AbstractIn this paper, I examine argumentative strategies that social movements can follow to counter hate speech. I begin by reconstructing the disagreement space of the abortion debate in Argentina as a polylogue, identifying the protests of the social movement Pañuelos verdes as argumentative contributions. I then describe two different forms of hate speech used in response to the movement’s protests. I argue that hate speech discredits the position of Pañuelos verdes in the abortion debate and depicts their protests as social threats. Subsequently, I discuss three argumentative strategies that social movements can implement to address hate speech: arguing with hate speakers; advocating for a dialogue with restrictions; and opting for argumentative disobedience. Arguing with hate speakers aims to make hate speakers retract hate speech by exposing the undesirability of using hateful messages in argumentative exchanges. Advocating for a dialogue with restrictions aims to impose limited bans on public speech in order to ensure equal participation of arguers in argumentation. Finally, I propose the notion of argumentative disobedience to describe communicative responses to hate speech that aim to bring bystanders in line with the position of social movements in public debates.

Abstract“Why are millions of dollars worth of orders being left unpaid?”. With tweets like this questioning brands’ policies, activists advocating for sustainable fashion re-discuss material starting points that are assumed by fashion brands, who argue that they are sustainable because they care about their workers’ conditions. This paper argues that activists use tweets to open subdiscussions on material starting points to engage citizens and consumers, re-discussing factual data that brands take for granted, such as the fact that they provide fair conditions for their garment workers. Activists justify their opening of subdiscussions, often through an argumentative pattern that includes an argument based on the locus from effects to cause. They argue that if there are negative effects, the brand cannot claim to care about the conditions of its workers. In discussing how subdiscussions are used by fashion activists, this paper also introduces a conceptualization of Twitter argumentation as a discussion that is not isolated, but is part of a polylogical argumentation that takes place in different venues. For this reason, the argumentation used in tweets is reconstructed as a response to a fashion brand’s communication campaigns around sustainability, which extend beyond the confines of Twitter. As an empirical illustration, this paper is based on the campaign targeting fashion retailer Primark; the dataset includes the brand’s website as well as activists’ tweets.

AbstractIn response to an accusation of having said something inappropriate, the accused may exploit the difference between the explicit contents of their utterance and its implicatures. Widely discussed in the pragmatics literature are those cases in which arguers accept accountability only for the explicit contents of what they said while denying commitment to the (alleged) implicature (“Those are your words, not mine!”). In this paper, we sketch a fuller picture of commitment denial. We do so, first, by including in our discussion not just denial of implicatures, but also the mirror strategy of denying commitment to literal meaning (e.g. “I was being ironic!”) and, second, by classifying strategies for commitment denial in terms of classical rhetorical status theory (distinguishing between denial, redefinition, an appeal to ‘external circumstances’ or to a ‘wrong judge’). In addition to providing a systematic categorization of our data, this approach offers some clues to determine when such a defence strategy is a reasonable one and when it is not.

Keeping in touch with pragma-dialectics contains 17 contributions written for Frans van Eemeren on the occasion of his retirement. Publications 'in honor of' are always entertaining for all who are sympathetic to the laureate (let us consider a retirement as a tribute to a long and very fruitful career) but may lack a clear focus that is shared by the majority of the contributors, may lack the weight to be considered as a substantial contribution to the discipline. The somewhat 'empty' title of this volume may support that expectation. That would be a pity! Keeping in touch with pragmadialectics could have carried the much too lengthy subtitle: Exploring the expressiveness and the limits of the extended pragma-dialectic argument theory; a meta-dialectical exercise.

In the preface of Defending Copernicus and Galileo, Finocchiaro (2010) carefully explains how the book differs from the other books he has written on Galileo so far. Regarding the subject matter, the new book partially overlaps with The Galileo Affair: A

In this paper, David Zarefsky suggests some constraints that political arguers face when trying to persuade an audience, and discusses some of the devices with which they respond to these constraints. In his treatment of these devices Zarefsky makes use of the concept of strategic manoeuvring as proposed by van Eemeren and Houtlosser. By taking into account the three manifestations of strategic manoeuvring-topical potential, audience adaptation and an effective presentation (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002, p. 139)-he identifies and discusses several possible ways of dealing with these situational constraints. Regarding the 'activity type' (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2005) of political argumentation, Zarefsky focuses on large and open-ended public debates that engage entire societies. He rightfully indicates that it seems strange to consider these kinds of political argumentation as a specific kind of institutionalised discourse: political argumentation is in principle unregulated, free-form and requires no technical expertise of its participants in the discussion. In order to be able to discuss strategic manoeuvring within this kind of political context, characteristics of political argument need first to be specified. Zarefsky mentions four characteristics that can be of help to define the genre and to establish its conventions. In these comments, I will focus on the first part of the paper, which is about these characteristics of political argumentation: as a supplement to Zarefsky's paper, I will give a tentative analysis of how the four characteristics mentioned constrain the possibilities to manoeuvre strategically. 76-77). The activity type, therefore, may

Schulz and Rubinelli's project 'Informed consent and strategic maneuvering in doctor-patient interaction' provides an excellent opportunity for studying argumentation in a specific institutional context because a medical consultation is a special communicative activity type that may involve argumentative discussion. Before engaging in empirical research regarding such a consultation it is necessary to make a conceptional analysis of this type of doctor-patient interaction. One first needs to give a general characterization of the type of interaction concerned: what is the structure of the interaction in a doctor-patient consultation in terms of speech acts, role taking and time constraints? For doing so a better understanding is required of the type of difference of opinion that will be at issue in such a consultation. What type of standpoint initiates the discussion? Which parts can be distinguished in the activity type of medical consultation and which of them are typically or potentially argumentative? What are the roles of the two participants in each of these cases? Is it the doctor or the patient who initiates the discussion by putting forward a standpoint or can this be done by either of them?

