the first person are (probably) promises; those occurring in the third person are predictions."

It takes only a few counter-examples to reject

this notion: (1) My son will be in class tomorrow (I assure you). (2) The President will be in Hawaii tomorrow. (3) I'm going to be sick! (4) Officers will wear ties at all times. (5) Bills will be paid from the general fund. Example (1) is a promise, despite its third-person wording.

We know

this because of the presence of an illocutionary verb ("assure"); but even without that parenthetical phrase, tone and context would surely indicate promisehood. control:

(1) differs from (2) largely in the matter of

the parent has control over the actions of the child, or

thinks β/he does.

In (2), the speaker is presumbably reporting plans

over which s/he has no control and thus is predicting behavior rather than promising it.

It is hard to dream up a circumstance where (3)

is a promise, despite the first-person utterance.

(4) is neither a

predictive nor a promise, but rather a directive--again, despite the syntax.

Before trying to characterize (5) we should agree on some

felicity conditions condensed from Searle (1969): Promises.

Vhen S promises Η to to A:

(a) S must believe Η wants A. (b) A must be controllable by S. (c) S must Intend (is committed) to do A. (d) It is agreed that S might not do A without the promise. Predlctlves.

When S predicts event F, to H:

(a) S must believe that Ε will (probably) occur. (b) There must be some level of doubt that Ε will occur. Given these conditions (and there may be others), it seems that example (5), though a statement about the future, partakes only in small part of prediction or of promise: tation.

it is an utterance of expec-

But one cannot say "I hereby expect...", so (5) seems not to

be performative at all.

Yet it cannot be assertive because, among

other reasons, S cannot be expected to commit to it.

(Embezzlement,

a bankrupt general fund, or other factors beyond S's control may pre-

23 elude the predicated payments.)

While it is true that (5) is part of

a complex proposal, its Illocutionary force is quite different from such proposals as "Let's go to the movies."

Apparently a new

category of illocution must be developed, a task best left to another paper. The above conditions for predictives and promises indicate different, if overlapping, illocutionary forces at work.

Yet It is our

practice in argumentation to blend these forces in a convenient promise-type assertion, seeking, I guess, to combine the authority of a predictive with the personal credibility of a promise.

This brings

us to the main class of predictives in formal argumentation:

those

which depict the future under (or without) a proposed change. One might expect, in formal situations at least, that each predictive would be accompanied by some illocutionary force marker or markers indicating the degree of commitment of the utterer and how 2 that degree of commitment came about. In practice this rarely happens.

To the contrary, we use the same battery of comforting

qualifiers to strengthen our own and our listeners' convictions that the predicted result will occur. And strangely, we use force 3 such as "promise" and "assure" without the slightest sign of

markers

remorse:

"If we adopt socialized medicine, I promise you, we'll have

every sore thumb In the country clogging the doctors' offices." While predictives in a formal policy argument may be less metaphorical, it is quite common to hear "promise" or "assure" in support of a predictive where the felicity condition of control Is clearly absent.

We are willing, that is, to ignore illocutionary require-

ments and lay our personal credibility on the line by "promising" or "assuring" results from untried polities--provided the argumentative stakes are high enough. In summary, statements about the future are a large part of most policy arguments.

In actual practice prediction, promise, expecta-

tion, and perhaps other acts, are often balanced and interchanged, even though each has its own separate set of felicity conditions. Perhaps this is because what we predict Is tightly clothed in what we expect, want, or fear and can't control. language of value.

This brings us to the

24 Value,

I use this term to refer to a position (expressed or Implied)

of approval or disapproval of something.

"Evaluation" Is the process

of expressing such approval or disapproval; an "evaluative" Is the lllocutlonary act that does it.

Authors of speech act theory say

little or nothing about evaluatlves as lllocutlonary acts; those who do apparently regard them as a special kind of expressive. Yet the act of approving (or disapproving) is surely a way of doing things with words, often in a single utterance, sometimes in a concealed word or two.

Despite the immense difficulty of ferreting out the

evaluative component in argumentative discourse, some attempt must be made to establish at least an essential condition for evaluation. Ue should start by noting that evaluatlves in the pure form rarely enter an argument.

While It may serve political posturing to point

with pride and view with alarm, such utterances as "It is good that we speak together" are clearly the province of grade "B" movies, not of argumentative discourse.

Indeed, most of our evaluatlves are so

deeply woven into our assertives that It becomes almost impossible to separate them.

(And when one succeeds, one wonders why one bothered;

for the arguer's response is always "That's not what I said.")

Con-

sider the following: (6) My opponent is clearly mistaken. (7) Scuttling price supports will clearly ruin the farmers. Earlier we noted that the presence of "clearly" in (6), in addition to firming up S's commitment, also implies that there is something wrong with us if we don't agree:

we ought to agree.

Whether one

regards "ought" as a special kind of directive or a blend of assertive and expressive or whatever, it is at best awkward to exclude the evaluative component in (6). in (7):

Two different problems are introduced

"scuttling" is an evaluative metaphor; "ruin" is a stepchild

of "change," best exposed by an "Evaluative Difference" diagram (see below).

A purist would rewrite (7) as follows:

price supports will lower the farmers' income."

"Discontinuation of But of course that

is not what S said; and such rewrites help us little in understanding the lllocutlonary force of evaluation.

The essential condition of

such evaluatlves would seem to be the obvious "...counts as an

25 expression of approval or disapproval."

But an evaluative lllocution

cannot count as approval or disapproval unless Η recognizes S's Intent to evaluate.

And since S is probably unaware o£ his/her own

evaluation (so instinctively has s/he clothed it in the respectable objectivity of an assertive with its own essential condition), the entire notion of essential conditions for evaluatives may be in jeopardy. EVALUATIVE DIFFERENCE

GENUS:

CHANGE

Appropriate Term: "progress" "improvement"

DIFFERENCE: Favorable "advancemen t" 'elevation" "deterioration" DIFFERENCE: Unfavorable

're trogres s ion" "degeneration"

In this paper I make no attempt to improve upon current efforts to treat compound argumentative illocutions.

Instead, I focus on the

nature of a single argumentative utterance and the nature and degree of commitment discernable therein.

Hopefully such focus may help us

ultimately to understand--and perhaps to evaluate--the larger bodies we call argumentative discourse.

26 Footnotes 1.

Streek'β (1980) notion that "To analyze utterances as speech acts, It is impossible to study them in Isolation." misses an important distinction between essential condition and implicative meaning. This distinction is treated briefly later.

2.

One engineer, when asked how his company arrived at a 5% probability of a dam failure, replied: "Twenty of us looked at the data, and only one thought the dam wouldn't hold." One hopes he was not serious.

3.

Lyons (1977, p. 738) suggests that Urmson's (1952) notion of parenthetical verbs be enlarged to include such illocutlonary verbs as "promise."

References Austin, J. L., How to Do Things With Words, Oxford University Press, 1962. Benjamin, Robert L,, "The Sentence Adverb as an Illocutlonary Speech Act." Paper delivered at the Annual Convention, Western Speech Communication Association, San Jose, CA, February, 1981. van Eemeren, Frans Η. and Rob Grootendorst, Speech Acts In Argumentative Discussions, Foris Publications, Cinnaminson (U.S.A.), 1984. Kopperschmidt, J., Argumentation (Sprache und Vernunft), Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 1980. Lyons, John, Semantics (Vol. 2), Cambridge University Press, 1977. Searle, John, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press, 1969. Streek, Jürgen, "Speech Acts in Interaction: A Critique of Searle," in Discourse Processes, Vol. 3:2, 1980, pp. 133-153. Toulmln, S. E., The Uses of Argument, Cambridge University Press, 1969. Urmson, J. 0., "Parenthetical Verbs," in Mind: 61, 480-96. 1952.

3

The Problem of Deixis in Argumentation Barbara Kryk

The present paper delves into the pragmatics

of

argumentation

and, in particular, the role of deixis in this type of discourse. This paper will show how a line of argumentation can be shaped by the deictic anchoring of discourse participants. On the one hand, the traditional deictic dimensions of person, place and time are taken

into account,

i.e. how the position of the speaker renders

these three as I/here/now, respectively, and what impact this has on the argumentation process. On the other hand, three more types of deixis are considered, i.e. Fillmorian categories of discourse and social deixis (1975) and Lakoff's (1974) emotional deixis. These, it is argued here, are even more relevant to analysis, since referring to discourse entities by means of indexicals, ascribing social roles to discourse participants and expressing

the speaker's

emotional

attitudes can either weaken or strengthen the argument. Since the analysis is conducted within a contrastive

framework,

contentions are supported by data from English and Polish. On the basis of several discourse

samples

it will be demonstrated

that

manipulating the deictic anchoring of particular discourse participants can exert considerable impact upon the possible

inferences

drawn from an ongoing argument which become, in turn, subject to a range of different interpretations. 1. Person, place and time deixis It has been generally accepted that any utterance situation

is

egocentric in the sense that the speaker's location constitutes the zero-point of reference for all other discourse participants their respective

spatio-temporal

and

locations. Thus, the three basic

28 variables

that

determine

the

speaker's

deictic

anchoring

are

g r a m m a t i c a l i z e d as I/here/now. Then, e a c h u t t e r a n c e of: 1.

I am here now.

a s c r i b e s d i f f e r e n t r e f e r e n t s to the p r o n o u n a n d the adverbs of place and

time. Consequently,

the

speaker

and

the

pronoun assignment and

the

to

addressee,

in a discourse

addressee

situation,

switch back

the d i s c o u r s e cf. Lyons

and

as t h e

forth,

participants,

roles

so d o e s

i.e. the

( 1 977 :638). S u c h

a

of the

speaker

case

is

here

labelled a SWITCH, e.g. 2.

X: I x can help youy if s h e z does too. Y: Iy will be m o s t grateful be sure about

2'.

if y o u x do.

B u t Iy

wouldn't

her2.

X: M o g ^ x ciy pomoc, jezeli o n a 2 to tei

zrobi.

Y: Bfd^y b a r d z o w d z i ^ c z n a , jeieli to z r o b i s z x . Ale co do n i e j z , nie Note

that

speakers, person^

the

subscripts

respectively,

remains

pewna.

byJfabyniy

x,

y_ s t a n d

while

for

z^ d e n o t i n g

the

first

and

the n o n - p a r t i c i p a n t

al.

to

verbal

inflection,

(1978:22ff).

pronoun

third

constant throughout. This holds true b o t h in E n g l i s h

and Polish, but the latter lacks overt pronouns in subject due

second

Despite

paradigm

is

cf.,

this

subject

for

seeming

to many

instance,

simplicity,

position

Fisiak, the

v a r i a t i o n s . These

et

personal

can all

be

c h a r a c t e r i z e d as social deixis and will be d i s c u s s e d below. The egocentric principle works analogously in place deixis.

Gran-

ted that the speaker's location is the point of r e f e r e n c e for his or her

audience,

Angeles)

and Y

the

following

discourse

(from San F r a n c i s c o ) ,

between

requires

X

(staying

in

the switch from

to there, w h i c h stand for either of the cities d e p e n d i n g

Los here

on who

is

speaking at the moment: 3.

X: I've heard that it's been raining a g a i n up therey. You should come over h e r e x ; it's so w a r m and sunny. Y: Yeah, that's the way things go. It's always

warmer

t h e r e x than it is herey. 3'.

X: SJfyszaZam, ze znowu tamy pada. P o w i n n a s

przyjechai;

t u x ; jest tak ciepito i sifonecznie. Y: Tak, tak juz jest. As expected,

Jest zawsze cieplej t a m x niz

the same holds true

for time d e i x i s ,

so the

tUy. switch

b e t w e e n now (standing for the present moment) and then (referring to

29 some

past

or

future

time)

and their Polish

does not require any e x e m p l i f i c a t i o n What remains the

two

to be d i s c u s s e d

demonstrative

strative

pronouns

adjectives)

this

mal/distal distinction. have

a markedly

elsewhere

and

1985;

f i r s t p a r t of

(which

sometimes

that

vs. distance becomes neutralized

It

they

It

the

has

in c o n t r a s t i v e

Ta kawa jest dobra, ale tamta na H a w a j a c h b y ^ a

sentence can employ

however,

that

even

ten/tamten

demonstrated of

proximity

contexts only,

4'.

noted,

proxi-

t e n is t h e n u n m a r k e d

T h i s c o f f e e is g o o d , b u t t h a t i n H a w a i i w a s be

express

been

4.

should

demon-

opposition

in P o l i s h ;

in

such

contexts

a

4''. Ta kawa jest dobra, ale ta na Hawaj ach by^a

lepsza.

be

dimensions

concluded

of p e r s o n ,

at

this

place

and

point

time

that

deixis,

the

e.g.:

lepsza.

'this',

can

t w o o c c u r r e n c e s of p r o x i m a l

and

better.

ten

It

are

as

their Polish equivalents

distribution.

tarnten r e f e r s to d i s t a l o b j e c t s

this paper

function

that. In E n g l i s h

1986)

teraz/wtedy

here.

in the

However,

different

(Kryk

counterparts

three

Polish

cf.:

"classical"

grammatically

realized

a s t h r e e s p e a k e r - o r i e n t e d p a r a d i g m s of p e r s o n a l p r o n o u n s , a d v e r b s place

and

within

time

all

discourse

and

three

situations,

tation. The

and emotional

discussed

social and emotional used

discourse,

example,

we

may is

say

afterwards, 6 is

to e.g.

reference the

(before

refer

either

substitute pattern

in the c a s e of

here,

in

argumenthe

i.e. discourse,

three social

deixis.

to to

some

of

lexical or

portion

demonstratives

an

explanation

is

of

the

this

and

given

of

gramma-

prior

and

that.

For

which

only

explanation. when

both

the

speaker

and

the

hearer

share

the

this

may

appropriate:

6. T h a t w a s m y e x p l a n a t i o n . Contrary

can

SWITCH

aware):

5. T h i s is my knowledge,

becomes more complex

u s e s to be

ongoing

But

the

d e i x i s h a s to d o w i t h t h e c h o i c e

elements

the s p e a k e r

(which

to

deixis.

2. D i s c o u r s e , Discourse

pronouns

conform

a n d t h u s m a i n t a i n the r e g u l a r f l o w of

situation

remaining deictic

tical

demonstrative categories),

of

Fillmore, prior

or

(Fillmore

Lakoff

1975:71)

(1974:346)

subsequent

discourse

claims by

one

that

individual,

30 whereas

that

following

may

refer

to

prior

discourse

only.

Consider

the

examples:

7. A n d t h i s / * t h a t

is the s o n g M a r y h a s t a u g h t m e :

...

but 8. I s a w J i m ' s n e w c a r y e s t e r d a y . T h i s / t h a t T o y o t a

is

terrific. Moreover,

t h a t is m o r e c o l l o q u i a l

9. J o h n h a s b e e n s t u d y i n g G B really cracks me As might only

the

ten/ta/to)

for. a y e a r n o w . * T h i s / t h a t

the d i s t i n c t i o n

demonstrative

can be employed,

is b l u r r e d

(with

weirdo

8'. W i d z i a / a m wczoraj

its

in P o l i s h

three

gender

since forms,

cf.:

7'. A t o / * t a m t o jest piosenka, ktorej jest

e.g.:

up.

be expected,

unmarked

than this,

nowy

nauczy/a mnie Marysia:

samochöd Jima.

Ta/*tamten

...

Toyota

kapitalna.

9'. Jan uczy

si^ GB od roku. T e n / * t a m t e n

§wir naprawd^

immediate

here

mnie

rozämiesza. What

is

discourse

of

strategies

process

of

comments

on the

using

When

interlocutor's

us

one

of

earlier

the

I don't

that

both

this

and

think your paper

that

are

not of

in the

by

is j u s t a

where

up, the

use

discourse

the

not

if

the

same

statement: in

enough

for

the

Amsterdam.

comment.

in d i s c o u r s e

Polish. This

statement, with

that but

is i m m a t e r i a l

in P o l i s h , w h e r e

only

employed.

Summing achieved

the

participants

possible

is s o p h i s t i c a t e d

A g a i n , the t h i s / t h a t d i s t i n c t i o n to c a n be

only

affect

recover.

International Conference on Argumentation This/that

discourse

possible

heresy.

person comments on his or her previous 11.

the

that would

statement,

X: T h e P o l i s h e c o n o m y w i l l n e v e r however,

are

cf:

Y : * T h i s / t h a t is Note,

to

the demonstratives

argumentation.

this can be used, 10.

concern

uses

encountered

this

strategy

can

participants,

and

the

demonstratives

a distal

proposition

both

of

deixis

than that

be

while

can

one be

is

observed

labelled

demonstrative with

proximal/distal

of

in E n g l i s h ,

DETACHMENT,

commenting

on

which expresses his

used. A

or

distinction

her

similar

own

since

one

the

other's

less

empathy

statements,

phenomenon

in s o c i a l d e i x i s , w h i c h is the n e x t p o i n t of

but

can

analysis.

be

31

According to Fillmore

(1975:76ff), social deixis reflects

some

aspects of the social situation in which the speech act occurs. This encompasses the devices for person marking, the methods of separating

speech

levels

(plain, polite, honorific speech), the use of

names, titles, kinship terms, etc., and the devices that provides

language

for a speaker to be able to establish and also maintain

deictic anchoring with the addressee. The wide

scope of

social

deixis makes such phenomena particularly relevant to our analysis. A distinction

is in order

here between the deictic

roles of

the

participants of an utterance situation, on the one hand, and the social roles of the participants, on the other. As shown above, the former are realized

grammatically

in the category of person. The

latter, however, are culture-specific functions institutionalized in a society, and their most obvious effect lies in the determination of forms of address

(Lyons 1977:575)2.

We will now concentrate on

this aspect of social deixis. Out of an array touched

upon

of possible

here. One

of

social roles only a few will be

the

most

intricate

cases

is

the

parent/child relationship. So-called "baby-talk" involves a constant use of role names and, consequently, triggers the occurrence of the third person form of the verb in inflectional languages like Polish, e.g.: 12.

X: Mom will give some milk to Sue now. Y: Yeah, Sue is thirsty. And Mom can give Sue a candy, too.

12'. X: Mama da teraz Zuzi mleka. Y: Tak, Zuzia chce pifi. I mama da Zuzi te£ cukierka. Note that the discourse participants of baby talk do not observe the SWITCH strategy but speak of themselves and address each other by means of the appropriate role (parent) and name (child). Even though they are in a way detached

from their deictic roles, the case can

hardly be called DETACHMENT since the emotional involvement of the discourse

participants

with

each

(1977:677) calls this empathetic plained

here,

parent/child

some

additional

relationship

other

is

fairly

high.

Lyons

deixis. Before anything is exdata

from

is linguistically

Polish,

where

realized

in

the three

different ways, will be offered. The use of the three depends on the degree

of

parent/child

intimacy

and

is

deeply

rooted

in

tradition. The most formal forms of address are very rare now, if not obsolete, and today there is a tendency to use much less formal

32 ways

of

addressing

the

parent

(by

means

of

tu

rather

than

vous

forms): 13.

a) C z y m a m a k u p i l i

coS na

obiad?

b) C z y m a m a k u p i l a c o 5 n a

obiad?

c) C z y k u p i l a ä coä n a 1 3 ' . a) H a s m o t h e r b o u g h t b) H a s m o t h e r b o u g h t c) H a v e y o u b o u g h t Thus

in

a),

d e g r e e of b)

which

for

dinner?

(3rd p e r s .

for

dinner?

the

third

is t h e h i g h e s t

is a l s o f r e q u e n t w i t h o t h e r

and respect only

be

marked

14.

by

the

sg.) a n y t h i n g person

a n d in c)

social

roles

(teachers, doctors, etc.).

social role, The

(3rd pers. pi.) a n y t h i n g

(2nd p e r s . sg.) a n y t h i n g

employs

formality

obiad?

explicit

use

plural

the

dinner?

verb

it is the involving

In E n g l i s h , of

for

name

lowest. both

of

forms

of

address

in

Polish

also

to

of

German

or

parallel

and Mr./Ms. correspond two

uses

MAINTAINING,

which

the

that

to v o u s ;

of

since

third

both

reasons. In

part

of

the

switch).

In

the

social

includes

the

distance

is p e r s o n a l l y with to

former,

(to

avoud

latter

case,

preserved

by

talk

can

and

use

the

cf. L y o n s

people

tu.

be

labelled

honorific

third

the

person

speaker

to

strategy

from

reference show

for

the

on

role

signals

the

respect. Thus,

we

in t h i s c a t e g o r y . W h e n t h e

viewpoint

t a l k e d a b o u t o r is of

this/here/now, 15 o r

16

the

addressee,

rather pointing

than

self-idenhe

their

out a

(from t h e i r o w n o r t h e

speaker or

she

distal

tooth

to

a

dentist's

respectively):

It's this

It's that one.

can

also

one.

include groups

e.g. doctors often ask 17.

stemming

forms)

albeit

an ANTI-SWITCH

confusion

(1977:677). Thus,

say either

16.

social

or

proximal

15.

certain

is

pan/pani

MAINTAINING.

the attitude

point of view,

We

it

i n v o l v e d w i t h the e n t i t y

counterparts, dentist

the

vous/tu

French. Thus,

pronouns

(baby

Empathetic deixis also belongs

tends

can

Fisiak.

ty a n d y o u c o r r e s p o n d to person

cases

the

parent

can call it H O N O R I F I C

tifying

distance

denotes

m a i n t a i n the distance between the discourse participants, different

Form

e.g.:

distinction, These

the

such distance

I'd like to talk to you, m o t h e r / D r . Jones/Prof.

array

form,

How are we

(Fillmore here when

the

plural

they

patients:

today?

1975:84) talk

forms to

used

their

by

the

members

of

dependents/clients,

33 1 7 ' . J a k si^ d z i ä

czujemy?

or a teacher may address a student during an 18.

We didn't study too hard, did

18'. N i e u c z y l i S m y Finally,

telephone

British

English

observes

the

distal

s i ^ za d u ä e , inquiry

proximal/distal

that,

whereas

we?

prawda?

conversations

the

about

present the

principle,

the addressee

exam:

a

curious

case.

interlocutor's

i.e. the

identity

speaker

r e p l i e s by m e a n s of

In

uses

the

the

proximal

demonstrative: 19.

X: Is t h a t

Barbara?

Y: Y e s , t h i s is 1 9 ' . X: C z y to

Barbara?

Y: T a k , t o / t u Note Y's

Barbara.

Barbara.

that in P o l i s h the proximal answer

nally,

the

form

tu

'here'

form

to is u s e d t h r o u g h o u t ,

is m o r e

frequent

than

to

and 1

'this .

in A m e r i c a n E n g l i s h Y c a n a n s w e r w i t h a t h i r d p e r s o n

in Fi-

pronoun,

cf. : Y ' : Y e s , t h i s is Such

cases

can

be

she.

labelled

EMPATHETIC

i d e n t i f i e s w i t h the i n t e r l o c u t o r ' s distal

perspective,

since

the

lack

of

i n t e r l o c u t o r ' s p o i n t of last

use of

predicted

switch

due

the

speaker

often using the

f o r m s to e x p r e s s e m p a t h y . E M P A T H E T I C A T T A C H M E N T

involving The

ATTACHMENT

to

is a

empathy

more

strategy with

the

view.

deixis

to be d i s c u s s e d

here

is e m o t i o n a l

deixis

( w h i c h s i g n a l s the a t t i t u d e of t h e s p e a k e r t o w a r d s a g i v e n e n t i t y means

of

pronouns

the

demonstrative

reflect

emotional

pronouns

closeness,

tions on their distribution.

Lakoff

this/that) . In but

there

are

This Henry Kissinger

is r e a l l y

21.

That Henry Kissinger

sure knows his way around

is v e r y

tarnten

'that'

any difference 22.

restricted can

express

is

meaning:

Ten/tamten

in

Indeed,

speaker's

facet jest naprawd^

2 2 ' . T h i s / t h a t g u y is r e a l l y

nuts.

both

Hollywood! demonstratives

in P o l i s h , w h e r e t h e

its distribution,

the

restric-

something.

The proximal/distal distinction normally expressed by tarnten

both

contexts:

20.

in s u c h c o n t e x t s .

some

use

(1974) g i v e s e x a m p l e s w h e r e

this and that are u s e d in a l m o s t identical

is n e u t r a l i z e d

this

by

both

emotional wariatem.

ten

distal

'this'

attitude

and

without

34

But, as Lakoff rightly observes, this use is felicitous only if both the speaker and the hearer share the knowledge of the facts commented on and there is something remarkable about these facts. Otherwise, an odd statement results: 23.

?Ta Polska ma du2e pok/ady w^gla.

23'. PThis Poland has big coal resources. Since in emotional deixis the proximity/distance neutralized

in both

languages, we can call

contrast

becomes

this case EMOTIONAL

NEUTRALIZATION. It can be concluded at this point that all the above-mentioned strategies exert considerable impact upon the argumentation cess. Thus, for the

sake of argumentation,

the

pro-

speaker-oriented

strategy of SWITCH can for various reasons be violated resulting in the following scale: 1 . DETACHMENT

is used

by speakers to distance themselves from

their interlocutor's statements; 2. Distance is still MAINTAINED in case of baby talk SWITCH)

and

the

use

of

honorific

forms

(ΑΝΤΙ

(HONORIFIC

MAINTAINING); 3. In case of the lack of predicted SWITCH, the speaker can identify with the interlocutor's perspective; this results

in

EMPATHETIC ATTACHMENT; 4. Finally,

distance

can

be completely

neutralized

if

emotional factors come into play (EMOTIONAL NEUTRALIZATION). The present analysis has by no means exhausted the possible roles of deixis

in argumentation. But

I hope

to have

shown

that

the

strategies used by discourse participants can strongly influence the argumentation process and that the matter deserves a longer and more detailed study.

NOTES 1. The third person represents the unmarked member of the triad and in some languages it even has the characteristics of a "nonperson", cf. Beneviste (1971); Lyons (1977). 2. According to Lyons (1977:575), these roles are typically reciprocal, and the speaker using such expressions accepts his role vis-a-vis the addressee. Both these characteristics of social role have a great impact upon their function in argumentation.

35

REFERENCES Beneviste, Gables,

Ε. (1971 ). P r o b l e m s in General Fla.: University of Miami Press.

Linguistics. Coral

Fillmore, Ch. (1975). Santa Cruz lectures on deixis 1971. Indiana University Linguistics Club. Fisiak, J., et al., eds. (1978). An Introductory English-Polish Contrastive Grammar. Warszawa: PWN. Kryk, B. (1985). The pragmatics of deixis in English and Polish. Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics 2 0. Kryk, B. ( 1 986 ). How do indexicals fit into situations? On deixis in English and Polish. In D. Kastovsky and A. Szwedek, eds. Linguistics across Historical and Geographical Boundaries. In Honour of Jacek Fisiak on the Occasion of his Fiftieth Birthday . V o l . 2. D e s c r i p t i v e , c o n t r a s t i v e and Applied Linguistics.Amsterdam: Mouton. Lakoff, R. (1974). Remarks on This and That. CLS 10. Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Cambridge: CUP.

4

Argumentative Linguistic Analysis and Refutative Discourse Gisäle Losier

The

aim

of

this

presentation

the concepts

of

"rhetorics"

"linguistic

argumentative

is to define

and

and to

"argumentation"

analysis".

I use

in

the

differentiate contrast

term

with

"linguistic

argumentative a n a l y s i s " to refer to what has b e e n d e f i n e d

previously

as "integrated" rhetorics because I want to emphasize its links w i t h linguistics.

Apart

from

this

terminological

innovation,

I

would

like to introduce and define some of the terms I will be using. theoretical

framework

elaborated Anscombre.

by

is the theory of a r g u m e n t a t i o n as it has

Oswold

Ducrot

and

subsequently

those of G. Genette on polyphony,

original

and, c o n s e q u e n t l y ,

use

theory

"expose" the

"speaker" being"

person).

The

for

term

by

thus creating

terminology.

I will

then use

them

to as well

will

provide

as contrast

examples

w i t h examples of book

can e i t h e r

be

an For

I will

theory,

category

on

the

of

the

"statement,"

I will present briefly some remarks

about

Chaim

(in 0. D u c r o t ' s

the g r a m m a t i c a l

"enonciation"

from G i l l e s G a s t o n G r a n g e r

In his

an extensive

"locuteur"

represented

"speech event" or "speech a c t . " tion.

