Making Arguments: Reason in Context. Edmond H. Weiss
as evidence.)
Principle #3—Argumentation is always “grounded.”
No argument begins without context, presupposition, and history. Arguments are grounded, which is a good thing. Otherwise, arguers would have to reconstruct all controversies from their perceived starting points. Human beings have cataloged their disagreements since the time writing was invented, and this saves us the time we need to proceed with advocacy. As an argumentative community, Law has served as one of the best examples of how to ground arguments. When lawyers argue cases, they do so in light of precedent, prior cases, decisions, and appeals. A well-prepared legal advocate is fully aware of the status of an argued position, the “standpoint” from which advocacy proceeds.
Even less formalized contexts for argument proceed with the assumption of grounding. We have to know where we are and where we are going for an argument to take place. The faculty at a college, contemplating a switch to a plus/minus grading system, begins the debate aware that many universities have already made the switch. The studies, the data, the justification—all have been presented before. If the faculty would choose to study the question anew, they would perhaps lose two years needed to implement the policy. Because the issue has grounding, the faculty can move directly to the salient issues for them—the appropriateness and potential implication of the new grading policy.
A famous philosopher once put a spider on a desk at the front of a classroom he was teaching. “Observe,” he said. After a time, a bright student piped in: “Observe what?” The point: human intellectual activity does not proceed from a tabula rasa. Because argument is a rational activity, it is grounded in rational frame within which we proceed to make arguments.
Principle #4—Arguing not only involves making claims, but also supporting and defending them.
Again, the best demonstration of what an argument is NOT, is the Monty Python Argument Clinic sketch, mentioned earlier (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Argument_Sketch). In it a man has just paid to “have an argument.” Almost immediately, he experiences the frustration of having his interlocutor contradict everything he says.
A: Come in.
M: Ah, Is this the right room for an argument?
A: I told you once.
M: No you haven't.
A: Yes I have.
M: When?
A: Just now.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't
(After more of this bickering, the man—obviously a student of argumentation—offers his rationale.)
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!
A: Yes it is!
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
A: Not necessarily.
The man is frustrated, because he is not having an argument. He is simply enduring a series of assertions presented in contradiction to his own points. At one spot in the discussion, the man tries to tell his “opponent” that it isn’t really argument, but even that point is simply contradicted.
Argument is more than making claims and contradicting an opponent. Argument is a complete intellectual process in which one thinks out, launches, and backs up assertions with evidence, reasoning, and language strategies. Argument is often dialectical, and therefore involves listening and clash. It requires the participants to extend and expand the scope of their argumentation.
Principle #5—Argument is prepared and presented in anticipation of judgment.
This is perhaps the most important aspect of the theory of argumentation. The reason we make arguments is to have them judged. We should always argue with a judge in mind. The judge doesn’t have to be a specific person, and does not have to possess idiosyncrasies peculiar to one way of judging. The judge can be a conception of the person who is most qualified to judge an argument, not necessarily in terms of expertise, but rather, in terms of a fundamental fairness.
So important is the concept of judgment in argumentation that we will spend an entire chapter on it.
Principle #6—Argument differs from persuasion.
Most college communication curricula have separate courses in argumentation and persuasion. It is rare to see both taught in the same course. Knowing that advocates present their arguments in hopes of achieving expected outcomes, one might think that arguments are designed to achieve persuasion, and that the two subjects ought to be taught together. Most separate the subject matters, however, because the process of arguing and the process of persuading can be entirely independent.
Here’s a real example of how this works. A jury has heard a medical malpractice case argued against a doctor whose patient died in the delivery of her baby. There is overwhelming evidence that the doctor made several avoidable errors during the delivery, and as soon as the jury begins deliberating, they agree, unanimously, that the doctor was at fault. The jury, however, immediately moves to a discussion of whether a finding against the doctor would damage the doctor’s career. “Why punish a good man for one mistake?” asks one of the jurors. The jury finds in favor of the doctor.
One could say that the jury was persuaded (influenced to do one thing) while recognizing the rationality of doing another thing, and yet choosing not to do it. This is the nature of the relationship between argument and persuasion. It also explains why people so often believe a thing and do its opposite. We want to persuade with our arguments, but we must recognize that argument and persuasion do not necessarily lead to the same ends, that conclusion and action are often at odds. (Most smokers know it’s a bad idea!)
It is not remarkable when a prosecutor presents a compelling case but the jury votes against him because they don’t like the way he dresses (another real example). An advocate gives a comprehensive policy analysis; his audience goes along on the basis of one trivial argument that seems almost inconsequential.
Principle #7—The conditions under which one argues are at least as important as the arguments one makes.
When we argue, we are bound by convention—either the social conventions of everyday discourse or the conventions of formal argumentative settings, which are much more rigorous. Deliberative assemblies have rules of procedure, lawyers are bound by rules of evidence, and debaters must adhere to time limits and rules of decorum.
No matter how casual (or how rigid) the conditions, we must recognize the inescapable limits. One can be disadvantaged in argument as much by the “rules” of argument as by the arguments themselves. Conversely, facility in navigating the shoals of argumentation might be one’s strongest ally in advancing arguments. An advocate’s mastery of parliamentary procedure, for example, facilitates the inclusion of salient argumentation. It may also help to exclude an opponent’s argument, where that opponent lacks mastery of the procedural moves.