Introduction: Rhetoricians on Argumentation
- PDF / 451,724 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 89 Downloads / 160 Views
Introduction: Rhetoricians on Argumentation Christian Kock1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract This introduction presents the set of six articles, written by rhetorical scholars, which constitute the bulk of the present special issue of Argumentation. In the introduction, the issue editor seeks to identify defining features of a rhetorical approach to argumentation. Taking this approach means dealing with argumentation in the “realm of rhetoric” (a term from C. Perelman), which comprises argumentation where deductive “demonstration” is not available. This has several corollaries, including the condition of uncertainty and the necessity of securing adherence from an audience. The articles in the issue explore these and other characteristics of argumentation in the realm of rhetoric. Keywords Rhetorical argumentation · The realm of rhetoric · Perelman · Certainty · Audience · Demonstration The present special issue was put together and edited by a rhetorician, at the invitation of the editors of Argumentation. It aims to give an impression of how a representative group of notable rhetoricians believe their field may contribute to argumentation studies. Not only rhetoricians believe that rhetoric and argumentation studies are neighboring academic fields that may supplement and learn from each other. The two academic environments that have been the prime movers in contemporary argumentation studies—the Amsterdam school of pragma-dialectics and the group of North American scholars who use the label “informal logic”—have both done much to understand and integrate rhetorical thinking; the present special issue of Argumentation may be seen as just one example of that. A comparable initiative was the special issue of the journal Philosophy and Rhetoric, vol. 46, no. 4 (2013), guest edited by This is the introduction to the special issue “Rhetoricians on Argumentation” edited by Christian Kock at the invitation of Argumentation’s editor Frans van Eemeren. * Christian Kock [email protected] 1
Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric, Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Karen Blixens Plads 4, 2300 Copenhagen, Denmark
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
C. Kock
informal logicians Ralph Johnson and Christopher Tindale, addressing “the intersection of rhetoric and argumentation.” However, in a sense the present special issue represents something that is still unusual: it does not present ways in which argumentation scholars with roots in other traditions see rhetoric, but instead devotes all its space to showing how rhetoricians see argumentation. Throughout this issue, rhetorical scholars offer their own respective takes on what rhetoric is and on how rhetoric and argumentation studies may both benefit from an even closer dialogue. With six contributors plus one editor involved in this effort, the reader might well ask whether these scholars actually have anything substantial in common that may unite them within the growing and diverse community of argumentation scholars; in other words, do they represent something that mig
Data Loading...
