Making Arguments: Reason in Context. Edmond H. Weiss

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СКАЧАТЬ advocates can trigger the emotions of an audience, but this does not constitute good arguing. For example, an openly gay student in an argumentation class, while debating in favor of the legalization of gay marriage, personalized the issue: “If you vote against this proposal, then you are telling me that I am less of a human being than you are.” While this is a poignant example of how someone personally experiences injustice, it doesn’t go very far in advancing the case. Interestingly, when the same student had to attack gay marriage (in his next debate), he did a better job, not because the other side of the issue is stronger, but because he detached himself from the issue and saw some larger, demonstrable societal impacts.

      Principle #2—Arguing is not just expressing opinions.

      Argument is too often confused with the mere expression of one’s opinion, an idea rooted largely in the previously discussed misconception about argument as a form of verbal fisticuffs. Most people view argumentation as a conflict in which competing interests are being aired, perhaps without regard to whether the participants in the dispute “make sense.” For many, argument is “ventilation,” a way of getting emotion and frustration aired.

      To study argument, however, one should avoid the tendency to characterize arguments dismissively as “opinions” or “mere opinions.” Any statement or claim can be qualified as an opinion. Adding this qualification to a claim does nothing to diminish its status as the conclusion of a rational chain of reasoning coupled with evidence. Nor does saying something is “just an opinion” put it on an equal footing with a rationally adduced claim, assuming that the baseless claim is made without support. (Calling something “just an opinion” is nearly as vacuous as dismissing a scientific argument as “just a theory.”)

      A similar error is to believe that an unsupported opinion, expressed by someone else, is evidence in support of one’s own opinion. There is a tendency among inexperienced advocates to view the opinions of others as all the backing they need to win the adherence of an audience or judge. Novice debaters often read the “opinion” statements of others, and then assert that a claim has been proven. It turns out that an argument might not be advanced one bit by this technique of argument. (In subsequent chapters, we will examine in detail how evidence is handled. We will also discuss some fallacies that stem directly from the misuse of “opinion” as evidence.)

      Principle #3—Argumentation is always “grounded.”

      No argument begins without context, presupposition, and history. Arguments are grounded, which is a good thing. Otherwise, arguers would have to reconstruct all controversies from their perceived starting points. Human beings have cataloged their disagreements since the time writing was invented, and this saves us the time we need to proceed with advocacy. As an argumentative community, Law has served as one of the best examples of how to ground arguments. When lawyers argue cases, they do so in light of precedent, prior cases, decisions, and appeals. A well-prepared legal advocate is fully aware of the status of an argued position, the “standpoint” from which advocacy proceeds.

      Even less formalized contexts for argument proceed with the assumption of grounding. We have to know where we are and where we are going for an argument to take place. The faculty at a college, contemplating a switch to a plus/minus grading system, begins the debate aware that many universities have already made the switch. The studies, the data, the justification—all have been presented before. If the faculty would choose to study the question anew, they would perhaps lose two years needed to implement the policy. Because the issue has grounding, the faculty can move directly to the salient issues for them—the appropriateness and potential implication of the new grading policy.

      A famous philosopher once put a spider on a desk at the front of a classroom he was teaching. “Observe,” he said. After a time, a bright student piped in: “Observe what?” The point: human intellectual activity does not proceed from a tabula rasa. Because argument is a rational activity, it is grounded in rational frame within which we proceed to make arguments.

      Principle #4—Arguing not only involves making claims, but also supporting and defending them.

      Again, the best demonstration of what an argument is NOT, is the Monty Python Argument Clinic sketch, mentioned earlier (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Argument_Sketch). In it a man has just paid to “have an argument.” Almost immediately, he experiences the frustration of having his interlocutor contradict everything he says.

      A: Come in.

      M: Ah, Is this the right room for an argument?

      A: I told you once.

      M: No you haven't.

      A: Yes I have.

      M: When?

      A: Just now.

      M: No you didn't.

      A: Yes I did.

      M: You didn't

      (After more of this bickering, the man—obviously a student of argumentation—offers his rationale.)

      M: An argument isn't just contradiction.

      A: It can be.

      M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.

      A: No it isn't.

      M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.

      A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.

      M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'

      A: Yes it is!

      M: No it isn't!

      A: Yes it is!

      M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

      A: Not necessarily.

      The man is frustrated, because he is not having an argument. He is simply enduring a series of assertions presented in contradiction to his own points. At one spot in the discussion, the man tries to tell his “opponent” that it isn’t really argument, but even that point is simply contradicted.

      Argument is more than making claims and contradicting an opponent. Argument is a complete intellectual process in which one thinks out, launches, and backs up assertions with evidence, reasoning, and language strategies. Argument is often dialectical, and therefore involves listening and clash. It requires the participants to extend and expand the scope of their argumentation.

      Principle #5—Argument is prepared and presented in anticipation of judgment.

      This is perhaps the most important aspect of the theory of argumentation. The reason we make arguments is to have them judged. We should always argue with a judge in mind. The judge doesn’t have to be a specific person, and does not have to possess idiosyncrasies peculiar to one way of judging. The judge can be a conception of the person who is most qualified to judge an argument, not necessarily СКАЧАТЬ