Jean-Claude

I will need to use but a few of these terms.

term

"linguistic first

been

The authors have d e v e l o p e d the ideas of J. L. A u s t i n

speech acts and this

by

My

the n o t i o n

Perelman's

of

logical

concepts

organiza-

in order

to

link

them w i t h 0. Ducrot' s t e r m i n o l o g y .

in E n g l i s h

and expose my

view o n

the

I

matter

refutation. Lanqages

et

epistemologie,

G. G . G r a n g e r

asserts

(1979:163) that is is necessary to d i f f e r e n t i a t e two m e a n i n g s of the n o t i o n of

logical

organization

in

language

d e p e n d i n g on w h e t h e r

is considered as "demonstrative" or as "inherent" content.

The

demonstrative

supra-grammatical logical

symbolism.

level As

of far

logical

regulation as

the

in the

organization and

will

description

of

linguistic

appears be a

it

at

revealed

the by

superimposed

37 logical such

organization

is

irrelevant.

defined

as

implies

a

Another in

in

we

the

on w h e t h e r

consider

rhetorics support

would

or

apply

to

meant

to

to

Chaim

univocal convince

describes

the

or

general

organization

is

content

system

of

the

and

therefore

reference.

to

views

The

features

that

on

a

of

to

Its

"rheto-

"demonstrative"

by

1983).

differentiate

the

(1977),

speaker

reasoning

any

Although

type

does

not

discourse

Ch. Perelman

lengthily

argumentation

is m o d e l e d o n

a

the

system

whereas argumentation uses an unspecified corpus relying on a

thesis

elements

is

Finally

not

there

conclusion,

fixed is

no

only

weight--can

and

an

support

their

book

J. C. A n s c o m b r e in

terms

of

or

and 0. Ducrot

possible utterance

argument

for

some examples 1.

"It

A2.

a

thesis.

of

between

the

arguments--of the

and

a

various

truth

of

a

define

dans

the

a

speaker A-j

that The

as

lanque,

concept

of

sequence.

makes

an

la

an

"argumentation" There

are

argumentation

fulfill

authors

study

many

to

cases.

of

he

the l i n g u i s t i c s t r u c t u r e of A-| m u s t appropriate

favor

when

second

it

in

two

a

make

argument

( 1 9 8 3 ),

constitute Let

us

an

consider

in E n g l i s h .

helps

little

safe as possible.

to

say

that

technology

should

be

made

M a c h i n e s c a n a l m o s t a l w a y s be m a d e

b u t a t s o m e s t a g e the p r i c e of e x t r a s a f e t y s p o i l s the of the

the

audience.

arguments

Therefore

argumentative

Secondly,

conditions

approval

some

L ' arqumeηtation

presents certain

that

the s t a t u s of

relative.

Firstly,

utterance A2.

the

implication

refute

conditions. an

meet

agreement

c o n c l u s i o n can only be In

In a r g u m e n t a t i o n

must

necessary

a

from

well-defined

t h a t c a n be i m p l i e d o r i m p l i c i t .

follows

to

of

demonstration his definition Demonstration

term

argumentation

used

study

rather

persuade.

the

(Anscombre, Ducrot,

strategies but

for

considering

rhetorics

thesis.

pattern.

as

logical

distinction

are

inferences

formal, mathematical, same

same

Perelman's

a

a

universal

we

describe

refute

of

organization

language.

rhetorics or an "integrated" If

linguistic

linguistic

or a

maintaining

depending

the

aspect

the

structure

is i m m a n e n t

propose

rics"

concerned,

"inherent"

basic

operation I

is

as

safer, point

machine." "Accidents will

happen"

T h e E c o n o m i s t , M a y 10, 1 9 8 6 , p. 14 The

occurence

of

such

terms

as

little,

almost

and

but

in

these

38 sentences first

influences

sentence,

made as

the

kind

"It helps

of

conclusions

little

to say

one

that

can

draw.

technology

safe as possible" induces the conslusion

The

should

be

that "It does not

help."

Although the first part of the second sentence "Machines can

almost

always

be

made

safer"

actually

informs

us

that

machines

cannot always be made safer, the presence of almost will lead us in the opposite direction, and its argumentative value will be that "it does

help."

The

argumentative

last

part,

introduced

orientation,

and

the

by but

whole

takes

the

sequence

opposite

conveys

the

message that it does not help to say that technology should be made as safe as possible. Let

us

author's

consider

idea

attitude of

about

the

a

second

the

example

which

comparative.

Indonesian

government

will

This

illustrate

excerpt

during

is

the

about

the

a visit of Mr. Reagan

in their country. 2.

"Not

all

Indonesians

are as appealing

President

April 29th.

Far-from-lovely security men detained, and then

two Australian

when

he

journalists

Mr. Reagan from the United

arrived

girls

who greeted

expelled,

Reagan

as the dancing

who

in Bali

had

on

accompanied

States."

"The Ten Per Cent Solution" The Economist, May 3, 1986, p. 47 The first sentence states the loveliness of some Indonesians as well as

the

"far-from-loveliness"

uttered

in a context

which

of

others.

relates

And

yet it can only

to the security

men, and

be

could

not possibly be followed with a sentence about the dancing girls. J. C. Anscombre and 0. Ducrot go on to study

types of

argumenta-

tive sequences that are conditioned by the linguistic structure and the

kind

of

linguistic

"integrated

analysis

rhetorics"

as

that

opposed

they to

an

perform

is

termed

"extralinguistic"

rhetorics. If we views,

we

are

to compare

will

Granger.

What

rhetorics

is a

see

Perelman's

that

it

parallels

is implemented set

of

use of rhetorics with Ducrot' s the

division

by a "demonstrative"

thoughts

conveyed

in

or

outlined

by

"discursive"

language.

Although

Perelman's conception of argumentation is less constrained than that of a formal demonstration, its sphere of application is reasoning as it occurs in discourse. words.

The arguments are not always expressed with

The type of conclusion

that

can be drawn

is

one

to

which

39 arguments--implicit

or

not--lead.

By

contrast,

c o n c l u s i o n of i n t e r e s t in a n " i n t e g r a t e d " words

(always

implicit

conclusion.

expression words.

explicit)

The

justifies

The

concern

lead.

rhetorics

Words

serve

conclusion,

and of

explains

an

a

the

as

drawn

arguments

from

tiate an

to

the

the

study

study

of

argumentative

of

refutation,

refutative

linguistic

it

discourse

analysis

the

is

from

is

will

the

word

a

recent

article

pourtant

and

J. C. A n s c o m b r e

tries

to

evaluate

quand meme, mais, etc. translations just

the

combined

even

but.

yet,

so,

The

etc.;

author

take different values depending indicates that whatever a) a

the

all

argues

comparing

pour autant,

nevertheless,

of

these

that

it

with

cependant,

all

possible the

connectors

the F r e n c h

o n the c o n t e x t w h e r e

f o l l o w s is

French

same,

can

be

pourtant

can

it o c c u r s .

It

either:

refutation,

b) a d e n i a l ,

or

c) a n e x p r e s s i o n of

surprise

of w h a t e v e r p r e c e d e s p o u r t a n t . I have translated 3.

and yet,

process

examples.

T h e F r e n c h p o u r t a n t h a s a n a r r a y of

in E n g l i s h :

same, with

studies

meaning

o t h e r p r a g m a t i c c o n n e c t o r s c l o s e in m e a n i n g ,

to

rhetorics.

(1983)

its

differen-

the

I w o u l d n o w l i k e to a p p l y w h a t I h a v e s a i d to s p e c i f i c In

as

these

subjected

of

an

with

language to

be

study

of r e f u t a t i o n w h i c h is w i t h i n the c o m p e t e n c e of

of

linguistic

In a p p l y i n g

necessary

which

for

follow-up

rhetorics

a c t u a l i z e d b y u t t e r a n c e s p r o d u c e d by the s p e a k e r . concepts

type

is t h a t to w h i c h

particular

"integrated"

only

a) P e t e r

into

The author gives some examples

which

English.

is n o t t h o u g h t

to b e o b l i g i n g ,

yet he helped

me

once. b) H i r e h i m : h e ' s n o b r i g h t s p a r k , y e t I b e l i e v e h e very competent

in h i s

subject.

c) X: I h e a r d t h a t P a u l b r o k e h i s leg Y: Yet I met him today, doing his d) X: P a u l w o r k e d a

exam.

first two examples h a v e refutative value.

Y gives a denial

of

the

fact

referred

c a n e x p r e s s a r e a c t i o n of s u r p r i s e by

yesterday. jogging.

lot.

Y: Yet he failed his The

X,

but

it

can

also

be

is

to by

I n the t h i r d Y.

The

example,

fourth

f r o m Y a s to w h a t h a s b e e n

interpreted

as

a denial

or

a

example stated

refutation.

40 d e p e n d i n g on the context of utterance. It seems to me that such c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s also apply to yet and it is certainly occur

in

analyze

interesting

language

to

study

because

3. (a) and

of

the a r g u m e n t a t i v e

the

presence

(b), in a refutative

tion of an a r g u m e n t

movements

of

such w o r d s .

context,

there is an

followed by an a s s e r t i o n of

If

of

a denial

(3. (c) ) , the

direct opposition applies

some

another.

It

found, class For

to β.·

tests

utterance

of

asser-

c[ after

£ stands

synonyms the

distinguishes

to

differentiate purpose

to

of yet

is much

author

states

the

pourtant

denial,

is that one

combine

it

with

the

study

three

these

pourtant

criteria

could

but.

of

less c o n s t r a i n e d that

refutation

substitute

The

among

response

be

substituted

quite d i f f e r e n t

for yet and

(although

than

these from

cependant

from

for

one

I have the

French. what

pourtant

for the from

latter my

that but

of and

English

Any synonym of

the d i s t r i b u t i o n

they a c k n o w l e d g e d

in

features,

the

I obtained

informants d o e s not m a t c h this one for F r e n c h . can

in

A p a r t from these features, J. C. A n s c o m b r e

is not my

example,

class

In the

in my i n v e s t i g a t i o n w i t h n a t i v e speakers of E n g l i s h that of

we

an argument g_f

a l t h o u g h one w o u l d normally present £ as a n a r g u m e n t for case

that

the

for but

is

sounds odd

in

some contexts). I w o u l d now like to p r e s e n t a few examples of In this example, devolution.

What

the a u t h o r South

presents

Africa

should

an

refutation.

argument

aim

at

is

in

to

favor

establish

of a

balance b e t w e e n c e n t r a l i s m and regionalism. 4.

"The

United

show that lism)

India,

such a balance

is

Rigorous

States, a

safety

devolution

riots m i g h t

have

of trouble today.

even

the Soviet

(between c e n t r a l i s m

valve to the

saved

Nigeria,

the

for

the

rivalries

townships

after

and of

the

Union

regionadiversity.

1976

Soweto

South A f r i c a n g o v e r n m e n t a deal

Properly e s t a b l i s h e d it is still the best

way of fostering black l e a d e r s h i p and

institutions.

Yet this "bottom-up" c o n s t i t u t i o n a l reform is w o r t h l e s s - because

it

is

inacceptable

to even m o d e r a t e

blacks--if

it

does not go w i t h change at the top." "Reinventing S o u t h A f r i c a " The E c o n o m i s t , May 10, 1986, p. 12. The

presence

information.

of

yet

in

this

excerpt

provides

me

with

useful

I can a l r e a d y state that yet introduces an argument of

41

n e g a t i v e content, r e p r e s e n t e d by a p r o p o s i t i o n w h a t e v e r precedes.

Let

^JL, in o p p o s i t i o n to

^ r be,

~ r : A b o t t o m - u p c o n s t i t u t i o n a l reform is w o r t h l e s s . i-s supported by an argument w h o s e

The p r o p o s i t i o n content

propositional

will be,

c[: A b o t t o m - u p

constitutional

reform

goes w i t h changes at

the

top. In this example, the p r o p o s i t i o n r is supported by w h a t e v e r yet.

precedes

I w o u l d represent the a r g u m e n t s in favor of a b o t t o m - u p

reform

by the p r o p o s i t i o n JD, JD: a d e v o l u t i o n is a safety valve for r i v a l r i e s of d i v e r s i t y . What is the object of the r e f u t a t i o n is the underlying p r o p o s i t i o n r c o n t a i n e d in the sentence following yet. In the talks

following

about

example,

changes

the p a t t e r n

occuring

is

in S o u t h A f r i c a

f r a g m e n t a t i o n of the w h i t e d o m i n a t e d political "Whether

such

changes

can

be

translated

similar.

The

author

that are causing

the

economy. into

constitutional

reform is now the central issue.

White S o u t h A f r i c a n politics is

awash

franchises,

with

proposals

partial devolutions. the

n o r t h of new

gathers

Yet

power

know

pace,

history

cannot

be

that

as new

interests

the

constitutionalism reform.

W h i t e s , and blacks,

political

exchequer.

fancy

their borders

long as change and

for

of

who

flex

control

South

rejected

votes

and

look at events

such c o n c e p t s leaders

gain

of

Africa

rarely

their the

to

last

muscles national

suggests

that

out of hand as a tool

of

It ensured the r e v o l u t i o n that brought the A f r i k a n e r s to

in succession to the British.

however

blocking

temporarily,

in

calming

Now it has a role to white

fears

of

play, black

enfranchisement." "Reinventing South A f r i c a " The Economist, May 10, 1986, p. 12. In the sentence following yet, "the history of S o u t h A f r i c a that c o n s t i t u t i o n a l i s m

suggests

cannot be r e j e c t e d out of hand as a tool of

reform," we can isolate a p r o p o s i t i o n r w h i c h will be the object of an objection, r: c o n s t i t u t i o n a l reform can be r e j e c t e d as a tool of reform. The

proposition

r

is

supported

by the

sentences

w h i c h I have translated into a p r o p o s i t i o n JD, ]D: changes rarely last long,

that

precede

yet

42 w h e r e a s ~r is supported by c[ which

follows,

g_: constitutional reform w o r k e d for the A f r i k a n e r s . In

conclusion,

refutative

I will

movements

say

which

result in a refutation.

that are

in a r e f u t a t i v e

not

sufficient

discourse

in

occur

themselves

N o t w i t h s t a n d i n g the irreductability

of

to the

two fields, a r g u m e n t a t i v e linguistic a n a l y s i s appears to be a useful guide

in

reconstituting

the

indicates at a more superficial

underlying

refutation

because

level d i r e c t i o n s w h i c h are

tely derivable from the linguistic

it

immedia-

expression.

REFERENCES A n s c o m b r e , J . C. ( 1 9 8 3 ) . P o u r a u t a n t , p o u r t a n t (et comment): petites causes, grands effets. In Cahiers de linguistique francaise. Geneve. A n s c o m b r e , J . C. & 0 . D u c r o t ( 1 9 8 3 ) . langue. Bruxelles: P. Madrago. Granger, G. G. (1979). Klincksieck.

L'argumentation

L a n g a g e s et epistemologie.

Paris:

Losier, G. (In press). Conventions de refutation. In Proceedings of the 1984 congress of the International A s s o c i a t i o n for S e m i o t i c Studies (Palermo). Indiana University Press. Perelman, Ch. (1977). L ' e m p i r e rhetorique. argumentation. Paris: J. Vrin.

Rhetorique

et

dans

ä

la

5 Sequences with Concessive, Adversative, and Restrictive Sentences and Clauses and The Simulation of Dialogical Argumentation Patterns in Monological Discourse Antoinette Primatarova-Miltscheva

This

paper

restrictive

aims

at

describing

sentences

argumentative

and

patterns.

concessive,

clauses

On t h i s

as

adversative

functional

background

three

and

parts

questions

of will

have t o be answered: -Are concessive, of

a d v e r s a t i v e and r e s t r i c t i v e

argumentative f u n c t i o n a l -If

-and i n which manner, unambiguously o r the

questions

present

rather

than

questions faults

survey

they

are

put,

argumentation

norrnatively.

put

and

as

This arose

inconsequences

in

p r o v e t o be of

not? already

be approached

due t o out

roles?

make i t

will

is

originally

from and i n t o German.

indicative

roles?

s o , o f which a r g u m e n t a t i v e f u n c t i o n a l

These

relations

of

clear

necessity

translations

of

in

descriptively

the circumstance the

that that

to

argumentative

The answers t o t h e s e q u e s t i o n s

may,

r e l e v a n c e f o r the normative approach t o

the

explain texts

however,

argumentation

as w e l l . The

concessive

argumentative 1980;

Konig

convincing

discourse

description

of

discourse.

considered

several

1984).

argumentative

use of

by

is

& Eisenberg,

argumentative the

relation

None of

how

Klein

background

of

authors

to

be

(Werlich,

the

to

provide

concessive

t o be i n d i c a t i v e

question

is,

argumentative Grootendorst

however,

of

the

whether

functional roles. and

Kruiger's

functional rebuttals

Besides

works

in

an e x p l a n a t i o n

of

relation Thus

on

by

making

concessivity

"rebuttal." be

references

critique

Klein, a

role can

of

however,

really

T o u l m i n ' s extended model of a r g u m e n t a t i o n .

turns out

1976;

them d e l i v e r s ,

concessivity

tries

indicative

The

considered t o van

Toulmin's

as

Eemeren, model

44 ( 1 984:

1 99-208)

Toulmin's

model

d e s c r i p t i o n of The

I

fault

applicable

with

like

for

make

to

some

its

further

objections

applicability

for

model

description

is,

of

in

my o p i n i o n ,

explanations

justifications.

The

that

rather

demarcation

than

obvious

demarcation

assertion

and

1985: 6 9 ) .

no c l e a r c u t

(as

pointed

as

not a t out

statements,

and

explanations

take

statement"

from

explanations,

finding

is

We have n e v e r t h e l e s s

assertions

all,

there

not

to

argumentative

out whether

whether

something

realize,

than

the

however,

an a s s e r t i o n

an a r g u m e n t a t i v e

estimate

Toulmin's

argumentative

that

s remark:

no

without

problem

(1985:

and

112).

The

a

if

as

or

It

is,

take

into

there

is

somebody

granted

that

(referred "Harry

the

circumstance

t o as a r e b u t t a l )

was

born

circumstances

in

happen t o a p p l y

consequences.

First,

the

at

If

we

British

t o occur

"Harry's (referred

to a certain of

as an

there

is

argumentation" not

for

know

the

seems

parents to

a

same

of

whether

t o guess i t ,

Toulmin

or

rather

evaluation

necessary

influence

but

consideration

does

i s more important

Bermuda"

a

nucleus

no

a problem-situation example,

is

in f a c t ,

unlikely

problem

In h i s

false,

after

We would come t o the

be e q u a l i z e d

an a r g u m e n t a t i o n .

aims,

probable

s u b j e c t o r not and thus t r i e s

of

appropriate

c l a i m may be t r u e

Harry i s a B r i t i s h with

from

unacceptable.

a negative

when

or

"Harry

"Without

situation

differentiate

the

true

this

an

we

to

with

claim

pattern.

claim

pattern

Tirkkonen-Condit1

justifications

and thus not v e r y

the nucleus of of

as

acceptabe

with

the

Tirkkonen-Condit,

try

is

the

between

to

something

is

"for

line

Argumentation

f a l s e but not a c c e p t a b l e o r u n a c c e p t a b l e . statement

by

statements

is

famous example

s u b j e c t . " we w i l l

well

patterns.

finding

Toulmin's

always as

treat

out

it

between

not be c l e a r c u t ,

that

the

for

line

j u s t i f i c a t i o n and e x p l a n a t i o n might r e a l l y reason

to

patterns.

Toulmin's

the

of

to

respect

argumentative with

description

would

cannot

initiating

to

take

for

are

foreigners"

than the

circumstance

as

a datum)

if

both

situation.

T h i s has

the

circumstance

first

two

r e f e r r e d t o as a r e b u t t a l on the circumstance r e f e r r e d t o as a c l a i m must--precisely

as the

a datum on the

circumstance

warrant w i t h b a c k i n g .

i n f l u e n c e of

the c i r c u m s t a n c e

referred

T h i s would mean t h a t in p r i n c i p l e

d i f f e r e n c e between datum and r e b u t t a l . the

two

circumstances

referred

t o as a c l a i m - - b e

referred

to

Second, as

if

due t o

t o as some

t h e r e i s no

the importance

datum and r e b u t t a l

is

of

pre-

45 scribed

qua

arguing

would

human, a

law

there

be

will

be

no

pointless.

We

however,

of

no

intentionality.

place

for

claim

turn

out

to

r o l e s in a r g u m e n t a t i v e This

does

concessive only to

the

not

find

of

this

Klein.

same

fourth

however,

indicative

that

arguing

all is

he

preamble

relation. be

takes

practice in

be

the

describes

part

of

concessive describes

of

of

it

to

as

two

2).

this

purpose

tries

to

the

discourse.

We

explain that

datum.

We

discourse.

have

the

But

if

we

consider

go

but

at

I w a n t to r e m i n d h e r e of

the

important

in

the

study

"Argumentation

also

of

a

should

of can

'dialogue' be

dialogical

and

interpreted aspect

to

Klein

anticipate

to w e i g h u p p r o s a n d c o n s not explicitly triple

rejected

the

to

concessive

model,

possibility

potentially

of

have

the

has

this

Klein does

already

descriptions

for

argumentation

it

a

terms

of T o u l m i n ' s

cases

reader and a

to

but

as

regard

one

these

functional

roles

monological

refer

but

it a s c o n s i s t i n g of t h r e e p a r t s - - T o u l m i n ' s

inappropriate

functional

we will

Grootendorst:

Under

relation

false

functional

especially and

these

discourse.

is

consideration

as

imaginary

relation

descriptions

argumentative

'monologue*

concessive

an argumentative

is,

causally

background

into

a

(1982:

the

there

rebuttal

as

of

Klein

Eerneren of

first

the

objections

van

but

is

that

For

sure,

regarded

by

example

a

To summarize, datum,

appropriate

inappropriate

dialogically"

and

and thus

decision—everything

laws.

unsuitable

more

To

time

argumentation even

forget

Toulmin's

a l w a y s to b e i n t e r p r e t e d d i a l o g i c a l l y .

in

solved

discourse.

as

to

relation on the

be

signify,

relation

description back

not

In

intentional

predetermined qua institutional

have

must

to b e

s o c i a l a c t i v i t y a n d i n s o f a r n o t a p h e n o m e n o n of c a u s a l i t y

phenomenon

and

problem

in

to

the

fact

he

rebuttal, three in

in

claim

terms

as

argumentative

argumentation

as

a

d i a l o g u e w i t h a n i m a g i n a r y r e a d e r a n d a s a p r o c e s s of w e i g h i n g u p of arguments

for

potentially

triple

of t h e

or

functional

against

a

concessive

certain relation

argumentandum, could

be

described

then in

the terms

roles

-irrelevant contraargument

l i k e l y to be p r o v i d e d by the

imaginary

reader - a r g u m e n t a n d u m d e f e n d e d b y the -relevant proargument and

the

concessive

irrelevant

writer

to b e p r o v i d e d by the

connectives

contraargument

as

indicative

as

directly

writer

of

the

functional

connected

with

role an

46 argumeηtandum. consideration "rebuttal"

This

allows

the observation done above have

arugments.

terminology

both

the

same

us

to

take

that Toulmin's

status,

namely

into

"datum"

the

and

status

L a t e r o n w e w i l l h a v e to t a k e u p t h e f u r t h e r

of

observation

that there must be w a r r a n t s and b a c k i n g s both for T o u l m i n ' s data rebuttals.

To summarize,

the concessive

relation

c o n d e n s e d f o r m of A r n e N a e s s ' s p r o - a u t - c o n t r a Through element

the

in

distinction

our

description

l o t of g r a m m a r i a n s

way

to

the

expectation

show

the

the concessive and

to

show

relations A

has

that

it

has

of

causal of

much

the

the

background.

this

approach

more

but

the

is t h e i r m o d a l

of

(1981).

will

He

modal

triple

-on an argumentative restrictive

best

compare

that

one

these

two

and

restrictive has

no

in

the

group

reasons

their

been

originally for

common

of

this

feature

character.

t e r m s of r e l e v a n t a n d

are,

to

character

however,

presumption

pattern

relations.

and restrictive

provides,

intuitive

-as a potentially There

be

a

special

the

with

adversative

their

a

modal

and the restrictive

I h a v e a l r e a d y t r i e d to d e s c r i b e t h e c o n c e s s i v e -in modal

a

However,

H e s u m s u p the c o n n e c t i v e s

adversative

aber-connectives. up

have

Maybe

similaritites

concessive,

aspect

Fritsche

regarded as concessive, summing

a

relation w i t h the adversative

under

by

we

relation.

t h a n w i t h the d i f f e r e n t t y p e s of c a u s a l

relations

the

concessive

i.e. as a d e n i a l - o f - e x p e c t a t i o n

inconsequence

description

proposed

the

s t i l l r e g a r d the c o n c e s s i v e r e l a t i o n a s a

t y p e of the c a u s a l r e l a t i o n , in w h i c h

t u r n s o u t to b e

surveys.

relevant-irrelevant of

and

relation

irrelevant

relation

background.

o n the o t h e r h a n d ,

connectives

surveys on certain adversative

(I w i l l r e f e r h e r e o n l y to s u r v e y s o n

and

German

connectives) -and Weydt, -on

their 1979a, their

gelten/nicht -and e.g.

usage

the

on

in

argumentative

discourse

(Brausse,

1982;

1979b) modal

character

(Brausse,

1982)

in

the

terms

of

gelten the

triple

function

of

background the

of

German

some

of

connective

them.

Weydt

immerhin

as

describes follows:

" I m m e r h i n s e r v e s to l o c a t e the a s s e r t i o n of the s e n t e n c e w h i c h it is p a r t of b e t w e e n t w o o t h e r

ideas"

(1979a:

335).

47 Fritshe's

intuitive

presumption

and

the

partial

similarities

b e t w e e n the a p p r o a c h to t h e c o n c e s s i v e r e l a t i o n a s p r e s e n t e d paper

and

the

approach

in o t h e r

surverys,

possible

to

to

make

explain

the

it

both

adversative

worth the

and

restrictive

considering

concessive,

in

whether

relation

it

adversative

this

won't

and

be

restrive

relation -as modal relations -as potentially -as

triple

condensed

pro-aut-contra

in t h e t e r m s of r e l e v a n c e a n d

irrelevance

relations

argumentative

patterns

of

the

type

the an

in t h i s

paper,

distinction important

provided model

for

of

one

in

the

will

first

subjective our

of

purposes. about

description

Toulmin's

all

have

modality versus

discussion

the

of

we

for

the

irrelevance

datum

The the

rather

subject" an

example,

explicative

disinction

objective

the

than

modality

has

applicability

and

the

relevance

of

pattern

was

argumentative

one.

subjective

will

have

to

relations--one

examine on

the

o n e o n the b a c k g r o u n d distinguish

we

would

condensations

the

rebuttal to if

types

of

subjective modality.

be the

turns

out

explicative So

we

concessive and a

Thus we will

second have

i n d i c a t i v e of t h a t s o m e t h i n g o b j e c t i v e l y h a s indicative decide

(according

Kontext-abkürzu.ngen, decondensed

of

that

different

irrelevant. big

The

variety

to to

of

2) ρ h a s than

the

to

proved

then

concessive been

connectives proposal

we

point

would

to

have

connectives:

regarded

writer),

concessive

subjectively

has

been

irrelevant.

Fritshe's

interesting of

something

consider

1 981 : 54 ),

paraphrases

irrelevant,

person the

his

consideration.

of o b j e c t i v e m o d a l i t y

r e g a r d e d a s or is to be r e g a r d e d as

to b e

Since

irrelevant

-concessivity If

into

different

background of

it

been

between

-concessivity to be

two

take

is

Toulmin's

modality

we

to

of

But

patterns,

have

partly

regarded

for t h e d i s t i n c t i o n a r g u m e n t a t i v e v e r s u s will

whether

l a w s in the " H a r r y is a

to b e i m p o r t a n t then

up

objective modality

justifications.

versus

term used

decide

of

whole

an

to

answer

s e e m e d to b e p r e d e t e r m i n e d q u a i n s t i t u t i o n a l British

Naess's

surveys.

