Abstract
This contribution discusses some problems of Pragma-Dialectics and explains them by its consensualistic view of the function of argumentation and by its philosophical underpinnings. It is suggested that these problems can be overcome by relying on a better epistemology and on an epistemological theory of argumentation. On the one hand Pragma-Dialectics takes unqualified consensus as the aim of argumentation, which is problematic, (Sect. 2) on the other it includes strong epistemological and rationalistic elements (Sect. 3). The problematic philosophical underpinnings of Pragma-Dialectics, specifically Critical Rationalism as well as Logical Constructivism and Dialogic Logic of the Erlangen School, are among the sources of this incoherence (Sect. 4). A detailed critique of the Pragma-Dialectical discussion rules shows the negative consequences of this foundation and indicates how they could be avoided (Sects. 5, 6).
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Notes
Apart from tiny linguistic improvements, the 2003 and the 2004 formulations are identical.
In addition to this improvement, according to a literal interpretation, it seems as if the originally included possibility of common observation has now, surprisingly enough, been deleted. According to a reading that is better informed about the authors' intention (and was imparted to me by one of the referees), however, the possibility of common observation shall now be included in the intersubjective identification procedure and thus regimented by Rs7. (This reading is not obvious from what van Eemeren and Grootendorst write: Rs7 speaks of the "intersubjective identification procedure", which on page 146 of A Systematic Theory of Argumentation (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004) is defined as referring to the methods for determining whether a certain proposition appertains to the list of the (previously) accepted propositions; this implies that common observation of events described in new claims is not included here; and this is in line with the original definition of the ‘intersubjective identification procedure' (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 166). On page 147, however, van Eemeren and Grootendorst speak of common observation. And according to the better informed reading, this passage shall still explain the content of the intersubjective identification procedure, thus extending it beyond what has been defined before. So, according to the better informed reading, the "intersubjective identification procedure" then would have been considerably redefined with respect to the original version (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 166) and even with respect to the more recent literal definition (i.e. van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, p. 146).)
One such technical change is the cancellation of explicitization as a means of proving a thesis (Ro10/Rs8: van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 169, 2004, p. 150). "Explicitization" originally meant making implicit premises explicit so that a deductively valid argument results (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, pp. 141, 149). Therefore explicitization already implied the argument's logical validity. Now these things have been split up into two steps (first explicitization, then deduction) (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, p. 150, Rs8), so that in principle explicitization could also be used to make non-deductive arguments completely explicit. However, for this purpose the theory of explicitization has to be updated to cover non-deductive argument schemes as well. And this has not yet been done (cf. ibid., 117 f., 121). A detailed comparison of the old and the new rules now can be found in: Zenker (2007).
As we will see in the following section, in a systematically later stage Pragma-Dialectics goes beyond this initially fixed aim and requires that the dispute resolution be reached by a regimented discussion. But even the consensus resulting from these discussions is still unqualified in a broader sense, namely in the sense that now the discussion and argumentation rules governing the discussion as well as the premises to be used are established by an unqualified consensus which is not subject to further conditions—e.g. epistemic principles (cf. van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, pp. 163–168, in particular Ro7, 2004, p. 143, Rs5).
Pragma-Dialectics even takes "convincing" (a "rational judge" or "reasonable critic") to be the defining aim of argumentation (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, pp. 2, 3, 4, 9, 18, 29, 2004, p. 1; van Eemeren et al. 1996, p. 279), which usually is considered as the definiens of a rhetorical approach to argumentation. So, consensualism is only a narrower form of the more general rhetorical approach (cf. also Tindale 2004).
