From Argument Schemes to Argumentative Relations in the Wild: A Variety of Contributions to Argumentation Theory

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

F. H. van Eemeren, B. Garssen (eds.)From Argument Schemes to Argumentative Relations in the WildArgumentation Library35https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28367-4_1

1. A Variety of Contributions to Argumentation Theory

Frans H. van Eemeren¹, ²   and Bart Garssen¹  

(1)

Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric, ILIAS, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

(2)

Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Frans H. van Eemeren (Corresponding author)

Email: f.h.vaneemeren@uva.nl

Bart Garssen

Email: b.j.garssen@uva.nl

In From argument schemes to argumentative relations in the wild we have brought together a variety of contributions to argumentation theory that we want to bring to the attention of the international community of argumentation scholars and students of argumentation. The chapters collected in this volume are all based on presentations given at the 9th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA) held in Amsterdam at the beginning of July 2018. They cover a broad spectrum of theoretical issues, ranging—as the title of this volume indicates—from the definition and classification of argument schemes to the treatment of argumentative relations in the wild. Although the various chapters are written from different theoretical perspectives, which are not always compatible with each other, each of them constitutes in our view a worthwhile contribution to the necessary reflection upon the problems involved in the theorizing about argumentation.

The first chapters of this volume concentrate on the theoretical concepts of argument schemes and fallacies, starting with a pragma-dialectical view on how to develop a theoretical approach to argument schemes satisfying the principle of Occam’s razor that a simpler solution to a problem is to be favoured to more complex solutions, so that a simpler classification of argument schemes is in principle to be preferred to a more complex one. Next some problems involved in dealing with a specific kind of argument scheme, i.e. the one employed in authority argumentation, are discussed. The second theoretical issue given its due in the first part of the volume, the treatment of the fallacies, is discussed in two other contributions. In one of them a proposal is made to give the standard treatment of the fallacies another chance by taking cognitive and rhetorical insights into fallacy processing into account. In another contribution, focusing on the genetic fallacy, argument evaluation in philosophy is examined from a different perspective by viewing such a fallacy pragma-dialectically as a derailment of strategic manoeuvring.

In ‘Argument schemes’ (Chap. 2) Frans van Eemeren and Bart Garssen turn to the theoretical issue of how in argumentation an effort is made to transfer acceptance of the reasons that are advanced in support of a standpoint to the standpoint defended. They explain their approach by recapitulating the rationale of the pragma-dialectical perspective on argument schemes and extending its general outlines. In the pragma-dialectical view (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992: 94–102), argument schemes are schematic representations of justificatory relationships between reasons advanced in support of a standpoint and the standpoint defended that are instrumental in legitimizing a transfer of acceptability from these reasons to the standpoint concerned. In Chap. 2 van Eemeren and Garssen discuss the pragmatic and dialectical rationales for distinguishing between the various argument schemes utilized in argumentative discourse. Each of these argument schemes manifests itself in the discourse in specific types and subtypes of argumentation. Which types and subtypes of argumentation can be used in resolving a difference of opinion and how their use is to be evaluated is in the pragma-dialectical view to be agreed upon in the opening stage of a critical discussion when the parties involved determine their joint starting points. In actual argumentative practices such an agreement will in a great many cases already be presupposed.

‘In search of a workable auxiliary condition for authority arguments’ (Chap. 3) by Hans Hansen focuses on an auxiliary condition applying to the use of an argument scheme for appeal-to-authority arguments. The purpose of this condition is to give laypersons an additional reason to accept the speaker’s claim over and above the speaker’s claim to expertise. In Chap. 3 Hansen explores three different ways of satisfying the auxiliary condition. In two of them auxiliary experts play a part. One of them casts these experts as corroborators of what the cited authority has asserted; in the other one they are endorsers of the epistemic character of the source. In both cases laypeople who want to use an authority argument meet with practical difficulties. Hansen also considers a third auxiliary condition, based on an idea advanced by Goldberg (2011), according to which laypersons must engage with the informational sources accessible to them and seek out credible objections to what the main source has proposed. If they find few of them or none, this can give them additional reason to believe the expert’s assertions. However, Hansen’s exploration makes clear that it is necessary to reflect upon the conditions that are to be included in a satisfactory argument scheme for good authority arguments.

