Content uploaded by Lilian Bermejo-Luque
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Lilian Bermejo-Luque on Oct 14, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
Intrinsic Versus Instrumental Values
of Argumentation: The Rhetorical Dimension
of Argumentation
Lilian Bermejo-Luque
Published online: 13 June 2010
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract I distinguish four current strategies for integrating a rhetorical per-
spective within normative models for argumentation. Then I propose and argue for a
fifth one by defending a conception of acts of arguing as having a rhetorical
dimension that provides conditions for characterizing good argumentation, under-
stood as argumentation that justifies a target-claim.
Keywords Argumentative value Constitutive value monism
Instrumental value monism Normative model Persuasion Rhetoric
Rhetorical argumentation Rhetorical dimension of argumentation
Rhetorical value Value monism Value pluralism
1 Introduction
The relevance of Rhetoric for the analysis, interpretation and appraisal of
argumentative discourse is almost a commonplace within the field of Argumentation
Studies. And for most current normative approaches, the integration of the rhetorical
is a well-established desideratum. My aim in this paper is to contribute to this task
by considering argumentation as having a rhetorical dimension. I would like to
propose a conception of this rhetorical dimension and a subsequent account of the
role that Rhetoric is to play for developing normative models shaping the concept of
argumentative value.
In order to show the specifics of this proposal, I will begin by drawing a survey of
possible strategies for dealing with the rhetorical. This task will be partly carried out
by following the criticisms that Christian Kock has raised against the three main
L. Bermejo-Luque (&)
Institute of Philosophy, Spanish National Research Institute,
Albasanz, 26-28, 28037 Madrid, Spain
e-mail: lilian.bermejoluque@gmail.com
123
Argumentation (2010) 24:453–474
DOI 10.1007/s10503-010-9187-2
normative approaches to argumentation—namely, Johnson’s Informal Logic, van
Eemeren and Houtlosser’s Pragma-dialectics and Tindale’s rhetorical approach. In
‘‘The domain of rhetorical argumentation’’ (2007) and in ‘‘Choice is not true or
false: The Domain of Rhetorical Argumentation’’ (2009) Kock criticises these
proposals for what he takes to be a misconception of Rhetoric and the rhetorical. In
his view, these approaches fail to adequately integrate a rhetorical perspective
because, in general, their authors endorse a conception of the rhetorical properties of
argumentation as a matter of arguers ‘‘aiming at winning the argument’’. According
to Kock, it is a mistake to think of the rhetorical in terms of the ‘‘intentions’’ or the
‘‘resources’’ that speakers may have, instead of in terms of the type of issues
discussed (2007: 785 and 2009: 62). Rather, in his view, the essential identity of
rhetorical argumentation consists in referring to a particular domain of issues,
which, according to his reading of Aristotle and other classical rhetoricians, would
correspond to the domain of deliberation, i.e. the realm of the discussion about
decisions on particular actions—characteristically, socio-political decisions.
Even though I think that Kock is right in saying that Rhetoric has not been
properly integrated within Argumentation Theory, I would like to show that his
criticisms of current proposals are wrong because his general diagnosis is grounded
on the assumption that there exists an intrinsically ‘‘rhetorical’’ type of argumen-
tation. Kock’s assumption will be portrayed here as a fourth strategy for an
integration of Rhetoric within Argumentation Theory.
I aim to dismiss Kock’s assumption of an intrinsically rhetorical type of
argumentation in favour of the view that every act of adducing reasons for a claim—
i.e. what I take to be an argumentative unit, an act of arguing- has a rhetorical
dimension. This is the fifth strategy to be portrayed in this paper, and the one I will
try to defend. According to it, argumentation itself, and not only deliberation, should
be analyzed and, more importantly, also appraised from a rhetorical perspective.
Thus, in Sect. 7 I am going to argue that a proper normative model for
argumentation has to incorporate certain rhetorical conditions determining whether
an act of arguing is good or not.
It might seem that the idea of including rhetorical conditions for determining the
value of a piece of argumentation is more akin to those who think that
argumentation is, first of all, a persuasive device. However, the main goal of this
paper is precisely to show that, even if we think of argumentation as a justificatory
device, we have to take into account its rhetorical properties in order to determine
how well does a piece of argumentation play at justifying.
2 Rhetorical Normative Models for Argumentation Versus Normative Models
for Rhetorical Argumentation
In Kock’s view, the way argumentation theorists have tried to incorporate the
rhetorical within their models would actually be ‘‘un-rhetorical’’ for not taking into
account the particularities of the fields and the contexts at stake. However, he
acknowledges these authors’ effort of integrating a rhetorical perspective, or at least,
of taking Rhetoric into account.
454 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
Yet, according to Kock, Johnson’s Manifest Rationality (2000) would convey the
less friendly attitude towards Rhetoric. Certainly, as Kock underlines, Johnson says
that Rhetoric is more concerned with the role of ethos and pathos than with the role
of logos, and also, that Rhetoric would tend to favour acceptability over truth as a
normative condition for argumentation. In Kock’s view, these ideas would amount
to say that rhetorical argumentation involves an unethical attitude (Kock 2007: 786),
as they provide a characterization of rhetorical argumentation as an attempt at
‘‘winning the argument’’ regardless of the legitimacy of the means by which we try
to get the persuasion of our addressees or audiences.