S i n c e m o d a l i t y h a s b e e n the m o s t g e n e r a l d e s c r i p t i v e to n o w

of

3) with

as

going

this

connectives

three

them

to

by

be

as

different

1) ρ h a s Χ

proved (X =

regard

distinction

might

context

treat

irrelevant

I am

as

is

ρ

a as

that

explained

by

48 regarding these

the

different

three different

however,

only

as

want

only

to

type

(I a m g o i n g

background

the

are

are

is

a

too."

indicative of

account

The of

about

this

type

of

s icher,

relations

concessivity.

may,

of

the

to b e

But

be

without

In cases

however,

implicit

of when

assert

so

one

and

natürlich

concessivity,

whereas

freilich

sicherlich,

is

obwohl

background

of

relevant

explicated.

what

about

adversativity

and

the

roles

relevant

contraargument,

argumentandum

relating

the

concessive

relation

of a n i r r e l e v a n t

background relation

of

can

an be

implicitly

explicit

described

as

the

to

a

in

I

am

the

going

relating

proargument

related

as

the

pay

paraphrases.)

proargument.

Their different

q h a s p r o v e d to b e m o r e r e l e v a n t

both

of

which

to

(In t h e the

paraphrases

but

relating

not of

a

connectives which are that his imaginary to

ignore

least, relevant

proargument

can to

be an

case

connectives relevant

could

be:

t h a n p, 2) X h a s r e g a r d e d q a s

restrictivity

are

objective

r e l e v a n t t h a n p, 3) I a m g o i n g to r e g a r d q a s m o r e r e l e v a n t Last

the

irrelevant

adversative

decondensed

on

an

attention The

direct

adversative

m i g h t b e r e g a r d e d t h u s a s i n d i c a t i v e of t h e f u n c t i o n a l r o l e

going

and

of

to a n a r g u m e n t a n d u m .

to

the

to a n a r g u m e n t a n d u m

proargument,

direct

relevant

or e x p l i c i t l y

only

contraargument or

a d v e r s a t i v i ty

modality

has been described

implicit

contraargument

direct

of

proargument?

Whereas

of

a

are

W h a t k i n d of r e l a t i o n s a r e t h e y o n the b a c k g r o u n d irrelevant

a

proargument:

restrictivity? functional

of

this

connectives

gewiss,

concessive

relation.

the

triple to

to..."

I

third

description

generalizations,

German

zwar,

of

the

T h i s is o n e

linguistic we

Here

obligatorily

I am going

triple modal

absolute

just

like

our

proarguments which have obligatorily far

research. of

of

remain,

the potentially

has

generalization on

some

of

must

concessvitiy

" T h o u g h ρ,

consequences

hardly

connectives

So

of

indicative

this

further

relation

say

as a potentially

one,

indicative

cases

concessive

generalization

relative

for

to r e g a r d ρ a s i r r e l e v a n t ) ,

argumentandum

"There

in

as

In this paper

outline

that

can hardly

normative

relative

connectives

the q t h a t w e h a v e r e g a r d e d as r e l e v a n t .

concessivity the

possible

the

We

explicating

paraphrases.

emphasize

of

explicated.

a

concessive

1) more

t h a n p.

described

as

the

argumentandum

i n d i c a t i v e of t h a t the w r i t e r

by

is b e s t a w a r e of

r e a d e r m a y p r o v i d e c o n t r a a r g u m e n t s b u t t h a t he them

with

respect

to

the

circumstances

or

is

with

49 r e s p e c t to h i s p u r p o s e s . relation

quite

functional occurs

as

sometimes

often

parts even

occur

are

consisting as

W h e r e a s the a d v e r s a t i v e a n d the in

sequences

explicated,

of

only

two

consisting

the

which

restrictive

parts

of

in

and

only

concessive all

their

relation

always

in d i a l o g i c a l

one

part,

discourse

i.e.

not

internal relation between two utterances but an an external between

something

At this point the

uttered

argumentation wise

not

(according on

the

but

that

speech

van

act

Eemeren

hand

that

claims

on

but

as

similarities

and

adversative and restrictive following

the

an

assertions plays

other

differences

expressed.

have

to

illocutionary 1982).

an

important that

(1979a:

it

of

regard act

Other-

as done by Weydt

hand

r e g a r d e d a s i n d i c a t i v e of a c e r a i n s p e e c h a c t The

we

an

relation

interpretation

Grootendorst,

immerhin the

explicitly

indicators

and

to i n c o n s i s t e n t

not

for a p r o p e r

argumentation a

to

one

argumentations,

as as

we should come

admits

something

it is to be n o t e d

aber-connectives

complex

and

as

who

role

in

connot

be

344).

between

concessive,

relations may be illustrated best by

the

schemes:

Restrictive

ur

relation

irrelevant

relevant argumentandum

contraargument shows

which

proargument functional

r e l a t e d to e a c h

other

roles

are

directly

and

explicitly

50 shows

which

the d i r e c t

functional

constitutes

the

r e l a t i o n r e g a r d l e s s of w h e t h e r

explicated or Though

role

this

in a d i f f e r e n t w a y ,

relevant proargument. the w e i g h i n g

all

these

three relations

are

justify

has

the

is r e l e v a n t . the

may,

using

argumentandum

but no justifications

these

therefore

two 1

and backing are

is

'that

terminology,

them.

terms

to

for

the

really

dialogical

dialogical

adversative Furhter

and

It is a n o t h e r

to d e s c r i b e

discourse

research will

unambiguously

this

different

become

dialogical

to

do

so--to

and

Be

'this

warrants

or

why to

to a n s w e r are

that

these as

it

irrelevant

in

starting

deserve

languages

functional

the

That's

necessary

The

question whether

process.

of

a

irrelevant'

relevant

relations

be, however,

distinguished argumentative -irrelevant

can

argumentations.

restrictive

is

asked

and

decision

he has to provide

to i d e n t i f y w h a t h a s b e e n c o n s i d e r e d

simulated

simulate

obligation--if

assertions

In T o u l m i n ' s

f o r b o t h of

relations

the

implicit

appropriate

be

indicative

They all provide, however, only the result

u p of a r g u m e n t s

which

situation

how

will

s o m e t h i n g h a s b e e n c o n s i d e r e d to b e r e l e v a n t or i r r e l e v a n t .

writer

a

role

of

not

of t h e f u n c t i o n a l r o l e s i r r e l e v a n t c o n t r a a r g u m e n t ,

why

background

point

for

concessive, be

studied.

the

question

indicative

of

the

roles

contraargument

-argumentandum -relevant by

means

of

proargument different

concessive,

adversative

and

restrictive

connectives.

REFERENCES B r a u s s e , U. ( 1 9 8 2 ) . Bedeutung und Funktion e i n i g e r Konjunktionen und Konj u n k t i o n a l a d v e r b i e n : a b e r , nur, immerhin, allerdings, d a f ü r , dagegen, jedoch. I n U n t e r s u c h u n g e n zu F u n k t i o n s w ö r t e r n . L i n g u i s t i s c h e S t u d i e n , R e i h e A , A r b e i t s b e r i c h t e 104. Berlin. E e m e r e n , F . H . v a n , & R . G r o o t e n d o r s t (1982). The speech acts a r g u i n g a n d c o n v i n c i n g in e x t e r n a l i z e d d i s c u s s i o n s . Journal Pragmatics, 25-38. E e m e r e n , F. H. v a n , R . G r o o t e n d o r s t & T. K r u i g e r of A r g u m e n t a t i o n . NY: Irvington.

(1984).

The

of of

Study

51

Fritshe, J. (1981). Zum Gegenstandsbereich einer Untersuchung deutsher Konnektive. In J. Fritsche, ed., Konnektivausdrucke. Konnektiveinheiten. Hamburg: Buske. Klein, J. (1980). Die Konzessiv-Relation als argumentationstheoretisches Problem. In ZGL, 8^, 1 54-169. Konig, Ε. & P. Eisenberg (1984). Zur Pragmatik von KonzessivMtzen. In G. Stickel, ed., Pragmatik in der Grammatik. Dusseldorf: Schwann. Naess, A. (1975). Kronberg/ Ts.

Kommunikation

und Argumentation.

Tirkkonen-Condit, S. ( 1 985 ). Argumentative Translation. University of Jyvaskyla. T o u l m i n , S. (1985). Kronberg/ Ts. Werlich, E. (1976). Quelle/Meyer.

Der

Gebrauch

Text Structure

von Argumenten.

A Text Grammar of English.

Scriptor, and

Scriptor,

Heidelberg:

Weydt, H. (1979a). "Immerhin." In K. Weydt, ed., Die Partikeln der deutschen Sprache. Berlin, New York: W. de Gruyter. W e y d t . H. ( 1 979b). Zur Unterscheidung semantisch-pragmatisch, dargestellt an den Partikeln jedenfalls, immerhin und schliesslich. In I. Rosengren, ed., Sprache und Pragmatik. CWR Gleerup.

6

Mood and Modality in Political Interviews

Daniel Carroll, Anne-Marie Simon-VandenBergen and Sonia Vandepitt

This paper aims to examine mood and modality in p o l i t i c a l interviews,

using

a descriptive framework based on Halliday (1985). Mood expresses the speech function, system

the

underlying

"giving

determines

or

organisation

demanding

the few b a s i c

command"

(1985:342).

information

speech

These

pattern

of

or

which

functions

the

exchange

goods-and-services,

functions of statement,

basic

is

are

which

question, offer and

characteristically

realised

in the Indicative ( i . e . Declarative and Interrogative) and Imperative moods. Modality choice

is

defined

between

in relation

positive

and

to polarity which signifies the

negative,

as

in ' i s / i s n ' t ' ,

'do/don't',

it refers to "the area of meaning that lies between yes and no" A

further

distinction

modulation.

to

Modalisation

probability

(prob)

or

be

relates

usuality

type, and expresses obligation Further which

important

refers

both

to

is

to

the

the

difference

Indicative

(usu).

paper

and

possible

relations

modalisation

clauses,

and

expresses

Modulation relates to the

Imperative

(obi) or inclination between

(incl).

subjective

is

values

and

are

orientation,

objective

modality,

(expressed as s : e x ,

to examine which of the are

between

expressed the

used

for

this

pilot

from

the

following

in

speakers'

s:im,

above-mentioned

political selections

interviews, from

these

political

inter-

intentions.

study

consists

recorded from BBC Radio Λ between Dec.

extracts

(1985:335).

and

different systems and their argumentative views^

etc.:

and value (High, Median or Low) of the modality.

orientations

The material

between

notions which figure in the a n a l y s i s

The purpose of this types,

are

that

of which can be either e x p l i c i t or implicit

o:im, and o : e x ) ,

and

drawn

straight

programmes:

of ten

1985 and March The

World

at

1986. They

One, 2 World Tonight, The World This Weekend, and The Week in Westminster.

The

53 2.

Description In

the

description

we

shall

first

discuss

each

type

separately,

and

then attempt to t e a s e out any g e n e r a l t e n d e n c i e s or p a t t e r n s . 2 . 1 . The four major types of modality (i)

Probability To

judge

probability

from

the

frequency

constitutes

a

very

of

occurrence

important

in

type,

the

material

and

it

examined,

occurs

in

all

four o r i e n t a t i o n s : s:ex (1)

This i s well understood by British made remarkable s t r i d e s , (d)

industry

and

I believe

it h a s

s:im (2)

the only major research on t h i s h a s been done by the NSPCC, and their l a t e s t f i g u r e s would s u g g e s t that . . . (c)

o:im (3)

i t ' s c e r t a i n l y not s o c i a l workers . . .

enough (c)

afterwards

to simply point the f i n g e r at

o:ex

was

(Λ) . . . that meeting i s l i k e l y to prove h e l p f u l ,

(h)

Three

this

important

noted

that

each other,

remarks

these

may

be

orientations

made

at

frequently

occur

point. in

Firstly,

combination

it with

e.g.

(5) y o u ' l l probably know that three members of the committee immediately issued a statement . . . (e) In this c a s e ,

the function of the modal combination i s to o b j e c t i f y what

i s in fact a subjective p r o b a b i l i t y . Numerous other examples of combinations were found, which we will deal with Secondly, metaphorical tentative

apart

from

expressions

classification

the

separately. 3 congruent ways of

are

used

of

extensively.

metaphor

in

we

include:

(d)

the view that ( f )

- referring to external

'objective/scientific'

evidence:

(8) we have very detailed s c i e n t i f i c evidence that . . . (9) the Inspectorate agree that

(e)

probability,

will

present a

argumentation,

statement:

(6) everybody abroad recognises this (7) aU take

Here,

political

i t s implications for the s p e a k e r ' s s t r a t e g i e s , which - generalising one's

expressing

(f)

and

54 -

dismissing opposing

arguments by using derogatory

(10) t h a t ' s typical Guardian claptrap (11) that is rubbish

using

nouns

and

(d)

(d)

(12) that really is a nonsense -

terms:

adjectives

(e)

in place

of the less

marked

auxiliaries

and

adverbs: (13) the potential for disaster i s , you know, (14) w e ' r e spending 20% more in real terms

quite a nonsense

(e)

(b)

(15) there's considerable uncertainty clearly in the educational world -

using

vague

expressions

in

order

to avoid

a

statement which

(i)

is f a l s i f i -

able: (16) it wouldn't surprise me if too heavy ( c ) (17)

(1985:334)

metaphorical

fact

people start to say w e ' r e

I'm not sure that helps their morale

Halliday of

[...]

that

out

representation

they

extensive

points

(i.e.

use

of

the

of

that

speakers)

metaphor

suggests

third

Halliday's

observation

list

of

relates

'probability'

be considered relevant,

viz.

of

is

are

the

its

role

this

important

in

aspects

"dissimulating

their

opinions".

'disguised'

the The

expression

interviewees.

to the use of adjuncts

'opinion'

most

expressing

that

of opinion is a typical tactic of political The

(c)

one

modality

being

modal

(1985:50),

and

adjuncts.

two

Apart from

further

types may

'presumptive' .

(18) manufacturing exports of course are at an all-time record level

(d)

(probability) (19)

in

my view,

the local

authority

should

have

a

statutory

duty

(a)

(opinion) (20)

(ii)

no doubt from the Labour MP's t h e r e ' l l be considerable anti-nuclear feeling Ce). (presumptive)

Usuality The

main

political great

remark

to

be

made

interviewees

is

the

fact

frequency,

e.g.

always,

about that

never,

the

the

expression

two

'high'

whereas

the

of

usuality

values

occur

only

'median'

by with

value

frequently used is often. As

with

modalisation

the is

use

of

metaphor,

to present

a

one

personal

of

the

opinion

main in

thus minimising the subjective element in the text. past with present in order to emphasise a point:

functions

terms of

of

usuality

a general

rule,

It also serves to contrast

55 (21)

if you have seven or e i g h t M . P . ' s t h e r e ' l l be d i f f e r e n c e s of view (e)

(22)

i t ' s f a r more before (d)

productive,

gathered

f a r more e f f i c i e n t

together

than

has

(23) t h i s i s the sort of argument that c o n s t a n t l y comes up If

...

of

presenting

comment' lack of (iii)

ever

or

irrelevant

point

to the

of

view

as

discussion.

It

'too obvious also

been

(a)

then c l a u s e s ( a s in example (21) above) have the a d d i t i o n a l an opposing

[...],

function

to be worthy of

expresses

the

speaker's

surprise.^

Obligation

As

pointed

out

above,

obligation

relates

to

commands,

and

once

a g a i n the four o r i e n t a t i o n s occur in the material although the o b j e c t i v e type was

found to be the most f r e q u e n t .

X to

happen'

instead

claims of the

of

Ί

The effect of t h i s —

want

X to

happen'

-

1

is

It i s n e c e s s a r y for to

'objectify'

the

speaker.

Examples of o b l i g a t i o n modality

include:

s:ex (24) I do want to see parents g i v e n a wider choice in e d u c a t i o n ,

(i)

s: im (25) Social workers must be held to account

(a)

o:im ( 2 6 ) t h e r e ' s a great deal to be done (c) o:ex (27) the need is to make British industry more e f f i c i e n t It

might be added that

given

that

the

speaking, and

the

speaker

there

is

tentative

a

(24) is

c o n t a i n s a very weak use of s : e x ,

a government

marked

suggestion

(d)

is

absence that

spokesman of

s:ex

interviewees

on

obligation avoid

especially

education.

Broadly

expressions,

this type

because

it is too committal. As

with

probability,

metaphorical

expressions

figure

largely.

For

example: (28) I t ' s a question of

t r y i n g to make sure that . . .

(29) What r e a l l y matters i s for us to have . . . Again,

the effect can

be

to d i s g u i s e

(b)

(d)

the s p e a k e r ' s own wish

('What 1

1

want ), as in: (30) t h e r e ' s no benefit in hardware for the sake of hardware

(d)

(31) what we want is manufacturing investment which i s a c t u a l l y to bring a worthw hile return. (d)

going

56 (iv)

Inclination The

that

paucity

of

examples

of i n c l i n a t i o n

interviewees a r e r e l u c t a n t to e x p r e s s

in

the m a t e r i a l

would

suggest

what they want to do, a n d t h i s

f i t s into the g e n e r a l p a t t e r n of being non-committal, a s h a s been d e s c r i b e d above.

In

almost

all

the

interviews

there

was

a

marked

tendency

for

the interviewee to s t a t e what ' n e e d s to be done' r a t h e r t h a n what he i n t e n d s to d o . One r a r e example of i n c l i n a t i o n

was:

(32) t h a t ' s what a l l the government measures a r e d e d i c a t e d to a c h i e v i n g (d) (v) Combinations A

very

frequent

type

of

utterance

is

one

in

which

a

probability

modalisation is combined with an o b l i g a t i o n , a s i n : (33) 1 think w e ' v e got to do a lot more work on the s a f e t y of n u c l e a r p o w e r . . . (f) This u t t e r a n c e combines p r o b / s : e x with o b l / o : i m ,

a n d is an example of

what might be termed h y p o t a c t i c combination. The

following

example

adds

metaphorical

expression

to

a

prob/obl

combination: (34)

Safety s t a n d a r d s put on by the I n s p e c t o r a t e a r e levels way below what in a n y normal theory would be n e e d e d , (e)

The

function

of

this

type

of

combination

seems

to

be to weaken

the

o b l i g a t i o n element in the m o d a l i s a t i o n . General conclusions The m a t e r i a l a n a l y s e d would seem to yield the following conclusions: 1. The most important t y p e s a r e p r o b a b i l i t y a n d o b l i g a t i o n . 2.

Metaphorical

expressions

occur v e r y

frequently,

and t h e i r

principal

function is to objectify the s p e a k e r ' s opinion or w i s h . 3. 'High' v a l u e s occur much more f r e q u e n t l y t h a n viz.

prob

-

certain,

usu

-

always,

obi

'medial»' or 'low'

- required,

incl

-

ones,

determined

(although more evidence is needed for i n c l i n a t i o n ) . 4. The implicit o r i e n t a t i o n most

frequent

emerges 5. to

as

Although

note

politicians

a

type

prob/o:im,

(from

is much more f r e q u e n t t h a n the e x p l i c i t . The the

either

admittedly alone

or

not a concrete conclusion

difference

in

the

on the one hand

use

and

of

public

in

small

number

combination

as s u c h ,

it might be

combinations servants

of

with

on

between the other

examples) obligation. interesting professional discussing

p o l i c y . All the p o l i t i c i a n s made extensive use of modal combinations,

whereas

57

the two public s e r v a n t s did not. 2 . 2 . Other ways of e x p r e s s i n g

modality

(i) Modal adjuncts Apart usuality,

from

the

opinion

modal and

adjuncts

already

presumption,

mentioned, v i z . p r o b a b i l i t y ,

other

types

important functions in the argumentative process,

were

found

to

fulfil

including:

a) asertive ( Ί assure you ): 1

(35) manufacturing industry r e a l l y does have a r e a l boost (d)^ b) admissive ( Ί

admit'):

(36) because frankly that is not going to convince the public

(b)

c) predictive ('How e x p e c t e d ? ' ) : (37) i t ' s not s u r p r i s i n g that a whole new era is opening up ( g ) d)

adjuncts

of

intensity

and

degree;

again

'high'

values

figure

most

frequently: (38) t h a t ' s quite wrong (d) (39) they considered the presentation of the paper totally wrong (e) (40) this case is j u s t one very specific situation

(d).

( i i ) Use of emphatic 'Do' The main point worth noting here is that emphatic do occurs in places where it would not commonly occur

in

'normal'

conversation

i.e.

whereas

it is normally used to contrast with or contradict a previous assertion

e.g.

He's a poor golfer but he does play tennis well, in political interviews it occurs

much

more frequently.

The following

three examples

are

all

cases

where the speaker is not contradicting or contrasting: (41) I do think t h e r e ' s a real case for a Royal Commission (c) (42) This is a government which does think f a r ahead

(d)

(43) 1 do want to see parents given a wider choice in education

(i).

( i i i ) Metalinguistic comments For

our

purposes

we

are

only

interested

in

those

metalinguistic

comments which have a modal s i g n i f i c a n c e . Thus we exclude from consideration expressions such a s As I s a i d . Examples of metalinguistic comments which have a role in the argumentative process a r e : obl(44) What 1 have to say

(c)

58 incl(45) I ' l l just add

(a)

prob(46) I may s a y Excluding mean',

(b).

those e x p r e s s i o n s which seem, to act as h e s i t a t i o n d e v i c e s

'you

know'),

metalinguistic

comments

can

serve

as

a

(Ί

means

of defence: (47) I'm not s a y i n g people are d e c a n t a b l e for t h e i r a c t i o n s ,

(c)

a s an emphasiser: (48) but what I am s a y i n g

(j)

or a s a means of d i s g u i s i n g or p r e s e n t i n g o n e ' s opinion a s

objective/reason-

able: (49) i t ' s f a i r to s a y ( j ( i v ) Maximising The 'high'

use

devices

of

values

).

these found

can in

be all

linked the

(50) t h i s most d i f f i c u l t task

to

the

phenomenon

interviews.

For

example,

of

the

use

of

superlatives:

(c)

(51) an i n d u s t r y which i s the f i n e s t establishment

(e)

pronouns: (52) almost a l l the media ( . . . ) were s a y i n g (53) w e ' r e a l l a b s o l u t e l y horrified Once

again,

the

function

(c)

(b).

appears

to

be

to

emphasise

a

point,

to present o n e ' s p e r s o n a l opinion a s a g e n e r a l (or g e n e r a l l y accepted) 3.

expressed

principally

in

statements

(questions and o f f e r s ) being ments and commands are Ί

very

rare.

The use of modality by p o l i t i c i a n s the

viewees

speakers'

own

preferred

want/intend

to d o ' .

of

o:im

Furthermore,

types.

This

commands,

modality

the other two types

The b a s i c meanings of these

state-

want'.

suggests

As was

about what

Ί

in our material

that they prefer to be non-

and this i s e s p e c i a l l y borne out by the absence

inclination.

to talk

and

think' and Ί

committal if at a l l p o s s i b l e , of

truth.

Conclusion As far a s r e l a t i o n s h i p with Mood i s concerned,

is

or

pointed

'needs to be done

tendency

is

we

noted

have

out

reinforced the

use

by of

earlier, 1

the

inter-

rather than what the

preponderance

metaphor in

order

to d i s g u i s e the s p e a k e r ' s own w i s h e s / o p i n i o n s . Finally,

the

use

of

modality

in

the

political

interviews

which

we

59

studied

tends

to

illustrate

defensive'.

All

statements,

combinations

serve

as

'paradox'

ways

the of

the

devices

mentioned

that viz.

the use

interviewee of

is

metaphor,

'on

non-committal.

the

less

certain

After you

all, are,

argument,

following the

more

the

objectifying

which either complicate or d i s g u i s e the

being

(1985:340),

fact

Halliday's likely

you

are to use these t y p e s . We do not suggest that these features are peculiar to political but

we may

offer the following

tentative

conclusion:

given

i s "the area of meaning between yes and no", it seems from our brief)

study

that politicians

are

reluctant

or negative replies to the interviewer's

discourse,

that

modality

(admittedly

to give unequivocally

positive

questions.

NOTES 1.

" P o l i t i c a l " in this c a s e is used in the broad sense i . e . to refer to any kind of interview with the s t a t i n g , defending and opposing of p o l i c i e s .

2.

List of Interviewees ( a ) Michael Meacher, Shadow Secretary for Health and Social Services; (b) Ray Whitney, Junior Minister for Health; (c) Alan Bedford, Chairman, British Association of Social Workers; (d) Nigel Lawson, Chancellor of the Exchequer; (e) Peter Walker, Minister of the Environment; (f) Chris Smith, Member of Select Committee on the Environment; (g) Bernard Thomas, Chairman of Unity Trust (Trade Union Bank); (h) Andrew Bennett, Labour spokesman on Education; (i) James Pawey, Conservative spokesman on Education; (j) Ivor Stanbrook, Member of Select Committee for Home A f f a i r s .

3.

Halliday distinguishes between 'congruent' and 1 incongruent' means of expression. According to him, the use of metaphor pervades a l l l a n g u a g e . For example: Mary has blue eyes - incongruent/metaphorical; Mary's eyes are blue - congruent. This above example also serves to show that the 'incongruent' form is often the unmarked, or more u s u a l form.

4.

A famous example of this was provided by the Profuma s c a n d a l of 1962 in Britain. A g i r l involved in the s c a n d a l , or being told that the Minister concerned had denied having an a f f a i r with her replied simply, "Well he would, wouldn't he?". This has since become something of a political c a t c h p h r a s e .

5.

The function of such adjuncts a s certainly, r e a l l y , absolutely, etc. is expressed by Halliday (1985:340)1 "The importance of modal features in the grammar of interpersonal exchanges lies in an apparent paradox on which the entire system rests - the fact that we only say we are certain when we are not". Thus, I t ' s certainly true contains an element of doubt that I t ' s true does not.

60 REFERENCE Halliday,

M.A.K. (1985). Arnold.

An

Introduction

to Functional

Grammar.

Edward

7 Towards a Procedural Analysis of Argumentative Operators in Texts Lita Lundquist

The title of this paper calls for certain elucidations which at the same time may serve to specify the theoretical framework of the

interdisciplinary

approach

I

shall

suggest

here

for

the

analysis of argumentation. First, by merely

'text' is meant written texts, of any kind, i.e. not

texts

considered Secondly,

belonging

to be the

to

text-types

argumentatively

notion

of

or

which

are

traditionally

rhetorically

'argumentative

interesting.

operators'

refers

to

specific linguistic expressions, such as 'almost', 'only,' 'more than', an

'little',

'a little', the function of which is to yield

argumentative

orientation

or

argumentative

value

for

utterance in which the expression appears. Thirdly, with cedural analysis',

the 'pro-

I allude to the fact that what is aimed at,

as an ultimate and perhaps Utopian goal, is a model which represents the interpretation of written texts as a dynamic process of building up the argumentative structure of the text, by a series of successive decision procedures. Thus, three different disciplines, at least, are involved in the present approach to argumentation; namely, first a text-theoretical approach, which views texts as communicative units having a

coherent

prevailing

argumentation intentional

structure,

goal.

because

Secondly,

according to which argumentation

a

of

the

linguistic

producer's approach,

is encoded at the level of La

Langue, in specific linguistic expressions; and thirdly, a cognitive

approach

is suggested,

mental process with

specific

which views

interpretation

semantic-cognitive procedures

identifying and anticipating argumentative structure.

as a for

62 What combines these three approaches with argumentation hypothesis

that

the

several different

process

of

interpreting

texts

is the

involves

inferential systems, one of which is made up

of specific argumentative deductions, activated by the argumentative

operators.

A

text-theoretical

hypothesis

adds

to

this

that the argumentative orientation activated at the beginning of the text initiates an "argumentative program" which governs the interpretation of the subsequent text as a coherent whole, or as a "single mental model" (Johnson-Laird 19S3). Linguistic description of 'argumentative operators'. The phenomenon of linguistic expressions containing an argumentative meaning can be illustrated by the following examples of 'even', 'almost' and 'only': 1

1. Bill likes mary. 2. Even Bill likes Mary.

2

1. John is 6 feet tall. 2. John is almost 6 feet tall. 3. John is only 6 feet tall.

Traditionally,

semanticists have been

inclined

to banish

such

expressions to a pragmatic or a rhetorical component, in order to

keep

the

truth-conditional

semantics

clear

of

disturbing

side-effects. In fact, in truth-conditional terms, 'even P', as in 1, has the same meaning as 'P', whereas

'P', and

'almost P' is equivalent

'only P'

to

in 2 conveys

'not-P'. In order to

explain the evident differences in meaning between the sentences in 1, and between those in 2, linguists have been obliged to add something 'even',

else for

to

the

instance,

semantic has

been

description. described

Peters 1979) as consisting of two parts, tional part, and contributes

truth

conditional

(in

meaning

Karttunen

of and

first a truth condi-

secondly of a conventional

to the

The

implicature

meaning,

the

which

existential

implication that there exist other people beside Bill who like Mary, and furthermore the scalar implication that of the people under consideration Bill is the least likely to like Mary. As to

63 'almost', 1981,

radically

proposing

tures, tity,

a

based

in

the

by

as

found

in

conversational

a

or

value

primitive

and

Ducrot

"integrated of

and

these

and

Quan-

'not-P'. introduced

(1983)

in

rhetoric",

socalled

integrated

Sadock

implica-

of C o o p e r a t i o n

' a l m o s t P' c o n v e y s

Anscombre

linguistics"

argumentative

operators

of

is

in the s e m a n t i c d e s c r i p t i o n h a s b e e n

France,

"argumentative views

scheme

to e x p l a i n t h a t

change

recently,

reasoning

explanation

o n the G r i c e a n p r i n c i p l e s

in o r d e r

A radical

a

pragmatic

part

their which

argumentative of

the

basic

meaning. Extending least

the a n a l y s i s of

two u t t e r a n c e s ,

Anscombre

t h a t the a r g u m e n t a t i v e an

utterance,

different

and

isolated utterances and

operators

they

at

1.