Later van Eemeren and Grootendorst set out their epistemological position, i.e. a particular version of Critical Rationalism, rather extensively (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1988; restated in a slightly condensed version in: van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, pp. 123–134). However, 1. in this exposition van Eemeren and Grootendorst do not provide a positive justification of Critical Rationalism (or of their version of it), 2. neither does this position lead to the consensualistic conception of critical discussions as aiming at an agreement. Ad 1: After a (negative) critique of classical rationalism (or in van Eemeren's and Grootendorst's terms—taken from Toulmin—of the "geometrical view") as being dogmatic and a critique of the rhetorical argumentation theory ("anthropological view") as being relativistic, van Eemeren and Grootendorst rather ad hoc introduce their own proposal, i.e. critical dialectical testing (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1988, pp. 279 f., 2004, p. 131). But they never say, what this critical testing is good for in the first place, and specifically, how it relates to truth. They repeat instead that the reasonableness of the dialectical procedure lies in its potential to resolve differences of opinion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, p. 132). If this shall amount to a justification of the goal, i.e. resolving differences of opinion, it would obviously beg the question. Ad 2: In that exposition van Eemeren and Grootendorst propose a falsificationist position (opponents try to criticize the proponent's thesis), which has little to do with the positive aim of dispute resolution, i.e. agreeing about the opinion in question. The falsificationist position is at odds with the positive justificatory core of the Pragma-Dialectical discussion, which is regimented by the discussion rules on justification—beginning with the obligation to defend one's claim when asked to do so and ending with the criteria for when the protagonist has conclusively defended his initial standpoint (cf. Ro4–5/Rs2–3 (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, pp. 158–161, 2004, pp. 137–140) and Ro8–12/Rs6–9 (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, pp. 164–171, 2004, pp. 143–151)). Completely in line with the falsificationist position, van Eemeren and Grootendorst in that exposition interpret the aim of a critical discussion negatively: the aim is not to maximize agreement but to minimize disagreement (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1988, p. 286). That this cannot be the real aim of an argumentative discussion in the usual sense, however, can be seen from the fact that the aim of minimizing disagreement can even be achieved by not believing or not claiming anything. The Critical Rationalist basis itself of Pragma-Dialectics will be discussed below, in Sect. 4.
Habermas, too, has developed a consensus theory of argumentation, which, however, claims a strong connection between consensus and truth, namely that an (ideal) consensus about p is the criterion of p's truth (Habermas 1973). However, this very tight connection between consensus and truth is acquired by paying a high price: Habermas' truth is void in that it lacks correspondence features; it simply does not say anything about how the world is. (More detailed criticism: Lumer 1990, pp. 291–296.)
In rare cases coordination works although both players have false beliefs. Think e.g. of an appointment to meet at 8:00 p.m. at the "Il Mangia" restaurant, where both parties mistake the same restaurant to be the "Il Mangia" and meet at the same restaurant at 8:00 p.m. But these are rare and lucky chances. And it is nothing that could be deliberately achieved. In any case, this is not the aim of rational discourse.
Strangely enough, van Eemeren and Grootendorst in Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies go on to spell out the responsibility (and the preparatory) condition in terms of beliefs (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 33).
The Pragma-Dialectic rules of discourse do not even include a sincerity condition, which requires that the participants believe what they assert (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 201, note 67). But van Eemeren and Grootendorst assume that the discussants are serious, i.e. saying what they mean (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, pp. 151 f.).
Apart from externalization, some further reasons for this disastrous rule are that van Eemeren and Grootendorst do not sufficiently consider intersubjective differences in knowledge and that they discuss only simple, i.e. single nonmixed, discourses (cf. below, Sect. 5), which do not allow the antagonist to advance theses himself, so that the protagonist could attack them.
In the most recent exposition of their theory, van Eemeren and Grootendorst implicitly accept the latter point by defining ‘argumentation’ as an activity of "putting forward … propositions" (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, p. 1).
Goldman's and Lumer's theories deal with argumentative dialogues that start with one speaker making a claim and advancing an argument for it, which then is scrutinized by the other speaker, perhaps corrected etc. until a justified consensus is finally reached. (Lumer calls this type of argumentative dialogue "disputation".) This by no means excludes that there are also other types of argumentative dialogues which also aim at a justified consensus, e.g. inquiry dialogues where the participants scrutinize a perhaps promising but not yet accepted hypothesis by searching for possible reasons in its favour, possibly modifying it etc. (cf. Blair 2007). However, the first form seems to occur much more frequently.
