Page 148 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 148
What Do We Know about the World?
argumentation worker gets put in the mix with that of so many other
fields, all of which have a better known history and higher recognition
value, makes it hard for the public, and education programmers and ad-
ministrators, to appreciate the fact that argumentation work constitutes
a unique and important field of research and teaching. We need to show
both the academic and the non-academic worlds that we have an origi-
nal and valuable contribution to make. I expect there will be a number
of different ways we can make our presence felt and appreciated. This
paper outlines the suggestion that we promote ourselves through the
development of what may (tentatively) be called argumentation profiles.
2. Argumentation Profiles
An argumentation profile is a description or characterization of
argumentation behaviour over time as exhibited by an argumentation
agent – an individual or a group, party, or collective that makes and
takes responsibility for arguments.
How can argumentation profiles be of social value? Argumenta-
tion-behaviour is important for democracy: we want to elect people who
will not only argue well, but also argue openly, fairly, and productively.
Past argumentation-behaviour encapsulated in an argumentation pro-
file may be considered a predictor of future argumentation-behaviour.
Argumentation profiles may also be a window through which we
can come to understand an argument agent’s true political attitudes.
Richard Weaver, in his 1952 work, The Ethics of Rhetoric (55) wrote that
“[a] reasoner reveals his philosophical position by the source of argu-
ments which appears most often in his major premise because the major
premise tells us how he is thinking about the world” and that “a man’s
method of argument is a truer index in his beliefs than is an explicit pro-
fession of principles” (58). In other words, we can learn something about
a person’s political beliefs and deep-seated attitudes by looking at the re-
cord of his or her argumentation.2
Weaver maintained that the eighteenth century political theorist,
Edmund Burke, whom we recall as a conservative, mostly used the ar-
gument from circumstance in his speeches and writings, a kind of argu-
ment more appropriate to expediency and liberal politics than to con-
servatism. In contrast he associates the argument from genus with Abra-
ham Lincoln, a kind of argument usually associated with conservatism
2 Weaver mentions four kinds of arguments: (i) the argument from genus or definition, (ii) similitude
arguments, (iii) the argument from consequences, and (iv) the argument from circumstance.
argumentation worker gets put in the mix with that of so many other
fields, all of which have a better known history and higher recognition
value, makes it hard for the public, and education programmers and ad-
ministrators, to appreciate the fact that argumentation work constitutes
a unique and important field of research and teaching. We need to show
both the academic and the non-academic worlds that we have an origi-
nal and valuable contribution to make. I expect there will be a number
of different ways we can make our presence felt and appreciated. This
paper outlines the suggestion that we promote ourselves through the
development of what may (tentatively) be called argumentation profiles.
2. Argumentation Profiles
An argumentation profile is a description or characterization of
argumentation behaviour over time as exhibited by an argumentation
agent – an individual or a group, party, or collective that makes and
takes responsibility for arguments.
How can argumentation profiles be of social value? Argumenta-
tion-behaviour is important for democracy: we want to elect people who
will not only argue well, but also argue openly, fairly, and productively.
Past argumentation-behaviour encapsulated in an argumentation pro-
file may be considered a predictor of future argumentation-behaviour.
Argumentation profiles may also be a window through which we
can come to understand an argument agent’s true political attitudes.
Richard Weaver, in his 1952 work, The Ethics of Rhetoric (55) wrote that
“[a] reasoner reveals his philosophical position by the source of argu-
ments which appears most often in his major premise because the major
premise tells us how he is thinking about the world” and that “a man’s
method of argument is a truer index in his beliefs than is an explicit pro-
fession of principles” (58). In other words, we can learn something about
a person’s political beliefs and deep-seated attitudes by looking at the re-
cord of his or her argumentation.2
Weaver maintained that the eighteenth century political theorist,
Edmund Burke, whom we recall as a conservative, mostly used the ar-
gument from circumstance in his speeches and writings, a kind of argu-
ment more appropriate to expediency and liberal politics than to con-
servatism. In contrast he associates the argument from genus with Abra-
ham Lincoln, a kind of argument usually associated with conservatism
2 Weaver mentions four kinds of arguments: (i) the argument from genus or definition, (ii) similitude
arguments, (iii) the argument from consequences, and (iv) the argument from circumstance.