C a n J o h n r e a c h the u p p e r

shelf?

Yes, he

tall.

No, h e

is a l m o s t 6 feet is o n l y 6 feet

P'

following

with

show

tative orientation which 'P' w i t h

the v a l u e

argumentative not

'not-P'

the

same

not

tall',

t a t i o n of The

as

in

which

the

'almost

also

the

This

and

approach.

contradicts

of

the

'only

argumen-

'P', a n d that

provides

'almost

'not-P', strict to

and

an

approach.

as the

yields

demonstrates

meaning

orientation

of

radically

assertions

P'

to

truth-conditional

description

tative operators ters .

that

'only P' as b e i n g e q u i v a l e n t

semantic

utterance

in p o s i t i v e

'he is t a l l ' .

argumentative

are

tall.

is e q u i v a l e n t

perspective,

which

that P'

from

continuation

'P'

and

Only

P'

has

meaning

logical

'he

is

interpre-

'P'.

constraints involves

an

is

which

the

argumen-

i m p o s e u p o n the a r g u m e n t a t i v e o r i e n t a t i o n of

its

of

tall.

'almost P'

negations

constraints

tall.

5. *Yes, h e is o n l y 6 feet examples

the

in a t r u t h - c o n d i t i o n a l

3. *No, h e is a l m o s t 6 feet

These

results

2. 4.

test

i m p o s e u p o n the c o n t i n u a t i o n

arrive

from t h o s e o b t a i n e d

Ducrot

to s e q u e n c e s of a t

the

following

an

parame-

64 Significance 'John

is

and relevance.

only

6

feet

In

tall',

both

argumentative-propositional ject

χ possesses

Scalar

value.

value

of

ascending point.2

of

which

Ρ to a

Although

Only

both to

degree

'almost

P,

implying

P',

can

be

'Pd(x)'

they

P'

tall*

and

ascribed

the

(i.e.

d),

and

do

so

the e x a m p l e s a b o v e s h o w t h a t

scale,

6 feet

on

a

the

movement other

'only

in

P'

towards

hand,

a

fixed,

activates

a

the

In

3,

or n e g a t i v e

'almost

6

of

whereas

'only 6 f e e t t a l l '

4

practical

contexts

m o s t P' a n d

scalar

involving

is

it.

result

' a l m o s t P'

ly. H o w e v e r , 5

it.

In o r d e r

operator

may

Anscombre

(1984)

and

question.

for

the

upper

ob-

shelf,

other

properties,

In

'al-

orientation:

$.

continuation

and

'only P'

is a l s o

positive-

possible:

It c o s t s o n l y 10 $.

to e x p l a i n

activate

of

the r e v e r s e

oriented,

2. B u y it. It c o s t s a l m o s t Topos.

the

in

of

It c o s t s a l m o s t 10 $

following

1. D o n ' t b u y

reaching

predication

is n e g a t i v e l y

the

of

an

descending

assignment

argument

a

decisive

is s e e n n e g a t i v e l y as a h i n d r a n c e .

2. B u y it. It c o s t s o n l y 10 where

is

a positive

'only P' m a y t r i g g e r

1. D o n ' t b u y

value

to the g r a d e d p r o p e r t y

tall'

taining other

the

the

values

feet

Ρ

scalar

'almost P' i n i t i a t e s

Closely

with

convey

different

value.

positive

ob-

the p r o p e r t y

s c a l e w h e r e the d e g r e e Pd r e c e i v e s a n e g a t i v e connected

'the

significance.!

significance

directions;

is a l m o s t

description

the p r o p e r t y

is a s c r i b e d a v a l u e of

'John

two

10

the

$.

fact

reverse

Ducrot

(1984

that

the

same

argumentative

argumentative a)

introduce

trajectories, the

notion

of

'topos'. Α

topos

ledge,

is that

a

lieu

commun,

serves as basis

a

piece

for

the

of

common

inference

background that

there

knowexists

65 a

graded

relation

consequent. noted

in

This

the

between

two

implicative

following

scales, relation

canonical

form:

(the l e s s ) P, the m o r e

(the less)

C .

In 4,

'almost'

the p r e s e n c e

a n d its s y m m e t r i c T1

The

more

to b u y Tl'

The

f o r m u l a t i o n Tl'

expensive

less

expensive

between

two

,

'only'

the

scales

i.e.

triggers

and 'the

the

is more

topos

T1

respectively:

something

is,

the

less

something

is,

the m o r e

it

is

reasonable

it is

reasonable

it.

In 6 h o w e v e r ,

the a r t i c u l a t i o n of

reverse conclusion The

and

antecedent

it.

to b u y

T2

of

the

cheaper

triggers

'almost P' a n d

the o p p o s i t e

something

is,

the

less

'only P' w i t h

a

topos: it

is r e a s o n a b l e

to

buy

it. T2'

The

less

buy

it.

cheap

something

Argumentative operators The

phenomena

topoi,

which

certain to

of

be

are

linguistic

important

in

is,

the

ticipate

significance,

scalar

parts

argumentative

of

the

expressions

to a

give

approach

of

the

seems

to

text. be

a

representations

or

depended

fact,

it

proved,

now

the

reasonable

orientation

to

basis

Furthermore, of on

the a

to

to a s s u m e ,

the

argumentative

this

microlevel structure

operators

the

the par-

at

the

existing

process,

semantics still

me

argumentative

to

interpretation it

s e e m to

argumentation

new

contribution

though

that

for a n a l y s i n g h o w

at

referential

and

orientation

approach

inferences

promising

models

is p l a u s i b l e that

and

value,

up a g l o b a l a r g u m e n t a t i v e

have

until

is

to a n u t t e r a n c e ,

text-linguistic

constraints

in b u i l d i n g

macrolevel

it

texts

since they yield a solid theoretical argumentative

more

remains

function

as

which

only.3

to

in be

semantic

66 procedures for identifying and predicting argumentative

sequen-

ces in a text. The following text-example is the first sentence of a preface to of a historical person 4

the biography

(the last wife of Louis

XIV) : 6

A sa mort, en 1719, Francoise de Maintenon laissait pres de 80 volumes de lettres

The presence of 'pres de' ('almost'), triggers, according to the linguistic description above, the identification of the following argumentative orientation: 'she left almost 80 volumes of letters'; the quantity of letters is significant the scale is ascending the utterance has a positive orientation the antecedent of a topos of the form < the more letters > is initiated. However, in order to pass from this local identification of the argumentative orientation of an opening utterance to predicting the

global

specific

argumentative

expectations

structure

are

needed.

at

text

Borrowing

level, some

text-type terms

from

Cognitive Science, we may say that the argumentative operators function bottom-up, whereas the text-type specific expectations function top-down; and that the interpretation of the argumentative structure is comparable to a left-corner parser it starts bottom-up

in that

in the left corner on the first linguistic

input, and then predicts top-down what is coming next.5 In our text-example, the text-type is a preface to the "memoirs of

the

wife

of Louis XIV",

historical biography Of

a

preface

are

are,

in reality,

a

since they are written by another person. predicted

classes of justification by positively

memoirs which

oriented

the

text-typical

argumentative

(of choice of subject, method, etc.), arguments,

and

defense

against

antici-

67 pated

criticism,

graphy,

which

is p r o b a b l y

o n the o t h e r h a n d ,

expectations

about

material,

opposed

as

for

inaugurates a

instance

to

the

imaginary

a b o u t a f a c t u a l m e t h o d as o p p o s e d If w e

combine

these

argumentative

top-down

orientation

gumentative program

negatively set

use

the

l i k e the

of

of

authentic

material,

first

i.e.

expectations

sentence,

-

material

-

j u s t i f i c a t i o n of the

-

method.

direction

This

argumentative

more

letters

program

the

an

ar-

following:

letters

positive

with

we get

the q u a n t i t y of

scale,

source

expectations

-

ascending

bio-

approach.

the q u a n t i t y of is s i g n i f i c a n t

A

epistemological

to a f i c t i o n a l

text-typical

of

signaled.

triggers

(authentic material),

is

a

authentic

significant

topos

of

applied

the

the m o r e b a s i s

type:

for a

. H a d the text

started:

'Mme de Μ . l e f t o n l y 80 v o l u m e s of the

reverse

pointing

in

argumentative

program

the

( 1 9 8 1 :

62-63).

Although the translation of the last

clause is adequate, animus may refer also to the soul as the seat of the will, and incubo can also mean "to pass the night in a temple to receive a divine message"

(Cassell's).

Such linguistic

inferences only strengthen an already strong case: Kepler explicitly calls this autobiographical process a complete conversion which, nevertheless, was not undergone rashly: quae me in Copernici partes pertraxerit. sectam amplexus sum ( 1 9 8 1 : comment.

Neque tamen temere

78-79).

. . . hanc

This passage deserves further

Crucial to its meaning is an adverb repeated from an

similar passage in the Narratio --the

very

Moreover, the passage occurs

in a section referring to the Narratio, in a book that republishes the Narratio as an appendix.

Thus it seems reasonable to suggest

that it was Rheticus who provided Kepler with the model for his rational conversion, his shift from one paradigm to another, although sufficient scientific reasons were

wanting.

354 The shift to Copernicanism in the sixteenth and early

seventeenth

centuries involved disruptive change on the part of people trained to expect intellectual justification for such change.

Because

those who initially altered allegiance knew they lacked sufficient scientific justification for their actions, they were bound to find attractive a model like that of rational conversion, one that allowed them to bracket their doubts, and continue their work: the beginnings of Copernicanism cannot be separated from the inner struggles of trained intellects, or from the personal influence of master on disciple.

Although the eventual disappearance of

narrative presence in heliocentric astronomy contributes to the illusion that this science is objective in the sense that its development did not depend on the conscious engagement of individual wills, rhetorical analysis teaches us otherwise. But I would be misrepresenting the Copernican revolution if I ended by giving the impression that its rhetorical component was merely a psychological patch between paradigms.

On the contrary, the

conflict between Copernicus' uncompromising realism, and the deficiencies of the actual system he developed, had a distinctly positive force: it acted as a century-long heuristic, inspiring a line of scientists that stretched from Brahe to Newton.

Drawing

their inspiration from this source, these scientists developed a universe they judged structurally and dynamically adequate: a mathematically simple and harmonious total system, in accord with the laws of a new physics, and precisely descriptive and predictive of celestial appearances, a system that accurately described the actual motions of real celestial objects.

It was out of the

efforts of Copernicus' successors, then, that there emerged a heliocentric universe, far different from that of Copernicus, but one more nearly in conformity with the explanatory ideal first asserted publicly in Narratio Prima, a work in which science, falling short of its aim, motivated rhetoric, and rhetoric in turn motivated a more adequate science.

In my view, then, to ignore the

rhetoric of Narratio Prima is radically to misunderstand the Copernican revolution.

355

References Armitage, A. (1962 ). Copernicus: the Founder of Modern Astronomy. A. S. Barnes. Aristotle.

(1975).

Aristotle's Posterior Analytics

. J. Barnes,

trans. Clarendon Press. Cohen, I. B. (1985).

Revolution in Science. Harvard University

Press. Copernicus, N. (1971). Commentariolus. In Three Copernican Treatises. E. Rosen, trans, and ed. 3rd edn. Octagon. Feyerabend, P. (1975).

Against Method. Verso.

Fleck, L. (1981 ). Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. T. J. Trenn and R. K. Merton, eds.; F. Bradley and T. J. Trenn, trans. University of Chicago Press. Grant, E. (1962). Late medieval thought, Copernicus, and the scientific revolution. Journal of the History of Ideas, 23: 197-220. Kepler, J. (1981). Mysterium Cosmographicum. The Secret of the Universe. A. M. Duncan, trans. Abaris. Koestler, A. 1968 . The Sleepwalkers.

Macmillan.

Koyre, Α., 1973 The astronomical revolution:

Copernicus—

Kepler--Bore11i. R. E. W. Maddison, trans. Hermann. Lakatos, I. 1983 . Why did Copernicus' research programme supersede ptolemy's? In J. Worrall and G. Currie, eds. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Papers.

Vol.1. Cambridge University Press,

Philosophical

168-92.

Neugebauer, 0., 1970 . The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. 2nd ed. Brown University Press. Prowe, L., ed.1967 . Nicolaus Coppernicus. Vol. 2. Otto

Zeller.

Rheticus., 1971. Narratio Prima. In

Three Copernican Treatises. E.

Rosen, trans, and ed. 3rd edn. Octagon. Ross, D. 1971 . Aristotle. Methuen & Co.

356

tfestman, R. S. (1972). The comet and the cosmos: Kepler, Maestlin and the Copernican hypothesis. In Colloquia Copernicana 1. Studia Copernica V. E t u d e s Sur L'Audience De La Theorie Heliocentrique. Polska Akademia Nauk, 7-30. . (1975). The Wittenberg interpretation of the Copernican theory. In The Nature of Scientific

Discovery:

A Symposium Commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Birth of Nicholas Copernicus. 0. Gingerich, ed. Smithsonian Institute

Press.

40 Rationality, Cognitive Science, and the Theory of Argumentation John Furlong

"Logic

is concerned

with arguments, good and bad....It is the

logician's business to serve the reasonable. realm

of arguments,

Therefore,

it is he who distinguishes

good

in the

from

bad"

(Kalish, Montague, and Mar, 1980). This confident assertion has become the minority opinion among students of reasoning and argumentation.

Since the late 1950's, the

relevance of formal logic to the analysis and evaluation of arguments has been assailed vigorously from many salients, degrees of disavowal.

permitting

For instance, if "irrelevance" merely means

that logical constraints are too wide for informal argument analysis, there is little to quarrel with.

Although informal fallacies,

and indeed, most pragmatic and semantic conditions of satisfaction in argumentation require much more sensitive criteria for evaluation than formal logic, this underdetermination alone could not destroy the authority

of the

logician, for no successful argument should

violate the logical canon.

Even the most severe attacks upon

ultimate consistency of logic

the

(see Cherniak, 1984) leave at least

some role for logical constraints.

At the very worst, on this view,

the logician merely wanes in status--his job becoming part-time, his authority diminished, but not cancelled. However, logician

to continue

may have

occupation, disintegrated.

the

the employment metaphor, even though the

retained major

some

purpose

functions of

his

old

from

his

job seems

This purpose--ensuring the rationality

of

previous to

have

thought

and speech--seems today to have become the trust of historicosocial consensus.

Grounding rationality in consensus, or tradition,

has garnered

widespread

Toulmin

Kabermas.

and

appeal and united thinkers as diverse as Toulmin,

for

instance

(inspired

by

Wittgenstein) establishes rationality not in "logical or conceptual

358 systems

as

such" but

in

"human a c t i v i t i e s

or e n t e r p r i s e s "

There is m u c h to be said for this approach.

(1972).

True r a t i o n a l i t y

to be found, one w o u l d imagine, n e s t l e d in d e n s e l y - b r a n c h e d

ought

detail.

Complex rules of g o o d n e s s of fit and a p p r o p r i a t e n e s s of w a r r a n t

are

far too splayed out and contentful to be c o n s t r a i n e d by logic in any significant w a y .

In other words, we n e e d to k n o w

much

more

than

logic in order to reason well, and there exist p o w e r f u l a r g u m e n t s to the effect that this "much m o r e " is enough in itself to a c c o u n t human

rationality.

The that

for

main

difficulty

its authority

with

does

not

the

consensual

appear

strong

approach,

enough

n o t i o n of rationality we are a c c u s t o m e d to.

to

however, sustain

It seems that,

consensual view, either one must search, perhaps

in vain,

is the

on the

for

what

"the c o n s e n s u s - p r o d u c i n g power consists in" (Habermas, 1985), or one argues that c o n s e n s u s tion (Rorty, 1979).

is all we are going to get by way of

Hence, if we opt for consensus, what we gain in

scope we lose in the cogency of our inferences. logic,

to

therefore

turn blind,

valida-

a Kantian metaphor, then,

equally,

is that

consensual

If the problem w i t h

it is c o n t e n t l e s s

rationality,

and

keen-eyed

for content, is empty of authority. Now,

I am not going to argue here

necessarily Rather, formal

bad or that

I would logic

maintain

as

relativism

like

to suggest

the

anchor

of

that this

is to be a v o i d e d

that

there may

intelligent

a robust rationality.

state of affairs

For

the

at

all

costs.

be a way to

reject

deportment

and

it w o u l d

still

sake of d i s c u s s i o n

limit myself to showing how such an argument could be m a d e ; making

involve m u c h more detail

is

I will actually

than we have space for

in

this paper. I w o u l d like first to appeal to a very simple m e t a p h o r .

If one

cannot build u p o n rock, it w o u l d benefit him to dig as deeply as he can into the soil under hand.

All is not lost,

in other words,

the b u i l d e r does not find rock, as long as he can drive his tion

deeply

enough.

construction

What

analogy

is

I want

that

we

to may

elicit be

able

from

this

to

derive

founda-

primitive all

v a l i d a t i o n we need from nonlogical rationality

if we sink our

deeply enough

if our

rationality

in h u m a n nature.

were

the q u a n t i t y

For of

instance,

brain

cells

such

if

the posts

criterion

for

that v/henever χ

p o s s e s s e s at least 10 b i l l i o n of them, then χ is rational, or if the criterion

involved

some

property

of

the

human

genome,

we

would

359 consider our rationality w e l l - g r o u n d e d since these features w o u l d be universal properties of the h u m a n species. the c r i t e r i o n

O n the other extreme, if

for rationality w e r e raw consensus, that is, w h e n e v e r

x, y, a n d ζ confer rationality

on an a r g u m e n t a t i v e ploy,

then

that

utility is rational for x, y, and z, we face a very serious devaluat i o n of the currency of Some

cognitive

rationality.

and

developmental

psychologists

have

tried

solve the problem of grounding by claiming that h u m a n c o g n i t i o n as

a matter

of

experimental

fact, d r i v e n

by formal

logic.

and others have suggested that the very m a c h i n e r y of h u m a n is

governed,

on

the

relevant

level,

by

invariant

to is,

Piaget

inference

logical

rules.

Piaget stops short of a r g u i n g that we are "hardwired" for logic, but the mental

logic

thesis

strikes d e e p e r than social c o n v e n t i o n as a

ground for rationality. of argument

U n f o r t u n a t e l y , we have already urged a line

that w o u l d make this thesis o t i o s e - - e v e n if humans w e r e

to possess a mental logic, it w o u l d be too poor a guide in everyday reasoning those

and

using

paradigm,

argument.

the have

Moreover,

"information shown

that

recent

processing"

there

students

or

of

is no reason at all

inferential processes are logical.

cognition,

"cognitive

Some p h i l o s o p h e r s

science"

to think and

our

psycholo-

gists have gone so far as to conclude from this data that man could be an irrational animal Recently, celebrated

(see Stich,

however,

students

Phillip

of

interpretation without

human

1985).

Johnson-Laird,

inference,

defaulting

has

the

thesis that h u m a n beings

but that what underlies be reasoning without

More

be v a l i d reasoning without logic"

of

is a mental

surprisingly, (1983).

of a

cognitive

intricacies question:

science.

what

implications

to

pursue

would

rational

the

thought,

logic.

There

can

perhaps,

there

can

be

a more

this

literature

forego d i s p l a y i n g

instead

there

On

Johnson-Laird makes

In this paper we will

of his a r g u m e n t

most

different

stance.

case at length in Mental Models, already a c l a s s i c in the of

the

"it is w o r t h giving up,

are capable

this ability

logic.

taken

to the P i a g e t i a n

basis of the evidence, argues J o h n s o n - L a i r d , not

one

the

manageable

for rationality

if

the

J o h n s o n - L a i r d thesis w e r e true? The

linchpin

of

cognitivist

theories

is

that

representations guide humans in negotiating their world. that such representations

m u s t be computational

(Fodor,

internal Many argue 1975),

that

is, must be d r i v e n by formal m a n i p u l a t i o n s over symbols, m u c h like a

360 digital computer. in w h i c h

information

controversy which

But since there exists an infinite n u m b e r of ways

about

actually

Johnson-Laird

can

be

which

"goes

instantiation

on"

asserts

instantiated, in

his

means of m o d e l s w h i c h are

the

is

considerable

is " p s y c h o l o g i c a l l y

human

theory.

there

mind.

Humans

It

is

represent

1) p s y c h o l o g i c a l l y

real,"

here

that

the w o r l d

real--since

the

by way

people actually, for instance, reason, is e x p l a i n e d by them, and, 2) semantically

instead

level, m e a n i n g remarkable contains cannot

of

instead

fact,"

syntactically

of

logic governs h u m a n

contends J o h n s o n - L a i r d ,

terms w i t h an implicit

be

driven:

completely

at

the

relevant

inference.

"that

"It is a

natural

language

'logic' that is so powerful that it

encompassed

by

formal

rules

of

inference"

(1983: 140). In order to argue from these facts of mental inference

processing

to a rationality of sufficient scope and authority, we m u s t J o h n s o n - L a i r d ' s theory to satisfy three 1.

require

conditions:

wherever a d e d u c t i o n is v a l i d a c c o r d i n g to the rules of formal logic,

it m u s t be valid a c c o r d i n g to the theory of

mental models and, conversely, wherever a d e d u c t i o n is invalid formally, the same d e d u c t i o n must be

invalid

according to the theory of m e n t a l models; 2.

the theory should be able in principle to account rules of " v a l i d i t y "

not covered under the canon of formal 3. Now,

inferential

reasoning.

I am after, as I have said, w h a t happens

such a theory system

logic;

the theory should be a b l e to a c c o u n t for failure in everyday

of

is accepted.

inference

may

though it does not employ

for

for "everyday" a r g u m e n t a t i o n that are

If

it

perform

is true, in

rules of

for

to rationality instance,

a n entirely

inference,

logical

inferential

or any other sort of m a c h i n e r y corresponding

to a logical

(1983: 130),

the

then

Johnson-Laird procedure"

it is possible

extrapolates

performed

from

on m e n t a l

to

satisfy

human

models

of

first

inference

way

calculus" "effective

terms.

is an e l a b o r a t i o n of one semantic rule:

if there

way

the

true

conclusion valid.

premises

can

be

interpreted

to

be

even

schemata

procedure that

"A

condition.

an

syllogistic

that

if

The

is any

while

is false, then the syllogism is invalid; o t h e r w i s e

the

it is

J o h n s o n - L a i r d covers all 64 p o s s i b l e pairs of premises,

and

shows h o w special a t t e n t i o n to the number of m e n t a l m o d e l s needed to

361 cover

all

possible

same

success

as

has

written

do

humans

formal

a

manipulating

program

perform

inferential inadequate

this

so

poorly

is

appealing

to

because

to

explain

inadequate

second demand

argumentation.

by

the

humans

from.

space

to

a

in

Hence,

how

Why,

then,

types

of

function

of

humans

that

the t h e o r y

perform

humans

represent

for

Johnson-Laird,

are

humans

and

procedure

various

flaw

the

Johnson-Laird

tasks?

how

how

logic"

fact,

ensure

(1983: 471).

design

not suffer

n e c e s s a r y f o r the p u r s u i t of The

a

will

effective

indicates

"mental

of

In

deductive

space,

does

able

the

universally

memory

premises

inference.

on

made

program

the

successfully

errors working

of

automating

I believe,

models

task

of

again,

Johnson-Laird's without

rules

the m e n t a l m o d e l s

persuasively

mental

interpretations

of

logically

often all

fail

the

at

models

validation.

is e q u a l l y

important

for a n y

serious

theory

If m e n t a l m o d e l s j u s t m i m i c k e d the s u c c e s s of

of

formal

l o g i c w i t h o u t a f f o r d i n g m o r e r a n g e , w e m i g h t r e g a r d the t h e s i s a s

no

more

it

is,

useful

the mental

many

more

logic tive

of

models

least,

'if'

and

accounted holds

'or1, of so

for

able have

favored

by

and

logic.

Roger

informal

analyzing

Govier

argument--and

Take an example

(1985:

27-33)

entirely least

upon

context,

nor

t h a t the " e s s e n t i a l

its f u l f i l l i n g specifying as

recognition

some

upon point"

corollary

Β but

the

this

paper,

Johnson-Laird

remember,

has make

colleagues,

from

supplying

refuting

that are parallel

seems

T h e m a k i n g of s u c h

form."

It

is

not

an

depend

arguable

at

in v i r t u e

of

semantic

f o r m of i n f e r e n c e

as

literature

that

cogency--does

are

theory

insofar

the

observes

of J o h n s o n - L a i r d ' s of Β

the

like

of the a r g u m e n t w o r k s

conclusion

c o n c l u s i o n of a r g u m e n t A is

its

"logical

t h a t if o n e u s e s the s a m e

in a r g u m e n t In

of

transi-

logicians--and

arguments,

i n d e p e n d e n t of " l o g i c a l w o r d s . " the

and

in

complex

proportions,

principles

extended

and,

The

formal

As

explaining

Furthermore,

a r g u m e n t s by c o n s t r u c t i n g r e d u c t i o a r g u m e n t s o f t e n to w o r k

all.

Schank

thesis.

of

reasoning,

explain

bedeviled

models

semantic operations.

informal

language to

quantifiers,

which

explaining

assumptions,

are

natural

be

multiple

for o n t h e m e n t a l

promise

hidden

in

should

inferences

"unreal" Venn diagrams.

t h e s i s o p e n s u p the p o s s i b i l i t y

found

at

inferences--all

implicit

they

the psychologically

tactics

principle

of

than

heuristic

in a r g u m e n t A

is u n a c c e p t a b l e ,

then

the

unacceptable. I am

not asking

you

g o o d o n the f u l f i l l m e n t

of

to

examine

these

whether

conditions.

362 I am only asking you to speculate about w h a t r a t i o n a l i t y w o u l d like if^ J o h n s o n - L a i r d ' s thesis is true. a ground

for

rationality

closer to grounding hands.

that

I submit that we w o u l d have

is as d e e p as we need,

E x a c t l y w h a t sort of grounding semantic p r o c e s s i n g gives us

pa t t e r n

to

inferential

deep-structural information, question

we

about

What w a r r a n t s

may the

at

mental

trace possible readjusting

and

grounding

approach

on an

of a g r e e m e n t logic.

interpretations

of

answer

them

w i t h our m o d e l s ,

thanks

applying

to

real

semantically

constitute those

l i m i t e d w o r k i n g m e m o r y , we

to

meanings, until

is the very

rules of

rules

to

(i.e.,

as we go along, the

should

be of

arguments.

clarifying

for

that

to

Habermas's

semantically

then it

process

to

in everyday

either claim validity o r contradiction), this

seem

processing

Since we are all built

premises,

Clearly we d o n ' t know yet what a l l

there

the

is p s y c h o l o g i c a l l y

and to reason w i t h

inferences

since

constraints

least

our a r g u m e n t s

models

Yet, since there is a universal

failure,

semantic

d e r i v e d formal logic cum informal

that,

that is m u c h

in, say, brain cells or genome than in shows of

is, I admit, unclear at this time.

make

look

we

rules

rationality.

are.

We

do

are o f t e n v e r y

know

bad

at

them.

In conclusion, I w o u l d like to part ways a bit w i t h J o h n s o n - L a i r d and w i t h psychology. design

flaw

not

It seems to me that w e c a n c o m p e n s a t e

primarily

by

devising

elegant

individual subjects but by attempting to d i s c o v e r effective

with

the principles

seems that in place of a d e q u a t e memory space we have e a c h other

and

from

(Finnochiarro argued

which

to

that have w e a t h e r e d

of It

past

in arguments

experiments history.

our

reasoning

for our

discover

the

principles

of

reasoning.