Going through what van Eemeren, Grootendorst and Snoeck Henkemans (or other contributors) write about the "epistem(olog)ic(al) approach" (cf. the pages listed in the subject index: van Eemeren et al. 1996, p. 412) reveals that a clear idea of this approach as an approach aiming at knowledge or justified belief is missing there. Thus Pragma-Dialecticians so far simply might not have examined this possibility to improve their approach.
Siegel and Biro have nicely documented these verbal forms of epistemic rationality in Pragma-Dialectics: Pragma-Dialectics aims at epistemic rationality, which then is defined in consensualistic terms (Siegel and Biro 1997, pp. 282 f.). They explain this ambivalence this way: Pragma-Dialectics wants to have both, fulfilment of epistemic rationality criteria and the binding to resolution of conflicts of opinion. However, one cannot have it both ways (ibid., p. 284). There are sound argumentative turns in a discourse that are counter-productive for resolving the difference of opinion and, therefore according to Pragma-Dialectics should be fallacies; and the opposite holds as well (ibid., p. 284). (Siegel and Biro take up a criticism of: Blair and Johnson 1993, p. 189.) This important point should be examined a bit more in depth. Justified belief and consensus are both valuable but only partly overlapping aims. One can and should try to combine them by looking for justified consensus. This makes sense from an epistemological point of view if it is the internal goal of discourses that externally aim at cooperatively searching for truth and at providing more rational certitude about one's beliefs by exposing them to other people's criticisms (Lumer 1988, pp. 448–450). This usually works quite well. But even with justified consensus as the aim of argumentative discourse, in unfortunate cases of strongly diverging knowledge bases there can remain tensions between justification and consensus in the way that one speaker is justified in believing a certain proposition, whereas the other is not; the other could even justifiedly believe in an incompatible proposition. However, in such cases one result of the discourse would be that both speakers agree that the second speaker cannot check the truth of some of the first speaker's premises.
With respect to common observation, in Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussion (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 167) van Eemeren and Grootendorst refer only to Kamlah's and Lorenzen's book (Kamlah and Lorenzen 1973, pp. 117–128), where the steps of the observation are described. Later they also mention consulting oral or written sources like encyclopedias, dictionaries and reference works (cf. van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, p. 147).
At least some of the arguments that van Eemeren and Grootendorst classify as ‘symptomatic arguments’ can best be interpreted as probabilistic arguments with a statistical major premise of the form ‘most Fs are G’—cf. e.g. their example of the major premise "Americans are inclined to care a lot about money" (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 96, referred to: 2004, p. 150 (note 20)).
For a detailed criticism of Albert's Münchhausen-Trilemma see: Lumer (1990, pp. 197–209).
An obvious solution to this problem seems to be to abridge the agreement by referring to standard reference works: ‘In this discourse are in force the "Oxford English Dictionary", the "Encyclopaedia Britannica", the Pragma-Dialectical discussion rules and the "Logische Propädeutik" of Kamlah and Lorenzen’. But this solution is illusory because, first, nobody knows the complete content of these works—and there are great interpersonal differences in what is known—second, because even these works contain mistakes or people disagree about too many single points and, third, because the discussants may share a lot of situational and local knowledge that is not contained in such works. People's knowledge is too individualistic.
Beth had published his semantic tableaux method already in 1955. Lorenzen presented his (more or less) complete calculus of Dialogic Logic to the public during a conference in 1959 (Warsaw, 2–9 September 1959) (printed as: Lorenzen 1961), where he already referred to Beth's tableaux (ibid., p. 11). Nonetheless, Lorenzen seems to have invented his calculus in parallel to Beth. During a conference already in 1958 (Venice, 12–18 September 1958) (printed as: Lorenzen 1960) he presented the essential ideas of his calculus (dialogue game, dialogical definition of the logical operators etc.)—whereas the characteristic technical elaboration (table divided into two halves with subdivisions, rows one under the other for the consecutive moves etc.) is still missing. Beth is not mentioned in this earlier paper; the approach to the problem is quite different from Beth's; so it is not unlikely that Lorenzen did not yet know Beth's semantic tableaux, though Lorenzen had just reinvented its structural essentials. In a letter to Beth (Beth archive 8/17 1959) Lorenzen then states that he was struck by the similarity between Beth's tableaux and his own calculus. Beth's reply is open and friendly. Many thanks to an anonymous referee, who provided the latter details from the Beth archive and proposed the hypothesis of an independent invention!
