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Keeping in touch with Pragma-Dialectics In honor of Frans H. van Eemeren Edited by Eveline Feteris Bart Garssen Francisca Snoeck Henkemans University of Amsterdam John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia The pragma-dialectical account of argument schemes David Hitchcock & Jean Wagemans 1. Introduction In its simplest form, argumentation consists of a statement (the “argument”) put forward by a speaker or writer (the “arguer”) in support of another statement (the “standpoint”). The arguer may be assumed to make an attempt to overcome the anticipated initial reluctance of the addressee to accept the standpoint by put- ting forward an argument that he will accept. In this sense, one could say that the arguer makes an attempt to transfer the acceptability of the argument ta that of the standpoint. Within the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, the notion “argument scheme” is defined as an abstract framework that expresses the way in which this transfer of acceptability takes place. The notion plays a pivotal role in the pragma- dialectical analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse. In the analysis, argument schemes are used to reconstruct the elements of the argumentation that remained implicit. In the evaluation, the argument schemes and the critical questions associated with these schemes are used to assess the appropriateness and correctness of the arguer’s attempt to transfer the acceptability of the argu- ment to that of the standpoint. In this contribution, we scrutinize the pragma-dialectical account of argu- ment schemes. We provide an overview of the pragma-dialectical account, identify some problems with it, and propose a revision that addresses those problems.' 2. ‘The pragma-dialectical typology In the introduction to the most recent iteration of the standard version of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, van Eemeren and Grootendorst (2004: 4) characterize an argument scheme as an abstract frame that expresses the justificatory principle employed by the arguer “in order to promote a trans- fer of acceptability from the explicit premise to the standpoint.” On the basis 186 David Hitchcock & Jean Wagemans of the kind of relationship between argument and standpoint that the arguer tries to establish, they distinguish three main types of schemes: “symptomatic argumentation’, “argumentation based on a comparison’, and “causal argumenta- tion” In the introduction to the extended version of the theory that incorporates the concept of strategic maneuvering, van Eemeren (2010: 12) repeats this typol- ogy. Both introductions cite van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992: 94-102) as the source where the typology is explained. Below, we will first summarize the three main types of argument schemes that make up the pragma-dialectical typology. We will reconstruct the examples given in the source just mentioned by making use of the abstract schemes and associated critical questions presented in Garssen (1997), van Eemeren, Grootendorst and Snoeck Henkemans (2002), van Femeren and Snoeck Henkemans (2006), and van Eemeren, Houtlosser and Snoeck Henkemans (2007). Next, we will briefly summa- ize the pragma-dialectical account of “variants” and “sub-types” of the three main types of argument schemes. Finally, we summarize the pragma-dialectical account of the use of argument schemes in evaluating argumentation. In our reconstruction, we use the linguistic concepts of a referent and a predicate. When one applies these concepts to a sentence (or to the proposition expressed by a sentence), one analyzes the sentence (or proposition) as attributing some property to some object. The referent is the object to which the property is attributed. The predicate is the part of the sentence that attributes the property. For example, one can analyze the sentence “Caesar crossed the Rubicon” as attributing the property of crossing the Rubicon to Caesar, in which case Caesar (the future Roman emperor) is the referent and the verb phrase “crossed the Rubicon” is the predicate. One can also analyze the same sentence as attributing to the Rubicon (a river in Italy) the property of being crossed by Caesar, a property signified by the predicate “was crossed by Caesar”. It is controversial whether all sentences can be analyzed as attributing a property to a referent. According to the pragma- dialectical typology of argument schemes, however, in argumentation of the three main types the propositional content of both the argument and the standpoint can be analyzed in this way. 2 ‘The main types ‘The first main type that is distinguished within the pragma-dialectical typology of argument schemes is “symptomatic argumentation’. In this case, the argument and the standpoint have a common referent (X), but different predicates. The property attributed to the referent in the argument (Z) is put forward as being a symptom of the property attributed to it in the standpoint (Y). Thus, in the example “As Daniel is an American, he is sure to be concerned about the costs,”

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