{"id":158083,"date":"2024-12-05T12:26:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T20:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=158083"},"modified":"2024-12-05T13:24:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T21:24:18","slug":"from-argument-to-assertion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=158083","title":{"rendered":"From Argument To Assertion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael S. Kochin writes in Argumentation 23, No. 3 (August 2009).<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nThere are, however, two fundamental rhetorical difficulties with laying out one\u2019s premises, reasoning, and conclusions. Since arguments are anticlimactic if they are explicit, the speaker who is excessively explicit in his or her reasoning is liable to fall into what one may call \u201cthe arguer\u2019s dilemma,\u201d with its two horns, the horn of banality and the horn of incomprehensibility. Either the audience can see where you are going before you get there (first horn), or they can\u2019t (second horn). If they can see where you are going, they will lose attention, since to quote Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969 \u00a798, 469), \u201can anticipated argument is a banal argument,\u201d and the arguer has impaled himself on the horn of banality. If the audience can\u2019t see where you are going, that is, in all likelihood, because they can\u2019t follow the thread of your argument, and the arguer loses their attention as he squirms gored and suspended on the horn of incomprehensibility. If the audience can\u2019t follow your argument, this means that even if you have managed to persuade them, we cannot say that they are persuaded to adopt your conclusion by accepting the argument you have offered for it.<\/p>\n

So if you want to argue, you have to find some way out of the arguer\u2019s dilemma: either you have to compose an argument that your audience is able to follow but not to anticipate\u2014an extraordinary achievement\u2014or you have to aim in arguing at some effect other than persuading your audience of the truth of your conclusion through their following and accepting your argument…<\/p>\n

…outside mathematics, and certainly in practical affairs, the facts are never all on the table: the question is whether one has the resources to challenge the factual assertions that lead to the conclusions one wishes to reject\u2014whether one can find the key or pick the lock. The issue is what the sociologist of science Bruno Latour has called a \u201ctrial of strength\u201d: can you muster the resources required to overcome your opponents\u2019 facts? This can be done by disputing the truth of your adversary\u2019s facts, that is, by arguing, since, The New Rhetoric puts it, \u201crecourse to argumentation is unavoidable whenever\u2026 proofs are questioned by one of the parties\u201d (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969, 8). More often, one puts the adversaries\u2019 strength to the trial by offering alternative facts that make your opponents\u2019 claims seem irrelevant\u2014that is, if one has not been bludgeoned into aporia or absence of recourse by the force of the adversaries\u2019 assertions into accepting their arguments.<\/p>\n

…Gerald Rafshoon, Jimmy Carter\u2019s principal advertising man in Carter\u2019s 1980. Presidential reelection campaign: \u201cIf we had to do it all over again, we would take the 30 million dollars we spent in the campaign and get three more helicopters for the Iran rescue mission\u201d (Popkin 1991, 4). One could claim, with Samuel Popkin, that Rafshoon\u2019s statement shows the limits of image-making as against political reality. But we will better understand the gravity of Carter\u2019s and Rafshoon\u2019s problem if we remind ourselves that the most effective image of President Carter would have been a news broadcast of him receiving the freed hostages.<\/p>\n

…In our life together discussion is instrumental to action: discussion is a cost, not a benefit, and so we can only afford some discussion, whether that discussion consists of facts or of arguments. Any new factual assertion threatens the solidarity we have achieved, and thus the ability to act which that solidarity has fostered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael S. Kochin writes in Argumentation 23, No. 3 (August 2009).: There are, however, two fundamental rhetorical difficulties with laying out one\u2019s premises, reasoning, and conclusions. Since arguments are anticlimactic if they are explicit, the speaker who is excessively explicit … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42813],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rhetoric"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t