(1984) has m a d e a similar o b s e r v a t i o n r e c e n t l y and has

persuasively

for

its acceptance.)

Consensus

and

tradition,

then, are not g u a r a n t o r s of r a t i o n a l i t y ; they are its effects. are,

arguably,

the m o s t

revealing

probes

of

our human

apparatus, and they reflect, obliquely, our ingrained

They

inferential

rationality.

REFERENCES Cherniak, C. (1984). Computational complexity and the universal acceptance of logic. The Journal of P h i l o s o p h y , 81, 739-758.

363

Finnochiarro, Μ. (1984). Informal logic and the theory of reasoning. Informal Logic, §_. Fodor, J. (1975). Press. Govier, T.

The Language of Thought.

(1 985 ).

Logical analogies.

Harvard University

Informal Logic, 7_.

Habermas, J. (1985). Theories of truth. trans. R. Grabau, quoted in W. Harpine, Rhetoric, dialectic and logic. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 1 8 . Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Press.

Mental Models.

Harvard University

Kalish, D. , R. Montague, & G. Mar (1980). Logic: Formal Reasoning. Harcourt, Brace, & Jovanovich. Rorty, R. (1979). University.

Techniques of

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.

Stitch, S. (1985). 64, 115-134. Toulmin, S. (1972). Press.

Could man be an irrational animal? Human Understanding.

Princeton Synthese,

Princeton University

41 The External Justification of a Dialectical Consensus P.J. van den Hoven

Introduction Whenever we try to found the validity of our judgements about opinions, we inevitably run up against the Miinchhausentrilemma (Albert 1980). Presently, the most popular escape seems to be to attack one of the horns of the trilemma. We try to show that the point where we break off our chain of supporting arguments isn't arbitrary. We stop when we have reached a consensus. In addition we are aware of the fact that this consensual base is only temporary, maybe even accidental, which means that the consensus can always be terminated. We realize that knowledge and opinions, founded this way, can never possess an absolute validity. I subscribe to this critical approach. For obvious reasons, theorists who follow this approach put much emphasis on the discussion rules; one ought to explore the possibilities of a consensus in the most efficient way. Several authors suggest the dialectical model. These authors do not restrict the use of this model to the traditional universe of dialectical discourse: the philosophical and the scientific debate by which one seeks after 'truth' or knowledge. Van Eemeren & Grootendorst for instance present the dialectical discussion as (part of) a problemsolving strategy for disputes about expressed opinions, without further fundamental curtailment (1984:1-18). This encompasses universes which traditionally are gouverned by rhetoric, for instance the justification of policy claims and juridical decisions. Generally, such problems can be analyzed as problems of choice which ask for a resolution within a time limit. The question I want to pose is, whether this dialectical model

365

fits those problems closely enough to meet the requirements of an adequate problem-solving strategy. I don't think it does. So, the purpose of my investigation is to indicate where and when other strategies, which do not fit into the dialectical model, are necessary. In doing so I try to gain insight into the hidden presuppositions of the dialectical model, and to develop a conception of reasonableness which suits other functions of argumentation, (see also Van Den Hoven 1984, 1985). In this paper I shall direct my attention to one facet: the need for an external justification of the outcome of a dialectical discussion, that is of the consensual base reached by the debaters. Dialectical debaters specify their discussion rules before (and inevitably during) the debate. So the model doesn't guarantee that others will accept these rules too. This means that there is no ground to generalize a reached consensus. Yet, in many problems of choice, the outcome also affects others than the debaters. This can be the outcome in the main dispute, but also the outcome in one of the subdisputes. In such cases, the solution has to be justified to the community concerned too. I emphasize that the topic of my paper is part of a much broader. In my opinion every problem-solving strategy has to be related to a certain type of problems and must also be evaluated in relation to the problems one tries to solve. Traditionally, the dialectical discuss ion as a problem-solving strategy is related to the dialectical type of problem, say how to discover knowledge. My topic is to test this strategy in relation to another type of problem, how to decide a problem of choice, the outcome of which needs an external justification. I shall demonstrate the existence of this type of problem by showing how the settlement of a dispute can influence another dispute between members of the community concerned, members who did not participate in the first dispute. This proves the need for an external justification. I shall explain this external justification is a complicated task; it cannot be carried out by calling on opinions accepted by the community concerned. Internal justification When a judge is appointed to settle conflicts of opinion in a cer-

366 tain context in a certain community

(which is often the case if a

solution has to be reached within a time limit), one must distinguish between the internal and the external argumentative obligations of this judge J. By the internal argumentative obligations I mean the obligations of J to other parties in the peculiar dispute; obligations we may impose on him under the chosen normative argument model. By the external argumentative obligations I mean the obligations of J to the community concerned, also obligations imposed on him under the chosen normative argument model. Let us assume a context. There are two parties P1 and P2. They have a conflict of opinion about the expressed opinion 01 . P1 takes a positive point of view:"It is the case that 01" or

(+ 01). P2

takes a negative point of view:"It is not the case that 01" or (-01) So, there is a compound dispute. J

settles conflicts of opinion

about opinions from the set Ο = ( 01, 02 ..., On ) . Suppose, P1 and P2 cannot reach consensus in a discussion. P1 can't convince P2 that 01 is the case; P2 can't convince P1 that 01 is not the case. Suppose furthermore that this situation blocks certain actions of P1: P1 wants to act according to a situation in which

(+01) is accepted,

but he is not allowed to do so because of the attitude of P2. This blockade can be broken through by a verdict of J. P1 is designated to put the conflict before J. It is not decided yet which party gets the presumption and which party bears the burden of proof. The judge J takes a passive position. Suppose J would give P1 the presumption, which means that P2 bears the burden of proof for

his point of view. If I see it right,

there will be a discussion then between J and P2. Seen as a dialectical discussion, P2 is the protagonist of antagonist; he doubts the tenability of

(-01), and J is the

(-01). P1 plays no other

part than providing the material to feed J *s doubt and to give J the possibility to uphold his doubt notwithstanding the argumentation of P2. When will a presumption arise that J cannot maintain his doubt? That is, when has P2 delivered a prima facie case, so that the burden of rebuttal rests on J? In my opinion this is the case when P2 shows that there is a set of statements S = (SI, S2..., Sn), such that

(- 01) follows from S, and each statement in S falls within one

367 of the next categories C: (1) statements to which J is committed by some competent autority, (2) statements which reflect views apparently held by the community concerned, (3) statements about the facts, held by both P1 and P2, (4) statements of J, expressed in comparable contexts, (5) statements which fit within the pattern of statements expressed by J within comparable contexts. If P2 makes the case, and J accepts

(- 01), then no obligation to-

wards P2 rests on J. If J still refuses to accept

(- 01), then he

is obliged to argue: - either that one of the statements S doesn't fall into one of the categories, - or that notwithstanding the fact that P2 has made a correct prima facie case, it is still reasonable to maintain his doubt. If J accepts

(- 01), it seems reasonable that J explains to his

prompter P1 why he thinks the argumentative material of P1 was insufficient to maintain his doubt. However, it seems clear to me that J is not the protagonist of the standpoint that he can't maintain his doubt, but rather antagonist of P1's standpoint that he can. If P1 wants to argue this standpoint against J, the sources he must draw his argumentative statements from are the same as P2's, so the categories

External

(1)-(5).

justification

So much for the analysis of J's internal argumentative obligations, which can be characterized by the fact that J usually doesn't play the role of protagonist, just antagonist. To gain insight in the external obligations of J, a further analysis of the process of conflict-settlement is necessary. Let's suppose it is the first time a conflict about an opinion 0 is put before J. So there is no casuistry yet. Parties give only one argument for their points of view: P1: "(+ 01), because it is not proved that

(- 01), and the pre-

sumption ought to be given to P1". P2: "(- 01), because it is not proved that sumption ought to be given to P2"

(+ 01), and the pre-

368

Suppose, as we did before, that J gives P1 the presumption. Then it is easy to see that P2 didn't deliver a prima facie case for his point of view and, more important, that P2 won't be able to deliver such a case by further (sub)arguments. It seems unthinkable that there is a set of statements such that they all fall into one of the categories (1)-(5), from which it follows that the presumption ought to be given to P2. Thus, J can simply settle the conflict. He can satisfy the standpoint (- 01). Please note that if J would have given the presumption to P2, P1 would have been in a hopeless position. Also note that J is not obliged to justify internally why he gave P1 the presumption. Both P1 and P2 had an obligation to defend their point of view, according to the discussion rules. By meeting the point of view (+ 01), J doesn't take this point of view against P1 and P2. He just maintains his zero point of view (? 01), which implies that, according to the presumption, the solution is (+ 01). Now let us focus on the external implications. Suppose two other parties, say P3 and P4 have a conflict of opinion about the expressed opinion 02. They learn how J settled the conflict about 01. What do they learn? I think this. If J behaves rationally, he will give the presumption to the positive point of view. Why? Because if the conflict would be put before J, and J would give the presumption to the negative point of view, the other party would now be able to deliver a prima facie case that the presumption ought to be given to him, drawing his argument from category 4 (= statements of J, expressed in comparable contexts). The strength of his case is related to the number of conflicts in which J has given the presumption to the positive point of view. This fact will strongly determine the dispute between P3 and P4, even if they won't put their conflict before J. This applies to all disputes about opinions Ο within the community concerned, because J is appointed to settle these conflicts if parties can't. So, J decided a problem of choice within the community, which we can describe in terms of taking a point of view in respect to an opinion. The opinion A is: For all conflicts of meaning about an opinion 0, the presumption ought to be given to the positive point of view. In respect to this opinion, J takes a positive point of view. But

369

very likely, a large group within the community will doubt the tenability of this point of view. If there would be a discussion between this group within the community and J, J would be obliged to defend his positive point of view in respect to A, according to the dialectical discussion rules. In my opinion, J delivers a prima facie case if he shows that there is a set of statements S so that (+ A) follows from S, and so that each statement in S falls within one of the next categories C: (1) statements to which J is committed by some competent authority, (2) statements which reflect views apparently held by the community concerned, (6) statements which fit into the pattern of statements under (2) (7) statements which J has succesfully defended against the community concerned before. Conclusions Here my analysis ends. Before I can draw my first conclusion, I have to define two concepts, rationality and reasonableness. I'm fully aware of the fact that these are very complex concepts, and that there is no well founded difference between them. So, just for this discussion I stipulate the following, very tentative descriptions. Someone acts rationally if he acts according to explicite rules or to rules which can be made explicite, or feels obliged to justify his acting if he deviates from such a rule by reinterpreting, amending or repealing the rule. Someone acts reasonably if he acts rationally according to rules which are accepted by the community concerned. If you want to accept these descriptions, poor as they are, it will be clear that the rationality of J's acting is presupposed. If not, we can't predict J's acting in future conflicts from his acting in the past. I think this concept of rationality is presupposed in every theory of implied or unexpressed premisses. The question is whether J's acting is also reasonable. If we accept the dialectical model, and say that a rule ought to be accepted by the community if it is well defended according to the model, then there are good reasons to suppose that J's acting often won't be reasonable, because J won't be able to make his prima facie case. Let us have a look at the four categories (1), (2), (6) and (7). Category (1) is a strong one, but only if the authorities filled it. Further,

370

there is the problem that every statement needs an interpretation. If the interpretation ins't clearly correct, J needs additional statements to justify his interpretation. Category (7) of course depends on former successes, based on (1), (2), and (6), so it isn't an independent source. This implies that J must draw his statements on categories (2) and (6). But if one realizes that often the conflicts will proceed from a conflict of interests within the community, one cannot expect these sources to be very rich. So, often J won't be able to make his case. The rationality of J's acting is evident, and arguing the reasonableness seems not attainable. It seems clear to me that this must not lead us to the conclusion that there is no reason for J to argue at all. The alternative is to amend the model we choose because it doesn't seem to meet the requirements of an adequate problem-solving strategy as far as the external justification is concerned. It doesn't meet the requirements because it doesn't fit the type of problems closely enough. In my opinion another model should be proposed to operationalize the concept of reasonableness in these contexts, a model in which 'retorical' elements as the ethos of the judge against the community can be accounted for. My second conclusion is simple but important. If one accepts the existence of external argumentative obligations, and if one accepts that in reality there won't be a discussion between J and the community concerned, this means that J will perform argumentative speech acts within a particular discussion, which cannot be analyzed as necessary acts in terms of this particular discussion. J is not fulfilling his obligations against the parties in the discussion. In other words, the dialectical and thus dialogical approach to argumentation is a great improvement to the monological or even product-directed approach. But there it is still too narrow. My analysis makes clear that a discussion has to be placed within a social context because this context influences the acting of the participators in the discussion.

371

References: Albert, Η. (1980). Traktat über kritische Vernunft 4. verbesserte Auflage, Tübingen Eemeren, F.Η van & R. Grootendorst (1984). Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions. Dordrecht. Hoven, P.J. van den (1984). Het formuleren van een formele kritiek op een betogende tekst ( Wording a Formal Criticism of an Argumentative Text) . Dordrecht. Hoven, P.J. van den (1985). Het redelijkheidsbegrip binnen een praktische argumentatietheorie (The Concept of Reasonableness in a Theory of Practical Reasoning) In W.B.K. Koning (ed). Taalbeheersing in theorie en praktijk. Dordrecht.

42 Reason and the Theory of Argument Mark L. Weinstein

A r g u m e n t a t i o n in the sense of both the informal

logician

and the dialectician p r e s u p p o s e s that the interlocutors capable of rational discourse and that their

are

discussion

follows tacit normative p r i n c i p l e s that d i s t i n g u i s h it from simple p e r s u a s i o n or m o r e insidious forms of control.

interpersonal

It is the role of the theory of argument to

elucidate these principles and apply the normative or practical understanding that grows out of such theoretical analysis to putative arguments.

successful

Although

there

has been a great deal of work on the theory of argument done by N o r t h A m e r i c a n s in the informal logic and critical thinking m o v e m e n t , there has been little effort

expended

clarifying the underlying claim to rationality and

relating

it to the analysis and e v a l u a t i o n of argument types and c o n t e x t s , especially the most crucial context of c o n c e r n the

—

educational. The m o d e l s of rationality that have exerted the m o s t

influence can be categorized into three m a i n

types.

R a t i o n a l i t y , on the first of these views, is seen as one of a small number of basic h u m a n m e n t a l faculties.

R e a s o n is

m o s t commonly seen in c o n t r a s t to the passions and affords a desirable basis for one of two types of judgment: and p r a c t i c a l .

theoretic

This m o d e l , as in, for e x a m p l e , P l a t o ,

carries some minimal c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of the m o d e s of

373 rational d i s c o u r s e , consistency m o s t c r u c i a l l y , and also includes the claim that, in some sense, the rational has a crucial epistemological

faculty

relation to truth, in

particular being essentially adequate to the goal of knowing reality.

This, of course, is the basis for reason being

p r e f e r r e d as the faculty for judgment.

T h i s m o d e l , whether

in Plato or, equally c r u c i a l l y , in F r e u d , d o e s little to describe the details of normal rational functioning; do these theorists provide positive c r i t e r i a for

neither

asserting,

of an individual or of an argument, that he or it is rational. A s Peters

(1980) p o i n t s out about F r e u d , this m o d e l

assumes rational functioning as fundamental, taking as its m a i n goal the offering of an account of the b r e a k d o w n of rational assessment through the interference of (dynamical) elements.

S i m i l a r l y in P l a t o , the

affective underlying

claim that to know the good is to desire the good p l a c e s rational functioning as a state of affairs for which no systemic causal account is necessary. of education and d i a l e c t i c a l

R a t h e r , the process

interchange brings out the

innate capabilities of the reasoner.

For P l a t o , e d u c a t i o n ,

like p s y c h o t h e r a p y , frees the reasoner from the influence of counter-rational the rational

forces; it does not, in itself, construct

faculty.

The second major model p a y s careful attention to the rational function and attempts to enumerate the categories that reason m a n i f e s t s at its most fundamental level.

This

m o d e l , whether in A r i s t o t l e or in K a n t , employs two related but distinct notions of these m o s t fundamental of the devices for rational functioning.

The first sense of

c a t e g o r i e s is closely linked to the analysis of logic as expressed in d i s c o u r s e , and the second sense,

transcending

logic as narrowly c o n s t r u e d , includes the apparatus for understanding objective processes: c r i t e r i a for concepts of causality and of p r e d i c a t i o n .

identity,

Within

this

p a r a d i g m , the analysis of reasoning b e c a m e , with the work of

374

Piaget, a set of minimal categories for cognitive development.

These categories are seen as being articulated

over time in the normal process of development and under the influence of experience through interactive behavior.

Hence

reasoning, even where not interfered with through pathology, is not available to all individuals at all times.

This is

crucial for the distinction between this view and the preceding one, for, given the claim to development, at least some individuals are, in principle, incapable of reasoning. The rational faculties, hierarchically organized, need to be constructed.

And for the child

(or the primitive) no amount

of rational instruction can effect the process of information, since all information is already processed through an earlier

(more primitive) schematism.

Thus,

humans at varying stages of development are, in principle, incapable of reasoning together.

Of course, given an

environment sufficiently rich to warrant increasingly effective rational process, the normal process of assimilation and accommodation yields rational

functioning.

The third most influential model can be attributed in its historical genesis, to the nominalism of the Stoics.

Most

influential in recent times, it sees reason within the context of a social practice.

The criteria for rational

behavior are grounded in social and cultural reality

—

whether the analysis is based on language games or through a community or discipline, where norms play a constitutive role in determining the content of reason.

Implicit in this

view is the potential for a profound relativism, since different milieus, each constitutive of rationality, can manifest incompatible or even incommensurable practices. Views of this sort, whether pragmatist, Marxist, or sociological in character, share the nominalist perspective that denies an essentialist core to reason or even an allencompassing transcendental perspective.

Reason is what

reason does, and what it does, in the most extreme views within this paradigm, are as specific as the different

375 cognitive practices during the various eras and w i t h i n various

domains.

Recent m o v e s in the d e v e l o p m e n t of theories of rationality amalgamate aspects of these three perspectives.

seminal

At the p r e s e n t time, there seem to be two

main t h e o r e t i c focuses.

The first, associated

with

H a b e r m a s , joins F r e u d i a n p e r s p e c t i v e s with, especially, n e o M a r x i s t views.

H e r e , based o n a critique of pragmatism

and

the hermeneutics of D i l t h e y , the notion of the repressed

is

accommodated to a socio-political analysis of concepts and concept use.

This view, especially as codified in H a b e r m a s

(1971) , returns to the P l a t o n i c view of the selftransparency of reason.

A m a l g a m a t i n g F i c h t e ' s analysis of

reason on the m o d e l of Kant's p r a c t i c a l reason

(reason as

serving its own interest), H a b e r m a s claims to free

rational

criticism from the limitations of circularity inherent in pragmatism and h e r m e n e u t i c s .

Rational criticism based on

the exposure of the socially repressed leaves reason open to itself: an inherently e m a n c i p a t o r y activity that combines theoretical and historical understanding for the purposes of rational

reflection.

The second contemporary thrust develops the of the basic rational functions through psychological m e t h o d s .

understanding

experimental

The main work here have been

of cognitive achievement viewed a g a i n s t

studies

standards

extrapolated from formal logic, the m a t h e m a t i c a l theory of probability and the developmental categories of Piaget. Experimental studies of the use of logical

operations

(Revlin and M a y e r , 1978) and of the p r o b a b i l i s t i c basis for empirical judgment

(Nisbett and R o s s , 1980) have pointed

the context sensitivity of these m o s t fundamental processes. children

to

rational

Recent re-evaluations of Piaget's work with

(Carey, 1980) reinforce this approach, pointing

to

the failure of children at P i a g e t i a n tasks as a function of contingencies of experimental design rather than to the unavailability of fundamental c a t e g o r i e s of

rational

376

processing.

Such claims give clear experimental support to

the wealth of social psychological studies that indicate the context sensitivity of cognitive behavior, including making judgments ranging from the observational to the ethical, as well as reinforcing the general perspective found within the political or sociological analysis of epistemology that questions the relevance of a simple formalist account of rational functioning. The works just cited are all attempts to synthesize a decade or more of experimental outcomes that show the divergence of reasoning practices from logical norms.

What

they share is a movement away from Piagetian-like assumptions that claim a basic difference in the fundamental logical apparatus and toward a focus on the encoding of information, where this encoding already carries within it certain inferential potential.

This common focus can be

seen in the "judgmental heuristics" within inductive contexts (Nisbett and Ross, Chapter 2), in the analysis of available experimental evidence on syllogistic reasoning offered by Revlin and Mayer

(Introduction), and in synthesis

of recent research in the cognitive development of children by Carey.

Thus, deviations from logical norms are seen in

terms of the particulars of the labeling of information as a function of prior semantic, or even more substantive, attitudes toward the categories applied to the information encoded.

These analyses, in their attempt to accommodate

available research, strongly reinforce the fundamental hermeneutic position that sees the understanding of rational functioning as the uncovering of internal of biasing "interests" 12).

(textual) evidence

(Habermas, especially chapters 11 and

The question then is: To what extent do these new

insights qualify our attempt to define a theory of argument that purports to establish norms for the correct evaluation of claims? The issue is most telling given the fundamental view of the informal logic movement that denies the adequacy of

377 f o r m a l or m a t h e m a t i c a l of

argument.

raised

An obvious

within

respectable

considerations

the d o m a i n of

violated

these norms general

inductive

by a c t u a l

enough

to b e s p e a k

short

run.

and

representative

practical

heuristics,

class

within which

it is e n c o d e d

taken

as a d e q u a t e

statistical

to be good

to the task to m a k e

heuristics, however, of

efficacy,

and

that

face of

is u n l i k e l y

to be r e p r e s e n t a t i v e .

to the

information

at hand

the

information

possible

information,

adequate

in i t s e l f , the

larger

class within

representative probability, to w h i c h

it

Although

deductive

error

issue

bias

the is

time

These principle small

This applies

both

heuristic)

a small

s a m p l e of

that, even

is r e l e v a n t

to

the if

the

(the

the e l e m e n t

is d i s c u s s e d

it has clear as w e l l :

explanation,

the

sampled,

f r a c t i o n of

element

illicit

the

in

all

class

the c o n t e x t

for

the m o s t

conversion

In both of

is that

that

within

relevance

increasingly

literature,

by the b e l i e f

a prototypical

that

the

from a

likelihood

only a s m a l l

in

evidence

the b a s i c

is c a t e g o r i z e d

since

or c o n d i t i o n a l s .

psychological motivated

it

are

assigned.

this

logic,

plausible

which

represents is

to the

information

heuristic)

inductive

statements

and

is just

for

that

for

real

(the a v a i l a b i l i t y

at hand

to be

readily

urgency.

a selection

the

evidentiary

B o t h of

sample

since

seem

views

virtue when making

fly in the

in

at l e a s t

available

judgments more

a

availability

evidence

at h a n d .

in m a t t e r s of

sampling:

the

to s t a n d a r d s of

is taken

decisions, especially

which

theory

are, roughly,

adequacy: Evidence

accessible, a presumptive

for

is

who substitute

These heuristics, dubbed

conjoin

issue

norms

is a v a i l a b l e

this

reasoners

for

of p r a g m a t i c h e u r i s t i c s

samples according

heuristics

logic,

theory

The n o r m s of

a small n u m b e r

the

inductive

of a c e n t r a l

but c o m p l e x n o r m a t i v e

t h e o r y of p r o b a b i l i t y . regularly

example

as a b a s i s

these

common

in

of the c l a s s

to w h i c h

common

universal

cases, a the

the c o n v e r s i o n

the s u b j e c t of

of

of

is

the s e n t e n c e it

is

is

assigned,

378 whence the plausibility of the conversion. whether

implausible

This

in itself or not, follows the same

pattern of accepting available evidence as the The error here fundamental

assignment,

is not one of misunderstanding

logical operations characterized

connective, but rather

is epistemological

standard. the

by the

in nature.

The explanation that even the most elementary reflect epistemological errors in "encoding

errors

issues, what Revlin et al. call

information,"

lends strong support

the depth and saliency of the perspective that places

for the

norms of rationality within the community that defines semantic or pragmatic aspects of the information thus removing

the analysis of argument

formal logic basis.

from an

But although reinforcing

large

situation,

objectivistic the

position

of the informal logicians and especially those committed critical thinking

in the "strong sense"

such a perspective

raises crucial

to

(Paul, 1982, 1985),

issues.

For

if we

question the adequacy of critical theory to the task of rational reflection, reason "transparent arises, especially

if we question the availability to itself," a problem of great

for educators.

For without

of

substance

the

imprimatur of a normative theory that is both acceptable relevant

to the argument

issues at stake, how are we to

distinguish between the rational critique of argument

and

the interests of those in whom the responsibility

the

teaching of argument A common response

and

for

analysis is placed? in North America

is to rely on the

Deweyian notion of the community of inquiry, or

some

Socratic notion of open criticism based on the

self-effacing

model of the teacher whose only passion

rational

passion. inherent

is the

But both of these models fly in the face of the inequality of the m e m b e r s of the

community and the clear and divergent

university

interests

students and professors bring to the classroom. there are underlying affiliation

issues of class and

that Further,

political

that commonly affect the university, and

render

379 the student, through his fundamental vulnerability, liable to the substantive attitudes of the professor under the guise of the objective evaluation of claims: claims that, as all evidence now points, cannot be distinguished from the semantic and pragmatic context within which they are housed.

380 REFERENCES Carey, Susan (1985) "Are Children Fundamentally Different Kinds of Thinkers and Learners Than Adults?" in Segal et al.

(1985).

Habermas, Jürgen (1971) Knowledge of Human Interests, Boston:

Beacon Press, translated by Jeremy J.

Shapiro. Nisbett, Richard, and Ross, Lee (1980 Human Inference: strategies and shortcomings of social judgment, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc. Paul, Richard

(1982) "Teaching Critical Thinking in the

Strong Sense," in Informal Logic Newsletter, IV, 2. (1985) "Background Logic, Critical Thinking, and Irrational Language Games," in Informal Logic, VII, 1. Peters, R. S. (1980) Moral Development and Moral Education, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Revlin, Russel, and Mayer, Richard E. (1978) Human Reasoning, Washington, D.C.: V. H. Winston and Sons. Segal, Judith W., Chipman, Susan F., and Glaser, Robert (1985) Thinking and Learning Skills, Volume 1, Hillsdale, N.J.: Publishers.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,

43 The Self-Corrective Process of Learning William E. Murnion

Since

the a t t e m p t

an a x i o m a t i c paradoxes

rather But

appeal

than

is w o r t h

of a h e u r i s t i c

it r e a l i s t i c a l l y ,

r e g r e s s or

exploring whether approach

logic to e n d o w

extrinsic

justification

system.

This

of

it m a y g a i n logic

dialectic -- between questions between analysis

to process.

to r e a s o n i n g

is

product. itself

independent

I shall

and answers,

of

and synthesis,

argue,

between between

that

process, for to a

in a

intuition induction

of r e a s o n i n g a s e l f - c o r r e c t i v e

an

any

from reductive analysis lies,

can

the l e a r n i n g

in r e a s o n i n g

it w i t h a l e g i t i m a c y

implicit

deduction -- which makes

looking

to

reasoning

as a d y n a m i c and c o r r i g i b l e

the a d v a n t a g e

implicit

inference,

infinite

by r e d u c t i o n

ideal i s t i c a l l y , as a s t a t i c a n d d e f i n i t i v e

it a l s o has

formal

it

to an

formally,

i n f o r m a l l y , by a c o n s t r u c t i o n of

immediate

it takes

reasoning

leads only

and dilemmas,

be g r o u n d e d The

system,

to g r o u n d

and and

process

of

learning. First,

there

questions locating

is a d i a l e c t i c

and answers. the b a s i c

in the g e n e s i s

As o p p o s e d

framework

of k n o w l e d g e

to the K a n t i a n a p p r o a c h

of k n o w l e d g e

in sets of

a n s w e r s - - forms, c a t e g o r i e s ,

and

Aristotle

a p p r o a c h of d e t e r m i n i n g

took an a l t e r n a t i v e

a n s w e r s w e can give by r e f e r e n c e ask

(1967:

12-14).

he s a i d w a s at specific

of

can

by s h o w i n g h o w the w o n d e r

( M e t a p h y s i cs,

into a s t r u c t u r e of q u e s t i o n s Since

how

the k i n d s

to the kinds of q u e s t i o n s w e

T h i s he d e m o n s t r a t e d

kinds of a n s w e r s .

of

possible

ideals - - L o n e r g a n has s h o w n

the o r i g i n of k n o w l e d g e

can be a r t i c u l a t e d

between

t h e r e are

four

I (A) 9 8 2 b

12)

to w h i c h

there

are

k i n d s of

questions

382 w e c a n a s k , he c l a i m e d , (Posterior Analytics T o get learn

t h e r e are

to k n o w a fact w e ask w h e t h e r

the c a u s e , w e ask w h y χ h a p p e n s to d i s c o v e r

really

to g r a s p

is

if w e w a n t

Aristotle concluded, they g i v e us

the s o l u t i o n s

to y.

to y, w e a l s o w a n t

the m e a n i n g of

questions

to k n o w w h a t

χ really

exists

is h a p p e n i n g

χ

if it e x i s t s .

