Art of Argumentation
On November 15, 2016 honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an earnest request to the to the people of India; to support the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, asking them to bear the “pain” for “50 days” to help him deliver the “India of your dreams”.
Most of the times, at least — people can be persuaded. By Arguments.
Arguments aren’t that complicated most of the times. Each time you tell someone to do or believe something or when you are explaining why you do or believe something, you are making an “Argument”. We all use arguments at a vast majority of places — from asking your parents to loan you the car to asking your preceptor for an extension to a deadline. In fact each time you read or make any comment on a social media platform regarding your stance on the rising India-Pakistan tensions asking for war or peace, you are in fact making an argument (good or not? Well, let’s see!)
People tend to confuse arguments with either witty comebacks or repeating the same thing loudly or angrily but well framed arguments, if made with sound logic and reasoning, as we will try to explain in this wiki, can set you up to be a more persuasive person (well, at least for breaking down propaganda and deadline extensions)
American scholar and theorist, Stanley Fish described Arguments as a “connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. Argument is everywhere, argument is unavoidable, argument is interminable, argument is all we have.” While a contradiction “is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes” (Fish 3)
In order to completely understand this, let’s look at Shrey and Divya arguing about whether the government should ban smoking.
Shrey: The government should ban smoking because the harms of passive and active smoking are massive, both to the mental and physical health of the consumer and the society at large.
Now, Divya can choose to respond to this is two ways.
Shrey: Ahhh, this is too much!! Let’s go to Naveen and grab an ice-burst!
In summary, while an argument says, “My claim is right and this is why it’s right”, a contradiction merely says, “This one thing that you said is wrong”, but does not successfully prove why its claim is right.
So, what is an argument?
“Argument is a specific kind of persuasion based on the principles of logic and reasoning” (McGuire 2)
“An argument is constituted by two or more explicit and/or implicit claims, one or more of which supports or provides evidence for the truth or merit of another claim, the conclusion, which the argument intends to prove. (Toulmin 5)
In democratic societies like the US, India, France etc. the ability to argue effectively has always been central to public participation. As American entrepreneur Christopher Shroeder puts it, “A person who can argue coherently and cogently commands a considerable amount of authority in our culture, and such a person is considered to be educated, and to be a source of power.” This rising attention to argument also reflects an increasing focus on the importance of rationality, critical thinking, ability to debate and their application in the realities around us. Only recently, “Argument” has also become a specific discipline in academic curricula.
Unfortunately in modern society, Argument has become only about beating your opponent. Even in the public discourse, a presidential candidate (no brownie points for guessing) debates the size of his penis and/or chest (wink, wink) rather than addressing the problems faced by the country. A lot of modern philosophers (enter names) believe that substantive argumentation (especially in the political sphere) is dead and has been replaced by sound bites and bumper-sticker rhetoric. Ironically, this is an argument against argument.
However, in our increasingly diverse as well as well as dynamic world, argument remains a valuable tool to imagine other possibilities for rhetorical practice — to make arguments with the goal of finding truth, with the best interests in mind for all parties, arguments where the parties involved actually listen to each other and from that listening respond in productive, thoughtful ways, attempted by us using Stephen Toulmin’s Model of Argumentation.
Origin of Toulmin’s Model:
Absolutism, mainly derived from Plato’s idea of formal logic in argumentation, promotes the notion of absolute truth. It proposes that arguments can either be completely true or completely false irrespective of the context they are in. All moral deadlocks can thus be solved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles.
Relativism, on the other hand, mainly proposed by anthropologists, propose that there is no notion of absolute truth. Truth varies depending upon the context and the situation. Therefore relativism in argumentation will depend upon the particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture and therefore make claims, taking all the cultural influences into account.
Toulmin’s Model of Argumentation:
Toulmin claims (or argues :p) that a good argument is one which provides sufficient evidence and reasoning to the claim it’s proposing and also stands up to criticism or rebuttals. He suggests that a good argument should be sufficiently applicable in real life problems and have a necessary practical value.
In his book, The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin first introduced the idea of ‘Argument Fields’. He asserted that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called “field-dependent”, while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called “field-invariant”.
According to Toulmin, the limitation of absolutism is the assumption that all aspects of argument are field invariant (or universally true); which makes absolutists unaware of the field dependent aspects of arguments. Toulmin’s model thereby tries to avoid the drawbacks of absolutism without resorting to relativism. He believes that relativists over-emphasize the importance of the “field-dependent” aspect of arguments, and become unaware of the “field-invariant” elements.
In an attempt to find middle ground between the two, the Toulmin model attempts to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth and impact of arguments
Elements of the Toulmin Model:
Toulmin’s model for rational argumentation states that a argument can be traced as the movement of the “data” (evidence) to the “claim” (conclusion) through the “warrant”.
Data: Data (or reason) is information that answers the question “What have you got to go on?”
Claim: A claim is a statement or assertion you intend to prove as ‘true.’ Claims involve taking a stance on either side of the controversial statement.
Warrant: A warrant is the logical persuasive connection between the claim and the reasons supporting it. They are generally unstated or implied assumptions about an evaluative value that makes the claim seem plausible.
