Strategisch manoeuvreren in plenaire Tweede Kamerdebatten

Strategic manoeuvring in plenary debates in the Second Chamber of Dutch ParliamentThe (extended) pragma-dialectical argumentation theory assumes that people engaged in argumentative discourse manoeuvre strategically. In argumentative reality, the strategic manoeuvring is carried out within specific argumentative activity types. In this paper it is argued that pragma-dialectics offers a fruitful approach to study political debate. The approach and its added value are discussed and illustrated on the basis of a specific type of political debate in a specific argumentative activity type: the plenary debate in the Second Chamber of Dutch Parliament.

Violence metaphors for cancer

The use of violence metaphors for cancer has been widely criticised both in academic and non-academic contexts (see Harrington, 2012; Semino et al., 2015). Whereas previous research on violence metaphors for cancer has focused on the use and functions of these metaphors by and for different stakeholder groups, no studies to date have examined the (various) arguments that are raised in public discourse that is critical of said metaphors. Applying concepts from pragma-dialectical argumentation theory (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992), this paper sets out to analyse types of argumentation occurring in critical public discussions of violence metaphors for cancer. Close argumentative analyses of actual discourse examples will be provided in order to illustrate the differences between two types of argumentation in particular, i.e. pragmatic and symptomatic argumentation.

Argumentative Strategies and Stylistic Devices

The extended pragma-dialectical argumentation theory assumes that people engaged in argumentative discourse manoeuvre strategically. In argumentative reality, the strategic manoeuvring is often carried out according to an argumentative strategy. Language users make an effort to present their strategic manoeuvres in a specific way and the analysis of the stylistic choices in actual argumentative discourse is the most important basis for identification and analysis of argumentative strategies. In this article, it is shown what requirements must be satisfied by a systematic stylistic analysis of argumentative discourse, and the results of such an analysis are illustrated by means of a case study.

An Early Nominalist Critique of Platonic Realism: Ibn Ḥazm’s Metaphysics of the Created Corporeal World

This study examines how Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456 AH/1064 CE) articulated his nominalist critique of Platonic realism in the context of a larger rejection of ontological dualism in philosophy. It draws on evidence in Al-Fiṣal fī l-Milal wa-l-Ahwāʿ wa-l-Niḥal (The Book of Opinions on Religions, Heresies, and Sects) and his Marātib al-ʿUlūm (Categories of the Sciences). In response to those who “claim to follow philosophy (falsafa),” and in dialogue with earlier theologians and philosophers such as al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1012–1013) and al-Kindī (d. 258/873), Ibn Ḥazm redefined the universal soul (al-nafs al-kulliyya) and universal intellect (al-ʿaql al-kullī) as linguistic references to the total of all particular souls and particular intellects, which he defined as corporeal accidents inhering in the body. Ibn Ḥazm’s identification of souls and intellects as corporeal was part of his larger conception of the world as discrete and finite in both space and time. The world, in other words, is measurable in numbers and therefore limited by the volume of its visible and invisible air-like corporeality to the exclusion of philosophical notions of a perfect void or prime matter. In his additional critique of contemporary Muslim epistemology and the theologians’ reliance on dialectical argumentation, Ibn Ḥazm held that a true scholar of Islam should turn to logic-oriented deductive methods and scriptural evidence together in order to ascertain the possibilities and, more importantly, the limits of human knowledge about both the corporeal created world and the ontological unknown (ghayb) of the divine realm.

A Dialectical Analysis of the Ad Baculum Fallacy

This paper applies dialectical argumentation structures to the problem of analyzing the ad baculum fallacy. It is shown how it is necessary in order to evaluate a suspected instance of the this fallacy to proceed through three levels of analysis: (1) an inferential level, represented by an argument diagram, (2) a speech act level, where conditions for specific types of speech acts are defined and applied, and (3) a dialectical level where the first two levels are linked together and fitted into formal dialogue structures. The paper adds a new type of dialogue called advising dialogue that needs to be applied at the third level.