χ from d i s c e r n i n g w h y χ a c t s hypothesize

about

immediately,

inquiry

of χ

that

inference

each

There

it.

Here

it,

comes

unjustifiable

into p l a y .

the

definition,

term are complementary. justifiable

For w e h a v e

to y a n d w h e t h e r χ A n d we gather

are cause

if χ is

doing

the n a t u r e

of

just as w e its

nature.

emerging product

there

to a n s w e r s

is a l o g i c of is not

of, inquiry

and

inference

intuition in the

immediate apprehension

that P e i r c e

(1965:

to

and sense

strong

by

s e n s e of

can a l s o m e a n

of w h a t

can g i v e

in the s t r o n g

inference

in the w e a k

intuition

or

the m e a n i n g

the d i a l e c t i c b e t w e e n intuition

questions.

immediate

the w o r d s only an a n s w e r Though

For

of

to k n o w

justified knowledge are contraries

intuition and

doing

immediate

d a t a a n d , m e d i a t e l y , of

immediate apprehension

s e n s e of m e d i a t e l y

is

is if w e

is m o r e ,

it d o e s ,

and

is if w e w o n d e r

is the p r o b l e m of d i s c o v e r i n g is w h e r e

other,

reveals.

from questions

is to be k n o w n b e f o r e h a v i n g indicate

What

is a g r a d u a l l y

to a l o g i c of a n s w e r s ,

the p a s s a g e

automatic.

the w a y

into e m p i r i c a l

the n a t u r e of w h a t

T h u s prior But

questions:

is d o i n g

the e f f e c t s of χ f r o m a g r a s p of

the k n o w l e d g e

χ

to k n o w w h e t h e r

to k n o w w h a t χ

each other.

into

to t h e s e

If w e w a n t

its e x i s t e n c e .

to a n s w e r w h e t h e r

we

consists,

of fact a n d e x i s t e n c e a n d the m e d i a t e q u e s t i o n s

something before asking

to

time,

do w e u n d e r s t a n d w h a t χ

and nature also complement

Hence,

Knowledge

to k n o w w h y χ

it e x i s t s at a l l , a n d w e h a v e

to g r a s p

the same

fact a n d of c a u s e c o m p l e m e n t

Likewise, we want

whether

to y, a n d

problems.

if w e k n o w w h y χ is h a p p e n i n g

to y.

At

these a n s w e r s

those of e x i s t e n c e a n d of n a t u r e .

is h a p p e n i n g

only

χ happens

its ex i s tence a n d a l s o w h a t

to our

give

34).

its n a t u r e .

in g e t t i n g

C l e a r l y , q u e s t i o n s of as do

kinds of a n s w e r s w e c a n

II, 1 - 2 , 8 9 b 2 1 - 9 0 a

m u s t ask j_f χ e x i s t s

χ

four

either

the k i n d of §173)

and

of

383 Lonergan

(1957)

have

spoken

evident

in t h e p a t t e r n

include

the

assertion as

an

k i n d of

-- one

assertion would

informal

only

of

an

be

as

an

empirical

for w h i c h

enthymeme,

justifiability

of

of

insight data.

inference

irrational

without

in a

an

meaning can

rational

explicit,

Without

remain

the

inference

become

upon questioning. would

And

implicit

the g r o u n d s

insight

into

initially

inference

the

inarticulate, while insight

to

supply

an

it

with

mean ing.

The

best

inference unlikely Plato The

is

to be

spot,

has

the

Socrates

dilemma which

seemed

to b e

already we

illustration

did

not

Socrates' all

but

1ocus

class i cus

try

boy, who

instructed

--

showed

apprehension

of

of

how

four

to

discover

find

size

the

a root

whose

root

of

the

this

a

to

of

of

of

learning

into

we

it, or

not

nor

learning gained had

to k n o w

the

By

process

of

for

the

at

by

our

that

ever

come

explanation

else

it.

offered was

knowledge

the

for

that

four

the

it

until

boy

he

original

boy's

the

had

of

been

square

of

to

squares,

drew

for

square.

the

For

problem

the boy

size

is o b v i o u s l y

discovery

the

of a

is o b v i o u s l y

and half it

led

him a series the

that

of

him the

a

square

searching.

a

Since

twice

By

a

been

inference.

posing size

and he

one,

of

is

and

boy by

double

right

the

however,

two),

sixteen,

of w h i c h

anamnesis.

discovered

he

intuition

to

square

shows

square

in w h i c h

either

knowledge

proof

shows,

diagonal

square

of

an

anamnesis.

between

the

for

if w e

proof.

only

sketching

the

square root

the

a root

by

closer

the o r i g i n a l for

formal

theorem

of

the

to be

that

inquire

of

and

(82a-86b)

knowledge was

innate

actually

the

root w a s

circumscriptive eight,

proof

to

nevertheless

a

a dialectic

is, o n e w i t h

picture of

could

theorem was

the s o l u t i o n

each with the

of

And

seem

was

impossible, need

that

insight

the n e c e s s i t y

recognize

of

argued,

demonstrated

(that

square

the

Socrates'

function

or

not

sign

first

the M e n o

recollection

theorem without Socrates

Socrates

no

at

in

not

existence.

elimination,

What

the

between

demonstration

to c l a i m

in g e o m e t r y ,

Pythogorean

did

could

response was

slave

is a

and

it a n d

in a p r e v i o u s

this

unnecessary

recollection

might

to d e m o n s t r a t e

provoked

souls

dialectic

in w h a t

something

know

the

found

either

knew

of

of

384 looking

at

square,

even

to h i s

though

generally,

our

solution

for

to

plausible features

until

emergent

an

infer.

notebooks

to

process

a

rational

root

number,

was

of

this

the

the

solution

only

if w e

we

usually

the

the

implicit

(if

hypothetical different insight

A,

about

reason

--

of

of

an

B;

A;

of

:.B).

therefore,

the m e a n i n g

of

In

as w e l l

the

when

(if

and

implicit

for the

a

it.

In

assertion

the go

relevance on

itself

A,

becomes

the m a j o r

then

to and

explicit the

This in

assertion

formulation

premise

of

of

formal

inference

explicates

a pattern

in

assertion empirical

of

the

structure

in a n

the

B).

the

implicit

as

articulated,

for

do w e

reason

argument,

becomes

thought

evidence

the

just

can m a k e

evidence

inference,

the

argument we

for

challenged

the

we

immediate

grounds

only

the

of

through

becomes

reason and

between in

reason

it,

the

justification.

For

have

pattern

Kepler's

empirical

insight

the

are

statement

premise the

add

informal

The

argument,

into

an

know we

reason

in

then

elements

in

the

consequences

occurred

Therefore,

vary

any

becomes

discovery

1-16).

assertion

argument

paradigmatic

the

in a

analyzed

rational

of

for

Hanson

hypothetical

of

the m i n o r

and

the

The

insight

is

implication

condition

This

of M a r s

it.

the

With

and

solution

there

the

becomes

the

in

must

into

are

problem.

intuitions

are q u e s t i o n e d

inference.

of

Peirce,

for

insight

specifications manifest

we

problem

model

the

be

within

formal

to

can

distinguish

structure,

an

(1967:

discourse,

adequacy

the

orbit

there

which

gain

presuppositions

77-85).

the

a plausible

problem.

from

the

of

simple

everyday

we

can

solution

becomes

whose

in

we

data

to a p r o b l e m

the

assertion

an

the

assertion

rational

the

of

of

argued,

the

for

the

justification

has

when

from

how Kepler's

for

in

the

that

solution

recognition

tip

(1958:

--

the

analyze

is a

problems,

rational

every

by

solution

character

Lonergan

and

see

determinate

criteria

data

show

draw

must

the

the

apprehensions

only

no

could

from which

assertion

mathematical

The

we

Taking

elliptical a

The

insight

from

for

to

to b e m e t

model

concomitant

such

boy

to d i s c o v e r

a model

it.

requirements

can

the

it h a d

imaginations

lineaments

basis

figure,

problem.

More use

the

a

based data.

the upon This

385 form any

is

flexible

type

of

The

the

for

the

lends

units

and yet

implication

inference

content

for

propositions

demonstrates Hence,

enough

form

of to

so

to s t a n d

simple

the

insight, while

of

learning

does

a dialectic

between

analysis

and

solution

to a p r o b l e m

a

against

(1971:

reflective

hypothesis prepared fit

the

defend

the

hypothesis

as R a w l s

to

its

and Goodman

fit w i t h i n the

an

of

the

an

exception

facts

equilibrium,

supplies

and

(1983:

65-68)

theory

field

the

and

--

To

the

from an

sure

by we

be to

For just

are

reach

f o r m of

as

it

point

assertion,

through

its p r e s u p p o s i t i o n s

-- and

--

from

the

presuppositions

as

conditions,

the

or

nonfulfillment about

dialectic

from a simple the of

logical the

the

demands

alternatives As

the m a j o r

a grasp

the n e c e s s a r y

possibility

representation

of

its

argument

and

gained

nature

object.

function the

an of

reason

positing enunciated

a

synthesis

fulfillment

or a

But or in

and

negative

the

and

of

capable

insight has

it h a s

an

of

in s y n t h e s i s the

the

of

the

a logical

logical

fulfillment

the a n t e c e d e n t

a

import

of

articulating

for

reveals

it h a s

admitting

origin

into

both

the

insight

inference

existential

the

conditions

The minor

negating

form

be a b i c o n d i t i o n a l ,

from an

what

the

form

analysis

In a n a l y s i s

in a p r o t o t y p e

to a

sufficient

nature.

function.

of

the a r g u m e n t

premise must

representing of

to a p o s i t i v e

elaboration

t e r m of

of an o b j e c t

existential

an of

the

synthesis, of

through

be

assertion.

hypothetical

elements.

to of

the

to

conditions,

must

inference must

it,

the

reach

are

and against of

until,

prepared

the

the

the

unless we

it,

we

test

argued, we

fact.

is

asserting have

have

unless we

the

cannot

consequences

theory

rule.

therefore,

analysis

its

in

itself

simply

to a c c o m m o d a t e

in a to

We

however,

for

This

the

inference

reasons

conclusion

or

premises.

insight

insight;

conventional

theory

rest

between

by

between

it as

dialectic

in t h e

since

synthesis.

presuppositions

equilibrium revise

inference

is s u g g e s t e d

20)

must

reflective

number

inference

terminate,

insight

discovered

and

not

between

hypothesis

any

inference.

dialectic

whatever

every

conclusion

interaction have

for

and

function

about

an of

the

existential in t h e

the m a j o r

for

concrete the

of

386 occurrence of the object.

A n d the rational assertion, w h i c h is at

the origin of analysis and the term of synthesis, must be at outset of

the

inference a logical disjunction between the affirmation

and the negation of a hypothetical

solution to a problem and at

the

point of reflective equilibrium the determination of whichever alternative

is actually w a r r a n t e d by the conjunction between

theory

and fact. But the fact that the equilibrium to be a c h i e v e d by the dialectic between analysis and synthesis

is between fact and theory

suggests that the form of inference has two functions, and deduction, also induction

in dialectical

relationship to each other.

inference serves to generate and explicate

a hypothesis suggested by factual data, while serves to test and apply the hypothesis to the framework of theory.

For

induction performs

Therefore, while

supply the content of deduction,

to dispense with nevertheless

the

traditional

is necessary physical

induction does

indeed

it has a logical validity of

own, one which does not, however, preempt to test and ground hypotheses.

it

to the facts and reduce it

function of arriving at a genuine

explanation of the facts.

In

the m e a n i n g of

in deduction

function of "saving the appearances," but deduction for the complementary

induction

its

the function of deduction

And deduction, without being able

induction for the genesis of hypotheses, has

the potentiality

course of determining

for increasing knowledge

the empirical

in the

objectivity and the

theoretical

significance of hypotheses. Interpreting

induction and deduction as complementary

of the dialectic between analysis and synthesis

functions

in the form of

inference does not just have the advantage of providing an explanation for the process of achieving reflective

equilibrium

between fact and theory

It also avoids

the endemic dilemmas

in any rational assertion.

that arise for both procedures as well as for

knowledge as a w h o l e w h e n they are given an a priori in terms of their relative approximation system.

interpretation

to the demands of a formal

In that case, induction must be admitted to be necessary

if deduction

is to have any determinate content, but

it is

concomitantly denigrated for being without any pretension to formal

387

validity. to which

And deduction must be recognized for the formal

it at least aspires but condemned for depending upon the

discredited procedure of induction for

its content.

that we are faced w i t h the prospect of either using procedures without any formal

The result

of the procedures does not The complementary

these interpretation

lead.

functions of induction and deduction

dialectic between analysis and synthesis, the dialectic analysis and synthesis

in the form of

inference and intuition

inference, the

in the genesis of

in the

between

interaction

rational

assertion, the anticipation of the shape of answers framework of questioning:

is

justification or else of not

reasoning at all -- an impasse to w h i c h a heuristic

between

validity

in the

these are factors a heuristic

interpretation of reasoning suggests are elements corrective process of learning.

Only what w e

in a self-

inquire

into can we

understand, only what we understand can we explain, only what we explain can we

integrate w i t h fact and theory, and only what we

integrate w i t h fact and theory can we claim to know. w i t h the conjunction of the elements of reasoning coordinated process, therefore, does

into a

it seem to be possible for

reasoning to become, occasionally and asymptotically, rational

W i t h and only

true belief entitled to be called

knowledge.

the kind of

388 References

Goodman, Ν.

(1983).

Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.

4th ed.

Harvard. Hanson, N. R.

(1958).

Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry

Conceptual Foundations of Science. Lonergan, B.

(1957).

into the

Cambridge.

Insight: A Study of Human

Understanding.

Longmans, Green. Lonergan, B.

(1967).

Burrell, ed. Lonergan, B.

(1967).

Collect ion. Peirce, C. S.

(1965).

Verbum: Word and

Idea

The form of

inference.

Rawls, J.

In F. E. Crowe, ed.

Herder and Herder. Pragmatism and Pragmaticism.

Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, eds. 5.

in Aquinas. D.

Notre Dame.

In Charles

Collected Papers, Vol.

Belknap Press of Harvard.

(1971).

A Theory of Justice.

Belknap Press of Harvard.

44 The Implicit Teleology of Human Communication and Experience Michael Astroh

The paper is meant to contribute to a philosophical foundation of a general and uniform account of argumentation and its cultural preconditions.

It will consist of two parts.

The first

section will introduce a pragmatic conception of teleology.

The

second will elaborate this notion to the extent that it can be used

for a systematic account of different forms of argumenta-

tion. I. Neither in human experience nor in communication by means of culturally determined

signs, reference can be conceived

of as

being independent of any concern about what is referred to.

The

idea of relating to something where its determination does

not

matter

in

any

way

is

inconsistent.

For

if

it is

strictly

irrelevant what is referred to then it is equally pointless refer.

to

The question is of how the importance of things for those

who make experiences with and achieve communication about

them

can be understood as an intrinsic feature of the various forms in which things are accessible. In

contrast

with

all

other

ways of

relating

to

them,

culturally acquired, linguistic communication is unique in that it is the one which not only allows to establish and share common relations with things, but moreover makes it possible to achieve a common understanding of those forms of reference. Its methodological primacy, however, genetic priority of experience.

is contravened

by a

For it is undeniable that any

transmission of signs is acquired through a specific organisation of human experience.

390 On the one hand, a uniform presentation of various forms of reference is methodologically bound to set out from an account of those features that any communicative unit must have in order to be referential and to conceive in those terms all other forms of acquaintance with things· Thus, even experience will have to be considered as an activity of semiotic form which may be said to differ from communication only insofar as it precedes genetically- Once a semiotic conception of the form in which experience is referential has been given, then, on the other hand, it is required to reconstruct communication as a specific organisation thereof. First however, it has to be determined what intrinsic features a sign must have in order to be a referential unit that may occur on its own. Reference is not a relationship, in the simplest case, between two objects one of which is standing in for the other. A sign must not be identified with the object whose marking results in the production of a communicative unit. For instance, a carved piece of wood might resemble a duck, and it could serve to picture what an animal of this kind is like, but it may not be confused with the resulting representation. In other circumstances the same object might be used as a decoy. Notwithstanding that similarities between objects can pertain to the formation of signs, reference is an intrinsic semiotic feature. It is the sign that tells what it refers to; and if it does not specify any particular reference then there is no sign. The way in which a unit of communication determines what its reference is will be called its sense. Now, that a sign of this kind is referring to something cannot simply be conceived as given state of affairs. Any participant in a discussion about human communication has to admit that, just as experience, it is a kind of activity. In the present context this is to say that both of them are put into effect as a successive production of referential units. Each of these has to count as an independent one in that it has reference on its own. What, for instance, a sentential or pictorial representation and, likewise, an experience is referring to has to be established in finitely many steps; otherwise it is not determined. But in spite of the fact that each semiotic production has to count as a separate unit of communication or experience, none of

391 them

can occur

as entirely

isolated

following achievement of this kind.

from

any

preceding

or

If a semiotic production was

only telling what it refers to but did not convey the importance of its reference in relation to some other unit of representation then it would be altogether irrelevant what it is referring to; and thus there would be no sign at all. In the present analysis nothing but a successive production of representations

can be at issue.

Therefore, a unit actually

achieved cannot impart its relevance in relation to other units which had been or will be formed, unless it conveys the importance of their realisation with respect to its own Thus,

if a given

representation

is relevant

production.

with

regard

to

succeeding ones it has to convey that they ought to be achieved. Conversely, if it is relevant in view of preceding ones it will have been formed in accordance or contrast with their tions.

This normative

condition on which any

direc-

representation

depends shall be called the mode in which it has reference. According to these observations communication and experience have to be understood

in terms of ordered semiotic

transitions.

At each stage in the performance of these human activities an end is partially or entirely established, achieved or missed. occur as an intention, particularly in communication.

It may

Experien-

ces, on the other hand, are often produced or undergone without being

intended.

But in both cases orientation is an intrinsic

feature. In a conscious pursuit of an aim things occur to be irrelevant in the sense that they are scarcely noticed.

This,

however,

cannot serve as a counterexample against the normative aspect of any form of representation. particular attention

What does not matter insofar as no

is paid

thereto does matter

in that it

conforms to the ends pursued. The number of semiotic transitions required to achieve a given end must, again, be finite. whether

Otherwise, a criterion

it has not been missed

is not available.

case the prescribed developement is not sufficiently

to decide

But in this specified.

Conversely, the number of transitions that are required in order to establish an end also has to be finite.

Otherwise it remains

undetermined which step shall count as the first of its realisation.

392 Nevertheless, it is compatible with this normative account of human experience and communication that its form does not exclude its infinite

continuation.

It may be regarded as an endless

activity insofar as its performance repeats itself. For this reason it is crucial to realize that a semiotic unit produced in accordance or contrast with a prescribed developement is modally determined not just with respect to its predecessors. It too has to have a genuine normative aspect to the effect that it calls for the establishment of a new orientation. This does not contradict the finite character of semiotic

transitions

though

it gives

question: how come any particular place?

end

rise

prescribed

to the

following

is set up in the

first

On the one hand, things are not accessible unless one

performs certain acts allowing for their adequate and communicative representation.

experiential

For only under this condition

may they turn out to be of one kind rather than another.

But, on

the other hand, any particular orientation cannot be established unless they have done so.

It is not possible to say what things

are like independent of any form in which they are referred to and, thus, irrespective of any interest

in them.

However,

it

would be pointless to comment on representations and their ends unless the objects at issue have presented themselves not to be mere effects of the ways in which they become accessible.

In a

world where everything would happen to be just as it should, it could not matter to exist. Accordingly, tions

have

representations prescribing particular orienta-

to occur

establishment referential

under

the

following

has to be preceded

units contrasting

remained beyond

condition:

their

by the production of other

with pursuits

that would

have

any concern had they not been frustrated

such

that reactions had to be called for. The intrinsic aspects any semiotic unit must possess in order to have reference were set apart, above, under entirely pragmatic auspices.

Both sense and mode of referentially

signs were explained

in such a way

self-sufficient

that no participant

in a

discussion about communication could deny their being essential and distinct features.

Whereas, the one accounts for the

fact

that any representational unit is specific in content, the other answers to the prerequisite of its functional determination.

393 By intention, only those essential features of communicative units were taken into consideration that do not exclusively characterise this particular form of reference.

The reasons for

which sense and mode count as indispensable features equally had pertain

to the case of non-communicative reference.

Any shift

from one representation to another, either of the same or of a different

type, consists

in a semiotic

transition

relates to the normative order in which it occurs. perspective

and

thus

With

this

the question of how and for what purpose one is

participating in a cultural form of life translates itself into the

task

of

explaining,

in terms of

human activity

and

its

representation, the modal order in which a culture is generated and tries to reproduce itself. In this short article it is not possible to carry out the most essential genetic reconstruction, namely, that of the modal form in which higher communicative types of reference are necessarily conditioned by elementary experiential representations. a

further

elaboration

of

the concept

of

a mode

Instead,

in which a

semiotic unit has reference might provide some useful hints as to how the required explanations will have to proceed. II. Due

to its genetic primacy, experience must

simplest form of semiotic production. sufficient

count as the

Its referentially

units will be called situations.

Being basic units

they cannot be syntactically complex representations. respect

they

resemble

elementary

pictures

self-

and

In this

indications.

These, however, have situations as their reference, whereas the latter represent things. Primarily, the mode in which situations do so has to be an implicit determination.

If it is given separately, then they

have to be preceded by a unit of a more elaborate type which by its reference

specifies

the mode

of a following

one.

For

example, the situation that the audience in a concert hall has become silent might be said to determine explicitly the mode of the

situation

that

the

first note

is played.

For

now,

in

contrast with a rehearsal, all situations in which the music is presented have to follow.

But then, of course, the mode either

of the situation that the listeners start to concentrate or of

394

one of its predecessors must be implicit. The same argument applies to the explicit modal determination of communicative units. The formation of an assertion like "the concert has started" is logically prior to saying that it is the case that it did. The mode of a unit prescribing a transition to particular successors is a proper mode, whereas the normative aspect of the latter ones will be called an inverse mode. If in this case it is required to implement another proper orientation then a selective mode is in force. In order to account for the possibility that situations do not differ in their content but merely with respect to their implicit modal determination, it is necessary to provide a semiotic conception of the way in which things are made and happen to appear. Then, it can be understood in terms of variations in appearances to what an implicit selection of a particular orientation amounts. On the level of communication the same considerations will help, for instance, to explain the role of linguistic unambiguity achieved by means of stress and intonation. If a proper transition to an immediately succeeding unit is at issue, a direct mode is in force; in all other cases it is indirect or instrumental. For example, that one is walking in the street presents itself in an instrumental mode if the end is to achieve the situation that one has reached the stop in order to take the bus. In ,an argumentation an initial premiss will be put forward in an instrumental mode if other premisses shall be given before a conclusion is to be drawn. In cases where the ordered semiotic developement concerns just sense and reference of the units involved, the mode is objective; if, additionally, the semiotic production is related to those that have to achieve it, the mode is communicative. Speech acts exemplify a modal determination of this kind. None of the distinctions that have been introduced so far concern transitions between different forms of reference, especially between experience and communication. If a developement remains within the same form of representation, the corresponding mode is a material one. In this case the progression has to lead either to an alternative unit, then the mode will be external, or a further differentiation of a given unit is

395 prompted, and

the mode

is internal.

In a transition of the

former kind either the same is referred to in a different sense or a converse shift has to take place.

In a transition of the

latter kind at least three forms of internal developement have to be taken into account:

for instance, the situation that someone

is walking may be extended

by one about something else.

The

result could be that he is walking by the side of a river.

In

addition the situation may be deepened; that is to say the sense in which something is referred to can be made more specific on its own. river.

For example, he

is walking slowly by the side of a

On top of that the

further

completed.

obtained:

Thus,

sense of a representation the

following

situation

may be

could

be

as someone walking slowly by the side of a river he is

watching the birds.

The sentences which have been used in order

to refer to situations of this kind will serve as communicative examples of internal developement. If, on the other hand, a shift from one form of reference to another is prescribed, then the mode is formal.

With respect to

a direct passage of this kind it is required to produce a unit referring to the preceding one, or the converse transition has to be achieved. the units

A formal progression will not be obtained

involved have the

same content.

unless

In the case of a

pictorial representation this is guaranteed by the similarities between the object used for the depiction--it might be called the semiotic substratum--and situation.

In

the

coherence of sense

the object referred to by the depicted

case

of

linguistic

is obtained

noticed though that despite

representation

by convention.

this

It should

be

of their accordance in content the

referring and the unit referred to differ in sense. In the present context it is not possible to give an account of the modal structure of experience in which is given rise to communicative

forms of representation.

carved piece of wood

But the example of a

serving both pictorial

and

instrumental

purposes might indicate that the organisation of an exchange of signs

is not understood

adequately

if it

is meant

to be

an

instrumental kind of interaction in which the used objects happen to be semiotic substrata. communication.

One can play with words without having

Once it is known what distinguishes this form of

interaction from other types of social order, games will allow to

396 explain the sense in which a given sign has reference. cannot serve to understand

But they

in what way the normative orders at

issue here, experience and communication, are different. A proper formal mode of the simplest kind which is both direct and objective initiates a transition from a lower form

of reference.

A

repertoire

of

linguistic communication is established explicative mode.

to a higher

signs as it is used in accordance with

Once it has been acquired

in

this

the corresponding

transition from an experiential situation to its description has to be evaluated

as adequate or inadequate with regard to the

applied repertoire. The converse formal mode prescribes to produce the situation which

is referred

to initially.

The mode

involved

here

is

assertoric or argumentative in the most narrow sense; and with regard

to the extent

to which an according transition is rea-

lised, assertions will count as true or false. In this way a purely semiotic account of orientation

in and

between human experience and communication is put forward. implicit teleology turned out to be of entirely regional

Its

scope.

It is determined by those existing in cultural forms of life.

If

there is any global end to be pursued beyond the ones selected as finite

orientations,

destination. leads.

then

still

it

cannot

be

a

personal

For it is impossible to say what it is and where it

45

Argumentation and Dialectical Logic Norbert Gutenberg

It is an old t r a d i t i o n to start by quoting

Aristotle:

"Rhetoric is the correspondential counterpart ( pfvtc < of d i a l e c t i c "

ο

)

(1980: 7). R h e t o r i c "aims at modes of convince-

ment", "convincement is a sort of p r o o f "

fib.: 9),

"proofs"

or "modes of c o n c l u s i o n " are "the subject m a t t e r of d i a l e c t i c " (ib.: 10). Thus interest in rhetoric and a r g u m e n t a t i o n means interest in dialectic. If dialectical logic is a b r a n c h of dialectic this e p i c h e i r e m may legitimate the e x a m i n a t i o n of dialectical logic for the aim of a theory of argumentation. Among the numerous notions of "dialectic" w h i c h are dealt w i t h in a n d outside p h i l o s o p h y the one u s e d in this context is the following: dialectic is "the theory of the general laws of m o v e m e n t a n d development of nature, the human society and t h i n k i n g " (Engels 1973a: 131 f.). Dialectical logic is the "theory of the laws of thinking and its forms" (Fogarasi 1973: 25), Engels distinguishes between "objective" and

"subjective"

dialectic: "Dialectic, the so-called objective one, prevails

in

the whole of nature, and the so-called subjective dialectic, the dialectical thinking is only the reflex of this m o v e m e n t oppositions prevailing everywhere

in

in n a t u r e " (Engels 1973b:

481).