But I think that this criticism misses the point of Johnson’s actual goal in
Manifest Rationality. If a normative model is a means to establish a certain
distinction between good and bad, right and wrong, then Johnson’s goal is to make a
contrast between rhetorical normative models for argumentation, that is, models
telling good from bad argumentation from a rhetorical perspective, and (informal)
logical normative models for argumentation, that is, models telling good from bad
argumentation from a (informal) logical perspective.
In my view, Kock’s mistake is to demand a better accomplishment of a goal
which is not Johnson’s, namely, to fairly characterize rhetorical argumentation.
Johnson does not intend to characterize ‘‘rhetorical argumentation’’ because he does
not presuppose that there is something like an intrinsically ‘‘rhetorical’’ argumen-
tation. Thus, he does not aim at establishing normative conditions for it.
1
Characterizing a rhetorical normative model for argumentation would constitute a
particular strategy for dealing with the rhetorical within Argumentation Theory,
although, Johnson himself is not really interested in this task either. Rather, he aims
at making a contrast between a rhetorical and an informal logical normative model,
in order to defend himself from McPeck’s criticism that Informal Logic is but a
form of Rhetoric. To that end, in Manifest Rationality, he just adopts the traditional
conception of Rhetoric as an instrumental discipline aimed at improving certain
discursive abilities, and departing from it, he tries to show the difference between
(informal) logical normative models, and rhetorical normative models for
argumentation.
Under this perspective, it does not seem too controversial to say, as Johnson does,
that a rhetorical appraisal of argumentation would determine its value as a
persuasive device, i.e. as an instrument for achieving others’ persuasion. For
Johnson is just conveying the idea that a rhetorical normative model for
argumentation would be a model prescribing how to proceed if we want our
argumentation to be rhetorically valuable; just as an (informal) logical normative
model would prescribe how to argue if we want our argumentation to be
(informally) logically valuable. According to this interpretation, the discredit of the
rhetorical that Kock complains about would only appear if we presuppose that both
types of prescriptions are incompatible to each other, that we have to choose
between making our argumentation either rhetorically or logically valuable. If we
1
In this sense, I think that, in criticizing Johnson’s approach, Kock is confusing his own project of
developing a normative model for rhetorical argumentation with the characterization of a rhetorical
normative model for argumentation, which is what Johnson is talking about.
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 455
123
had to choose, the rhetorician would certainly seem to play unfairly; at least, on
Johnson’s account of rhetorical goodness. But Johnson does not say that we have to
choose between arguing rhetorically well and arguing well from a logical
perspective.
However, the possibility of a conflict between the rhetorical and the argumen-
tative goodness of communication and discourse is precisely the point of the
criticism that Kock raises against Pragma-dialectics.
3 The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation
As Kock says, Pragma-dialectics pursues the goal of integrating a rhetorical
perspective within Argumentation Theory by characterizing a rhetorical dimension
of argumentation that would be a matter of arguers aiming at ‘‘resolving a conflict of
opinion in one’s own favour’’. But in Kock’s view, in doing so:
(…) they risk being caught on the horns of a dilemma. What they envisage is, I
contend, the peaceful coexistence of two ultimately irreconcilable motives. On
the one hand, there is the dialectical assumption, built into their theory, that
the purpose of argumentation is to resolve a conflict of opinion, which may
entail, among other things, the obligation for at least one of the debaters,
possibly for both, to retract or modify their original standpoint. On the other
hand, there is the motive, in the rhetorical arguer as defined by their theory, to
resolve the conflict of opinion in his own favor. It is obvious that if
both parties in a discussion bring a rhetorical attitude, as thus defined, to
their common enterprise, then in at least one of them the dialectical motive
and the rhetorical motive will eventually clash; they cannot both ‘meet
their dialectical obligations without sacrificing their rhetorical aims’ (…).
(Kock 2009: 63)
Yet, why is this dilemma supposed to pose a problem for Pragma-dialectics? We
might think that Pragma-dialectics, as a normative model for argumentation, faces
the dilemma of prescribing either the proposed pragma-dialectical rules for a
(critical) discussion being instrumental in resolving a conflict of opinion, or some
rhetorical rules telling us how to argue if we aim at ‘‘winning the argument’’. That
dilemma would certainly pose an important theoretical problem for this model, as
both types of rules may contradict each other. But the truth is that, for Pragma-
dialectics, there is not a real alternative between two sets of normative conditions.
As van Eemeren and Houtlosser say in defining the concept of strategic
manoeuvring.
