José A. Gascón

Aunque el concepto de falacia es ampliamente utilizado tanto dentro como fuera de la filosofía, también ha sido criticado recientemente por varios autores. En este artículo me uno a esas voces críticas con el objetivo de presentar varias razones para abandonar el concepto de falacia en teoría de la argumentación. Argumentaré que la noción de falacia está intrínsecamente unida a las taxonomías de falacias, y tales taxonomías resultan ser muy deficientes para distinguir argumentos genuinamente defectuosos. Los esquemas argumentativos falaces identifican tanto buenos como malos argumentos, de modo que carece de sentido mantener tales esquemas o tipos de argumentos en las clasificaciones de falacias. En los casos en los que, en lugar de basarse exclusivamente en los esquemas argumentativos, se establecen criterios pragmáticos y contextuales que identifican inequívocamente argumentos incorrectos, tales criterios están formulados en términos evaluativos, cuya aplicación no es directa e indiscutible. En consecuencia, las etiquetas de falacias no proporcionan un fundamento teórico para distinguir entre buenos y malos argumentos y tampoco desempeñan ningún papel en nuestras evaluaciones cotidianas de argumentos, que se basan más bien en apreciaciones de aspectos del contexto para cada argumento concreto. Finalmente, responderé a la objeción de que, aunque el concepto de falacia pueda ser teóricamente problemático, la enseñanza de las falacias resulta útil para el desarrollo de las habilidades argumentativas.

During the last decades several studies in cognitive psychology have shown that many of our actions do not depend on the reasons that we adduce afterwards, when we have to account for them. Our decisions seem to be often influenced by normatively or explanatorily irrelevant features of the environment of which we are not aware, and the reasons we offer for those decisions are a posteriori rationalisations. But exactly what reasons has the psychological research uncovered? In philosophy, a distinction has been commonly made between normative and motivating reasons: normative reasons make an action right, whereas motivating reasons explain our behaviour. Recently, Maria Alvarez has argued that, apart from normative (or justifying) reasons, we should further distinguish between motivating and explanatory reasons. We have, then, three kinds of reasons, and it is not clear which of them have been revealed as the real reasons for our actions by the psychological research. The answer we give to this question will have important implications both for the validity of our classifications of reasons and for our understanding of human action.

The study of the problem of argumentative bullshit can be useful to shed some light on the practice of argumentation and the essence of argumentative virtues. Since argumentative bullshit is arguably the greatest threat to argumentation, and it is characterised by an indifference to the constitutive value of argumentation (supporting a claim with reasons), argumentative virtue could be understood as the opposite to that indifference: caring about the practice of argumentation and being disposed to sustain and improve it through their participation in it. Whoever produces argumentative bullshit cares more about certain external ends (reputation, political goals, making fun…) than about argumentative practice, whereas virtuous arguers never lose sight of the value of the argumentative practice. This suggests a MacIntyrean conception of the practice of argumentation, according to which argumentation is a practice with internal goods than can only be recognised and achieved through participation in it, while argumentative virtues are those traits conducive to the appreciation and achievement of argumentative goods.

The pragma-dialectical research program begins with a philosophical estate, in which a conception of reasonableness is offered that must serve as ground for the theoretical estate. Pragma-dialectics has produced many important insights in the theoretical estate, including the ideal model and the rules for critical discussions. However, here I will argue that the conception of reasonableness that the pragma-dialecticians adopt in the philosophical estate, based on anti-dogmatism, assumption of fallibilism and willingness to engage in critical discussion, is too narrow to support the whole system of pragma-dialectical rules. What the philosophical estate requires is a broad and rich conception of excellent performance in argumentative practice, which then the rules of the critical discussion are intended to capture systematically in the theoretical estate. In my view, a virtue approach to argumentation is the ideal framework for such a philosophical ground. Virtues such as intellectual empathy, intellectual honesty, faith in reason, or recognition of reliable authority, point towards aspects of a philosophical conception of excellent arguing that are absent in the pragma-dialectical view of reasonableness. Finally, I will argue that what pragma-dialecticians call “second-order conditions” for a critical discussion are better understood as minimal argumentative virtue, a basic degree of virtue that arguers are required to possess in order to be prepared to participate in a fruitful critical discussion. The possession of such a basic degree of argumentative virtue is, I believe, what we mean when we characterise someone as reasonable.

Los argumentos y las explicaciones son dos tipos de discurso que no siempre han sido distinguidos cabalmente. En la actualidad, tanto en la pedagogía de la ciencia como en los estudios de la argumentación, se ha insistido en la necesidad de diferenciarlos para captar adecuadamente la naturaleza de las explicaciones y los argumentos. Es en la teoría de la argumentación donde más explícitamente se han propuesto criterios de demarcación entre ambos. Sin embargo, aquí argumentaré que los criterios que habitualmente se usan en la teoría de la argumentación para distinguir entre un argumento y una explicación (lo que llamo la “distinción estándar”) adolecen de varios problemas. Por un lado, en varios casos relevantes los criterios no proporcionan ninguna orientación o arrojan resultados cuestionables. Por otro lado, los criterios de distinción se han limitado al ámbito de la argumentación teórica y han ignorado las particularidades del ámbito práctico.

The international community has not been able to agree on a definition of “terrorism,” which has been a controversial term for decades. In order to understand the controversy, here the meaning of “terrorism” is analysed by means of the inferentialist framework developed by Robert Brandom. It will be shown that there is wide agreement about (at least some of) the consequences of application of the term, whereas the conditions of application are precisely what is at issue. Three consequences of application will be distinguished: epistemic, evaluative, and programmatic. Evaluative and programmatic consequences of application of the term “terrorism” are widespread and very serious, even in the absence of a precise definition, and that explains why the conditions of application are a controversial matter. In the end, the controversy is best understood as a clash of interests regarding when the consequences of the term should apply.

A virtue approach to argumentation would focus on the arguers’ character rather than the arguments. Therefore, it must be explained how good arguments relate to virtuous arguers. This article focus on this issue and attempts to provide an answer to the question: Could a bad arguer produce a good argument? It is argued that, besides the usual logical, dialectical, and rhetorical standards, a virtuously produced good argument must meet two additional requirements: the arguer must be in a specific state of mind, and the argument must be broadly conceived of as an argumentative interaction and thus excel from every perspective.

Hilary Kornblith has criticised reasons-based approaches to epistemic justification on the basis of psychological research that shows that reflection is unreliable. Human beings, it seems, are not very good at identifying our own cognitive processes and the causes of our beliefs. In this article I defend a conception of reasons that takes those empirical findings into account and can avoid Kornblith’s objections. Reasons, according to this account, are not to be identified with the causes of our beliefs and are useful first and foremost in argumentation instead of reflection.

Virtuous arguers are expected to manifest virtues such as intellectual humility and open-mindedness, but from such traits the quality of arguments does not immediately follow. However, it also seems implausible that a virtuous arguer can systematically put forward bad arguments. How could virtue argumentation theory combine both insights? The solution, I argue, lies in an analogy with virtue epistemology: considering both responsibilist and reliabilist virtues gives us a fuller picture of the virtuous arguer.

Is a virtue approach in argumentation possible without committing the ad hominem fallacy? My answer is affirmative, provided that the object study of our theory is well delimited. My proposal is that a theory of argumentative virtue should not focus on argument appraisal, as has been assumed, but on those traits that make an individual achieve excellence in argumentative practices. An agent-based approach in argumentation should be developed, not in order to find better grounds for argument appraisal, but to gain insight into argumentative habits and excellence. This way we can benefit from what a virtue argumentation theory really has to offer.