Steve Oswald and Thierry Herman present in ‘Give the standard treatment of fallacies a chance’ (Chap. 4) another take on the theoretical problem of how it can be explained that fallacies committed in argumentative discourse bypass or withstand critical testing than the one the pragma-dialecticians substantiated earlier in their Hidden Fallaciousness project (van Eemeren, Meuffels, & Garssen, 2012a, 2012b, 2015). In their research Oswald and Herman pay attention to the epistemic strength and ease of processing of fallacies and note that in argumentative discourse these cognitive parameters can be systematically manipulated to make fallacies rhetorically effective. In their expose they develop first a rationale for viewing rhetorical effectiveness in terms of foregrounding and backgrounding cognitive processes. Next they explain how these processes, and more in particular the evaluative ones, may by constrained decisively by the linguistic choices made in fallacious arguments. They illustrate their views in Chap. 4 through a discussion of a complex example of fallacious argumentation.

In order to gain a better understanding of philosophical dialogues as a critical discussion, Federico López focuses in ‘Argument evaluation in philosophy’ (Chap. 5) on the evaluative strategies used by philosophers in their argumentative discourse, especially when they are accusing others of committing a fallacy. To illustrate the problems involved, López analyses the charge of committing a genetic fallacy. He provides a characterization of this fallacy and then argues that the accusation of committing a genetic fallacy should be understood pragma-dialectically as a case of (derailed) strategic manoeuvring (van Eemeren, 2010: 25–50, 93–128, 187–212). By revisiting the controversy over the genetic fallacy in the 1950s and 1960s, he presents some historical evidence in favour of this view. Next he gives an account of accusing the other party of committing a genetic fallacy as a mode of strategic manoeuvring and discusses some ways in which such strategic manoeuvring can derail. López concludes Chap. 5 with some general observations regarding the use of certain fallacies in philosophical controversies that are based on viewing the use of philosophical arguments in this way as cases of strategic manoeuvring.

The special interest in philosophical argumentation shown by López is also manifest in several other contributions to this volume. They deal with such diverse topics as the interrogative burden of proof, eudaimonistic argumentation, and community argument. In the chapter devoted to the first of these topics the interrogative burden of proof in philosophical argumentation is related to the use of argumentative moves in dialogical sequences occurring in such discourse. In discussing the second topic of eudaimonistic argumentation in the next chapter it is argued that an account of argumentation contributing to human flourishing best serves the virtue epistemologists’ aim of realizing the intellectual good life. In dealing with community argument in the following chapter a communicative perspective is chosen in which certain worries about the possibilities of community argument are discussed that are motivated by empirical considerations.

Chapter 6, ‘Dialogical sequences, argumentative moves and interrogative burden of proof in philosophical argumentation’, authored by Joaquin Galindo, consists of two parts. In the first part the concepts and terminology are introduced that Galindo uses in his argumentation. Galindo follows Rescher (1977) in distinguishing between Initiating burden of proof (I-burden) and Evidential burden of proof (E-burden). In his approach the obligation that exists in a dialectical situation to support an assertion with arguments has I-burden; counter-considerations and responses to counter-argumentation have E-burden. In the second part of Chap. 6 Galindo introduces the notion of philosophical argumentative move in order to explain his views. He says that philosophical argumentative moves can be found in chain arguments, counter-arguments and even in argumentative plans and strategies. According to Galindo some of them are based on question-generating mechanisms that have the objective of allocating the burden of proof and generate various kinds of dialectical effects. His working hypothesis is that argumentative moves can be analyzed as dialogical sequences. In Chap. 6 he analyses three examples of philosophical argumentation (disclosing irrelevant distinctions, analytic dilemmas and pragmatic self-refutation) and concludes with the claim that the analysis can be easily extrapolated to other arguments.

In ‘Eudaimonistic argumentation’ (Chap. 7) Andrew Aberdein explains that virtue theories of argumentation comprise several conceptually distinct projects. Among them, the pursuit of the fully satisfying argument—the argument that contributes to human flourishing—is in his view perhaps the boldest. The independently developed epistemic analogue of this project is eudaimonistic virtue epistemology (Brogaard, 2014). According to Aberdein, both projects stress the importance of widening the range of cognitive goals: in the first case beyond cogency and in the second case beyond knowledge. Because the right sort of community is indispensable for the cultivation of the intellectual virtues necessary to each of them, both projects emphasize social factors. In Chap. 7 Aberdein proposes to unify the two projects by arguing that the intellectual good life sought by eudaimonistic virtue epistemologists is best realized through the articulation of an account of argumentation that contributes to human flourishing.

