2026-03-19
Beth Innocenti
How can arguers address aggression to “allow rationality to play its intended role” (Hundleby 2013, p. 259)? I argue that a normative pragmatic approach to the question avoids the pitfalls of idealization and fallacy approaches and provides answers. To illustrate, I analyze an exemplary response to misogynistic aggression and show that its efficacy lies in undertaking and warranting a commitment to the judgment that the bad behavior deserves public attention and moral outrage. I conclude by providing implications of Hundleby’s work for argumentation researchers working on tools for modeling and assessing argumentation.
2026-03-19
Letitia Meynell
In this paper, I examine how Cate Hundleby’s work in feminist standpoint epistemology and feminist argumentation theory might shore up Helen Longino’s contextual empiricism and offer suggestions as to its effective application. I show how, despite the complexities of intersectionality and shifting power relations, feminist standpoint theory offers useful suggestions for scientific practice, particularly the inclusion of marginalized voices throughout the scientific process. I then show how feminist argumentation theory provides insight into the challenges of meeting the ‘tempered equality of epistemic authority’ that Longino requires as well as approaches to argumentation that might better serve this goal.
2026-03-19
Shiyang Yu
While appeals to emotion have traditionally been dismissed as fallacious, recent scholarship has highlighted their potential reasonableness. Yet the role of emotion in these appeals remains underexplored. To address this, under the constraint that appeals to emotion are conceived as premises-conclusion complexes, this paper develops an analytical framework featuring two distinct paths linking premises to the conclusion: a logical path and an emotional path. This framework shows that evaluating such appeals involves first assessing each path individually and then integrating them. Notably, different emotions may either reinforce one another or work in opposition. An agent commits the fallacy of appeal to emotion if they mistakenly perceive the conclusion to be justified when it is not. Drawing on this model, I offer two explanations for how strong emotions can lead to such a misperception. Finally, I examine how the emotional mode can influence the strength of an appeal to emotion, thereby illustrating the epistemological role of emotion in argumentation, as discussed by Howes and Hundleby (2018).
2025-12-21
Amalia Haro Marchal
Argumentation, as a specific type of speech act, involves an exchange of meaning among its participants, yielding illocutionary effects consisting in the production of changes in participants’ dialectical entitlements and obligations. The production of these illocutionary effects hinges on the joint construction by the speaker and the interlocutor of the meaning of the speaker’s utterance. However, the speaker’s meaning does not always coincide with the interlocutor’s interpretation. This paper argues that this gap has crucial implications for the evaluation of argumentation. Specifically, it explores the consequences of this gap in cases involving commitment attributions, taking the straw man fallacy as a case of study.
2025-12-21
Martin Hinton, Jean Wagemans
Conceptions of fallacies suggested by philosophers vary significantly. Often these contributions are little more than lists, only sometimes approaching a fully-developed theory of fallacy. Where there is a clear understanding of what is meant by the term fallacy, the problem of how to identify them in discourse remains, often leading to a conflation of descriptive and evaluative analyses. We present a two-tier procedure that strictly distinguishes the descriptive and normative dimensions of identifying fallacies. The combination of the descriptive Argument Type Identification Procedure (ATIP), which enables the characterization of an argument in terms of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA), and the evaluative Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA), provides a basis for systematic, repeatable, and explainable argument acceptability judgements. We explain how this two-tier procedure overcomes some of the difficulties of fallacy identification and categorization and list several other advantages that a procedural approach to fallacies brings.
2025-12-21
Wensheng Zhu, Huaxin Huang
This paper presents a generalization-centered framework for analyzing analogical arguments. By examining how analogical generalization is treated across various research paradigms, it highlights its role in modeling both similarity and relevance. Unlike deductive or inductive generalizations, analogical generalization is empirical, hypothetical, and context-sensitive, underscoring the sui generis nature of analogical arguments. Building on this foundation, the paper extends the classical scheme and introduces a set of critical questions anchored in generalization. A detailed case study illustrates the framework’s practical value in identifying argument structure, modeling context sensitivity, and assessing the cogency of analogical arguments.
2025-09-10
Andrew Aberdein
Should virtuous arguers reason from premises they do not endorse? Can virtuous arguers reason to conclusions they do not endorse? Should competitive debate require participants to do either? This paper argues that, while bad faith argumentation is vicious, reasoning to or from claims that the arguer does not endorse can be undertaken virtuously. Indeed, when conducted with integrity, the capacity to trace the consequences of an opposing position is unavoidable in discharging the adversarial function of argumentation.
