Adversarial Listening in Argumentation
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Adversarial Listening in Argumentation Jeffrey Davis1 · David Godden1 Accepted: 19 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Adversariality in argumentation is typically theorized as inhering in, and applying to, the interactional roles of proponent and opponent that arguers occupy. This paper considers the kinds of adversariality located in the conversational roles arguers perform while arguing—specifically listening. It begins by contending that the maximally adversarial arguer is an arguer who refuses to listen to reason by refusing to listen to another’s reasons. It proceeds to consider a list of lousy listeners in order to illustrate the variety of ways that the conversational role of listener can be performed adversarially. Because conversational roles, while not adversarial by nature, can be enacted adversarially, arguers are properly subject to praise and blame for their performances of these roles. Thus, the paper concludes, argumentation theory stands in need of an articulated normative vocabulary and theory to codify, apply, explain, and justify the norms of listening governing, guiding, and appraising arguers’ performances of listening in argumentation. Keywords Adversariality · Argumentation · Listening · Norms of listening · Virtue
1 Introduction Arguing, and its discursive catalyst disagreement, have been problematized in recent argumentation-theoretic literature as pervasively adversarial. Argumentation, it is said, arises out of a conflict of opinions, where each arguer seeks to win the other over through rationally coercive argument and critical counterargument, thereby vindicating one’s position by rationally compelling one’s opponent to acquiesce to the force of the better reason. The adversariality that infuses our argumentative practices has been diagnosed as originating, or at least located, in a variety of different places, including: our metaphors of war (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Cohen 1995) and competitive sports (Aikin 2011) by which we not only reflectively characterize the activity of arguing but through which we prospectively approach our arguings; our adversarial paradigm (Moulton 1983; cf. Rooney 2010; Hundleby 2013) and Dominant Adversarial Model (DAM) * Jeffrey Davis [email protected] David Godden [email protected] https://www.davidgodden.ca 1
Philosophy Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
(Cohen 2015) of rational engagement which prescribe a method or way of arguing; the very nature of the activity of argumentation and the circumstances occasioning it (Govier 1999; Aikin 2017; Casey 2020); and the roles we take on in arguing (Cohen 2015; Stevens 2016; Bailin and Battersby 2017; Stevens and Cohen 2018), together with the way we occupy and perform them (Stevens and Cohen forthcoming). What these different diagnoses share is a common picture of our practice of reasoning together—of the way arguers perform their acts of arguing, and of the ways that our argumentative activities are framed in our surrounding discourse. It’s no accide
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