In ‘Worries about the prospects for community argument’ (Chap. 8) Dale Hample starts from the assumption that community argument takes place within a community of mutually-shared values and mutual respect. It may also invite outsiders to conjoin the arguers’ community during the argument, which produces a mutuality of concerns and respect. Hample thinks that this conjoining is not entirely natural, because our evolutionary heritage encourages us to valorize in-group members and to resist or attack outsiders. Our cognitive systems seem to be evolutionary equipped with the possibility to make certain information accessible once we are engaged in arguing while other information is made structurally less accessible. According to Hample, these evolutionary endowments interfere with treating an outsider as an intimate and reasoning properly on unfamiliar matters.

Other worries mentioned by Hample relate to fundamental human impulses described in social psychology that seem to involve ethical deficits, at least when viewed from the perspective of a discipline committed to full and free argumentation as the route to personal and social improvement. The lines of persuasion utilized in the processes concerned are designed to close off argumentation and make social reasoning less likely to take place and less productive. The persuasive techniques then at work are aimed at suppressing counter-argumentation by discouraging people from thinking deeply about persuasive messages. According to Hample, the best known of these techniques is nudging (Johnson et al., 2012), which has become a public policy adopted by a great many national governments and is criticized for its ethics. Other persuasive techniques used for the same purpose mentioned by Hample are distraction, multitasking, narrative persuasion, using visual images, and situating persuasion in computer games and virtual reality. In Hample’s view the argumentation community needs to develop pedagogies to counteract these techniques.

Next, the volume contains two contributions devoted to the role of counter-arguments in evaluating the quality of argumentation. One of these chapters focuses on testing the strength of warrants used in argumentation by assessing the extent to which they resist rebutting by counter-arguments that are pertinent to the institutional context in which the argumentation is advanced. The other chapter concentrates on distinguishing between different types of counter-arguments and explaining the consequences of the distinctions that are made for the analysis of the structure of argumentation.

In ‘Assessing connection adequacy for arguments with institutional warrants’ (Chap. 9) James Freeman develops an account of the use of Toulminian warrants backed by laws. He explains how the conclusions he has reached in this endeavour can be applied to institutional warrants in general. According to Freeman, an institutional warrant is always backed by rules (Freeman, 2005). An appraisal of the strength of the warrant goes in his view from the rules to the warrant and involves judging its strength in resisting rebutting values of relevant variables. Whether the warrant has sufficient strength for cogency depends on the requirements of the institution that is backing the warrant—which may lead to differences such as those between preponderance of evidence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Freeman’s conclusion is that understanding the strength of a warrant always involves characterizing rebuttal avoidance. A warrant is sufficient for cogency when it avoids rebutting or when the argument in which it is used involves counter-rebuttals at each level below the threshold for rebuttal indifference.

According to Hubert Marraud in ‘On the logical ways to counter an argument’ (Chap. 10), the concept of counter-argument lies at the heart of dialectic as the study of oppositions between arguments (Marraud, 2015). In Chap. 10 he is out to give a suitable definition of counter-argument, to establish a typology of counter-arguments and to explore the consequences of his views for the theorizing about argumentation structure. Marraud confines himself in this enterprise to counter-arguments in which an argument is criticized by other arguments on account of its logical properties. Because in his definition a counter-argument is a reason to reject another argument, there is a clear difference between a counter-argument presenting a reason against the cogency of an argument and a con argument or a reason against a claim. In a counter-argument one can argue that the argument that is advanced is not cogent, that certain premises of the argument are not true or not acceptable, that the premises of the argument are not adequately connected to the conclusion or that ultimately the conclusion is false or unacceptable. Marraud distinguishes accordingly between four main kinds of counter-arguments: dismissal, objection, rebuttal and refutation.

