Daniel Mejía

The subject of this dissertation is the argumentative analysis of political discourse. My general purpose is to argue in favor of a series of concepts that I consider useful for conducting analyses of certain argumentative situations typical of the political domain. Specifically, as an alternative to dominant perspectives of political deliberation, I argue in favor of a series of rhetorical perspectives of political controversy, which I ultimately apply in the discussion of a case that took place in Colombia in 2020. That is, a controversy about how to define certain events of violence, whether as a massacre or as a collective homicide. I proceed here in a “deductive” manner. That is, I start from the general, which is the meta-theory of argumentation, towards the particular, which is the case analysis. In the first chapter I introduce perspectivism as a meta-theory that is helpful in mapping the different frameworks that contemporary argumentation theory offers to analyze political argumentation. In chapter two I use the (meta) framework of perspectivism to describe the common and dominant model in different perspectives on argumentation: political epistemology, civic and deliberative rhetoric, pragma-dialectics, political discourse analysis, and civic logic. Also, I explain the close relationship between what I call the “dominant model of political deliberation” and different notions of disagreement, which are taken as descriptions of the argumentative situation in the political domain. In the third chapter I discuss the rhetorical perspectives that I use as an alternative to the model of political deliberation. From their reflections, I elaborate on the ideas that I take as central to my understanding of political argumentation and its analysis, namely: the revitalization of the epideictic genre, the need to consider ethos and pathos as legitimate means of persuasion, attention to rhetorical relations and the particularity of political argument, and notions of difference such as controversy, polemics, and incompatibility. In chapter four I discuss in detail the main notions mentioned earlier that are useful for understanding argumentative situations in the political domain. Thus, I answer three main issues; what is (genuine) disagreement, what is deep disagreement, and what is controversy/polemics. In the fifth chapter I develop the analysis of the controversy over how to define events of violence in Colombia. In the conclusion I discuss the difficulties of using the model of political deliberation and notions of disagreement to deal with the case at hand.

El propósito de este artículo es explicar la acción colectiva que realizan las organizaciones de movimientos sociales mediante procesos de enmarcado entendidos como el resultado de un diálogo deliberativo. Para lograrlo, el texto se divide en cuatro apartados: en el primero se introduce la teoría del enmarcado de los estudios sobre movimientos sociales. En el segundo se pasa revista sobre distintas explicaciones a propósito de la creación de un marco de acción colectiva; en el tercero se apela a la caracterización de diálogo deliberativo de Walton y Krabbe y al esquema de razonamiento práctico de Fairclough y Fairclough, para trazar una relación entre el enmarcado de acción colectiva y aquel diálogo. En el último, se concluye que la acción colectiva de los activistas que se involucran en los procesos de enmarcado puede comprenderse como una acción colectiva deliberada.

One of the positive ways in which argumentation can improve political thinking is through providing definitions. We can establish definitions through argumentation, filtering out ideas that are irrelevant or unacceptable, and collecting features that offer a comprehensive understanding of a crucial concept. In this paper, we use argumentation to illuminate the concept of extremism. We proceed in this way: first, we discuss the relationship between argumentation and definitions. Second, we look at the current state of affairs by exploring contemporary definitions of “extremism” and by identifying several problems in the definition literature. Third, we assume the burden of proof in providing a definition that avoids problems we have identified. Fourth, we discuss other closely-associated concepts and their definitions—terrorism, radicalism, and fundamentalism, explaining how these concepts are distinct from our definition of extremism.

This article synthesizes the results of several interviews with argumentation scholars from across the American continents to address three questions regarding the connections in argumentation studies between North and South/Central America: “What motivated the study of argumentation in the Americas?” “What commonalities, if any, exist in argumentation studies across the Americas?” and “What should the future of argumentation studies in the Americas look like?” Using these interviews in combination with existing textual sources, the article also provides motivated suggestions for directions for the future of the community in the field.

How a theory (or a part thereof) begins affects how it develops, and so we start at the roots of the Informal Logic discussions over the Principle of Charity and look at the contributions made in the exchanges between Ralph Johnson (1981) and Trudy Govier (1981). As valuable as the insights of these two theorists are, they include two assumptions that we find problematic. Johnson organizes his account of Charity by drawing from Michael Scriven’s (1976) treatment and identifying the issue as finding the “best possible interpretation.” This raises the serious question of whose terms are used in making such a best interpretation. Or, best for whom? In the etic/emic debate surrounding the anthropological approach to argument, this is an important question to address. Govier disagrees with Johnson and approaches the issue from the direction of determining the best argument. The assumption here is that a common understanding of “argument” will underly all situations in which charity is required. Grounding our understanding of Charity in Aristotle’s discussion of goodwill (eunoia) in the Rhetoric, we ask what charity must look like in an emic environment characterizing so much cross-cultural argumentation; and we do so in relation to the problem of deep disagreement as introduced by Robert Fogelin (1985/2005) and developed by cross-cultural argumentation scholars.

This paper questions the use of the argumentative reconstruction technique as a criterion for identifying arguments. To perform this, I stress a type of argument that appeals to taste. I proceed as follows: first, I relate such a technique to the ways in which pragma-dialectics and informal logic have defined argumentation. Second, I present some borderline cases to reconstruction technique such as argumentation through directives, expressives and commissives speech acts, narrative argumentation, and visual argumentation. Third, I add to these cases that of an argumentation that appeals to taste by analyzing a dialogue. Fourth, I conclude the article by offering reasons to study cases such as the one presented and by introducing some problems derived from the present study.