A parallel exposition of the logical operators' dialogical meaning is e.g.: Kamlah and Lorenzen (1973, pp. 157–164).
Lorenzen's references to Beth's semantical tableaux are rather scarce. In his most popular book, "Logische Propädeutik" (Kamlah and Lorenzen 1973) he does not even mention Beth or semantic tableaux. Lorenzen seems to have been convinced that the Dialogic Logic stands on its own and that it needs no semantic interpretation.
Some further examples of Dialogic Logic's rules that make no sense in argumentative discourse are given in: Lumer (1988, p. 446). In the heyday of the Erlangen School, i.e. the 1970s and the 1980s, Lorenzen and his followers justified the (intuitionistic) logical rules as rules that were simply a consequence of "the" general rules of argumentative dialogue. As a student this puzzled me a lot because I found many of these "dialogue rules" questionable or even plainly absurd—until I finally found the solution: the dialogue rules had nothing to do with rules of an argumentative discourse, they simply were the rules of Bethian semantic tableaux for proving logical inferences. Lorenzen and his followers, however, were not bent on revealing this connection, perhaps because doing so would have threatened their constructivistic interpretation and the alleged dialogical justification of (intuitionistic) logic as a consequence of general dialogue rules.
A more extensive criticism of Dialogic Logic along these lines is given in: Lumer (1990, pp. 317 f.). In particular, some members of the Erlangen School who later dissociated themselves from the dialogic conception of logic are quoted.
These criticisms nicely demonstrate that van Eemeren and Grootendorst too have been taken in by the Erlangen School's (and probably also Barth's and Krabbe's (Barth and Krabbe 1982)) interpretations of semantic logical proofs as argumentative dialogues (cf. above, note 23). Being irritated by some of its "strange" regulations, van Eemeren and Grootendorst propose revisions, which liken these games more to the usual argumentative dialogues—thus ignoring the real function of these games, namely to be systems of semantical logical proofs.
Please note that "monologic" is meant here only in the weak sense, i.e. that one and the same person presents the whole (perhaps complex) argument. It is not meant in the strong sense that only one person is speaking during the conversation. The intended weak sense of "monologic" does not exclude that the arguer's presentation of his argument be distributed over several turns in a dialogue and interrupted by the questions or objections of another speaker. However, usually such questions and objections mainly have the function of fitting the argument to the addressee; but it remains the arguer's argument. In much rarer cases two or more persons together, in a kind of inquiry, try to construct an argument. In such cases the argument can be formulated dialogically: one piece of the argument is uttered by speaker 1, another piece is added by speaker 2 (Blair 2007). Whether monologic or dialogic presentation of arguments is more frequent is an empirical question. What is not empirical though, is that arguments are sequences of judgements or statements (i.e. propositions with an assertive mode); and as such they are clearly apt to be presented monologically. The deeper reason for this is that arguments present essential steps of a reasoning process; and because reasoning is an individual activity the steps represented in an argument must be such that they can be executed individually and their results can be uttered monologically.
Biro and Siegel (2006, p. 10) essentially make the same suggestion.
In complex disputes the antagonist can advance an incompatible counter-thesis as well as counter-claims against single reasons etc. However, the Pragma-Dialectical discourse rules are designed for simple discussions only and therefore do not allow such moves. The seemingly obvious solution, i.e. to conceive mixed disputes as additions of simple discussions and then to apply the discourse rules also to them, is discussed below—with a negative result.