An argumentation (or argument) structure consists of a combination of arguments with an explicit argumentative orientation—positive, negative or neutral. Advancing counter-arguments always involves conjoining the criticized argument and the critical argument into one and the same argumentation. Marraud therefore concludes that the standard catalogue of argumentation structures, which includes (combinations of) multiple, coordinative and subordinative argumentation, does not suffice in representing the argumentation structure of argumentation involving counter-arguments in diagrams, but needs to be supplemented with counter-argument structures covering objection, rebuttal and refutation. Thus the proposed classification of counter-arguments is in his opinion also a classification of argumentation structures.

There are also three chapters of the volume that are devoted to the argumentative use of language and the problems involved in its reconstruction. The first one makes a case for regarding certain questions argued for in argumentative practice as genuine questions and indicates how the inferences made in the arguments concerned can be evaluated. The second one zooms in on the role of the Dutch adverb straks [next] in the argumentative use of a type of utterances in which arguers express their negative emotional stance. The third one explains how the abductive reasoning can be reconstructed and assessed in a reasoned way that is involved in conveying in argumentative discourse an intent that deviates from the intent that seems to be expressed.

As can be verified by a Web search using phrases containing conclusion indicators and interrogative particles such as so why or how then as search terms, in argumentative practice people do sometimes appear to argue for questions. In ‘Arguing for questions’ (Chap. 11) David Hitchcock claims that the texts concerned are really arguments and their conclusions are genuine questions. He contends that people typically argue for questions to stimulate interest in discovering the answer to the question concerned or to challenge the addressees or a third party to explain their behaviour. According to Hitchcock, the inferential erotetic logic of the Polish logician Wiśniewski (1996, 2013) provides a basis for evaluating the inferences from statements to questions that are made in such arguments. For an inference from one or more statements to a question to be valid, the statements and the context in which they are advanced must entail that the question has a true answer without entailing that some particular answer is true. In addition, there is the pragmatic rather than semantic constraint that there must be a point to asking the question, such as the addressees’ ignorance of the correct answer(s) to this question.

In ‘Expressives in argumentation: The case of apprehensive straks (shortly) in Dutch’ (Chap. 12) Ronny Boogaart concentrates on the argumentative use of a certain expressive construction conveying a negative emotion that typically seems to involve a derailed strategic manoeuvre. As a case in point he discusses some pertinent uses of the Dutch adverb straks in this expressive construction. In some of them pragmatic argumentation is advanced against future consequences that the arguer values negatively; in some others analogy argumentation is used in which a standpoint is attacked by comparing it with an allegedly related extreme standpoint that is clearly untrue or absurd. The question to be answered is, according to Boogaart, what the rhetorical advantage is of strategic manoeuvring by making argumentative moves that are so intimately related to the fallacies of incorrect causal argumentation and false analogy. In his view, presenting an argument by means of the expressive construction he discusses functions as an immunization technique (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992: 119). First, by giving this expressive shape to the argumentation it is suggested that there are feelings involved which are beyond the arguer’s control so that the burden of proof is evaded. Second, by being unreasonable in such an overt way it is suggested that there is no derailment because the relevant discussion rule is flouted rather than really violated.

According to Antonio Duarte in ‘Argumentative abduction in the interpretation process’ (Chap. 13) abductive reasoning necessarily plays an important role in the interpretation of deviations of intent from the intent expressed by the standard or ordinary use of language. To achieve the desired effect in the audience, the speaker uses in such cases usually some mysterious words and relies on the hearer’s abductive ability to solve the enigma. As Duarte explains, this abductive ability is mostly based on the interlocutors’ knowledge of the common dialogic framework. Both speaker and listener (or writer and reader) have to apply this kind of abductive reasoning in order to make their communication successful. When the exchange they are having is understood as an argumentative process, the kind of guessing involved can be understood and evaluated in a reasoned way. As a practical case in point, Duarte analyses in Chap. 13 an ironic utterance from a pragma-dialectical perspective. In doing so he proposes to evaluate the kinds of hypotheses developed in the interpretation process in an argumentative way as responses to certain critical questions ensuing from the theoretical norms described in extended pragma-dialectics.