2025-09-10
Ronnie Haidar
It is widely recognized in legal scholarship that international law functions as an argumentation practice, but its purpose remains debated. Some argue it legitimizes legal facts, while others believe it persuades actors to adopt specific positions. I align with Harald Wohlrapp's argumentation theory, which focuses on acquiring new orientations. I will outline why Wohlrapp's theory suits international law by examining three elements: prioritizing validity over mere assent, introducing "midrange universality" that balances community perspectives with a universal outlook, and introducing "framing" to responsibly integrate diverse cultural and legal perspectives, including those from the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL).
2025-09-10
Muhammed Komath
Analogy is an inherently fragile form of argument, as it derives the conclusion from similarity, while overlooking dissimilarities. Yet law fundamentally depends upon analogical reasoning to ensure consistency and predictability in its rulings. This entanglement of fragility and necessity compels the legal traditions, both Islamic and contemporary, to articulate a theory of legitimacy that justifies analogy when applied in law. The most successful explanation among different considerations, I argue, is the one that is anchored in logic. This logical grounding is a shared feature among contemporary legal theorist Scott Brewer, the informal logician Douglas Walton, and the 12th-century Muslim jurist-logician al-Ghazzālī, as all three insist that the justification of legal analogy is logical. This paper aims to trace the thematic contours of these logical frameworks in order to demonstrate, drawing primarily on al-Ghazzālī’s two works: al-Mustaṣfā fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh and al-Muntaḥal fī al-Jadal, that al-Ghazālī’s model of analogical reasoning effectively integrates key elements of Brewer’s abduction model and Walton’s model of defeasible argument.
2025-06-26
Informal Logic
2025-06-26
Abdul Gabbar Mohamed Al-Sharafi, Mohammad Majed Khader, Mohamad Hamza Al-Sioufy, Mohamed Ahmed, Ali Al-Zawqari
Arabic argumentation is often described as relying on repetition and coordination in contrast to Western argumentation, which emphasizes syllogism, proof, and dialectic. However, previous studies on this topic were based on a limited and unrepresentative corpus. This study seeks to verify these claims using a contemporary corpus of 110 Arabic competitive debates, comprising approximately 515,793 words. A hybrid argumentation annotation model, combining Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals (logos, ethos, pathos) and Toulmin’s model of argument structure, was developed for analysis. The findings reveal a high prevalence of logos compared to ethos and pathos, with relatively minimal reliance on repetition. Arabic argumentation emerges as diverse rather than monolithic, incorporating both inferential reasoning and rhetorical repetition. This study also highlights the influence of genre on rhetorical strategy use, calling for further research on genre-specific Arabic argumentation.
2025-06-26
Scott Aikin, John Casey
Sometimes we argue about cats or about whether there is a largest prime number. Other times we argue about arguments. When we do this, we engage in meta-argument. Most accounts of meta-argument in the literature view it retrospectively: we meta-argue about arguments that have already been made. In so doing, we may find meta-reasons for rejecting an otherwise good argument, among other things. This paper considers meta-argument in the other direction, that is, prospectively. To illustrate this concept, we explore cases where one has meta-reasons for intentionally making bad arguments or where one argues not by offering an argument, but by communicating in a non-argumentative fashion that supports other arguments. We call these later cases para-argument.
2025-04-05
Scott F. Aikin, Alice Grosu
Abstract : This article reviews Marcin Lewinski and Mark Aakhus’s Argumentation in Complex Communication (Oxford 2022). Résumé : Cet article passe en revue l’ouvrage de Marcin Lewinski et Mark Aakhus, Argumentation in Complex Communication (Oxford 2022).
2025-01-07
James Freeman
Abstract: Yu and Zenker (2022) argue that the oft-made distinction between convergent and linked argument structure is problematic. If their account holds, the linked/convergent distinction, at least as I have characterized it (Freeman 2011), seems to violate the dictum that structural analysis should come before evaluation. In this Reply I defend the position that we do not need to estimate or determine argument strength to determine whether the premises of an argument are linked or convergent. Résumé : Yu et Zenker (2022) soutiennent que la distinction souvent faite entre structure d’argumentation convergente et structure d’argumentation liée est problématique. Si leur explication est valable, la distinction liée/convergente, du moins telle que je l’ai caractérisée (Freeman 2011), semble violer le dicton selon lequel l’analyse structurelle doit précéder l’évaluation. Dans cette réponse, je défends la position selon laquelle nous n’avons pas besoin d’estimer ou de déterminer la force de l’argument pour déterminer si les prémisses d’un argument sont liées ou convergentes.