The Pragma-Dialecticial rules for argumentative discourse and the Pragma-Dialectical theory in general clearly deal also with complex arguments, where one thesis is defended with several independent reasons or where at least one reason is justified by a subordinated argument (cf. Ro12/Rs9, van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 171, 2004, p. 151; Snoeck Henkemans 1992, 2003). But in such cases the complex argument remains an extended argument of the protagonist; the antagonist still does not get the right to attack offensively and to make his own claims. The Pragma-Dialectician Snoeck Henkemans also deals extensively with a protagonist's replies to an antagonist's criticisms, and some of the antagonist's moves she mentions, namely rejecting an argument as unacceptable, insufficient or irrelevant (Snoeck Henkemans 1992, p. 92, 2003, p. 410), go beyond what is permitted according to the Pragma-Dialectical discussion rules. In addition, she deals with mixed disputes, where, apart from the protagonist's thesis, an opposing standpoint is also discussed (id. 1992, pp. 131–134). Curiously, however, she discusses all this from the perspective of the protagonist who replies to possible objections in his monological but complex argumentation (id. 1992, pp. 85, 134–153, 2003, pp. 407, 411–418). And the example for an allegedly mixed dispute turns out to be only a coordinate argumentation (with several, and each of them necessary, reasons) of the protagonist (id. 1992, pp. 133 f.). All this means that the crucial question of extending the antagonist's possibilities is always carefully evaded.
In my own model of argumentative dialogues groups of possible moves are distinguished: A-moves, which allow argumentation, B-moves, which include agreements and requests of justification by the opponent, C-moves, which allow the opponent's attacks, etc. (Lumer 1988, pp. 450–457). Pragma-Dialectical discourses correspond to what I have called "simple argumentative dialogue", which consists of A- and B-moves only (Lumer 1988, p. 454); in particular equivalents to the C-moves are missing.
Strangely enough, from 1984 to 2004 van Eemeren and Grootendorst have kept the name for this procedure ("intersubjective testing procedure") but completely changed its content. The regimentation of non-deductive argument schemes should have a different title!
In Pragma-Dialectics "calling into question" means doing two things, (i) not accepting, uttering doubts, and (ii) asking for a justification. In ordinary discourse practice, however, we can do the latter (ii) without doing the former (i). The significant pragmatic difference is that by uttering doubts one takes a (weak) position (at least ‘I do not believe that p’, or a bit stronger: ‘I have initial evidences that p may not be true’), which now on its own can be questioned and thus creates justificatory obligations, whereas simply asking for a justification does not. (Because of this pragmatic difference in my own reconstruction of argumentative dialogues the two types of moves belong to different groups. Asking for a justification only helps to adjust the proponent's argument (to the addressee's epistemic situation), whereas utterance of doubts is a weak form of attack. (Lumer 1988, pp. 453, 455—moves B2 and C4.))
Another procedural problem of the Pragma-Dialectical rules has been discussed above (Sect. 2), namely that rule Ro17/Rs14 obliges the protagonist to retract his thesis if he cannot sufficiently defend it against the antagonist's attacks, i.e. justification requests (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984, p. 174, 2004, p. 154).
In addition, Pragma-Dialecticians criticize that arguments are "typically" seen as externalizations of individual thought processes (van Eemeren et al. 1996, p. 277). This criticism, too, makes for unnecessary opposition. Arguments are sequences of statements or judgements (i.e. propositions plus the assertive mode) plus an indicator of argumentation. Such arguments can be used internally for cognizing a hypothesis, and they can be used communicatively, for justifying one's position or for convincing an addressee (Lumer 2005a, Sect. 4).
Bart Garssen has improved and expanded van Eemeren's and Grootendorst's theory of argument schemes (e.g. Garssen 1995, 1997, 1999, 2002). However, he does not further extend the list of argument schemes but bases his research on van Eemeren's and Grootendorst's list. And the major part of his contribution regards empirical questions—like whether ordinary speakers can differentiate the Pragma-Dialectical argument schemes—, which do not contribute to the justification of these argument schemes.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank several people for discussion and helpful hints: Michael A. Gilbert, Ralph Johnson, Erik Krabbe, Martin Reisigl, Harvey Siegel, Harald Wohlrapp and Frank Zenker, as well as three anonymous referees.
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Lumer, C. Pragma-Dialectics and the Function of Argumentation. Argumentation 24, 41–69 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-008-9118-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-008-9118-7