There is also a section of the volume consisting of three chapters dealing with conductive arguments. In these contributions this topic is treated in different ways. In the first contribution it is argued that calling an argument a conductive argument can be a mistake. In the second contribution it is claimed that the two most prominent approaches to conductive argument are both lacking and it is explained why. The third contribution claims to offer a solution to the problems that, in the author’s view, the existing approaches he discusses cannot cope with.

Isabela Fairclough tackles in Chap. 14 the question ‘Is conductive argument a single argument?’. Focusing on a particular kind of conductive argument, i.e. a pro/con argument intended to support a practical conclusion, she argues that conductive argument is a category mistake: if the term is meant to designate a single argument, with one conclusion, there is in her view no such thing as a conductive argument. As a structure, what appears to be a conductive argument is in fact one of the two possible outcomes of the deliberative activity of critically testing alternative proposals for action. More precisely, it is a recapitulation or summary of a process of critical questioning in which both counter-considerations and reasons in favour of a practical conclusion have been advanced but no decisive objections against it have emerged, so that the conclusion has withstood criticism.

Here an important distinction is being drawn between two kinds of objections that can be raised against a proposal: counter-considerations which do not refute it and decisive objections which do. Saying that there are no decisive objections against a proposal means that is does not follow conclusively that the proposal should be abandoned. According to Fairclough, the positive conclusion together with all the reasons cited in its favour and all the reasons cited against it (the counter-considerations) will be virtually indistinguishable from a so-called conductive argument. If in the argumentative process the positive conclusion does not survive the criticism that is advanced, the potential conductive argument disintegrates, collapsing into a deductive argument in favour of the negative conclusion.

In ‘On the logical reconstruction of conductive arguments’ (Chap. 15) Yun Xie discusses two important approaches to the logical reconstruction of conductive arguments. The first one is the supplementation-of-on-balance-premise approach, which is advocated by informal logicians such as Govier (2011), Hansen (2011) and Blair (2017). The second one is the warrant-reformulation approach, which is proposed by Freeman (2011) and Bermejo-Luque (2017). According to Xie, in the versions of these two approaches that have been developed so far neither of them is satisfactory. On the one hand, reconstructing conductive arguments by adding an on-balance premise as happens in the first approach is problematic, because such a reconstruction is based on a presumption that is still in need of further justification and the interactions between the reasons for and against are in this approach simplified too much. On the other hand, integrating counter-considerations into the warrant of a conductive argument, as would happen in the other approach, leads to a reconstruction which is indifferent to the linguistic features of the arguer’s conduct and thus fails to give full credit to the arguer’s use of language.

Yanlin Liao observes in ‘The legitimacy of conductive arguments’ (Chap. 16) that recent disputes about whether conductive arguments are a distinct type of argument have given rise to a legitimacy crisis of conduction. Adler (2013) once argued that the definition of conduction implies two incompatible claims which make conduction impossible. The crux of his position can be summarized in the question of how it can be possible that the conclusions of conductive arguments are unqualified while the negative considerations that are involved remain viable. Xie and Xiong (2013) and Xie (2017) have provided a rhetorical solution to the problem by claiming that the negative considerations have only a rhetorical function so that in the arguments they are not at all viable. Blair (2016), however, contends that the negative considerations have a logical function and can weaken the strength of the argument.

In Chap. 16 Liao reconstructs first Jonathan Adler’s argument and the variant of it that he has distinguished. Next he presents his criticism of the rhetorical solution of Yun Xie and Minghui Xiong as well as the logical solution of Anthony Blair. Although Blair’s logical solution can resolve the problem raised by Adler, it does not offer a complete defence of the legitimacy of conduction. According to Liao, the logical function of the negative considerations needs to be fully justified in order to defend the legitimacy of conduction in a better way. In making an effort to do so he provides a new perspective of argument evaluation in the case of conduction in which he argues that the presence of the negative considerations can change the original criteria of argument evaluation into new criteria. In Liao’s view, the logical function of counter-considerations therefore lies in changing the criteria of argument evaluation. He concludes that in this way the legitimacy of conduction can be fully justified.

From argument schemes to argumentative relations in the wild concludes with a contribution pertaining to an area of research that is these days vital to the applicability of argumentation theory: the automatic detection of relevant elements and aspects of argumentative discourse. This research into argument mining (Lippi & Torroni, 2016) focuses primarily on the detection of arguments, components of arguments and relations between arguments in automated corpora using a combination of natural language processing and machine learning techniques. The chapter included in this volume concentrates on so-called Relation-based Argument Mining.