2025-01-07
2024-09-27
Cristián Santibáñez
Our intuition is straightforward: yes, argumentation changes minds. It can’t be otherwise! But many cognitive and discursive habits seem to suggest otherwise. As the literature in the psychology of reasoning incessantly emphasizes, we hardly change our minds (and the minds of others) because a predisposed robust confirmation bias (or myside bias) is at work every time we argue, among other persistent cognitive illusions (Pohl, 2012), heuristics and biases (Santibáñez, 2023). To adequately answer the questions of why and how argumentation changes minds, if at all, this paper frames the problem in an evolutionary perspective. My main thesis is that argumentative competence changes minds because its ultimate goal (Laland et al., 2011; Scott-Phillips, Dickins & West, 2011) is to construct the future to predict more accurately (Suddendorf, Redshaw & Bulley, 2022). This idea converges with some evolutionary analysis of other cognitive skills and cultural inventions. To explain my perspective, I use the distinction between ultimate and proximal goals of a trait, and the cultural background of argumentative competence plays a fundamental role within this distinction. Notre intuition est simple: oui, l’argumentation change les men-talités. Mais de nombreuses habitudes cognitives et discursives suggèrent le contraire. Comme le soulignent sans cesse les écrits sur la psychologie du raisonnement, nous ne changeons guère d’avis parce qu’un biais de con-firmation robuste (ou biais de-mon-côté) prédisposé est à l’oeuvre lorsque nous argumentons. Pour répondre adéquatement aux questions de pour-quoi, comment et si l’argumentation change les mentalités, je pose le prob-lème dans une perspective évolution-niste. Je soutiens que la compétence ar-gumentative change les mentalités parce que son but ultime est de con-struire l’avenir, de prédire avec plus de précision. Cela converge avec les anal-yses évolutionnistes d’autres compé-tences cognitives et inventions cul-turelles. Pour expliquer ma perspec-tive, j’utilise la distinction entre les buts ultimes et proximaux d’un trait.
2024-09-27
Ruth Wodak
At the time of writing, in the summer of 2024, we are confronted with a ‘polycrisis’ (e.g., Tooze 2022). This term is used to describe a situation in which multiple crises do not simply add up to a somewhat bigger crisis, but rather create a significantly different, amplified crisis in which the sub-crises influence each other in interdependent ways. As numerous studies have demonstrated (e.g., Heitmeyer 2024; Roberts 2022; Nowotny 2016), crises engender feelings of uncertainty, insecurity, and subsequently fear (Bauman 2006). The aim of this paper is to pose the overarching question: How do governments and citizens cope with such uncertainties? Les crises provoquent la peur, la panique, l’incertitude et l’impuissance. L’incertitude et l’insécurité mettent à l’épreuve tous les acteurs concernés ; chacun attend des instructions, une planification, des explications et la sécurité. Cependant, nous affrontons des alarmismes, des simplifications, une série de stratégies de légitimation et d’erreurs. Plus précisément, les erreurs sont souvent placées avant les intérêts communautaires, nationaux ou même locaux. Ces évolutions sont illustrées par une analyse qualitative et quantitative détaillée du discours des débats en Autriche, à l’été 2023. Je soutiens que les appels fallacieux au bon sens et à la normalité dépendent de leur contexte, avec des contenus, des fonctions et des effets différents observables. De tels appels instrumentalisent une « politique des émotions » de différentes manières. Ainsi, une nouvelle logique politique est normalisée, remplaçant le discours rationnel, la délibération et la formulation de politiques dirigées par des experts.
2024-06-27
Informal Logic
2024-01-21
Informal Logic
2024-01-21
Christoph Lumer
This article discusses Harvey Siegel’s general justification of the epistemological theory of argumentation in his seminal essay “Arguing with Arguments." On the one hand, the achievements of this essay are honoured—in particular, a thorough differentiation of the different meanings of ‘argument’ and ‘argumentation,’ the semantic justification of the fundamentality of arguments as sequences of propositions, and the detailed critiques of alternative theories of argumentation. On the other hand, suggestions for strengthening the theory are added to Siegel's expositions, which make different perspectives within the epistemological theory of argumentation recognisable.