Dialectical logic as a theory of the modes of thinking is consecutively an epistemology

inasmuch as it conceives the forms

of thinking as a "reflection" of objective dialectic; thus a basic thesis is: "The laws of logic are the reflection of the reality in the subjective

objective

consciousness of h u m a n s " (Lenin 1954:

103).

398

"Reflection" is not conceived as a passive process of mental reproduction (like a psychic copy), but as specific "form of movement" with "specific laws" (Fogarasi 1973: 25). Assertions on the

'objective' are at the same time determined by this

'objective' and by the

'reflecting'

The central element of

subject.

'objective dialectic'

is the overall

prevailing movement in oppositions. Thus this movement has to find its correspondence in human thinking and furthermore also in logic. That is why the form of thinking of or

'opposition'

'contradiction'

is the central one for dialectical logic as the

theory of the modes of thinking. The epistemological

self-concept

of dialectical logic implies a specific theory of truth, the basic concept of

'opposition/contradiction'

implies a theory of

genesis and solution of 'oppositions/contradictions'. In any argumentation theory truth is a concept which - no matter whether positively or negatively - serves to define the concept of argumentation. At the same time the concepts of convincing/persuading, consensus, the point of dispute have a central role. These imply the category of opposition/contradiction. So it seems interesting to have a closer look at the above mentioned aspects of dialectical logic. Most theories follow the Aristotelian dualism of of

'apodictical' and

'verum' as a quality of

quality of

'theoretical'

'dialectical truth', and

'verisimile' as a

'practical knowledge'. This dualism leads on the one

side ( = apodictical truth) to a correspondence theory of truth on an axiomatic-deductive basis, on the other side (= dialectical truth) to a consensual theory on a dialogical basis (dialogical = dialectical in the original meaning of the word). The consensual theory leads to an infinite regress which starts with the necessity of finding consensually the conditions for the consensus. The correspondence theory excludes inductive knowledge and seems to end in a kind of consensus with its

'evidence of the axioms'.

This dualism principally opposes everyday-life knowledge and science. But theory and history of science show how the latter stems from the former. This dualism implies that in the realm of "practical action" only the "definition of what is adequate in a given situation" is possible

(Kopperschmidt 1974: 273), but never

general knowledge of the general laws of

'practical action' of the

399 socialised human beings, which is a contradiction in itself, if we do not presuppose that society and history are not subject to objective laws of movement. This concept neglöcts the fact that even axiomatic-deductive truth needs convincing argumentation to be accepted - as history shows. Rhetoric as a 'method of finding social certainty in practical action'

(Kopperschmidt) would drive into another

self-contradiction: either its laws can be obtained axiomatically and by deduction, which would make rhetoric a part of apodictical knowledge and exclude it from the realm of practical action, or it never can define any laws and has to develop also the

'method'

in the given situation, which means that there is no general 'method' at all. Dialectical logic claims to overthrow this dualism. I shall try to show this approximately with a few quotations: "dialectical thinking" means "not to believe that our knowledge is something finished and unchangeable, but investigate how knowledge generates from non-knowledge, how the non-perfect, non-precise knowledge becomes more perfect, more precise knowledge" (Lenin 1975: 96). "Knowledge is always relative, never final, never perfect. (...) That is why it never can be conceived, in any discipline, as accomplished. On the other side the development is never terminated, (has no) principal borders. Any relative knowledge implies an absolute element" (Fogarasi 1973: 374). "Dialectic implies, as Hegel explained, a moment of relativism, of negation, of scepticism, but is not reduced to relativism. (...) It concedes the relativity of all our knowledge, yet not in the sense of a negation of the objective truth, but in the sense of the historical determination of the approximation of our knowledge towards truth" (Lenin 1975: 131 f.). The origin of all knowledge is experience. Dialectical logic tries to show this even for the principles of logic and Aristotle's axioms: "The practice of human beings is impressed and printed into human consciousness as logical forms by billions of times of repetition. Because of this billionfold repetition these forms have the constancy of prejudice and the quality of axioms." So, "for Hegel, too, the action, the practice is^ a logical conclusion, a form of logic" (Lenin 1954: 139).

400 From this stems the concept of theory and science as a d e v e l o p e d form of everyday-life thinking and knowledge. At the same time

this

epistemological concept of logic complements the c r i t e r i a of formal logical adequacy

(as the reflection of the most

general

structures of all reality) by a c r i t e r i o n of the "specific of the specific object"

(Marx 1978: 296), w h i c h reflects

logic

the

special structures of this special part of reality: unity of formal and factual

logic.

From this results that the concept of the u b i q u i t y of r h e t o r i c is v a l i d in science too: scientific knowledge

is c o n s i d e r e d as

h i s t o r i c a l , so are rules and axioms of formal logic. As

historical,

it has to be subject to criticism of ideology to separate

its

relative and historical from its

scientific

'absolute'

elements. A n d

truth has to be made c o n v i n c i n g , has to be e x p l a i n e d to be effective. The realm of

'practical action'

is subject to

scientific

research. Its knowledge can be objectively correct. Truth in the sense of correspondence between theory a n d reality is the goal here, too. Consensus is not the last and only criterion.

Topics

has to be subject to a criticism of ideology not only in a sociology of knowledge point of view, b u t also in the sense of separating its relative and historical from its

'absolute'

elements. The following element of a definition, I p r o p o s e d

for

'convincing', "the convincement of a s p e a k e r / l i s t e n e r exposed to reflection on its possibly p r e j u d i c e d

is to be

content"

(Gutenberg 1 985: 25), is thus b a c k e d by a n e w aspect:

'prejudice'

means in this context the h i s t o r i c a l limitation, the social h i s t o r i c a l relativity of one's

knowledge.

C r i t i c i s m in this view is always immanent to p r o c e s s e s b a s e d on dialectical the realm of

and

logic, whether

argumentation

in science or in

'practical action'. From this follows that an

argumentative a s s e r t i o n is not either but b o t h at the same time.

'Verum' and

'verum' or

'verisimile'

'verisimile

1

can be

dictory to e a c h other, but are qualities of the same At the same time another c r i t e r i o n of

'argument':

a c c e p t a b l e ' , can be derived from the verisimile

contra-

assertion.

'psychosocially

aspect.

401 All a r g u m e n t a t i o n theories I know use, implicitly or explicitly, the concept of definition,

'point of dispute'

- q u a e s t i o . A possible

I suggested, is: "The point of dispute, that is the

p o s s i b i l i t y of not only differing but, above all,

contradictory

opinions, w h i c h is founded in the facts and their

interpretation

and is subjectified in d i s c o u r s e "

(Gutenberg Ί985: 9 1 ) . This

d e f i n i t i o n w o u l d be partly impossible if the d u a l i s m between 'verum'

and

'verisimile' were

A s s e r t i o n s on So the definition

accepted.

'practical action'

can only be

'verisimile'.

'founded in the facts' w o u l d be

senseless.

This part of the definition is not acceptable for a consensual theory of argumentation. In this kind of theory

controversies

can only be conceived as contradictions b e t w e e n opinions. So it seems that contradictions

are not p r o b l e m a t i c at all because

the verisimile concept excludes the investigation of objective truth; it is sufficient to find a consensus on w h i c h of the contradictory assertions is valid. This theory ends in an aporia: if the opponents do not find a c o m m o n general premiss from w h i c h they can conclude, they have two contradictory assertions on w h i c h they cannot even apply the principle of the e x c l u d e d

contradiction.

"It is e x c l u d e d that one and the same p r e d i c a t i o n can be and not applied to one and the same subject in the same

applied relation"

(Aristotle 1978: 89). One of the two assertions should be But because both are

'verisimile'

false.

a p a r a d o x o n is p r o d u c e d . One

cannot decide w h i c h one of the assertions is

'more similar to

truth' nor can it be shown that one of the assertions has b e e n p r o d u c e d in a n o n - r e a s o n a b l e way, because of the infinite of the consensual

Since dialectical logic overthrows the dualism of 'verisimile'

regress

theory. 'verum'

it avoids such p a r a d o x a . The correspondential

of truth,which at the same time stresses the h i s t o r i c a l

and

concept

relativity

of knowledge, conceives contradictory assertions as a possible e x p r e s s i o n of contradictions in reality.So the a r g u m e n t a t i o n process has to investigate just this. Dialectical logic not only backs up the d e f i n i t i o n

'founded in the facts'

for the p o i n t of dispute, but

allows a more complex definition: the p o i n t of dispute is "the division of the uniform into its contradictory e l e m e n t s "

(Fogarasi

1973: 145) and not only on the level of opinions but on the level

402 of the facts. Aristotle explains his wording of the contradictoryprinciple with the remark: "It is excluded that one can think that one and the same thing could be and not be" (Aristotle 1975: 89). The evidence of this judgement explains why the above described paradoxon does not appear while focussing on the discourse of one speaker. The dialogical point of view leads to a dialectical one: the dialectical concept, that we can find objective and relative elements in all knowledge, leads to the question if thesis and antithesis could both be true. This is the application of the dialectical version of the principle of contradiction: "Two contradictory assertions can both be true, if they express the contradictions of reality based on different (historical etc.) relat ions" (Fogarasi 1973: 66). The contradictory theseis of two opponents can be the expressions of two contradictory truths, because each opponent can have a different objective relation to the part of reality in discussion. Therefore the historical limitation of each opinion is to be found. Only this can be understood as ideological criticism - which concept only makes sense if ideology means a false consciousness in relation to an objective reality. At the same time the 'absolute element' is to be elaborated. Again we find here the postulate of unity of formal and factual logic which Marx called "the specific logic of the specific object" (Marx 1978: 296). So the 'division of the uniform in its contradictory elements' on the level of opinions can lead to a division on the level of facts. This corresponds to the function of argumentation in practical action: the solution of the contradiction of opinions must result in the practical solution of the basic practical contradiction. In so far defining the point of dispute always means asking if there is a contradiction in the part of reality in discussion. The historical relation of the speaker/listener with reality can determine if an "argument is

psychosocially comprehensible and

acceptable" (Gutenberg 1985: 93) for a speaker/listener. This relation implies the objective situation of the speaker/listener and influences his convincibility. So even the

'verisimile' is

403 not reduced to psychologistical voluntarism but has an absolute element. Insofar the definition of is preserved: 'verisimile'

'argumentation' by

'verisimile'

'verum' alone is not sufficient, it needs to be for a given speaker/listener and vice versa. A new

definition of what convincing and persuading is can be derived from there. Dialectical logic can be understood as the product of a historical evolution beginning with the Aristotelian dialectic. It seems legitimate to apply here, too, the relation between 'dialectic' y and 'rhetoric' valid at Aristotle's time: "As the ^ t c t t f o y o j follows the

rhetoric is determined by dialectic,

not vice versa" (Hellwig 1973: 45). This contribution claims to be a step in this direction starting from dialectical logic.

404 Reference list Aristoteles (1978). Metaphysik. Schriften zur ersten Philosophie. Obersetzt und herausgegeben von Franz F. Schwarζ. Stuttgart. Aristoteles (1980). Rhetorik. Obersetzt, mit einer Bibliographie, Erläuterungen und einem Nachwort von Franz G. Sieveke. München. Engels, F. (1973a). Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. In MEW, Bd. 20, Berlin (DDR). Engels, F. (1973b). Dialektik der Natur. In MEW, Bd. 20, Berlin (DDR). Fogarasi, B. (1973). Dialektische Logik - mit einer Darstellung erkenntnistheoretischer Grundbegriffe. s'Gravenhage. Gutenberg, N. (1985). Argumentation in the field of rhetorical communication. In R. Cox, M. Sillens, G. Walker, eds., Argument and social practice. Proceedings of the 4th SCA/AFA Conference on Argumentation. Annandale, VA. Hellwig, A. (1973). Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Rhetorik bei Plato und Aristoteles. Göttingen. Kopperschmidt, J. (1974). Kritische Rhetorik. In J. Dyck, Hrsg., Rhetorik in der Schule. Kronberg. Lenin, W.I. (1954). Aus dem philosophischen Nachlaß. Berlin (DDR). Lenin, W.I. (1975). Materialismus und Empiriokritizismus. Berlin (DDR). Marx, K. (1978). Zur Kritik der Hegeischen Rechtsphilosophie. In MEW, Bd. 1, Berlin (DDR). (All citations translated into English by Norbert Gutenberg)

Formal Perspectives

46 Logical and Non-Logical Foundations of Argumentation Denis Apoth6loz

1. Introduction This communication is about argumentation and reasoning in nonspecialized oral discourse, i.e. in everyday - as opposed to scientific - discourse. From the point of view of reasoning, and probably also from that of argumentation, there are certainly important differences among the many types of discourse expressed in natural language (Grize, ed. 1984). Still, it seems to me that non-specialized discourse presents, by and large, an unusually broad range of patterns. There are, I think, several reasons for this: - Non-specialized discourse is the constant echo of a multitude of other discourses, some of which are indeed elaborated within a certain field of specialization (legal, economic, medical, psychological and technical discourse, etc.). All sorts of reasoning and argumentation schemas are to be found in it, some of which are taken over as is or with only slight modification. - It is, in its very unfolding, constantly influenced by the situation as well as by the identity and the reactions of the audience - whence the presence of certain argumentative forms referring directly to these aspects, which, strictly speaking, are extradiscursive . - As oral spontaneous discourse, it is essentially improvised,

408

being barely planned or planned as it occurs, and therefore in perpetual coming-to-be. The train of thought that it restores is, at least in part, formulated by degrees as it is being put into discourse. This is the cause of various phenomena of self-correction, which can bring the speaker to add nuance to an utterance after having made it, or even to cancel it outright on grounds of being in disagreement with it or of finding a mistake in it. I should like to emphasize a point that is commonplace in itself but certainly essential: non-specialized discourse aims mainly at persuasion, i.e. the transformation of representations of the audiance, not at truth. In other words it has more in common with action than with the activity of knowing. This amounts to saying that its balance sheet is drawn up in terms not of truth and falsehood but of success and failure. Even purely informative discourse often cannot do without the tools of persuasion, at least not altogether . 2. Argumentation and Reasoning The attempt at a scientific understanding of this type of discourse is obviously a highly complex enterprise (some might even say a high-risk enterprise): it aims at an object that is difficult to grasp and to delimit- and that presents, therefore, many obstacles to a systematic and objective approach. Still it is a good idea to equip oneself with some tools, even if they be but very general definitions, posed tentatively but having heuristic value. In this work I shall consider argumentation to be a functional discursive process and reasoning a structural discursive process. In this way I entend to take into account the fact that a reasoning discourse can be endowed with an argumentative function and that an argumentative discourse can have a structure of reasoning. Thus it often happens that the author of a non-specialized discourse, in the very act of arguing, reasons (insofar as he meets the requirement of minimal rationality) and, in the very act of reasoning, argues (insofar as the putting to use of this rationality promotes the

409 attainment of an objective). The terms argumentation and reasoning do not on this view, designate observable things that are necessarily distinct, but rather different ways of viewing objects that, in reality, overlap a great deal. I shall use the expressions argumentative arrangement and reasoning patterns to designate the constructions carried out on the basis of these two points of view. The argumentative arrangement is basically a result of an elaboration which takes place in an interaction and for this reason it is inseparable from the act of enunciation (enonciation). Patterns of reasoning, meanwhile, are grounded in representations that the speaker himself has of objects, facts and events and the way in which they interact ν they refer therefore to all kinds of systems of thought, to all kinds of knowledge, of ideologies, of commonplace topics, and to the modality of representations that Verges (1986) calls "cultural matrixes of interpretation" . Every analysis of discourse assumes, at one time or another, operations of segmentation. For reasons mentioned above (the primacy of persuasive action), I shall base these operations on the analysis of argumentative arrangement. As a second step only, the nature of patterns of reasoning that sustain argumentative arrangement will be examined. I shall consider an argument to be any segment of discourse the function or effect of which is to argue in favor of another segment of the same discourse. This definition would be tautological were I not to add the following clarification. The expression "argue in favor of" here subsumes two different functions, which incidentally are not necessarily exclusive: the one that consists of adding plausibility ("plausibilizing" function), i.e. in increasing the verisimilitude of what is said, as in (1); and the one that consists of explanation or justification (explanatory function) , as in (2) , making use, for example, of reasoning of a causal nature. The relation established between these two segments can be considered epistemic in the case of the plausibilizing function and ontic in the

410

explanatory function (Borel, 1984). We shall have occasion to see that specific patterns of reasoning correspond to each of these functions . (1)

Technological progress isn't necessarily going to increase unemployment

because I can see that in this place nothing much has changed

(2)

The boss laid off a lot of people last year

The firm was terribly unsteady economically

I use intentionally the vague term of segment, which can designate a single utterance just as well as a string of utterances having, from the argumentative point of view, a certain functional homogeneity. I shall call the construction of two segments, one of which argues in favour of the other, an argumentative pair; I shall call the segments supporting and supported, respectively. The resulting analysis can be applied recursively, so that a pair that acts as a supporting, or as a supported, segment will itself constitute a segment in a higher-order pair. Contrary to the current practice in pragmatic linguistics (Anscombre & Ducrot, 19 83; Moeschler, 19 85) , I shall not take into consideration argumentative relations in absentia, which involve the extrapolation of implicit propositions, but only those that are given explicitly in discourse. Nor shall I seek to analyze the value of argumentative connectors or operators; I shall limit myself to observing whole "sense effects". Finally, I shall limit what I have to say to strictly monologal discourse.

3. First Level of Analysis: the Argumentative Arrangement Applied to whole discourses, the analysis that comes of the principles presented above results in a hierarchical organization of arguments, in other words in an arborescent system of argumentative pairs (Apoth€loz & Mieville, 1986). For reasons of space, I shall not dwell on this first level. I would, however, like to mention that this method led us to

411

catalogue, from a corpus gathered in a study of representations of technological change, a considerable number of argumentative arrangements in the form of loops. In actual fact, these were cases where the speaker, by way of a conclusion or in any case an end to all or part of his talk, reformulates the segment that was at the beginning of an argumentative itinerary. The functions that can be ascribed to this kind of procedure are of course extremely diverse: phatic, in the event of a pause or hesitation; conclusive, when the reformulation marks the end of a development and is followed by the introduction of a new theme; cognitive, when the speaker is confronted with a problem of coherence in his own discourse, when he attempts to check a digression, etc. In this connection it seems important to notice that coherence is not a problem that concerns the addressee alone; when discourse is not planned, in other words when it is spontaneous, the speaker himself is constantly being confronted with the coherence of what he is in the process of saying - this is made clear whenever he corrects or cancels what he says after saying it, as we pointed out above.

4. Second Level of Analysis; the Patterns of Reasoning The grouping together, under the generic term of argument, of explanatory and plausibilizing functions, led us to catalogue six families of patterns of reasoning: i.

Reasons

ii.

Causalities

iii. Purposiveness iv.

Appeals to facts

v.

Comparisons

vi.

Reformulations of the supported segment

i. Reasons. Those given for the content of an utterance a string of utterances should be distinguished the act of enunciation

(Snoncö) or

from those given for

(enonciation). In the latter situation, the

argument plays the role of a "shifter", in the sense of Jakobson (1971), so it may lead its author to leave the theme of debate and

412

to thematize the situation of interlocution itself. In that case the speaker engages in what we have called "control discourse". ii. Causalities. They are of two kinds: empirical, when the supporting segment indicates the cause of a fact or event of a non-psychological nature, and psychological, when it indicates the motive either of an action taken by a subject or of a psychological state of the subject. Piaget (1923) called this type of explanation "motivation". Example (2) illustrates this pattern. In practice, it is sometimes a delicate matter to distinguish causality from reason. The essential difference must consist in causality's always assuming a certain action, a functioning that is "attributed" (in Piaget's sense) to reality. iii. Purposiveness (finalites) . This explains the action of a subject by indicating the intention of his action. In this sense, it can be said that purposiveness attributes to the subject the anticipation of a judgment of causality (if I do X, then Y). It seems to us that in an argumentative discourse the notion of purposiveness can occur in at least three ways: simply by being asserted ("we relieve each other every week, so that it's not always the same one who gets tired") , by having a counter-purpose ("..., otherwise it's always the same one who gets tired"), or by having a refuted purpose ("..., and it's not for the pleasure of changing")3. The latter case may lead to a counter-discourse. iv. Appeals to facts. These involve referring the addressee to the real world. Strictly speaking, then, there is no reasoning - not, at least, according to the usual sense of the term - in this practice, but instead recourse is made to an observation that every sensible person is capable of making. Example (1) illustrates this pattern. v. Comparisons. These involve bringing together two facts or states of affairs, either to assimilate them to each other more or less strongly (analogies) or, as in (3), to insist on some difference (contrasts). (3)

it's not like the people who work at the bench, on production

413 vi. R e f o r m u l a t i o n s of the s u p p o r t e d s e g m e n t . These are

argumentative

pairs in w h i c h the s u p p o r t i n g s e g m e n t refers to the same t h e m e as the supported segment and says practically the same thing a b o u t it. The r e f o r m u l a t i o n c a n be c a r r i e d out by d e s c r i p t i o n

("underneath it

all, there isn't any solidarity; everyone has his little job, r e a l happy to have it, real h a p p y to keep it"), by s p e c i f i c a t i o n

("the

new techniques have c h a n g e d my w o r k - they've made it b e t t e r " ) , or amplification

("..., they e v e n b r o u g h t b i g

changes").

In some concrete examples w e n o t i c e d that these patterns of reasoning o f t e n p e r f o r m b o t h p l a u s i b i l i z i n g and explanatory at once. The examples I have g i v e n of r e f o r m u l a t i o n by

functions

description

and by specification are i l l u s t r a t i o n s of this. It is u n d e n i a b l e , h o w e v e r , that certain p a t t e r n s are p r e d i s p o s e d to carry o u t one function or the other. Our o b s e r v a t i o n s thus allow us to set d o w n , as h y p o t h e s e s , the f o l l o w i n g

principles:

a) exclusively p l a u s i b i l i z i n g functions, as in

(1), are b r o u g h t

about by appeals to facts, by comparisons or by r e f o r m u l a t i o n s , b u t never by the other p a t t e r n s ; b) exclusively explanatory

functions, as in

(2), are b r o u g h t about

by causalities, by p u r p o s i v e n e s s or by reasons b e a r i n g on the act of e n u n c i a t i o n 4 , b u t never b y the o t h e r patterns} c) appeals to facts are always and e x c l u s i v e l y

plausibilizing;

d) r e f u t e d purposes are always and e x c l u s i v e l y

explanatory;3

e) reasons b e a r i n g on the c o n t e n t of an u t t e r a n c e always combine a p l a u s i b i l i z i n g w i t h an e x p l a n a t o r y

function.

5. T h i r d level of A n a l y s i s ; R e p r e s e n t a t i o n s and Schemas of R e a s o n i n g W h e n we r e c o n s t r u c t the a r g u m e n t a t i v e a r r a n g e m e n t of a d i s c o u r s e and catalogue the v a r i o u s p a t t e r n s of r e a s o n i n g that sustain it

(le-

vels 1 and 2), w e carry out this work w i t h o u t prejudice as to the correctness of the r e a s o n i n g u s e d by the speaker. The only t h i n g that matters to us is to s p o t a r g u m e n t a t i v e pairs and to i d e n t i f y the patterns. M o r e o v e r , the p e r s u a s i v e e f f e c t of an argument is only

414 slightly tied to rationality or to the correctness of the reasoning on which it rests. Nevertheless, once the analysis has been carried out, it is possible to return to the various patterns, to examine the way in which they have actually been brought about, and to attempt to bring the schemas of reasoning to light. This constitutes the third level. Consider the following example:

(4)

then that will lead to more consumption

I think that with these new technologies, by producing a lot more parts, these parts will be a lot less expensive

the people who use them will need them

since the parts will be less expensive

Β

It will be recalled that every configuration of the

£ , j type repre-

sents an argumentative pair and that the supporting segment is always to the right. The arrows indicate that the actual order of the segments in discourse consisted in stating the supporting segment first, then the supported segment, and not the converse as in the examples examined previously. Here, then, the order is B-A-D-C. There is little to say of the pair

[a,b] which, in our culture,

is a commonplace of economic theory. As for segment C, its interest is twofold. First, its formulation appears incomplete and the expression "will need them" surely has to be understood as "will need them more". Second and most important, even fixed up in this way it has a somewhat paradoxical effect: although it is given as an intermediate element in the chain of reasoning

(D-+-OA, i.e. less expensive

parts •* increased need -*• increased consumption) , in other words as being closer to A than to D, it seems to have a lower argumentative yield than segment D. Indeed it is hard to imagine in what place, in what field of representation the relevance of the causal relation "less expensive -+ increased need" could be grounded. The author of this argumentation himself must have felt a problem of coherence, since he continued

(corrected?) his discourse as follows:

415

"Because the new parts, now, they do it in plastic. So they'll be less solid than the others, before, that were metal. They won't last as long, in my opinion." So here we have coherence back again

This quasi-substitution allows

the reconstitution of two chains of reasoning, which can be represented thus: be in plastic be less solid produce more parts in less time

last less long

less expensive parts

increased need

increased consumption As far as their logic is concerned, what these two chains have in common is to be articulated by causalities. They differ, however, with regard to the field of representation in which their relevance is grounded. It can be said of the chain of reasoning on the right that its author takes complete responsability for it, step by step; but the one on the left, by its enthymemic short-cut, reveals the appropriation, by the author of the discourse, of a precoded schema of reasoning resulting from a particular representation. 6. Conclusions The foregoing considerations are obviously extremely succint. They are intended nevertheless to show the point, in the study of argumentation, of distinguishing several levels of problems. On the level of interaction between speakers, it is possible to grasp argumentative phenomena as functional relations between segments of discourse. On the level of logic, the patterns of reasoning that make up an argumentation can be catalogued and classified, independently of any semantic consideration. Finally, on the level of representations , it is possible to take content into consideration: to spot schemas of reasoning, to study the way in which they were put to use in the discourse, to reflect on the kind of thought from which they

416

result, on their fields of relevance and on their places of constitution (Vergäs, 1986). As a matter of fact, this last level amounts to placing the problem of argumentation in a wider perspective that is at once socio-cultural and cognitive.

Translated

*

*

by James

Gasser

*

Notes 1. This work was carried out as part of a joint research project of the Departement Information et Formation en Economie, CNRS-IRPEACS (Ecully, France), the Centre de Recherche en Ecologie Sociale, CNRSEHESS (Marseille, France) and the Centre de Recherches Semiologiques of the University of Neuchätel (Switzerland) on representations of technological change. The Swiss part of this research was supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (no 1.74 3-0.83). The examples quoted here are taken from a corpus of interviews gathered in connection with this project. 2. Gardies (1979:233) says of this: "Le raisonnement spontane, dans son contact constant avec 1'experience, peut d'autant plus facilement se dispenser d'une coherence integrale, que les objets sur lesquels il porte sont toujours la pour soutenir son cheminement et lui permettre de se rattraper de son d§sequilibre; qu'il ne soit pas un raisonnement formel signifie que le reel est constamment a sa disposition pour lui servir de garde-fou". 3. Strictly speaking, patterns of reasoning by refuted purpose do not "explain", but imply one explanation by the rejection of another. On analysis, it is seen that the implied explanation does not always allow an unequivocal reconstitution of itself. 4. The reasons for an act of enunciation can only be explanatory, for plausibility cannot be added to an act.

417 References

Anscombre, J.-C., Ducrot, 0.

(1983). L'argumentation dans la

langue. Bruxelles: Mardaga. Apotheloz, D., Mieville, D.

(19 86). Coherence et discours

argu-

mente. In M. Charolles, ed. The Resolution of Discourse. Hamburg: Buske Verlag. In press. Borel, M.-J.

(1984). Dimensions du raisonnement non formel et

logique-calcul. In Grize, ed. Gardies, J.-L.

(1984), 113-154.

(1979). Essai sur la logique des modalites. Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France. Grize, J.-B., ed.

(1984). Semiologie du raisonnement. Berne: P.

Lang. Jakobson, R.

(1971). Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian

Verb. In Selected Writings II. The Hague-Paris: Mouton, 130-147. Moeschier, J.

(1985). Argumentation et conversation. Elements pour

une analyse pragmatique du discours. Paris: Hatier. Piaget, J.

(1923). Le langage et la pens€e chez 1'enfant. NeuchStel:

Delachaux & Niestle. Verges, P.

(19 86). A Social and Cognitive Approach to Economic

Representations. In Current Issues in European Social Psychology II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In press.