The balancing of people’s resolution-minded objective with the rhetorical
objective of having their own position accepted regularly gives rise to strategic
manoeuvring as they seek to fulfil their dialectical obligations without
sacrificing their rhetorical objectives. (van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2000a:1,
my italics)
456 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
In other words, Pragma-dialectics regards just one set of normative conditions for
argumentation, i.e. the pragma-dialectical rules for critical discussion. These rules
are meant to be not only instrumental in the resolution of a conflict of opinion but
also sine quibus non conditions for resolving it in a rational, legitimate way. That is
why, according to Pragma-dialectics, they are compulsory for any arguer, and any
other rule contradicting them is to be dismissed.
Certainly, these dialectical obligations may, in practice, run against our rhetorical
objectives. But this is just an actual dilemma that any person engaged in
argumentative practices may face: namely—to put it dramatically, either to be a
loyal discussant or to try to win at any cost. Likely, most of us have experienced this
dilemma—for example, in facing the possibility of raising a criticism that we know
it is difficult to refuse, but that we do not really believe it ourselves. For this reason,
the conflict that Kock points out does not pose a theoretical problem for Pragma-
dialectics: there is no clash between two sets of normative conditions for
argumentation but the description of an actual conflict between obligations and
objectives. As long as this is a conflict that any arguer may have faced, the pragma-
dialectical concept of strategic manoeuvring would rather increase the plausibility
of this theory, as it would make it able to explain a real feature of argumentative
practices.
The way Pragma-dialectics aims at an integration of the rhetorical is by assuming
that argumentation has a rhetorical dimension that has to be taken into account if we
want to properly interpret real argumentative practices, where participants may
pursue not only dialectical, but also rhetorical goals. Certainly, pragma-dialecticians
think of the rhetorical dimension of argumentation as a matter of ‘‘arguers aiming at
winning the argument’’. This may be an unduly narrow conception of the rhetorical,
as Kock complains. But, as argued above, this position does not pose the theoretical
problem that Kock announces: for Pragma-dialectics there is no normative conflict
because pragma-dialectical rules are aimed at determining what counts as good
argumentation and, therefore, they amount to obligations for any arguer, whether or
not she is willing to achieve other values, like a rhetorical one, for her
argumentation.
Remarkably, it is under the assumption that, in a certain sense, there is just one
way of arguing ‘‘well’’ that, whatever our goals in arguing may be, if our
argumentation violates any of the rules that determine this kind of argumentative
goodness, it will be bad argumentation, whatever its instrumental value for
achieving these goals happens to be. At this point, Pragma-dialectics would contend
that our work as argumentation theorists is not to develop models to tell good from
bad argumentation from one or another point of view, but to develop models of
‘‘good argumentation’’, simpliciter.
I am going to assume that it is sensible to think that there is something like ‘‘good
argumentation simpliciter’’. Or in other words, that there is a certain type of value
that a piece of discourse may have which is intrinsically argumentative, whether or
not it is a means for something else. For the distinction between argumentative
obligations and argumentative aims only makes sense if there is a value that, one
way or another, we could not fail to pursue when we argue. If we did not think that
there is such intrinsic argumentative value, by acknowledging the existence of
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 457
123
alternative goals that people may pursue in arguing—like persuading an addressee
or audience, but also like being original, creative, annoying, etc.— we would be
renouncing to say of any piece of argumentation that it is bad: for we could always
find a goal that the speaker would be pursuing by it. In the most extreme cases, it
would be possible to say that the arguer was pursing the goal of making us to say
that her argumentation was an example of bad argumentation—so that her
argumentation would have been good for that goal indeed. Certainly, it could be
replied that we can only legitimately pursue certain types of values by arguing. But
admitting a as argumentative values a variety of properties satisfying different goals
would be to admit the possibility of different normative proposals setting
incompatible sets of conditions for argumentation. And that would have implied
that it was senseless to try to decide between these alternative normative models, as
long as they characterize different views of what it is for a piece of argumentation to
be ‘‘good argumentation’’.
The view that there is an intrinsic argumentative value would correspond to what
I name a value monist conception of Argumentation Theory. According to it,
Argumentation Theory, as a normative discipline, consists in developing tools and
proposals for characterizing good argumentation simpliciter, or what we may call
the one and only type of argumentative value that a piece of communication may
have. The opposite to value monism could be named value pluralism, and it is the
view that incompatible but also incommensurable normative models for argumen-
tation are possible as long as they establish conditions for argumentation being good
as a means to this or that end.
4 Normative Models for Argumentation (as a Rhetorical Activity)
In facing the great divergence of current proposals within the field of Argumentation
Theory, some authors have claimed, in an appeasing mood, that the rhetorical,
logical and dialectical normative approaches to argumentation pursue different
goals, all of them being adequate in their own. Thus, for example, Jacobs (2000)
says that:
In contrast to a rhetorical assessment of argument quality, a dialectical
approach would suggest that what really counts in determining good
arguments is not just whether people decide there is good reason to be
persuaded by an argument, but whether people have been persuaded (or not)
under conditions that make their decision trustworthy. And in contrast to a
logical approach, dialectics would suggest that what really counts is not just
whether arguments are in fact sound, but whether people are in a position to be
able to tell whether the arguments are in fact sound. (Jacobs 2000: 274)
According to this view, argumentative goodness would seem to depend on what
we demand from argumentation: for example, we may want it to be a means to
promote persuasion, or we may want it to logically support our conclusions, or to
enable people to decide which arguments are in fact sound, etc.
