Abstract In contemporary literature on argumentation, it is well-established that various genres of fiction can be used to present argumentation. For instance, in political satires, authors argue why a certain political situation is undesirable. Similarly, authors of fables argue—by means of animals as characters—that certain behaviour is desirable or unacceptable. Characteristically, authors of fiction create a fictional world in which their narratives take place. This collides with the sincerity conditions of the speech act complex of argumentation: preliminary conditions that should be satisfied for argumentation to be performed correctly. Firstly, these sincerity conditions require the arguer to believe that their standpoint is acceptable. Second, the arguer should believe that the statements they make to justify their standpoint are acceptable and third, the arguer should believe that these statements constitute an acceptable justification of their standpoint. As such, when argumentation meets fiction, the sincerity conditions do not align: how can authors—as arguers—actually believe that their uttered statements are acceptable, if these statements are oftentimes not true? The aim of this paper is to show both how proponents can accept propositions in fiction while still following argumentation’s sincerity conditions.

AbstractAnyone interested in philosophical argumentation should be prepared to study philosophical debates and controversies because it is an intensely dialogical, and even contentious, genre of argumentation. There is hardly any other way to do them justice. This is the reason why the present special issue addresses philosophical argumentation within philosophical debates. Of the six articles in this special issue, one deals with a technical aspect, the diagramming of arguments, another contrasts two moments in philosophical argumentation, Antiquity and the twentieth century, focusing on the use of refutation, and the remaining four analyze particular philosophical controversies. The controversies analyzed differ significantly in their characteristics (time, extension, media, audience,…). Hopefully, this varied sample will illuminate some salient aspects of philosophical argumentation, its representation and variations throughout history. We are fully aware that, given the scarcity of previous studies of philosophical debates from the perspective of argumentation theory, the following specimens of analysis must have several shortcomings. But it is a well-known adage that the hardest part is the beginning. That is what we tried to achieve here, no more, but no less either.

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