An argument can be rendered valid and applicable only when the required procedure model (data to claim via warrant) is followed and the link from data to claim is accepted, thereby the warrant is one of the most crucial elements to establish the validity.
After further exploration of the role of logic in an argument, Toulmin asserted that the criteria of the evaluation of an argument should be context and situation dependent and the same universal criteria cannot be applied in all cases. He called this evaluation method as field-dependent. According to Toulmin, sound argumentation is “conducted in accordance with a formally valid procedure and in conformance with the specific soundness conditions of the field or subject concerned” (van Eemeren 133). In his book The Uses of Argument, Toulmin claims that the kind of backing used to prove a point will change as the field of argument changes.
Case 1: A warrant concerning whales being mammals is defended by relating it to a system of taxonomic classification of animals
Case 2: A warrant concerning whether a Saudi Arabian is necessarily a Muslim would be supported by statistics on how religious beliefs vary among different nationalities
To understand the Toulmin model better, let us take an example and break it down to see whether the Toulmin model fits to it or not.
Example: If the claim we intend to prove is that the Indian government should ban smoking, the argument layout would look something like this:
Claim: The Indian government should ban smoking. This claim if seen in isolation is a mere assertion with no evidence or reasoning to substantiate it. However, the Toulmin model brings explains how to validate or prove this claim true
Data/evidence: Cigarette smoking comes with an outstanding threat of cancer and thereby has a huge chance to reduce the life span of an individual. Hence, banning smoking will lead to a better health of the citizens of the country.
Warrant: The warrant implied through this argument is that the state (nation state) should work for the betterment of the individuals of the state; thereby should be responsible to improve the health conditions of the citizens.
Using the aforementioned principles, the claim becomes valid or true since the data and the warrant substantiate the side taken to make this statement i.e. Smoking should be banned.
However, complex arguments cannot be validated using the above mentioned scheme. Which is why Toulmin went on to add three additional elements to a more complex version of his argument model. These three elements strengthen the link between the data and claim (backing); preempts what the other side has to say (rebuttal), and describes the extent of the truth of the claim (qualifier)
Backing: Provides evidence and reasoning to support the existence of the warrant; making it more explicit.
Rebuttal: This element acts as a devil’s advocate and preempts the conditions of exception to the claim; or what the opposite side will have to say.
Qualifier: Provides the degree to which the claim is true or force of the claim. Might not be present in all arguments.
All argumentation appeals to some mixture of three human experiences: logos (logic), factual information and consequent deductions; ethos (character), a sense of the speaker; and pathos (emotion), resonance with the reader.
Ethos (Credibility) can also be defined as ethical appeal. It implies persuading your audience by the character/credibility of the author. We tend to believe people whom we respect and admire. One of the major limitations of argumentation is that the arguer needs to project an impression to the audience that you are someone worth listening to, in other words making yourself as author into an authority on the subject of the paper, as well as someone who is likeable and worthy of respect; which at times can also be used as a leverage to dilute on the logic presented in your argument.
Pathos (Emotional) means persuading by appealing to the reader’s emotions. We can look at texts ranging from classic essays to contemporary advertisements to see how pathos, emotional appeals, are used to persuade. Language choice affects the audience’s emotional response, and emotional appeal can effectively be used to enhance an argument. For example, when Narendra Modi was campaigning for the 2014 general elections, he used to wear the religious symbol of the state he used to hold a rally in (well, except a scull cap). Any such part of the argument (or the entire argument) which focuses on appealing to the emotion of the audience and overpowering logic, is linked to Pathos.
Arguments can be used everywhere from the political spheres to the classroom to the courtroom to the bedroom. However, as Stanley Fish and Stephen Toulmin suggest, one cannot apply any general “strategies” for strengthening an argument. Since arguments are always part of a social and contextual setting and can never be seen in isolation, all strategies are not necessary, and definitely not sufficient. Arguments in public sphere are used in a wide variety of reasoning and debates around us; political debates to legal debates to philosophical debates. Arguments, which become the premise for debates and propaganda, shape the realities around us. As Toulmin puts it, “What kind of justificatory activities must we engage in to convince our fellows that these beliefs are based on ‘good reasons’?” Good reasons may be defined as “reasons which are psychologically compelling for a given audience, which make further inquiry both unnecessary and redundant — hence justifying a decision to affirm or reject a proposition.”
For example our understanding of Demonetization as a policy (reality around us) is based on the argument that honorable Prime Minister Modiji makes in favor of the policy.
Applications of arguments in case construction and debates can further be understood here
Teaching Assignment:
Here is a small speech by Barack Obama, one of the most celebrated presidents of the United States of America. All you have to do is identify the elements of the Toulmin model in this speech and comment upon the validity of the argument.
Citations
Fish, S., “Winning Arguments: What Works and Doesn’t Work in Politics, the Bedroom, the Courtroom, and the Classroom”, HarperCollins. 2016
Jasinski, J., “Sourcebook on Rhetoric”, Sage Publications. 2001
Toulmin, S., “The Uses of Argument”, Cambridge University Press. 1958
McGuire, Com 101 Class Notes, MV Community College.
Smoking example expand
Make section 370 better — include in field dependent/invariant