458 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
In this text, Jacobs might seem to endorse a value pluralist position. Yet,
underlying his account, there is the idea that normative models for argumentation
are to prescribe certain sense of ‘‘legitimate’’ or ‘‘intrinsically good’’ argumentation.
This way, the approaches that he mentions should rather be seen as prescribing
different sets of rules to warrant the legitimacy or intrinsic goodness of
argumentation, understood as a logical product, as a dialectical procedure or as a
rhetorical process, respectively.
But as long as we can take these sets of rules to address complementary aspects
of the same object—namely, the representations of the semantic and syntactic
properties of the activity of arguing (i.e. arguments), the procedural structure of this
activity, or its features as a contextual, interactive process—the corresponding
normative models would also be complementary to each other. Following this idea,
we can even take that a main achievement of Argumentation Theory consists in
pointing at the need of enabling an adequate integration of these partial accounts of
argumentative value that have constituted the study of argumentation since
Aristotle. Thus, instead of developing normative models to asses the logical,
dialectical or rhetorical values of argumentation, we could aim at characterizing
argumentation as a complex of logical, dialectical and rhetorical properties, so that
the rules for argumentation that our normative models should provide would address
its logical, dialectical and rhetorical properties as a whole. This model would shape
a conception of argumentation value that is beyond the mere logical, dialectical and
rhetorical goodness of argumentation, precisely because, in it, argumentation is seen
as a complex phenomenon with idiosyncratic normative conditions. On this view,
the existence of logical, dialectical and rhetorical approaches to Argumentation
Theory would not point at three different types of normativity, in the sense of three
different types of conditions for distinguishing between good and bad argumen-
tation—i.e. the logical, dialectical or rhetorical value of our argumentation. Rather,
it would point at three different focuses on the complex phenomenon of
argumentation, this object being the actual object of Argumentation Theory.
I think that, as a matter of fact, many argumentation theorists do share this view;
at least, up to a point. For, despite their different points of departure, most of them
agree that in order to develop adequate normative models for argumentation, we are
bounded to an integration of argumentation’s logical, dialectical and rhetorical
properties and normative conditions.
2
In this vein, we should see current work in
Argumentation Theory as an attempt at developing models to characterize good
argumentation, simpliciter, rather than at developing models to pursue a variety of
goals.
2
For example, according to Jacobs’ descriptions, the integration of the logical, the dialectical and the
rhetorical normative perspectives might result in something like the following definition of good
argumentation: ‘‘good argumentation is argumentation that, in being sound, it has been developed in such
a way that it sets participants/us in a position to tell that it is, so that, in facing it, people decide there is
good reason to be persuaded by it’’. Certainly, if the argumentation is not sound, we cannot say that it is
good. And if we cannot tell that it is sound, we cannot say that it is good. Finally, if it is sound and
we/participants can tell that it is, but it would not persuade any other people, then it is plausible to assume
that we should not say that it is good argumentation. (This account of argumentative value has several
problems—mostly related to the fact that, in it, the dialectical is not properly differentiated from the
rhetorical. However, I think it underlies some current proposals.)
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 459
123
Tindale’s Acts of Arguing (1999) would be a good example of this value monist
position. For his adoption of a rhetorical approach is not a matter of an interest in
determining the rhetorical value of argumentation but rather of his assumption that
the ultimate object of Argumentation Theory is a rhetorical one. As he says,
a rhetorical model of argumentation offers the most complete and satisfying
account of what arguing is, of what it is like to be engaged in argumentation,
to be argued to, and to evaluate arguments. (Tindale 1999:7)
In Tindale’s view, the widest perspective we can take regarding the phenomenon
of argumentation is a rhetorical one that makes sense of the activity of arguing as a
process which is not only logically and dialectically, but also rhetorically
constrained. This way, he understands that the adequate normative conditions for
argumentation are those provided by the fact that argumentation is, in the last resort,
a tool people use in particular contexts to persuade each other. This view is mainly
expressed in his account of what he takes to be an essential feature of
argumentation, namely, its ‘‘addressivity’’, its being essentially related to an
addressee or audience that, in turn, shapes the discourse—and it is to shape it—in a
certain way.
However, according to Kock, the problem with Tindale’s way of integrating
Rhetoric within Argumentation Theory is that he ‘‘does not distinguish between
rhetorical argumentation and other types of argumentation that are not rhetorical’’
(Kock 2009: 65). In Kock’s view, the integration of a rhetorical perspective is a
matter of seeking special standards for rhetorical argumentation.
But I rather think that a main achievement of Tindale’s proposal is to underline a
key idea of Argumentation Theory as opposed to other normative approaches to
argumentation, namely, that if we want to incorporate the pragmatic conditions and
properties of argumentation so as to avoid the shortcomings of the traditional
semanticist approach, we have to deal with argumentative discourses as processes
belonging to particular contexts, and we have to take into account the net of goals
and intentions that make sense of them as full-fledged activities. This is why
Tindale’s incorporation of the rhetorical does not merely respond to interpretative
needs, as Pragma-dialectics’; rather, it is also meant to fulfil normative purposes.
