Abstract This essay explores synecdoche as an extended argumentative structure in Roman defenses of rhetoric. While contemporary scholarship often limits synecdoche to semantic substitution or distinguishes it from metonymy, theorists have recognized its potential as a form of argument. In Roman rhetoric, Quintilian describes synecdoche as both a trope of part-whole relations and a parallel argumentative form in Institutio Oratoria with comparable aims and lexical choices. This study examines how Roman rhetoricians, notably Quintilian and Cicero, employed synecdoche in extended arguments in defense of rhetoric. These arguments structured interconnected ideas such as categorical distinctions, hierarchical significance, and temporal sequence by employing synecdochal structures. By comparing ancient definitions and examples, this analysis reveals synecdoche’s capacity to organize complex argumentative discourse, offering a lens to scrutinize its structural and functional role.

AbstractThis article presents an analysis and evaluation of what I call the “I’m not stupid” argument. This argument has ancient roots, which lie in Aristotle’s famous description of the weak man’s and strong man’s arguments. An “I’m not stupid” argument is typically used in a context of accusation and defense, by a defendant who argues that they did not commit the act of which they have been accused. The analysis of this type of argument takes the shape of an argumentative pattern, which displays a full-fledged representation of its argumentation structure. It is based on a collection of ten contemporary instances of the “I’m not stupid” argument. Although ten instances constitute a small collection, the wide variation in the argumentative elements that they express explicitly or leave implicit made it possible to identify five new key premises in comparison with previous analyses of the weak man’s and strong man’s arguments (Walton, Tindale and Gordon 2014 in Argumentation 28:85–119, 2014; Walton 2019 in Argumentation 33:45–74, 2019). These new premises show that the crucial point of an evaluation of this argument is the arguer's supposedly rational character in making a gain-loss calculation. They also show that we need empirical data to strengthen our analyses of argument schemes and argumentation structures.

AbstractIn this paper, I highlight the significance of practices of refutation in philosophical inquiry, that is, practices of showing that a claim, person or theory is wrong. I present and contrast two prominent approaches to philosophical refutation: refutation in ancient Greek dialectic (elenchus), in its Socratic variant as described in Plato’s dialogues, and as described in Aristotle’s logical texts; and the practice of providing counterexamples to putative definitions familiar from twentieth century analytic philosophy, focusing on the so-called Gettier problem. Moreover, I discuss Lakatos’ method of proofs and refutations, as it offers insightful observations on the dynamics between arguments, refutations, and counterexamples. Overall, I argue that dialectic, in particular in its Socratic variant, is especially suitable for the philosophical purpose of questioning the obvious, as it invites reflection on one’s own doxastic commitments and on the tensions and inconsistencies within one’s set of beliefs. By contrast, the counterexample-based approach to philosophical refutation can give rise to philosophical theorizing that is overly focused on hairsplitting disputes, thus becoming alienated from the relevant human experiences. Insofar as philosophical inquiry treads the fine line between questioning the obvious while still seeking to say something significant about human experiences, perhaps a certain amount of what Lakatos describes as ‘monster-barring’—a rejection of overly fanciful, artificial putative counterexamples—has its place in philosophical argumentation.

AbstractIn their bookCommitment in Dialogue, Walton and Krabbe claim that formal dialogue systems for conversational argumentation are “not very realistic and not easy to apply”. This difficulty may make argumentation theory less well adapted to be employed to describe or analyse actual argumentation practice. On the other hand, the empirical study of real-life arguments may miss or ignore insights of more than the two millennia of the development of philosophy of language, rhetoric, and argumentation theory. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology for adapting such theories to serve as applicable tools in the study of argumentation phenomena. Our approach is boththeoretically-informedandempirically-groundedin large-scale corpus analysis. The area of interest are appeals to ethos, the character of the speaker, building upon Aristotle’s rhetoric. Ethotic techniques are used to influence the hearers through the communication, where speakers might establish, but also emphasise, weaken or undermine their own or others’ credibility and trustworthiness. Specifically, we apply our method to Aristotelian theory of ethos elements which identifiespractical wisdom,moral virtueandgoodwillas components of speakers’ character, which can be supported or attacked. The challenges we identified in this case and the solutions we proposed allow us to formulate general guidelines of how to exploit rich theoretical frameworks to the analysis of the practice of language use.

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.

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.

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 ''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

In this paper, it is argued that the classical rhetorical framework undergoes a transformation because of an important change in Western thought. Following this hypothesis, I analyze a rhetorical notion of “dissuasion” as a rhetorical technique of creating a “general disposition to inaction” in addition to a classical rhetorical notion of “dissuasion” that aims at “refraining from an action”.