An analysis of a broad sample of Dutch judicial and semi-judicial decisions shows similar structures as the ones Bhatia and Mazzi found before. The question is posed what explains this seemingly unchangeable judicial format. From a perspective of argumentative and communicative efficacy and comprehensibility, the format is certainly not the optimal choice. The explanation is that the format is a sign of an ideology. The format suggests an objectivity of the decision taken. This is actually a myth. This makes a decision to change the format an ideological one.

Few academic contributions have been as influential in the field of argumentation theory as the work of Stephen E. Toulmin. His model of argument as well as his general insights and approach are still used as a point of departure and highly valued after more than half a century. Because of the important, central position of Toulmin's work within argumentation theory, the publication of a volume compiling the most eloquent contemporary essays inspired by Toulmin can come as no surprise.

Different approaches to expertise and argumentation are discussed. After introducing the problem of expertise and its present day significance in a historical context, various connections with the study of arguments are highlighted. The need for and potential of argumentation analysis to contribute to existing research in social epistemology, science studies, and cognitive science, is discussed, touching on the problems of reasoning and argumentation, embodiment, tacit knowledge, expert context versus public context, expert disagreement, persuasion versus justification, and argument analysis as meta-expertise. As the arguments used by experts constitute a boundary object, we presume that a dialogue format is suitable to address central problems of the special issue “Rethinking Arguments from Experts”.

In this contribution, I will develop a comprehensive tool for the reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation from expert opinion. This is done by analyzing and then combining two dialectical accounts of this type of argumentation. Walton’s account of the ‘appeal to expert opinion’ provides a number of useful, but fairly unsystematic suggestions for critical questions pertaining to argumentation from expert opinion. The pragma-dialectical account of ‘argumentation from authority’ offers a clear and systematic, but fairly general framework for the reconstruction and evaluation of this type of argumentation. The tool is developed by incorporating Walton’s critical questions into a pragma-dialectical framework.

Science advisory committees exercise complex collaborative expertise. Not only do committee members collaborate, they do so across disciplines, producing expert reports that make synthetic multidisciplinary arguments. When reports are controversial, critics target both report content and committee process. Such controversies call for the assessment of expert arguments, but the multidisciplinary character of the debate outstrips the usual methods developed by informal logicians for assessing appeals to expert authority. This article proposes a multi-dimensional contextualist framework for critical assessment and tests it with a case study of the controversies over reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The case study shows (1) how the critical contextualist framework can illuminate the controversy and guide evaluation of the various arguments and counterarguments; (2) how cases of this sort open up avenues for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration between argumentation theorists and other fields; and (3) where further work is required in argumentation theory.

This paper attempts to systematically characterize critical reactions in argumentative discourse, such as objections, critical questions, rebuttals, refutations, counterarguments, and fallacy charges, in order to contribute to the dialogical approach to argumentation. We shall make use of four parameters to characterize distinct types of critical reaction. First, a critical reaction has a focus, for example on the standpoint, or on another part of an argument. Second, critical reactions appeal to some kind of norm, argumentative or other. Third, they each have a particular illocutionary force, which may include that of giving strategic advice to the other. Fourth, a critical reaction occurs at a particular level of dialogue (the ground level or some meta-level). The concepts here developed shall be applied to discussions of critical reactions by Aristotle and by some contemporary authors.

‘In Context’ is aimed at giving contextualization its rightful place in the study of argumentation. First, Frans H. van Eemeren explains the crucial role of context in a reconstructive analysis of argumentative discourse. He distinguishes four levels of contextualization. Second, he situates his approach to context in the field of argumentation studies by comparing it with Walton’s approach. He emphasizes the importance of distinguishing clearly between a normatively motivated theoretical ideal model and empirically-based communicative activity types. Third, van Eemeren concentrates on the ‘macro-level’ of contextualization: contextualization in institutionalized communicative activity types. He makes clear that the macro-context of a communicative activity type can be characterized argumentatively by describing the disctinctive features of the empirical counterparts of the four stages of a critical discussion in the activity type concerned. Fourth, he points out what the consequences of the macrocontextualization of argumentative discourse in a certain communicative activity type are for the strategic maneuvering that may takes place and the identification of fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering. Fifth, van Eemeren draws some general conclusions regarding the role of contextualization in the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse.

A well-known ambiguity in the term ‘argument’ is that of argument as an inferential structure and argument as a kind of dialogue. In the first sense, an argument is a structure with a conclusion supported by one or more grounds, which may or may not be supported by further grounds. Rules for the construction and criteria for the quality of arguments in this sense are a matter of logic. In the second sense, arguments have been studied as a form of dialogical interaction, in which human or artificial agents aim to resolve a conflict of opinion by verbal means. Rules for conducting such dialogues and criteria for their quality are part of dialogue theory. Usually, formal accounts of argumentation dialogues in logic and artificial intelligence presuppose an argument-based logic. That is, the ways in which dialogue participants support and attack claims are modelled as the construction of explicit arguments and counterarguments (in the inferential sense). However, in this paper formal models of argumentation dialogues are discussed that do not presuppose arguments as inferential structures. The motivation for such models is that there are forms of inference that are not most naturally cast in the form of arguments (such as abduction, statistical reasoning and coherence-based reasoning) but that can still be the subject of argumentative dialogue. Some recent work in artificial intelligence is discussed which embeds non-argumentative inference in an argumentative dialogue system, and some general observations are drawn from this discussion.