This is, in my view, the most comprehensive way of dealing with the rhetorical
dimension of argumentation and the role of the rhetorical within Argumentation
Theory: it does not only acknowledges, as pragma-dialecticians do, the hermeneutic
function of the rhetorical goals that an arguer may be pursuing by her discourse, but
it also acknowledges the normative function that rhetorical conditions are to play in
being ‘‘addressive’’ for its audience. At any rate, according to Tindale’s account,
there would be a sense of ‘‘good argumentation’’ which does not depend on what we
demand from argumentation; because of that, by our definition, he would be a
defendant of value monism, just as pragma-dialecticians or myself. Yet, contrary to
Pragma-dialectics, he would incorporate a rhetorically normative perspective in
order to determine whether a piece of argumentation is good or not.
Tindale assumes that there is something like the intrinsic argumentative value of
a piece of communication, this argumentative value being the sort of value he would
aim to characterize by his model. For him, as well as for pragma-dialecticians and
460 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
other argumentation theorists, Argumentation Theory’s task is to tell good from bad
argumentation—i.e. its prescriptions are meant to be compulsory for any arguer,
whatever she may aim by arguing. However, his very conception of argumentative
value is, like Pragma-dialectic’s, essentially instrumental: on his account, good
argumentation—i.e. the sort of argumentation that any arguer has to pursue—is
argumentation that it is able to achieve ‘‘the adherence of the audience in a
reasonable way’’ (Tindale 1999: 95). And at that point, our discrepancies arise.
I will go back to this question in the following sections; but first, I would like to
finish our brief survey of possible strategies for an integration of the rhetorical by
analyzing Kock’s own proposal.
5 Argumentation and Deliberation
In Kock’s view, Johnson’s conception of the rhetorical is merely pejorative,
something to be excluded from a proper normative theory for argumentation. Yet, as
argued above, Johnson would be just pointing out that the goals of Argumentation
Theory and of Rhetoric are different: the former seeks to determine what is good
argumentation simpliciter whereas the latter seeks to promote persuasiveness. Kock
would be right in pointing out that Johnson’s view of the role of Rhetoric within
Argumentation Theory is quite limited, but he would be wrong in interpreting this
view of Rhetoric as intrinsically pejorative.
Regarding Pragma-dialectics, Kock thinks that it faces the problem of explaining
why we should fulfil any dialectical or logical obligations when the thing is that they
may run against our rhetorical objectives. Yet, as argued above, for pragma-
dialecticians, the answer is simple: it is a matter of legitimacy. The concept of
strategic manoeuvring is designed to shape the idea that we can pursue our
rhetorical objectives as long as they do not violate any of the rules for a critical
discussion. For these rules are meant to tell good from bad argumentation, and
because of that, they are compulsory for any arguer, whatever her goals may be.
Thus, Pragma-dialectics’ way of integrating the rhetorical consists in acknowledg-
ing that arguers may pursue rhetorical goals, so that in order to fully understand and
properly interpret a piece of argumentative discourse, we will have to take them into
account; and also mind that they do not prevail over arguers’ dialectical obligations.
In this sense, as Kock says, Tindale’s approach results much friendlier towards
the role of Rhetoric within Argumentation Theory: as we have seen, Tindale does
not incorporate the rhetorical in contrast with the normative, but rather as part of it,
so that he does not see a conflict between argumentation goodness and Rhetoric.
However, Kock also finds Tindale’s approach wanting. For, in his view, it shares the
common mistake of believing ‘‘that one general theory accounts equally well for all
kinds of argumentation, regardless of domain’’ (Kock 2007: 786). For his part, Kock
thinks that there exists a type of argumentation which is essentially rhetorical, and
whose intricacies have not been properly taken into account by current normative
models, including Tindale’s. Consequently, he considers that the way Argumen-
tation Theory should incorporate the rhetorical is by providing an adequate model
for rhetorical argumentation.
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 461
123
Kock takes deliberation to be such a type of argumentation. In his view, the main
feature of deliberation is its openness and pluralism. Taking decisions certainly
should preclude the imposition of finding yes-or-no answers, and diversity and
richness are, in principle, positive features of deliberative processes. That is why, in
Kock’s view, deliberation, in being about decisions, is, and should be, essentially
‘‘multi-dimensional’’; and it would be this structure, and its associated normative
conditions, what normative models for mere ‘‘argumentation about propositions’’
would not capture.
Kock finds support for his conception of rhetorical argumentation in authors like
Aristotle or Cicero:
By contrast, the most important thinkers in the rhetorical tradition itself do see
rhetorical argumentation as rooted in a certain domain of issues. This domain
is that of action: rhetorical argumentation is rooted in deliberation about
choice, i.e. choices between alternative courses of action. (Kock 2007)
I am not sure about this reading of traditional works in Rhetoric—specially,
Aristotle’s. I tend to think that traditional rhetoricians were particularly concerned
with such issues mainly because the usefulness of Rhetoric becomes more evident
when applied to them. After all, in public deliberation, discourse exhibits all its
effective, causal power by bringing about actual decisions and actions; and
Rhetoric, most authors agree—as Kock complains, is about discourse as a means of
influence.
