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.