I consider Sally Jackson's analysis of ''black box arguments,'' on the most abstract level, as a valuable contribution to an ongoing discussion on a very important issue: how to find a rational and critical way between the two extremes of, on the one hand, uncompromising dogmatism and, on the other, endless scepticism in our deliberations. Philosophers of science and argumentation theorists alike have persistently been trying to properly diagnose and solve this difficulty central to their disciplines. Therefore, those of the tentative conclusions of an open, transparent box of 'science in action' which are based on reliable methods and compelling evidence cease to be controversial and become widely accepted through a consensus of a community of scientists. In this way, a contested hypothesis turns into an accepted result, which serves as a black box device-its inner workings are no longer open to scrutiny, and the only thing we can do is to 'input' questions and obtain authoritative 'output' answers.

In his paper, Thomas Goodnight contributes to the discussion on strategic manoeuvring within institutional argumentative exchanges starting from the idea that the obligations imposed and possibilities provided by the particular institution in which the exchange takes place define the way arguers resolve their differences of opinion. Argumentative exchanges between doctor and patient involving direct-toconsumer drug advertising are given as an example.

In her paper, Ietcu-Fairclough aims at making a contribution to the analysis of strategic manoeuvring in the political field by proposing the incorporation of a sociological view of legitimacy. The author’s claim suggests that by manoeuvring strategically when they try to convince the public of the legitimacy of their actions, politicians are oriented both towards fulfilling democratic ideals and towards getting the acceptance of the majority of the people. This claim is supported by a case study of a speech delivered by the Romanian president shortly before a referendum in which the people were called upon to vote concerning the issue of the dismissal of the president after being accused by the Parliament of breaking the Constitution. The president’s speech is characterized by the author as an instance of adjudication. My comments pertain to three aspects dealt with in the paper: (a) the characterization of the president’s speech as an instance of adjudication, (b) the analysis of instances of strategic manoeuvring in the speech presented and (c) the role of the conventions of the activity type and of the rules of the political field in finding criteria for a better evaluation of the fallaciousness of the argumentative moves in the speech. In my first comment, I would like to question the correctness of judging the speech presented as a case of adjudication. The author starts from van Eemeren and Houtlossser’s (2005) view of adjudication as an argumentative activity type in the legal field and suggests that the speech delivered by the Romanian president is a case in point, because the people whom he is addressing act as a third party that judges the conflict between him and the parliament. However, taking into account only the fact that in the current case the public has to take a decision is not reason enough to consider the speech as one such instance. Moreover, as the author herself observes, in adjudication a neutral, impartial judge has to settle a dispute and the

During the last decade we have been working, together with colleagues interested in this endeavor, on an extension of the ''standard'' pragmadialectical theory of argumentation developed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst by integrating insights from classical and modern rhetoric.This integration of rhetorical insight in a dialectical theoretical framework was motivated by our wish to improve the quality of a pragma-dialectical analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse.The integration was brought about with the help of the introduction of the notion of ''strategic maneuvering,'' which designates the balancing act of reconciling the simultaneous pursuit of dialectical and rhetorical objectives that arguers have to perform in the conduct of argumentative discourse.Even if they are in the first place out to fulfill their dialectical obligations in the explicit or implicit exchange, they may still be expected to be aiming at realizing the rhetorical aspirations that go with entering an argument; and if they are in the first place led by their rhetorical aspirations, they still cannot ignore the dialectical obligations that they have to meet when entering an argument.These considerations concerning the ''double'' concern that arguers may be assumed to have are at the heart of our efforts to develop an extended pragma-dialectical theory.They are also the starting point for this special issue of the journal Argumentation in which authors from various theoretical backgrounds -which may be quite different from our pragma-dialectical position -offer, from their specific vantage points, their ''Perspectives on Strategic Maneuvering.''The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, NWO, granted us a substantial subsidy to further develop our ideas concerning strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse, in particular by examining the strategic function of maneuvering that consists in pointing out an inconsistency in the other partyÕs position and formulating the soundness conditions applying to that way of maneuvering (research program no. 360-80-030).Apart from involving four excellent PhD students and a post-doctoral researcher in the project, this subsidy allowed us also, just as we intended, to organize a series of small-scale and clearly focused conferences dedicated to specific aspects of strategic maneuvering.At these conferences scholars of argumentation interested in any of these specific aspects could discuss their views with other interested parties and contribute in this way to the progress of our project, not in the last place by criticizing some of our points of departure and offering constructive alternatives.The first