Whatever the case, Kock thinks that there are different types of argumentation, so
that we should use different models to appraise them. Particularly, he thinks that
Argumentation Theory should provide a specific model for deliberation, as a
‘‘rhetorical’’ type of argumentation.
I think of the activity of arguing as the activity of adducing reasons for claims. As
I have defended in Bermejo-Luque (forthcoming), an act of adducing reasons for a
claim constitutes the complex speech act of arguing, which is what I take to be the
proper object of Argumentation Theory—i.e. the sort of object whose normative
conditions would constitute the concept of argumentative value. Thus, in my view,
deliberation would not be a certain type of argumentation, but a certain type of
communicative activity including argumentation. I agree with Kock that deliber-
ation has its own normative conditions, which are different from those of (other
types of) argumentation. But this is just because deliberation is an activity that
includes, but is not reducible to, acts of arguing. Besides, I do not think that these
conditions are only rhetorical; they are also dialectical, logical, and communicative,
in general. Consequently, I would not say that there is such a thing as ‘‘rhetorical
argumentation’’. Rather, I think there is an activity, i.e. deliberation, which is not
particularly rhetorical in itself, and includes acts of adducing reasons for a claim,
among other instruments and features.
However, I do not aim at making of this point a terminological discussion. To
me, the important question here is not how we should use the term ‘‘argumenta-
tion’’, or whether deliberation is rhetorical argumentation. Rather, my point is to
propose the adoption of a wider perspective for an integration of the rhetorical
within Argumentation Theory than the one Kock proposes: instead of limiting the
462 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
rhetorical to a ‘‘type of argumentation’’—if you accept that deliberation is such a
thing—I propose to take any type of argumentation as having a rhetorical dimension
that provides guidelines for its interpretation, and also normative conditions for its
appraisal.
The complex speech act of adducing reasons for a claim usually appears as a
constituent of different types of communicative activities, including deliberation, as
Kock himself seems to acknowledge:
So, in deliberation, there will be a plurality of considerations or dimensions
that will and should enter into the debate. For each of these considerations
taken in itself, debaters may have opinions that may be shown to be more or
less true, or at least probable. (Kock 2007: 787)
From the lack of a way to calculate objectively the relative weight of the pros
and the cons follows that each individual in the audience (each judge/voter …)
must subjectively assess the strength of the arguments for and against a given
choice. (Kock 2007: 788)
That is, Kock not only accepts that deliberation includes acts of adducing reasons
for a claim, but he also takes it that a model to appraise this type of acts is crucial
within deliberation, as it is by deciding on the justificatory power of each pro and
con presented in the debate that debaters may bring about their choices and
decisions. Certainly, he is free to say that deliberation is rhetorical argumentation,
but then he should further answer, at least, the following questions:
– If there are different types of argumentations, isn’t there a rhetorical dimension
in argumentations other than deliberative ones?
– Do deliberations require criteria other than rhetorical ones for their appraisal?
– What would the different types of argumentation have in common for them all
deserving to be called ‘‘argumentation’’?
– Are there common normative conditions for them?
Thus, my general counter-argument to Kock’s criticisms is that what some
argumentation theorists try to do in dealing with the integration of the rhetorical is to
give an account of the rhetorical dimension of any act of arguing, whether or not it is
part of a deliberative process. But I would agree on the importance of dealing with the
normative conditions of deliberation, as well as of other communicative activities.
6 Constitutive Versus Instrumental Value Monism
In this section, I would like to argue for the view that it is possible to talk about
‘‘good argumentation’’ in a way that it is not dependent on the goals we may pursue
by arguing. Thus, I will provide further reasons for adopting a value monist position,
i.e. the view that there is an intrinsic argumentative value being the sort of value
Argumentation Theory is to characterize.
Besides, I am going to defend a constitutive conception of this type of value, in
contrast to an instrumental one. As I will try to show, despite their value monism,
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 463
123
such an instrumental conception of argumentative value is the view that pragma-
dialecticians and Tindale endorse, for their conceptions of what it is for a piece of
argumentation to be a good one can be unloaded in terms of the goals that,
allegedly, we have to pursue when we argue.
However, defending this constitutive value monism may seem a little compli-
cated from my position, as I assume a definition of argumentation as an activity, that
is to say, as a type of behaviour directed towards ends and goals and, therefore,
evaluable as a means to an end. Moreover, I am committed with the project of
incorporating the pragmatic normative conditions of argumentation as a way to
overcome the shortcomings of the traditional semanticist approach. So, how can a
contrast be drawn between instrumentally and intrinsically good argumentation if
argumentation is, after all, an activity—i.e. behaviour displayed in order to achieve
certain ends? The idea will be, roughly, that there are goals that make of certain
behaviour argumentation, and additional goals that we may pursue by arguing.