In ‘Deploying machine learning classifiers for argumentative relations in the wild’ (Chap. 17) Oana Cocarascu and Francesca Toni describe two experiments concerning the deployment of various Relation-based Argument Mining classifiers in order to extract argumentative relations of attack and support from a dialogue and a short text. They claim that outputs of the classifiers can be used to construct directed graphs representing the relations between arguments from any given text. These graphs can then be deployed to support a number of applications, varying from capturing and analysing debates in social media to supporting decision making.

Cocarascu and Toni experiment with various machine learning techniques (Support Vector Machines, Random Forests, Long-Short Term Memory networks) to determine argumentative relations. They trained the classifiers in dealing with a data set consisting of pairs of texts annotated as attack, support or neither attack nor support. By comparing the argumentative relations extracted by making use of trained classifiers with the ones extracted by human annotators, they are able to show that there is no overall winner as to which machine learning classifier is better suited for this task: Long-Short Term Memory networks performed best for the first experiment and Random Forests for the second experiment. This suggests that different techniques might be better suited for different types of texts. The general conclusion Cocarascu and Toni draw from their analysis is that the search for an all-encompassing method is still open.

References

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Bermejo-Luque, L. (2017). The appraisal of conductions. In S. Oswald & D. Maillat (Eds.), Argumentation and inference (pp. 1–18). London: College Publications.

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Blair, J. A. (2017). In defence of conduction: Two neglected features of argumentation. In S. Oswald & D. Maillat (Eds.), Argumentation and inference (pp. 29–44). London: College Publications.

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Freeman, J. B. (2011). Evaluating conductive arguments in light of the Toulmin model. In J. A. Blair & R. H. Johnson (Eds.), Conductive arguments. An overlooked type of defeasible reasoning (pp. 127–144). London: College Publications.

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© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

F. H. van Eemeren, B. Garssen (eds.)From Argument Schemes to Argumentative Relations in the WildArgumentation Library35https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28367-4_2

2. Argument Schemes: Extending the Pragma-Dialectical Approach

Frans H. van Eemeren¹, ²   and Bart Garssen¹  

(1)

Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric, ILIAS, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

(2)

Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Frans H. van Eemeren (Corresponding author)

Email: f.h.vaneemeren@uva.nl

Bart Garssen

Email: b.j.garssen@uva.nl

2.1 The Notion of Argument Scheme

In the last two decades various theoretically-oriented publications have appeared about argument schemes.¹ Not much exposure however has been given lately to the pragma-dialectical perspective on argument schemes and the way in which it has developed since the late 1970s.² Recently the two of us have started a project aimed at explaining the pragma-dialectical theory of argument schemes and extending it with new insights. This paper is intended to be the first instalment of a more encompassing series of studies that is to result in a monograph in which a complete overview will be given of the current state of affairs in the pragma-dialectical treatment of argument schemes and their categorization in a theoretically motivated and empirically justified typology.

In the pragma-dialectical perspective, argumentation is aimed at resolving a difference of opinion about an evaluative, prescriptive or descriptive standpoint. Based on the starting points accepted as their point of departure by the parties in the difference, the standpoint at issue is in argumentation defended by advancing one or more reasons in its support. The reasons that are advanced in argumentation are intended to offer an informal justification of the acceptability of the standpoint at issue, not a definitive proof of its truth.³ When a standpoint can be proven true by an immediate empirical check or a demonstration that it follows logically from true premises, doing so will suffice and there is no need for argumentation—or at most this proof could be presented as an irrefutable argumentation.

When the truth of a standpoint can be shown beyond any doubt by presenting a modus ponens-like formal derivation of the standpoint, the only step that needs to be taken in evaluating the argumentation thus advanced is checking the logical validity of the reasoning involved. However, in ordinary argumentation the reasoning is as a rule not explicitly presented in this way, so that carrying out such a check will usually not be possible – or can only be accomplished in an extremely artificial way. In ordinary argumentation the acceptability of a standpoint is in principle defended by linking the propositional content of the argumentation by means of a particular justificatory principle to the standpoint at issue. This means that the acceptability of the standpoint at issue depends on the suitability and correctness of the use of the argument scheme brought to bear in applying this justificatory principle.