47 Dilemmas of the Inductive/Deductive Distinction John E. Nolt

Logicians' conceptions of the inductive/deductive distinction differ widely. Yet the differences, though often significant, are seldom explicitly recognized. I will discuss two dilemmas posed by attempts to define the distinction. The first is whether to state the distinction in terms of the actual strength of the reasoning or in terms of someone's assessment of the strength of the reasoning. I shall call definitions of induction and deduction based on actual strength logical definitions and those based on someone's assessment of strength intentional definitions. For example, of the two pairs of definitions given below, the first is logical and the second intentional. (1) A deductive argument is one in which the conclusion is necessary, given the premises. An inductive argument is one in which the conclusion is probable but not necessary, given the premises.^ (2) A deductive argument is one in which it is claimed that the conclusion is necessary, given the premises. An inductive argument is one in which it is claimed that the conclusion is probable but not necessary, given the premises.2 The intentional definitions in (2) use the notion of a "claim" (presumably the arguer's) concerning the strength of the reasoning. Other variants in the literature appeal to the "intended," "purported" or "supposed" strength of the reasoning.

419

Intentional definitions are convenient if one wants to have both valid and invalid deductive arguments. of course, if

is a deductive

A valid deductive argument,

argument whose conclusion must be

its premises are true,

i.e.,

true

by (2) an argument which is cor-

rectly claimed to be valid; and an invalid deductive argument is by (2) an argument which is incorrectly claimed to be valid. cal definitions such as (1),

the expressions

'valid'

On logi-

and

'deduc-

tive' are synonymous; there are no invalid deductive arguments. Intentional

definitions

also

allow

a

between good and bad inductive arguments. are

arguments are

distinction

Good inductive arguments

whose conclusions are correctly claimed to be prob-

able but not necessary given arguments

parallel

their

premises,

and

bad

inductive

arguments for which this claim is incorrectly made.

This distinction is overshadowed, however, by the fact that on both sorts of definitions,

inductive arguments vary in strength.

Thus

it is often overlooked. Intentional definitions have serious drawbacks. their applicability is

severely

limited.

usually) an arguer has no opinion, cerning whether his probability

conclusion

from his premises.

entered his mind.

even con-

with

necessity

or

mere

The distinction may not even have

He may hold only that the premises "support" the

conclusion in some unspecified way. neither

(perhaps

and hence makes no claim,

follows

Often

For one thing,

inductive

nor

between the cracks of

deductive. intentional

His argument, then, Such

arguments

distinctions.

is by (2) simply fall

This

slippage

between the cracks frequently goes unnoticed. But

failure

to

notice

it

is dangerous.

For example,

authors who use intentional definitions also assert that arguments are simply the nondeductive ones.^ that

many

But we have just seen

definitions

Another pitfall results from combining intenwith

terns of inference (e.g., others

inductive

arguments are neither inductive nor deductive on inten-

tional definitions. tional

some

the usual classification of certain patargument by analogy)

(e.g., modus ponens) as deductive.

as

inductive

and

For someone arguing by

modus ponens may nevertheless fail to claim that her argument is

420 valid;

hence by (2) her argument is

modus ponens. his

a

nondeductive

hence by (2) he has offered a anyone

of

Or someone arguing by analogy may fail to claim that

conclusion is probable but not necessary,

Thus

instance

noninductive

given his premises;

argument

by

analogy.

who uses a definition like (2) and yet classifies all

modus ponens arguments as deductive or all analogical arguments inductive is guilty of inconsistency. The

same

problem

infects

other

inductive/deductive distinction. the

distinction

intends, the

is

framed

Such guilt is variants

It makes no

of

the reasoning,

tional attitude.

of the intentional difference

whether

in terms of what the arguer claims or

or in terms of what is purported or

strength

as

widespread.^

supposed

concerning

or in terms of some other inten-

There will always be cases in which the relevant

attitude is either indeterminate or absent. Worse,

there will be cases in which it is wrong.

people arguing by analogy sometimes

claim

are

(2),

would require us to classify their arguments

deductive

and analogical.

given their premises.

that

conclusions then,

necessary,

mistakenly

For example, their

Allegiance to as

both

There are probably also cases in which

people argue by modus ponens (or some other valid form) and

hedge,

claiming merely that the conclusion is probable given the premises. Thus if we accept (2) we may well have to admit inductive instances of modus ponens. At

the

root

of these anomalies lies the fact that intentional

definitions classify toward

them,

not

arguments

according

authors

who

attitudes

try

not a logical one.

Thus Typi-

to use this psychological distinction to

delineate logical kinds simply blind themselves sing consequences.

people's

according to intrinsic logical features.

they mark a psychological distinction, cally,

to

to

the

But this is hardly satisfactory.

definitions may have some use in the psychology

of

embarrasIntentional

argumentation.

But I shall lay them aside, since I am concerned with logic. There

is

a

second

deductive distinction: in

choice to be made in framing an inductive/ the choice between stating the

definitions

terms of probability and necessity and stating them in terms of

evidential support.

The definitions given in (1) and (2) used the

421

concepts of probability and necessity. tions probabilistic.

We shall call such defini-

And we shall designate as evidential defini-

tions which use instead the concept of evidential the

support.

Thus

following pair of definitions is evidential (and also logical,

as opposed to intentional): (3)

A deductive argument is one whose premises if true provide conclusive evidence for its conclusion. An inductive argument is one whose premises if true provide evidence, but not conclusive evidence, for its conclusion.5

(Sometimes the term 'support' is used in place of 'evidence'.

It

may also be said, rather loosely, that the premises "make" the conclusion

necessary

or "enhance" its probability.)

The distinction

between probabilistic and evidential definitions is the

orthogonal

distinction between logical and intentional definitions.

tentional versions of evidential definitions literature;

but

since

also

appear

to In-

in

the

they are subject to the criticisms already

raised against intentional definitions in

general,

they

need

no

separate discussion here.® Probabilistic ones.

definitions

differ substantially from evidential

One case which highlights the difference is the inference of

a logically necessary conclusion from irrelevant premises (see below).

Since

the

conclusion must be true if the premises are,

such an argument is deductive on logical probabilistic such as (1).

it is neither inductive nor deductive

on logical evidential definitions such as (3).

Arguments with in-

consistent and irrelevant premises work the same way. an

definitions

But since the premises, being irrelevant, provide no

evidence for the conclusion,

if

(4)

extremely

Similarly,

weak and hence inherently probable conclusion is

inferred from irrelevant premises,

then that conclusion

is

prob-

able given those premises, even though they provide no evidence for it

(see

(5)

below).

Thus the inference is inductive on logical

probabilistic definitions but again neither inductive nor deductive on logical evidential ones. The choice between probabilistic and evidential definitions constitutes our second dilemma, for both have serious disadvantages.

422

The chief disadvantage of evidential definitions is that they clash with classical deductive logic. Inferences with inconsistent premises or tautologous conclusions are regarded as both deductive and valid in classical logic. Yet in many cases their premises provide no evidence for their conclusions; hence as we have seen they are not deductive (and not inductive either) on evidential definitions. It might be replied that in some degenerate sense such premises do provide "evidence" for their conclusions. But this is so only in the sense that the conclusion is necessary, given these premises. It is perverse to give an evidential definition and then where it doesn't fit covertly appeal to a probabilistic one. 7 The cases in which evidential definitions clash with classical logic are exactly the cases in which relevance logic clashes with classical logic. If our fundamental logic were relevance logic, an evidential inductive/deductive distinction would be unobjectionable. But one freguently finds evidential definitions coupled inconsistently with classical deductive logic.8 Since most of us want to keep classical logic, a probabilistic version of the inductive/deductive distinction may seem more congenial. But probabilistic versions have their own problems. The worst is the problem of clarifying the notion of probability used in the definition of 'inductive argument'. This problem is notorious.9 But it is balanced on the side of evidential distinctions by the equally difficult task of clarifying the idea of evidential support. A second problem with probabilistic versions has already been mentioned: they are counterintuitive. Consider again the fact that they classify all arguments with logically necessary conclusions as deductive. For example: (4) You have not proved that the sky is both blue and not blue. The sky is not both blue and not blue. Initially this classification strikes everyone as wrong, but most of us have been convinced of its appropriateness by prolonged exposure to classical logic. Less familiar, and perhaps even more

423 counterintuitive are the analogous cases in inductive logic: ments in which premises. (5)

a

weak

conclusion

is

inferred

from

argu-

irrelevant

For example: You haven't proved that my savings account balance is exactly $4,267,593.01. My savings account balance is not exactly $4,267,593.01.

The

conclusion

of

this

argument

is so weak that it is probable

given the premise, even though the premise provides no evidence for it.

(To make it clear that the premise provides no evidence,

pose

that

the

"you"

referred to in the premise has not tried to

prove anything about the account in question.) inductive so,

intuitions

This

on a probabilistic definition -- indeed,

which is odd.

sup-

argument

is

quite strongly

Evidential definitions seem much closer to our

here.

On an evidential definition,

this argument is

neither inductive nor deductive; we might simply characterize it as "fallacious." In fact,

both (4) and (5) are textbook cases of the fallacy

ignorance, one of the so-called fallacies of relevance. adopt

of

Thus if we

both a logical probabilistic inductive/deductive distinction

and a traditional approach to informal fallacies (as

many

authors

do), we must countenance some instances of the fallacy of ignorance which

are deductive and some which are strongly inductive.

These

consequences are awkward at best. Finally, evidential

probabilistic ones

from

definitions

seem

more

distant

than

what really matters in argument evaluation:

how well the premises actually support the

conclusion.

books which use probabilistic definitions,

the chief consideration

in evaluating nondeductive arguments is evidential

Even

support;

in

prob-

ability per se plays a relatively minor role. Again,

however,

this

is offset on the side of evidential dis-

tinctions by the fact that in chief

consideration

deduction), cept

is

most

validity

treatments (the

of

deduction

probabilistic

concept of

and little if anything is said about the broader

of evidential support.

Indeed,

the con-

no matter which form of the

inductive/deductive distinction an author adopts, her discussion of

424 deduction is likely to proceed as were being used,

if

a

probabilistic

definition

and her discussion of induction is likely at some

point to presuppose an evidential definition.

The

inconsistency

is seldom noticed. I

can

see

two coherent solutions to the second dilemma.

first is to combine an evidential version of tive

distinction

with

and deductive logic. entrenchment,

inductive/deduc-

a consistent relevantism in both inductive This solution is

clarity

the

The

and

radical;

because

of

simplicity of classical logic,

little chance of widespread acceptance.

it has

The second is to combine a

probabilistic version of the distinction with a consistently sical

approach

clas-

to both inductive and deductive logic -- and learn

to live with the awkward and counterintuitive consequences probabilistic definitions.

of

the

The central issue of how well a set of

premises supports a conclusion is not answered from this view

the

point

of

merely by classifying the argument as inductive or deductive.

It requires in addition the assessment of relevance as dimension

of

argument

evaluation.

analyzed into two components:

Thus

a

separate

evidential support is

inductive probability (whose maximal

limiting case is deductive validity) and relevance. NOTES ^Further examples of

logical

definitions

may

be

found

in

Carlsen-Jones (1983: 54), Nolt (1984: 5-6), Salmon, M. (1984: 32), Salmon, W. (1984: 45), and Skyrms (1975: 10-13). ^Further (1980: 10-11),

examples

of

intentional definitions occur in Barry

Carney and Scheer (1980: 10-11),

Copi (1982:

51),

Hurley (1982: 21), Klenk (1983: 7), and Simco and James (1983: 1). 3

F o r an example, see Carney and Scheer (1980: 10-11).

4

T h e following,

for example,

present intentional definitions

and yet seem to classify all instances of modus ponens as deductive and all arguments by analogy as inductive:

Barry

and Scheer (1980), Copi (1982), Simco and James ^Further

examples

of

logical

(1980),

Carney

(1983).

evidential definitions may be

found in Carlsen-Jones (1983: 54) and Salmon, M. (1984: 32).

425 ^Further e x a m p l e s of i n t e n t i o n a l e v i d e n t i a l d e f i n i t i o n s m a y be found in Copi (1982: 51) a n d K l e n k

(1983: 7).

^This is done o v e r t l y in S a l m o n M. unaware

of

the

distinction

(1984: 32).

S a l m o n seems

b e t w e e n p r o b a b i l i s t i c a n d evidential

definitions. 8

T h i s is arguably the case in all the w o r k s m e n t i o n e d in notes

5 a n d 6. ^A u s e f u l o v e r v i e w is p r o v i d e d in Skyrms (1975: •^For a n e l a b o r a t i o n of this idea, and K a h a n e , " Informal Logic,

200-215).

see my "Replies to

Thomas

forthcoming. REFERENCES

Barry, V i n c e n t E. (1980). P r a c t i c a l Logic, 2nd ed. Holt,

Rinehart

and Winston. Carlsen-Jones, M i c h a e l T.

(1983) I n t r o d u c t i o n to Logic. M c G r a w -

Hill. Carney, J a m e s D. a n d R i c h a r d K. Scheer (1980). F u n d a m e n t a l s of Logic.

Macmillan.

Copi, Irving M. (1982). I n t r o d u c t i o n to Logic, 6th ed. M a c m i l l a n . Hurley, Patrick J. (1982).

A Concise I n t r o d u c t i o n to Logic.

Wadsworth. Klenk, V i r g i n i a

(1983). U n d e r s t a n d i n g Symbolic Logic.

Prentice-

Hall. Nolt, J o h n Eric (1984). Informal Logic: Possible W o r l d s Imagination.

and

McGraw-Hill.

Salmon, Merilee H. (1984).

I n t r o d u c t i o n to Logic a n d Critical

Thinking. H a r c o u r t B r a c e Jovanovich. Salmon, W e s l e y C. (1984). Logic, 3rd ed.

Prentice-Hall.

Simco, N a n c y D. a n d Gene G. J a m e s (1983) E l e m e n t a r y logic, ed. Wadsworth. Skyrms, B r i a n (1975). Choice and Chance: A n I n t r o d u c t i o n to Inductive Logic.

Dickenson.

2nd

48 Dialectical Arguments, Matters of Degree, and Paraconsistent Logic Lorenzo Pena

This

paper

shows

that

the boundary

between yes-no questions

m a t t e r s of d e g r e e is a m a t t e r of d e g r e e More no

precisely

put: matters-of-degree

questions,

in virtue

is n o t w h o l l y of d e g r e e ,

false

of

the

is t r u e .

itself --a fuzzy

This

borderline.

are also amenable

taking-up is w h y

to

principle,

viz.

on arguing

about

whatever matters

everybody

c o m m o n l y d o e s , w e b o t h s u b j e c t the i n v o l v e d p r o p e r t i e s t o

excluded-

and

yet

recognize

that

a thing may

arguments

yes-or-

as

middle

i.e. on c o n s t r u c t i n g dialectical

and

(to

some

p r o p e r t y of t h e k i n d w h i l e a l s o l a c k i n g it u p to a S e c t . 1.— I n t u i t i v e a n d T h e o r e t i c a l Use

of

comparative

partisans

of c l a s s i c a l

question

'Is

Brian

fat?'

a

has

fat

predicate while

than...'

fatness

average

of

been hard

to c o p e

relevant

answer

could

replaced by some

such people as the

be

to

'Less 1

by the

than

a s a pr_i

'to b e n o

standard

subject's

with

thing,

' to-be-less-f at-than

'to b e f a t ' w o u l d a b b r e v i a t e

w i t h the blank

a

point.

(CL f o r s h o r t ) . F o r o n e

Lloyd'. Now, such approaches as take mitive

have

Motivations

constructions logic

extent)

less

(such a s

referent were

the most

c o m m o n l y c o m p a r e d w i t h , o r a n y t h i n g of t h a t ilk) c a n n o t e x p l a i n that in

the

above

involved;

question

otherwise

and answer

the

answer

apparently

wouldn't

same

But then how can one same predicate be used both as a one-place

one

less

fat than...'

nor

the

which

is is.

be no

apposite,

predicate it

a n d a s a t w o - p l a c e o n e ? S t i l l , if

be

one

'to b e fat' n o w i s e a b b r e v i a t e s 'to

like,

then how

fat should a man

f o r h i m to q u a l i t y a s f a t , p e r i o d ? A w e l l - k n o w n s o r i t e s s h o w s if L l o y d

is

fat a n d Brian

we are entitled

just

a trifle

to say that B r i a n

is f a t ,

less

fat

be

that,

than Lloyd,

too. By mathematical

then in-

427

d u c t i o n we conclude that e v e r y o n e is fat. Since there are thin people and thinness

is included in the complement of fatness, we

get

at the c o n t r a d i c t i o n that some fat people are not fat. 'Fat' term.

is a

term w e

So are

'blue',

learn by o s t e n s i o n . 'mountain',

It is a n

observational

'water'. Each of them gives

rise

to similar troubles. How b l u e a thing needs to be for it to qualify as blue? How d i s t a n t ought

it to be from purple,

from green,

from

b l u i s h w h i t e ? Is every

(seeable) thing blue? Is every hillock, every

mound,

a mountain?

however

small,

Is every

liquid

H 2 0 , however viscous or h e a v y or thick, w a t e r ?

mix

containing

(Is e v e r y t h i n g water

after all?) U p h o l d e r s of CL c a n still avail themselves of a number of solutions. Chief among them is arbitrarily to define those p r e d i c a t e s so as to block the unwelcome conclusions. A m o u n t a i n , e.g., will

be a n e a r t h e n h e i g h t of

at

least

985 yards a n d such

that...

Thus,

'mountain' stops being a n o b s e r v a t i o n term we learn by o s t e n -

sion.

(Or take Quine's w a y out in "What Price B i v a l e n c e ? " , WPB

short:

'mountain' used to be a n o b s e r v a t i o n term, but then w e

tunately

didn't know a b o u t m a t h e m a t i c a l

for for-

induction or at least

re-

frained from applying it; w h e n a f t e r w a r d s we apply it, the term has become a theoretical one we are unable to learn by o s t e n s i o n , w h i c h frees

us

from

the

unwanted

result

of

every

little

mound

being

m o u n t a i n and every sand g r a i n being a m o u n d . But then how is

a

lan-

guage learning possible at all? For, w h e n learning the language we, according

to that view, came to believe a n a l y t i c a l l y

false

senten-

ces; w h e n we then w a i v e them, nothing of what we had learnt can jus tifiably remain.) F u r t h e r m o r e , o n those terms thus becoming

theore-

tical ones noone can learn by ostension, they no longer can be a m e nable to comparative constructions.

(If to be tall is to m e a s u r e at

least 178.45201cm from foot to head, them nobody is taller than any one else. ) C o n s i d e r a t i o n s of that k i n d lead us to at the very least conclude

that

some

things

b o t h have and

lack

those properties,

asserting that they have them is in some u t t e r a n c e - c o n t e x t s tically more relevant than d e n y i n g it, and conversely. are

both

clever

and

foolish;

sometimes

even

if

pragma-

(Some people

it b o t h rains and

rain, and so on.) Besides, for a number of such predicates

doesn't (perhaps

even for all of them) we can set up a c h a i n of steps leading by m a thematical

induction to the conclusion that every entity

(at least

428 w i t h i n a very large field of entities) has the property under

con-

sideration. Solutions available w i t h o u t injuring CL invariably bring about (more or less) unpalatable This paper's classical those

results.

aim is not to explore or c r i t i c i z e

in detail

solutions, but to set up a nonclassical a p p r o a c h

such

(one of

'fuzzy and m u l t i v a l u e d a l t e r n a t i v e s . . . h o w e v e r unlovely'

e v e n Q u i n e himself in W P B v i e w s as w o r t h y of serious

that

consideration).

The fuzzy approaches set up and w o r k e d u p o n of late (since a 1965 pioneer paper by Lofti Zadeh) have b r o u g h t about a r e n e w e d need for a rigorous, formal treatment of d i a l e c t i c a l a r g u m e n t s . As u n d e r s t o o d a n d cultivated, fuzzy-set theories a b a n d o n

excluded-mid-

dle (and n o n - c o n t r a d i c t i o n ) , thus m a n a g i n g to side-step ry

conclusions.

On

the

other

hand,

the

apparently

initially

contradicto

more

intuitive

kind of a p p r o a c h the p r e s e n t paper a d v o c a t e s favours treating

fuz-

ziness in such a w a y that b o t h n o n c o n t r a d i c t i o n and e x c l u d e d m i d d l e are some

kept

as

valid principles,

contradictory

but the

conclusions

as

price

true.

If,

is p a i d of e.g.,

endorsing

some

region

is

far less fertile t h a n others while at the same time being up to a point fertile, then we commonly say that it is neither fertile barren, whence it follows that it b o t h is and is not fertile. the

more

classically

instead a d j u d i c a t e

minded

"official"

fuzzy-set

theorists

is that in such a case we c a n neither

nor What

would

say

that

it is fertile nor say that it is not fertile: we c o u l d n ' t say anything at all a b o u t its fertility: only if a r e g i o n were

altogether

fertile,

i.e. such that no other region w a s m o r e fertile, could we

say that

it was fertile; all that strikes me as strongly

counter-

intuitive and has of course g i v e n rise to serious o b j e c t i o n s against prospects of

fuzzy

scientific problems; fraught

with

no

approaches

to

the formal

such

cope

both

linguistic

and

t r e a t m e n t s k e t c h e d h e r e i n below

ineffableness

quite the contrary. The price

with

and

maximalist

is

consequences,

it has to pay, though,

is

(over

and

above the m e r e a c c e p t a n c e of true c o n t r a d i c t i o n s , o n its o w n an unfair

price

according

to p r o b a b l y m o s t people as have b e e n

in CL) w h a t Kitcher w o u l d call

1

steeped

'hyperbolism , viz.: admitting

that

w h a t e v e r is not wholly poor is rich, a n d conversely --and so on for every other pair of c o m p l e m e n t a r y p r o p e r t i e s . The rule that generalizes s u c h inferences I call

'the taking-up rule':

completely the case that p" to conclude

"not-p".

from "It's not

429 S e c t . 2 . - S k e t c h i n g o u t a F o r m a l A c c o u n t of t h o s e

Ideas

In t h i s S e c t i o n I s k e t c h o u t the s e m a n t i c a l l y d e f i n e d f i r s t o r d e r p r e d i c a t e c a l c u l u s A r g w h i c h c a n b e u s e d for s e t t i n g u p f u z z y consistent

set-theories

capturing

the

ideas

set

forth

para-

above.

(My

n o t a t i o n c o n v e n t i o n s a r e ä la C h u r c h : a d o t w r i t t e n i m m e d i a t e l y

af-

ter a f u n c t o r s t a n d s for a left p a r e n t h e s i s w i t h its m a t e a s far to the r i g h t a s p o s s i b l e . R e m a i n i n g a m b i g u i t i e s a r e d i s p e l l e d ting

associa-

leftwards.)

W e t a k e the

(standard) r e a l i n t e r v a l

(0,0·

any

t h a t O s r s l , let the t h r e e f o l l o w i n g p a i r s b e c a l l e d {r,2}, {r,3}, {r,4}. W e n o w i n t r o d u c e a n o r d e r t h e n {r,2} perreals

s {r f 3}

£ {r,4 } < {r',2}

h as {0,3}

s h s { 1,3}

w h e r e r' = ( i )

1/lo

r

such

hyperreals:

S l i k e t h i s : if r Px] by (Vx:Sx)[Px], for example. Recent linguistic, mathematical, and logical investigations of quantification all indicate important reasons to think that this is not just a handy option, to be used when convenient, but that we should consider restricted quantification as fundamental, and unrestricted quantification a variant which is sometimes available. There are several considerations. (1) The syntax of restricted quantification more nearly matches that of natural language. For example 'all Serbs are polite' can be analyzed as [[all Serbs]Np[are politely] g, but not as, say, [[all]q[Serbs are polite]g]g. (2) Using restricted quantification, we can enlarge our logical vocabulary to include quantifiers like 'most', 'few', 'nearly all', 'all but seven', 'at least three', 'the', etc., which can then be more adequately treated. In contrast, there is no way to capture the sense of 'most Serbs are polite' with unrestricted quantification; there is no appropriate way to complete the sentence 'most things are such that ...' so that it will mean that most Serbs are polite. More specifically, if we introduce y to mean most, there is no sentential connective that can replace the question mark in (yx)[Sx ? Px] to get the effect of the sentence 'most Serbs are polite'. On the other hand, in the restricted formula (yx:Sx)[Px] no connective is needed. (This observation only holds up, of course, if we can supply an appropriate semantics for the re-

443 s t r i c t e d formula. (3)

W e turn to this next.)

W e get a u n i f o r m semantics for

'three',

'the',

'both',

the w o r k of M o n t a g u e

'most', etc.

'all',

'all b u t

three',

S u c h a semantics derives

from

(1973), and distinct b u t equivalent versions

are g i v e n in Barwise and C o o p e r

(1981) and B r o w n (1984).

latter v e r s i o n is a bit easier to explain.

The

With each quantifier Q

w e a s s o c i a t e a q u a n t i f i c a t i o n a l function fq in such a w a y that, for any subset σ of the domain D, fg(o) is a family of subsets of σ. If a is the set of all Serbs, for example, and Q is μ (i.e. m o s t ) , then the a p p r o p r i a t e v a l u e for ίμ(σ) is the family of all those sets of Serbs that count as constituting m o s t of the Serbs.

If π

is the set of all p o l i t e b e i n g s , then the semantics has the formula (ux:Sx)[Px] true if and only if σ η π 6 ί^(σ), i.e. if a n d only if the Serbs that are p o l i t e constitute m o s t of the Serbs. account is applied, m u t a t i s m u t a n d i s , tor any other

The same

quantifier.

For the familiar quantifiers, w e find that f ν ( σ ) is just {σ}, so all Serbs are p o l i t e if and only if the Serbs w h o are polite constitute the w h o l e set σ; a n d f 3 ( o ) is the family of all n o n - e m p t y subsets of σ, so some Serbs are p o l i t e if and only if the set of Serbs w h o are p o l i t e is n o n - e m p t y .

These are surely the correct

truth conditions for such sentences. (4)

We get u s e f u l a l g e b r a i c closure proprties in the class of

quantifiers.

For one thing, every quantifier w i l l h a v e a dual and

a contradictory.

The q u a n t i f i c a t i o n a l f u n c t i o n a s s o c i a t e d w i t h the

contradictory of Q, for example, w i l l b e just the relative m e n t of the q u a n t i f i c a t i o n a l f u n c t i o n for Q itself.

comple-

Moreover,

for

any pair of quantifiers, there is a conjunctive c o m p o u n d w h i c h acts as a single quantifier, as w h e n

'at least three' a n d 'at m o s t

three' combine in 'exactly three'. pounds

So, for example, w e get com-

'at least three and at m o s t six' and 'a few and nearly all'.

The quantificational f u n c t i o n for such a c o m p o u n d is just the i n t e r s e c t i o n of the functions for the separate But only for very special cases

quantifiers.

(most n o t a b l y for V and 3, and

perhaps also for quantifiers definable in terms of these) can w e provide rules of inference in anything like the "natural style of m a t c h e d introduction and exploitation rules

deduction"

connecting

444 q u a n t i f i e d formulas to closely r e l a t e d u n q u a n t i f i e d formulas.

Re-

v e r t i n g for a m o m e n t to the m o r e familiar u n r e s t r i c t e d style of quantification, w e are u s e d to seeing n a t u r a l d e d u c t i o n rules ς}χφχ

/.'.

Φ[ί/χ]

Φ[ί/χ]

Exploitation

Qx$x

Introduction

/.".

in w h i c h the defining feature m a y b e t a k e n to b e that w e are enabled to replace w o r k w i t h q u a n t i f i e d formulas b y w o r k w i t h u n q u a n t i f i e d instances.

their

If n a t u r a l d e d u c t i o n rules, thus u n d e r -

stood, didn't incorporate any further r e s t r i c t i o n s , then as a m a t t e r of n e c e s s i t y w e couldn't h a v e m o r e than one q u a n t i f i e r o b e y e d such rules.

that

If two quantifiers b o t h o b e y e d rules as simple

as these, they w o u l d b e p r o v a b l y equivalent. Q i x i x to C2, and Cx?tC2. ready g e t t i n g m o r e

Clearly things are al-

complex.

But for the quantifier

'exactly two', things get w o r s e still. W e

w i l l w a n t e x p l o i t a t i o n rules similar to those for

'at least two',

b u t w e w i l l also w a n t another ancillary rule w h i c h allows us to infer that (Vx)[Φχ => x=ci ν x=C2Ü.

For the corresponding

introduc-

tion rule, w e w o u l d n o w n e e d four p r e m i s s e s :