Fulfilling such constitutive goals of argumentation will be arguing well. The
intrinsic argumentative value of a piece of discourse will be a measure of this
achievement, whereas the instrumental values that a piece of argumentation may
have will be a measure of its adequacy as a means to different ends.
3
As we have seen, according to a rough value pluralist position, argumentation
goodness is a matter of the functions or goals that we may pursue by arguing. This
formulation might sound like a platitude: certainly, there is a sense in which
argumentation, just as meals, fathers or ideas, can be ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘bad’’ for
something. In this sense, goodness and badness are properties to be determined by
reference to the features that would bring about the achievements that we may value
in each type of ‘‘object’’, so to speak. A value pluralist would contend that
normative conditions for argumentation are provided by the sort of features that
happen to be adequate as means to some valuable ends.
Up to a point, argumentative discourses can be considered good or bad
depending, for example, on their style, their persuasiveness to a particular audience
or addressee, their historical significance, their originality, their fruitfulness, or
whatever we may value in argumentation. Remarkably, value pluralists do not have
to characterize argumentation as an activity, i.e. as a means to a certain end. Rather,
for them it is enough that argumentation, whatever it is, can be a means for a certain
end. Value pluralism contends that a suitable normative model for argumentation is
a model prescribing certain features of argumentative discourses that would make of
them adequate means for any valuable goal that we may pursue by arguing
(or, alternatively, any goal that it is rational to pursue by arguing). Therefore, from
this perspective, there would be a variety of adequate normative models for
argumentation, namely, all those whose conditions actually determine that we will
be in a position to achieve this or that goal. Because of that, value pluralist would
refuse the idea of a unique argumentative value and the idea of a univocal way of
using the expression ‘‘good argumentation’’.
3
For example, I will talk of the rhetorical value of a piece of argumentation as a measure of its value as a
persuasive device. But we can also think of its propagandistic value, its moral value, its historical value,
its originality value, its exhortative value, and many more.
464 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
For their part, value monists—like pragma-dialecticians, Tindale or myself—
would contend that there is just one relevant sense of the expression ‘‘good
argumentation’’, a unique argumentative value proper. But pragma-dialecticians and
Tindale characterize this intrinsic value of argumentation instrumentally. In their
view, good argumentation is argumentation fulfilling a certain characteristic
function—either the resolution of a conflict of opinion or adherence of a target
audience in a reasonable way, respectively. The idea that there is a characteristic
function of argumentation, in the sense that fulfilling this function is what
argumentation is for, enables them to avoid a typical problem of instrumentalism.
For, as Moore (1903) famously pointed out, we could always question whether it is
good for a certain object to be instrumentally good for something. But if we manage
to establish that argumentation has a certain characteristic function, then questions
like this lay disarmed: it would not make sense to wonder whether a piece of
argumentation is good if it fulfils that function because, allegedly, argumentation
would characteristically serve for that. Moreover, it would be irrational to argue and
not to try to fulfil this function, as long as this is supposed to be what we use
argumentation for.
Additionally, by adopting this instrumental value monism, they would be in a
position to justify this or that particular normative proposal against others, as long as
them all could be seen as better or worse characterizations of the (instrumental)
concept of argumentative value. For the instrumentalist would justify her rules or
conditions for argumentation by assuming that ‘‘arguing thus and so warrants
getting this and that’’. If she manages to establish both that this claim is true, and
also that getting this and that is something valuable, then she would be justifying the
corresponding normative model for argumentation. For an instrumental value
monist, the second claim would rather be that getting this and that is what good
argumentation has to get, so that she would be in a condition to justify her model
against others. By adopting this strategy, those assuming that normative models
merely are sets of prescriptions for making argumentation able to achieve this or
that goal can present themselves as value monists (yet, instrumentalist, as I will
argue). That would be, in my view, the rationale behind Tindale’s strategy of
defending that argumentation is, above all, a means to persuade a particular
audience in a reasonable way, or Pragma-dialectic’s claim that, in order to
determine its argumentative value, we have to treat any piece of argumentation
as a critical discussion, that is, as a procedure aimed at resolving a conflict of
opinion.
However, it is a matter of controversy which the characteristic function of
argumentation is. Moreover, according to authors like Goodwin (2005) argumen-
tation has no function at all, despite individuals may use argumentation for a variety
of purposes. I would like to adopt this idea, which I take to be also suggested by
Toulmin in The Uses of Argument:
this (function) was in fact the primary function of arguments, and that the
other uses, the other functions which arguments have for us, are in a sense
secondary, and parasitic of this primary justificatory use. (Toulmin 1958,
p. 12)
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 465
123
In my view, the sense of ‘‘primary function’’ that Toulmin points at is not that of
‘‘the most common function’’—such as the most common function of TV programs
is entertainment- but rather that of the ‘‘constitutive function’’, just in the same way
in which taking a piece of stone as a tool for cutting makes of it a knife. Here, I am
assuming a functional definition of the concept of knife. But, certainly, it is possible
to define knives in other ways. However, in my view, the only acceptable definition
of argumentation is a functional one. And according to it, paradoxically, Goodwin’s
claim that argumentation has no function at all would be compatible with Toulmin’s
claim that justification is the primary function of arguments: the constitutive
function of argumentation—under the assumption that argumentation is a functional
concept- is not, strictly speaking, a function ‘‘of argumentation’’. For we cannot say
that we are using a piece of argumentation in order to try to justify a claim, as long
as, if a certain communicative activity does not count as an attempt at justifying a
claim, then it is not argumentation. In a few words, aiming at justifying is what
makes of a certain communicative activity argumentation. And, correspondingly,
good argumentation will be argumentation that actually achieves justification, and
justification will be the intrinsic value of argumentation just because argumentation,
constitutively, is an attempt at justifying.
