This article reviews Marko Novak’s (Routledge 2024) The Logic of Legal Argumentation: Multi-Modal Perspectives.
Islamic dialogue theory, developed through the Munāẓara tradition, introduces a distinct model of argumentation and a unique type of dialogue not yet captured by existing typologies. While pragma-dialectics upholds a single, idealized normative framework, and dialogue theory distributes norms across multiple types, Stevens (2026) argues that both neglect the ethical responsibilities built into argumentative practice. Building on her account, I show that in munāẓara, argumentative roles are procedurally indeterminate and inherently negotiable. Decisions about sequencing, burden of proof, what counts as a move, and how one flavors a role involve a continuous negotiation of the rights and obligations of each party.
This paper discusses virtuous audiences in argumentation, asking “what does the virtuous audience look like”, and “how could they contribute to a fully satisfying argument”? We first propose to conceive the role of audience in a moderate way, as someone who is addressed by the arguer. Then, we argue that an audience would participate in and contribute to an argument by listening and responding to the arguer, and then by improving themselves. On that basis, we develop a conception of the virtuous audience and make a list of virtues that the virtuous audience needs to cultivate. Finally, we take the list as a framework for analyzing different ways in which the audience can behave badly when participating in argumentation.
This article reviews Dimitris Serafis’ Authoritarianism on the Front Page: Multimodal discourse and argumentation in times of multiple crises in Greece. (John Benjamins, 2023)
This paper addresses the role of various forms of intensification on the persuasiveness of rephrased statements in argumentative contexts. Study 1 compares rephrasing through adverbial or verbal intensification to repetition, a similar intensifying strategy, regarding the perceived deservingness (correlated to persuasiveness) of stated outcomes. Results show that adverbial intensifiers create the strongest effect, followed by intensified verbs and repetition. Study 2 examines the effectiveness of rephrasing with intensified verbs compared to rephrasing with intensified objects and repetition. Results indicate that intensifications of the verb yield stronger effects on deservingness/persuasiveness, than intensifications of the object and repetition. Overall, rephrasing through intensification seems to strengthen a justification’s persuasiveness.
The curative fallacy is a unique error in reasoning. It has not yet been identified in fallacy theory, so we propose here an initial statement of how to identify and criticize the error. One commits the fallacy when one reasons that means that would have prevented an unwelcome outcome are also means, after the outcome has come about, for eliminating or mitigating the outcome. That is, one takes prevention to be ipso facto also cure. This reasoning is appropriate under what we call symmetric conditions, where the preventative is also the curative, but it is not appropriate under asymmetric conditions, where the preventative not only does not remediate but can actually make things worse. This fallacy is particularly appealing for political and interpersonal circumstances, and we identify a few examples of it in contemporary intellectual culture.
In this article, critical thinking is interpreted as a type of metacognition aimed at evaluating thinking for compliance with standards of rationality. The author argues that dual-process theory provides a strong theoretical foundation for explaining critical thinking, as it reflects its fundamental idea, explains why it is necessary, and accounts for why people do not always think critically. The article also contends that critical thinking should not be equated exclusively with deliberate thinking and examines its intuitive components, showing that certain aspects of critical thinking can occur automatically.
In this paper, we argue that much of the recent discussion on deep disagreement is grounded in a semantic framework that fails to capture how the concept actually works. It overlooks a key point that we aim to emphasize: attributing depth to a disagreement is, at its core, an evaluative act. Drawing on a pragmatist perspective, we propose a more refined framework that reveals how certain terms serve to express—or make explicit—the speaker’s attitudes and intentions in the act of speaking. We argue that this is exactly what occurs when depth is attributed to a disagreement.
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).
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.
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.
The right to protest is often considered a key element of democracy, and protest has a long history in both democracies and authoritarian states. Protest communicates opposition, support, or solidarity. Aimed at changing people’s minds, it can influence beliefs about an issue, raise awareness of and inform about an injustice or a crisis, and influence emotional responses. I consider the extent to which protest can plausibly be considered argument and a legitimate part of public discourse. Starting with John Delicath’s and Kevin Deluca’s ideas about ‘image events’ and argumentative practice (2023), I consider protests as examples of multi-modal arguments. Then, drawing on Moria Howes’ and Catherine Hundleby’s work on the role of emotion in argument, I reflect on the way in which multi-modal analyses provide resources for understanding the role of emotion in argument and consider the ways in which emotions contribute to argument in the context of protest.
In “Epistemic Coverage and Argument Closure,” Catherine Hundleby brings together Sanford Goldberg’s work in social epistemology with Douglas Walton’s work in argumentation theory, on the topic of arguments from ignorance and truth-to-testimony conditionals. This paper explores the uses and limits of such arguments and conditionals, especially in connection with the problem of epistemic bubbles.
I propose redefining Gasc & oacute;n's (2021) notion of argumentative bullshit by adding three words to its original formulation. Consequently, argumentative bullshit would be defined as the production of an argument without concern for the strength of the supporting relation between the reasons and the claim. I then examine Mukerji and Mannino's (2022) general account of argumentative bullshit. Using Grice's (1975) conversational maxims, I show how it can be further extended into a taxonomy of bullshit illocutionary acts-an extension Gasc & oacute;n himself hints at.
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.
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.
William Paley objects to David Hume's rejection of miracle testimony, and especially Hume's seeming conviction that, as Paley puts it, "we are not obliged to explain how the story of the evidence arose" when confronted with testimonial evidence for claims that we reject as incredible. Paley holds that it is in some sense insufficient to dismiss miracle testimony merely with the claim that it must, somehow or other, be mistaken. Rather, we are obliged to explain how the testimony came to be uttered in spite of its falsity, when rejecting testimonial premises. I call this methodological scruple Paley's Principle. Following some initial clarifications, I explore various possible strengths and scopes of its claimed obligation, in order to determine whether a plausible version can be recovered. It is neither a logical norm nor a purely prudential principle. But relative to some socio-epistemic aims of argumentation, Paley's Principle expresses a reasonable norm, though perhaps not in quite the way Paley intended it.
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.
I propose redefining Gascón’s (2021) notion of argumentative bullshit by adding three words to its original formulation. Consequently, argumentative bullshit would be defined as the production of an argument without concern for the strength of the supporting relation between the reasons and the claim. I then examine Mukerji and Mannino’s (2022) general account of argumentative bullshit. Using Grice’s conversational maxims, I show how it can be further extended into a taxonomy of bullshit illocutionary acts—an extension Gascón himself hints at.
