•  10
    Norms and Practices of Public Argumentation
    Argumentation 38 (1): 1-5. 2024.
  •  24
    Norms of Public Argumentation and the Ideals of Correctness and Participation
    with Frank Zenker, B. Cepollaro, A. Gâţă, M. Hinton, C. G. King, B. Larson, M. Lewiński, C. Lumer, S. Oswald, M. Pichlak, B. D. Scott, M. Urbański, and J. H. M. Wagemans
    Argumentation 38 (1): 7-40. 2024.
    Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principl…Read more
  •  39
    The Burden of Criticism: Consequences of Taking a Critical Stance
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Argumentation 27 (2): 201-224. 2013.
    Some critical reactions hardly give clues to the arguer as to how to respond to them convincingly. Other critical reactions convey some or even all of the considerations that make the critic critical of the arguer’s position and direct the arguer to defuse or to at least contend with them. First, an explication of the notion of a critical reaction will be provided, zooming in on the degree of “directiveness” that a critical reaction displays. Second, it will be examined whether there are normati…Read more
  •  4
    How to understand and assess arguments in which the popularity of an opinion is put forward as a reason to accept that opinion? There exist widely diverging views on how to analyse and evaluate such arguments from popularity. First, I define the concept of an argument from popularity, and show that typical appeals to the popularity of a policy are not genuine arguments from popularity. Second, I acknowledge the importance of some recent probability-based accounts according to which some argument…Read more
  •  13
    Pressure and Argumentation in Public Controversies
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Informal Logic 39 (3): 205-227. 2019.
    When can exerting pressure in a public controversy promote reasonable outcomes, and when is it rather a hindrance? We show how negotiation and persuasion dialogue can be intertwined. Then, we examine in what ways one can in a public controversy exert pressure on others through sanctions or rewards. Finally, we discuss from the viewpoints of persuasion and negotiation whether and, if so, how pressure hinders the achievement of a reasonable outcome.
  •  21
    Fair and unfair strategies in public controversies
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Journal of Argumentation in Context 5 (3): 315-347. 2016.
    Contemporary theory of argumentation offers many insights about the ways in which, in the context of a public controversy, arguers should ideally present their arguments and criticize those of their opponents. We also know that in practice not all works out according to the ideal patterns: numerous kinds of derailments are an object of study for argumentation theorists. But how about the use of unfairstrategiesvis-à-vis one’s opponents? What if it is not a matter of occasional derailments but of…Read more
  •  39
    In the quagmire of quibbles: a dialectical exploration
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Synthese 198 (4): 3459-3476. 2019.
    Criticism may degenerate into quibbling or nitpicking. How can discussants keep quibblers under control? In the paper we investigate cases in which a battle about words replaces a discussion of the matters that are actually at issue as well as cases in which a battle about minor objections replaces a discussion of the major issues. We survey some lines of discussion dealing with these situations in profiles of dialogue.
  •  28
    That’s no argument! The dialectic of non-argumentation
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Synthese 192 (4): 1173-1197. 2015.
    What if in discussion the critic refuses to recognize an emotionally expressed argument of her interlocutor as an argument, accusing him of having presented no argument at all. In this paper, we shall deal with this reproach, which taken literally amounts to a charge of having committed a fallacy of non-argumentation. As such it is a very strong, if not the ultimate, criticism, which even carries the risk of abandonment of the discussion and can, therefore, not be made without burdening oneself …Read more
  •  29
    The Role of Argument in Negotiation
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Argumentation 32 (4): 549-567. 2018.
    The purpose of this paper is to show the pervasive, though often implicit, role of arguments in negotiation dialogue. This holds even for negotiations that start from a difference of interest such as mere bargaining through offers and counteroffers. But it certainly holds for negotiations that try to settle a difference of opinion on policy issues. It will be demonstrated how a series of offers and counteroffers in a negotiation dialogue contains a reconstructible series of implicit persuasion d…Read more
  •  27
    Splitting a Difference of Opinion: The Shift to Negotiation
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Argumentation 32 (3): 329-350. 2018.
    Negotiation is not only used to settle differences of interest but also to settle differences of opinion. Discussants who are unable to resolve their difference about the objective worth of a policy or action proposal may be willing to abandon their attempts to convince the other and search instead for a compromise that would, for each of them, though only a second choice yet be preferable to a lasting conflict. Our questions are: First, when is it sensible to enter into negotiations and when wo…Read more
  •  34
    Mark Vorobej (2006): A Theory of Argument (review)
    Argumentation 23 (2): 285-290. 2009.
