Iovan Drehe

Argumentation virtue theory is a new field in argumentation studies. As in the case of virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, the study of virtue argumentation draws its inspiration from the works of Aristotle. First, I discuss the specifics of the argumentational virtues and suggest that they have an instrumental nature, modeled on the relation between the Aristotelian intellectual virtue of ‘practical wisdom’ and the moral virtues. Then, inspired by Aristotle’s discussion of akrasia, I suggest that a theory of fallacy in argumentation virtue theory can be built upon the concept of ‘incontinence’.

The purpose of this paper is to give an account and a rational reconstruction of the heuristic advice provided by Aristotle in the Topics and Prior Analytics in regard to the difficulty or ease of strategic planning in the context of a dialectical dialogue. The general idea is that a Questioner can foresee what his refutational syllogism would have to look like given the character of the thesis defended by the Answerer, and therefore plan accordingly. A rational reconstruction of this advice will be attempted from three perspectives: strategic planning based on the acceptability of Answerer’s thesis, strategic planning based on the predicational form of the thesis, strategic planning based on the logical form of the thesis. In addition, we will provide an illustration of the potential of this heuristic advice as we apply it to the interpretation of a fragment from Plato, presuming that, in a similar way, a reading of this kind might be more generally applicable in the interpretation of the Platonic dialogues.

The main purpose of this essay is to spread some light upon a particular problem situated at the crossroads between the problem regarding paradoxes and the philosophy of Aristotle. Along the way I will try to show that in some cases the Stagirite is solving the aporias, primitive forms of paradoxes that can be found in presocratic and classical Greek philosophy, by using his own method of dialectic. The main instrument of this endeavor is to seek out conceptual distinctions and to find the different meanings of certain words that can lead the thinker into an aporetic state of mind. Another way to solve an aporia is to demonstrate that one part of the contradiction, in which the paradox actually consists of, is true or false, this way validating or invalidating the other. This is what is called a refutation. I have put forward a minimal list of possibilities of refuting the weak part of a contradiction, mainly based on the relations found in the square of opposition.