There are various types of argumentation that can be used in defending the acceptability of a standpoint, each of which is characterized by having a particular argument scheme. Each argument scheme represents a particular justificatory relationship between a reason (or cluster of interdependent reasons) and a standpoint that is supposed to legitimize the transfer of acceptability from the reason (or cluster of interdependent reasons) advanced to the standpoint that is defended. The various argument schemes that can be used and the way in which their use is to be evaluated are in the pragma-dialectical view part of the joint starting points that are in principle by intersubjective agreement explicitly or implicitly established at the opening stage of a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion on the merits.

When the argumentation advanced in defence of a standpoint consists of a plurality of reasons that are in some combination or other advanced in support of a standpoint, it has a complex argumentation structure. Since each individual justification of a standpoint has its own argument scheme, whether it consists of a single or a coordinative argumentation (as in the case of the use of interdependent reasons), such complex argumentation may involve the use of more than one argument scheme. This means that, in principle, the argument schemes that are used in complex argumentation do not automatically pertain to the argumentation as a whole, but to its various justificatory constituents. Although in 1978, when we started to make use of this concept (van Eemeren et al., 1978), we had initially opted for using the term argumentation scheme, we therefore later decided for the sake of clarity to give preference to the term argument scheme (e.g. van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004).

2.2 Intersubjective Procedures for Evaluating Argumentation

According to the Munchhausen trilemma sketched by critical rationalist Hans Albert, there are three ways in which providing a justification of a standpoint will finally always come to a dead end. Two of them, circularity and an infinite regress, are indeed fatal. However, the third option that Albert distinguishes, breaking off the justification at an arbitrary point, is in our view not inescapable. If the justification process is ended when a starting point has been reached that is recognized by both parties, the justification is not concluded in an arbitrary way, but has a pragmatic basis in well-considered intersubjective agreement. This reliance on existing agreement, which may have been established explicitly or correctly presumed, is in fact quintessential to any serious conduct of argumentation. It is the very reason why in the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentative discourse the opening stage, where the procedural and material starting points of the resolution process are determined, is considered vital to resolving a difference of opinion on the merits.

The pragma-dialectical rules for resolving a difference of opinion on the merits include a set of procedures for evaluating argumentation that are supposed to be intersubjectively agreed upon in the opening stage of a critical discussion (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004: 135–157). The identification procedure involves determining whether a proposition called into question in resolving the difference of opinion is identical to any of the propositions which may be regarded jointly accepted starting points. If a proposition may be regarded to be part of the point of departure that has been accepted at the opening stage of the discussion, it may not be called into question in the argumentative exchange of the ongoing discussion. In order to allow for new information to be used in the argumentative exchange that is not already included in the starting points, the parties may in the opening stage agree to leave room for sub-discussions in which it is determined whether a proposition that was initially not agreed upon can be accepted as a starting point in the second instance.

Next there is the inference procedure, which is aimed at determining whether in cases in which the reasoning is fully externalized the reasoning proposition involved in the argumentation, therefore proposition involved in the standpoint presented by the protagonist is logically valid as it stands.

If the reasoning is not completely externalized, so that the argumentation cannot be logically valid as it stands, as is in argumentative practice generally the case, the question is whether the argument schemes that are brought to bear in the argumentation are admissible to both parties and have been used correctly in the case concerned. If it first needs to be determined which argument scheme has been employed before this can be decided, then the explicitization procedure needs to be followed, which is for this purpose added to the available pragma-dialectical tools.

To check whether a particular argument scheme has been used correctly, the testing procedure must be carried out. This procedure consists of asking the critical questions appropriate for checking the correctness of the use of a particular argument scheme. Each argument scheme gives cause to different critical questions, which open up different kinds of dialectical routes. For a conclusive defence of the standpoint, both the propositional content of the argumentation that is advanced and its justifying force must have been defended successfully in accordance with the relevant evaluation procedures. For a conclusive attack on the standpoint, either the propositional content of the argumentation or its justifying force must have been attacked successfully in accordance with the relevant evaluation procedures.

In the present context it is worth repeating that