  •  23
    Confrontation and Ridicule
    Informal Logic 28 (4): 295-314. 2008.
    Ridicule can be used in order to create concurrence as well as to en-hance antagonism. This paper deals with ridicule that is used by a critic when he is responding to a standpoint or to a reason advanced in support of a standpoint. Ridicule profits from humor’s good repu-tation, and correctly so, even when it is used in argumentative contexts. However, ridicule can be harmful to a discussion. This paper will deal with ridicule from the perspective of strategic maneuvering between the individual…Read more
  •  47
    The Burden of Criticism: Consequences of Taking a Critical Stance
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Argumentation 27 (2): 201-224. 2013.
    Some critical reactions hardly give clues to the arguer as to how to respond to them convincingly. Other critical reactions convey some or even all of the considerations that make the critic critical of the arguer’s position and direct the arguer to defuse or to at least contend with them. First, an explication of the notion of a critical reaction will be provided, zooming in on the degree of “directiveness” that a critical reaction displays. Second, it will be examined whether there are normati…Read more
  •  21
    The burden of criticism
    with Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Argumentation 27 (2): 201-224. 2013.
    Some critical reactions hardly give clues to the arguer as to how to respond to them convinc-ingly. Other critical reactions convey some or even all of the considerations that make the critic critical of the arguer’s position and direct the arguer to defuse or to at least contend with them. First, an explication of the notion of a critical reaction will be provided, zooming in on the degree of ‘directiveness’ that a critical reaction displays. Second, it will be examined whether and to what exte…Read more
  •  40
    Argument Schemes from the Point of View of Hamblin’s Dialectic
    Informal Logic 31 (4): 344-366. 2011.
    This paper aims at a normative account of non-deductive argumentation schemes in the spirit of Hamblin’s dialectical philosophy. First, three principles are presented that characterize Hamblin’s dialectical stance. Second, argumentation schemes, which have hardly been examined in Hamblin’s book Fallacies, shall be dealt with by applying these principles, taking an argumentation scheme from authority as the leading example. Third, a formal dialectical system, along the lines indicated by Hamblin,…Read more
  •  57
    That’s no argument! The dialectic of non-argumentation
    with Erik Krabbe
    Synthese 192 (4): 1173-1197. 2015.
    What if in discussion the critic refuses to recognize an emotionally expressed argument of her interlocutor as an argument, accusing him of having presented no argument at all. In this paper, we shall deal with this reproach, which taken literally amounts to a charge of having committed a fallacy of non-argumentation. As such it is a very strong, if not the ultimate, criticism, which even carries the risk of abandonment of the discussion and can, therefore, not be made without burdening oneself …Read more
  •  110
    One-sided arguments
    Synthese 154 (2): 307-327. 2007.
    When is an argument to be called one-sided? When is putting forward such an argument fallacious? How can we develop a model for critical discussion, such that a fallaciously one-sided argument corresponds to a violation of a discussion rule? These issues are dealt with within ‘the limits of the dialogue model of argument’ by specifying a type of persuasion dialogue in which an arguer can offer complex arguments to anticipate particular responses by a critic.
  •  36
    Criticism in Need of Clarification
    Argumentation 28 (4): 401-423. 2014.
    It furthers the dialectic when the opponent is clear about what motivates and underlies her critical stance, even if she does not adopt an opposite standpoint, but merely doubts the proponent’s opinion. Thus, there is some kind of burden of criticism. In some situations, there should an obligation for the opponent to offer explanatory counterconsiderations, if requested, whereas in others, there is no real dialectical obligation, but a mere responsibility for the opponent to cooperate by providi…Read more
  •  33
    How does the analysis and evaluation of argumentation depend on the dialogue type in which the argumentation has been put forward? This paper focuses on argumentative bluff in eristic discussion. Argumentation cannot be presented without conveying the pretence that it is dialectically reasonable, as well as, at least to some degree, rhetorically effective. Within eristic discussion it can be profitable to engage in bluff with respect to such claims. However, it will be argued that such bluffing …Read more
  •  31
    A pragma-dialectical response to objectivist epistemic challenges
    with Bart Garssen
    Informal Logic 30 (2): 122-141. 2010.
    The epistemologists Biro and Siegel have raised two objections against the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. According to the first objection the pragma-dialectical theory is not genuinely normative. According to the second objection the rejection of justificationism by pragma-dialecticians is unwarranted: they reject justificationism prematurely and they are not consistent in accepting some arguments (‘justifications’) as sound. The first objection is based on what we regard as the …Read more