Abstract
The paper presents a dialogical approach applied to the analysis of argumentative strategies in philosophy and examines the case of the critical comments to the Tanner Lectures given by the Dutch biologist and primatologist, Frans de Waal, at Princeton University in November 2003. The paper is divided into five parts: the first advances the hypothesis that what seem puzzling aspects of philosophical argumentation to scholars in other academic fields are explained by the global role played by a series of arguments within a broader argumentative strategy, e.g. arguing that a question that seems important is not really worthwhile; the second presents five groups of dialectical operations, making use of concepts and tools from the dialectical dialogical approach (WaltonWalton and Krabbe, Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning, SUNY Press, Albany, 1995), Hubert Marraud's Argument dialectic (Marraud, En buena lógica. Una introducción a la teoría de la argumentación, Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, 2020) and from the vast tradition of formal dialectics and dialogical logic. In the remaining three sections, the comments of philosophers Christine M. Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher and Peter Singer to de Waal's Tanner Lectures are analyzed dialectically.
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Notes
The contemporary dialectical perspective is developed in two main branches or sub-approaches: the dialogical approach and the pragma-dialectical approach. The first was developed by Walton and Krabbe (1995). We can trace its roots to Hamblin's formal dialectics (1970) and Lorenzen's dialogical logic (1969). Its central idea is to study the analysis, evaluation and critique of argumentative exchanges through the design of dialogical games. The second sub-approach, pragma-dialectics, was developed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984). Its central approach is the study of argumentation through an ideal model of critical discussion, which combines the theory of speech acts and the conception of "reasonableness" of critical rationalism.
To mark the distinction between functional vocabulary and structural vocabulary (i.e., the statements contained in the text), I will use the following notation: "Tn()" for thesis; "Rn()" for reason; "Cn" for conclusion; "Pn" for premise. Thus, for instance, "T1(C)" should be read: the sentence C functions as thesis 1; "R1(P1)": the sentence P1 functions as reason R1; "R3(P1.P2)": the sentences P1 and P2 are premises of the same reason R3.
Other argumentative structures studied by Marraud are: conjunction and disjunction of arguments, meta-arguments (Leal and Marraud 2022).
It is not common to find explicit warrants, the most common is to find meta-arguments by analogy (Marraud 2016).
The notion of presumption in terms of dialectical obligations: (1) Presumptions are assertions without burden of proof (it is not obligatory to give arguments in their favor when they are challenged). (2) Presumptions are mutable concessions (cancellable concessions): if we abandon a presumption, if we retract it, we have to argue, to give reasons why we no longer accept it (Krabbe and van Laar 2013, p. 202).
In the subsequent I shall refer to Veneer Theory as VT.
Having made this reconstruction, Kitcher offers a first argument against the charge of deviating from Darwinisms that de Waal imputes to T. Huxley.
A fundamental fact about questions is that they all have presuppositions. A presupposition of a question is a proposition that is implied by each and every one of its direct answers, whether correct or incorrect. In other words: the way in which a question is posed makes some answers admissible and others not. All questions have various presuppositions that may or may not be true. The question " What is the cause of the universe?" presupposes, for example, that in fact the universe has a cause (Rescher 2001, p. 22).
There is a verbal agreement on T0 between A and B. However, "T0" does not mean the same thing for A and B. When, in different moves, A makes reformulations Tn (n > 0) and B agrees with Tn, we will say that there is pseudo-expressed propositional agreement (Cf. Naess 2005, vol. 7, 66).
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Acknowledgements
This research was possible thanks to the postdoctoral scholarship Program at UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas. I am particularly grateful to my advisor Atocha Aliseda Llera. This research is part of the Project Argumentative Practices and Pragmatics of Reasons (Parg_Praz), reference number PGC2018-095941-B-I00. I ensure objectivity and transparency in research, and I also ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed.
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Galindo, J. Primatologists and Philosophers Debate on the Question of the Origin of Morality: A Dialectical Analysis of Philosophical Argumentation Strategies and the Pitfalls of Cross-Disciplinary Disagreement. Argumentation 36, 511–540 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-022-09585-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-022-09585-3