Traditionally, an enthymeme is an incomplete argument, made so by the absence of one or more of its constituent statements. An enthymeme resolution strategy is a set of procedures for finding those missing elements, thus reconstructing the enthymemes and restoring its meaning. It is widely held that a condition on the adequacy of such procedures is that statements restored to an enthymeme produce an argument that is good in some given respect in relation to which the enthymeme itself is bad. In previous work, we emphasized the role of parsimony in enthymeme resolution strategies and concomitantly downplayed the role of “charity”. In the present paper, we take the analysis of enthymemes a step further. We will propose that if the pragmatic features that attend the phenomenon of enthymematic communication are duly heeded, the very idea of reconstructing enthymemes loses much of its rationale, and their interpretation comes to be conceived in a new light.

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

A pragma-dialectical analysis departs from an idealized model of a well-organized, fully explicit argumentative discussion. Some argumentative activity types come closer to this ideal than others. It is useful and important to apply the ideal model to reconstruct relatively well-organized and explicit practices as is done for example in argumentation in legal proceedings. But it is great fun to explore what happens when you confront the seemingly anarchistic and chaotic practices of Internet political forum discussions with such a model, at least when you do this with the subtlety and intelligence of Marcin Lewinski. He reports his findings in a wellwritten, very interesting study.

Through an argumentation analysis can one show how it is feasible to view a narrative religious text such as the Gospel of Matthew as a literary argument. The Gospel is not just “good news” but an elaborate argument for the standpoint that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah. It is shown why an argumentation analysis needs to be supplemented with a pragmatic literary analysis in order to describe how the evangelist presents his story so as to reach his argumentative objective. The analysis also shows why in the case of historical religious literary texts, certain demands are put on the analyst that are not normally present.

An argumentative text can be reconstructed as an argumentative discussion between a protagonist and an antagonist. However, such a text is usually not a literal report of a discussion. It is the author of the text who determines how issues are presented, how claims are modeled, how the development of the discussion is presented. Especially when a text has embedded discourse voices that can fulfill the roles of protagonist or antagonist, the author of the text can strongly suggest a specific assignment, suppressing alternatives. In this article examples are presented that show how an author exploits linguistic means—a strategic choice of causal connectives—to suggest a specific reconstruction. The question is raised whether a derailment of this behavior of the author should be characterized as committing the fallacy of the straw man.

In ''Argumentative Verteidgung'' Hoppmann develops a modern stasis theory.His starting point is to find a method to defend against moral allegations under reasonable conditions (p. 15).The idea is to have a rhetorical tool for a person who is accused of having violated a moral norm.The term of moral norm is left explicitly wide by Hoppmann in order to cope with cases also outside the legal field (p.15).The scope, therefore, includes successful defensive strategies in talk exchanges about moral misbehavior.An important assumption Hoppmann makes is that he sees the burden of proof on the accuser.This is in accordance with scholars in legal argumentation and their view of the specific burden of proof in norm regulated discussions.Hoppmann extends this idea to all situations of allegations concerning moral misbehavior (pp.21-25).In order to achieve such a modern model Hoppmann looks into two types of theoretical contributions to this topic.In chapter II, he works on classical theories in the finding of justice [klassische Theorien der Rechtsfindung].More specifically, he investigates the Toulmin model, legal syllogisms [Justizsyllogismus], and a specific model in criminal law theory [Deliktsaufbau im Strafrecht].In chapter III, he investigates classical stasis theories [klassische Stasismodelle].More closely, he focuses on the works of Hermagoras of Temnos, Auctor ad Herennium, and Hermogenes of Tarsos.Hoppmann uses these six theoretical models to induce vital and non-vital stasis points [Streitpunkte], which are key to the defense of a moral allegation.He sees them as vital because of the specific burden of proof placed on the accuser of moral misbehavior.By showing that one of the vital stasis points does not apply, the defender is successful.On the other hand, the attacker of the moral misbehavior has to show that all the vital points are applicable.The non-vital points come into play

held at the University of Coimbra in Portugal (October 2-4, 2008).The colloquium had two goals.One of the goals was to reflect on the impact to this day of two books that revolutionised the state of the art in argumentation in the XXth century: Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's Traitede l'argumentation: La nouvelle rhetorique and Toumin's The Uses of Argument, both published in 1958.The other goal of the colloquium was ''to take stock of the current state of rhetoric and argumentation theory.''The present volume attests that especially the latter goal has been realized: it includes a survey of a variety of topics, and sometimes approaches, to the study of argumentation, written by some of the most prominent argumentation scholars.The editor of the volume has chosen to divide the articles into five topical parts, each centred upon a different issue.I shall briefly discuss these articles in the order in which they are published, limiting myself to those in English and French.Unfortunately, the articles published in Portuguese can only be mentioned by the present reviewer without further comment.Under the ambitious title Historical and philosophical studies on the influences of Perelman and Toulmin, two articles have been included in Part I.In the first article, J. Anthony Blair discusses The pertinence of Toulmin and Perelman/Olbrechts-Tyteca for informal logic.Blair's article traces back the history of informal logic and attempts, often with caution, to show how Toulmin's and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's ideas have influenced the particular theoretical interests of informal logicians.Although informal logic came into being independently of the ideas of Toulmin and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Blair claims a significant influence of the 1958 books on informal logic lately.In Blair's view, three of

a Norwegian philosopher, who was born in Aker (now part of