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

How does the analysis and evaluation of argumentation depend on the dialogue type in which the argumentation has been put forward? This paper focuses on argumentative bluff in eristic discussion. Argumentation cannot be presented without conveying the pretence that it is dialectically reasonable, as well as, at least to some degree, rhetorically effective. Within eristic discussion it can be profitable to engage in bluff with respect to such claims. However, it will be argued that such bluffing is dialectically inadmissible, even within an eristic discussion.

This article investigates the implications of goal-legislation for legal argumentation. In goal-regulation the legislator formulates the aims to be reached, leaving it to the norm-addressee to draft the necessary rules. On the basis of six types of hard cases, it is argued that in such a system there is hardly room for constructing a ratio legis. Legal interpretation is largely reduced to concretisation. This implies that legal argumentation tends to become highly dependent on expert (non-legal) knowledge.

This paper investigates the role that the stylistic device of praeteritio (or paralipsis) can play in arguers’ attempts to reconcile their rhetorical with their dialectical aims by manoeuvring strategically when carrying out particular discussion moves of the dialectical procedure for resolving a dispute. First, attention will be paid to the ways in which praeteritio can be realized in discourse. Next, an analysis is given of the effects the use of praeteritio may have as a result of the presentational means that are employed. This analysis will be used to establish the possibilities for strategic manoeuvring with this device in the different stages of an argumentative discussion. Finally, an indication is given of how the types of strategic manoeuvring that a praeteritio can be instrumental in may derail, and in which violations of the rules for critical discussion such derailed manoeuvrings may result.