Page 138 - Žagar, Igor Ž. 2021. Four Critical Essays on Argumentation. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 138
four critical essays on argumentation
The ‘violations of these ten rules’ refer to pragma-dialectical ten rules
for critical discussion that Reisigl and Wodak introduce on the previous
page. But these ten rules for ‘rational arguing’ as Reisigl and Wodak call
them are not valid just for ‘persuasive, manipulative, discursive legitima-
tion of racist, ethnicist, sexist and other forms of discrimination’, but for
every form of discussion that aims at resolving the difference of opinion in
a rational way by means of critical discussion. Racist, ethnicist, sexist and
other forms of discrimination usually don’t aim at resolving the difference
of opinion in a rational way.
Besides that, ‘violations of these ten rules’ is the way fallacies are de-
fined in pragma-dialectics, not in rhetoric and argumentation theory in
general. In rhetoric and argumentation theory there are many different ap-
proaches to fallacies that don’t even mention those ten rules of critical dis-
cussion, even theories that are unfamiliar with those ten rules or refuse to
use them.
In pragma-dialectics, fallacies are conceived and analysed from the di-
alectical perspective: they are incorrect, unreasonable moves in a debate or
in a discussion. In DHA, on the contrary, a list of 14 fallacies is construct-
ed (at least in D&D: 71–74), with a short description and an even shorter ex-
ample of each one of them. On the following 200 pages occasional referenc-
es would be made to this list, without any analysis or justification why the
examples on these 200 pages (mostly taken from the press) would repre-
sent any of the 14 fallacies listed (on pages 71–74), and the ten rules for crit-
ical discussion are never mentioned again. This is the very same way DHA
deals with topoi as I have shown in the first chapter.
3
The second part of the book is devoted to visual argumentation, more pre-
cisely to some methodological problems regarding the interpretation of vi-
suals. In the first chapter, Is there anything like visual argumentation: A
short exercise in methodological doubt, I am concerned with the very be-
ginnings of visual argumentation back in 1996, the argumentative potenti-
al the first authors (Birdsell and Groarke) see in visuals, and the problem of
framing in the first ‘visual argument’ to be analysed, the famous Smoking
Fish.
If I sum up these first conceptualizations of visuals and their argumen-
tative potential: visuals may have some argumentative or persuasive poten-
tial (there is a possibility of visual meaning, visuals can forward arguments,
138
The ‘violations of these ten rules’ refer to pragma-dialectical ten rules
for critical discussion that Reisigl and Wodak introduce on the previous
page. But these ten rules for ‘rational arguing’ as Reisigl and Wodak call
them are not valid just for ‘persuasive, manipulative, discursive legitima-
tion of racist, ethnicist, sexist and other forms of discrimination’, but for
every form of discussion that aims at resolving the difference of opinion in
a rational way by means of critical discussion. Racist, ethnicist, sexist and
other forms of discrimination usually don’t aim at resolving the difference
of opinion in a rational way.
Besides that, ‘violations of these ten rules’ is the way fallacies are de-
fined in pragma-dialectics, not in rhetoric and argumentation theory in
general. In rhetoric and argumentation theory there are many different ap-
proaches to fallacies that don’t even mention those ten rules of critical dis-
cussion, even theories that are unfamiliar with those ten rules or refuse to
use them.
In pragma-dialectics, fallacies are conceived and analysed from the di-
alectical perspective: they are incorrect, unreasonable moves in a debate or
in a discussion. In DHA, on the contrary, a list of 14 fallacies is construct-
ed (at least in D&D: 71–74), with a short description and an even shorter ex-
ample of each one of them. On the following 200 pages occasional referenc-
es would be made to this list, without any analysis or justification why the
examples on these 200 pages (mostly taken from the press) would repre-
sent any of the 14 fallacies listed (on pages 71–74), and the ten rules for crit-
ical discussion are never mentioned again. This is the very same way DHA
deals with topoi as I have shown in the first chapter.
3
The second part of the book is devoted to visual argumentation, more pre-
cisely to some methodological problems regarding the interpretation of vi-
suals. In the first chapter, Is there anything like visual argumentation: A
short exercise in methodological doubt, I am concerned with the very be-
ginnings of visual argumentation back in 1996, the argumentative potenti-
al the first authors (Birdsell and Groarke) see in visuals, and the problem of
framing in the first ‘visual argument’ to be analysed, the famous Smoking
Fish.
If I sum up these first conceptualizations of visuals and their argumen-
tative potential: visuals may have some argumentative or persuasive poten-
tial (there is a possibility of visual meaning, visuals can forward arguments,
138