Contrary to Pragma-dialectics or Tindale’s, our definition of argumentative value
as justification is meant to be completely empty. Justification is the constitutive
value of argumentation just because we are assuming that arguing is trying to justify
and, consequently, that ‘justifying that p’ is equivalent to ‘arguing well for p’. But
precisely because of this, this conception of argumentative value is not instrumental:
the justification of our claims is not something that we might achieve or fail to
achieve after arguing well; nor is something that we may achieve by other means. In
this account, justifying is not a function of argumentation because we cannot argue
and then aiming or not aiming at justifying: arguing constitutively involves aiming
at justifying. We cannot use argumentation for justifying because there is no
argumentation prior to using some communicative act for justifying a claim.
Contrastingly, we can argue and then aiming or not aiming at resolving a conflict of
opinion or at persuading an audience in a reasonable way, whether or not it would
be unreasonable not to aim at such goals in a given occasion while arguing. Yet, for
this being unreasonable, it has to be possible. Contrastingly, it is not possible to
argue for a claim and not aiming at justifying it; whichever our conception of
justification is.
4
So, finally, the relevant question would be: ‘‘what does justification, so
understood, consist in?’’ Given our functional conception of argumentation as an
attempt at justifying, the answer will depend on the very characterization of
argumentation that we endorse.
5
For my part, I am committed to a characterization
4
The point of whether pragma-dialecticians or Tindale actually endorse a constitutive or an instrumental
value monist position is a matter of whether we can understand their definitions of argumentation as
functional or not. I think they are not functional. Particularly, Pragma-dialectics is very clear at this point:
not every argumentation is a critical discussion, i.e. a process aimed at resolving a conflict of opinion;
rather, the critical discussion is an ideal model of argumentation.
5
This claim does not mean that we cannot compare different proposals on Argumentation Theory as long
as they endorse different conceptions of argumentation. Certainly, conceptions cannot be plainly right or
466 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
of argumentation as the speech act complex of adducing reasons for a claim. This
speech act is, constitutively, an attempt to show this target-claim to be correct. In
Bermejo-Luque (forthcoming), I have argued that such is its force as a illocutionary
act complex: we recognize an act of arguing by recognizing a speaker’s
communicative intention of showing a target-claim to be correct. Accordingly, in
my account, the intrinsic value of a piece of argumentation, i.e. its justificatory force
respecting a target-claim, is a measure of its ability to actually show this target-
claim to be correct.
The gain of dealing with argumentation as a speech act is to enable the
integration of both semantic conditions determining the correctness of a claim, and
also pragmatic conditions determining how far a particular communicative act is a
good means for showing something—namely, that a given claim is correct.
Precisely, the rhetorical conditions that, I have been suggesting, should be
incorporated to an adequate characterization of the concept of argumentative value
would correspond to such pragmatic normative conditions for argumentation, as
I am trying to show in the following sections.
7 The Rhetorical Value and the Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation
In the remaining of this paper, I am going to deal with those pragmatic conditions of
argumentation that would compel argumentation theorists to include a rhetorical
perspective within their normative models. Such conditions are part of what I take to
be the rhetorical dimension of argumentation. In order to characterize this
dimension, I will first address a distinction between a traditional conception of
Rhetoric as a corpus of practical knowledge to improve persuasive abilities, and a
more contemporary conception of Rhetoric as a hermeneutic discipline for dealing
with communicative activities as a means of influence. As we are going to see, a key
difference between both conceptions is whether or not they take the rhetorical to be
a matter of speakers’ intentions.
Speakers usually have rhetorical intentions that, as Pragma-dialectics points out,
should be taken into account. And not only for interpretative purposes: among other
things, such intentions would render instrumentally rational/irrational speakers’
ways of displaying their performances. It is because I pursue this particular goal by
my speech act that it turns out to be adequate/inadequate to perform it in such and
such way or with such and such features.
The traditional conception of Rhetoric—the one that, for example, Johnson
endorses in Manifest Rationality- defines Rhetoric as an instrumental discipline for
the improvement of persuasive abilities. This stereotyped conception that Kock
complains about mainly focuses on rhetorical intentions and the way to satisfy them
best. I think that Kock is right in complaining about the narrowness of this
traditional conception of Rhetoric and the rhetorical. Nonetheless, such conception
Footnote 5 continued
wrong. But we can compare them by considering which one is more fruitful, less problematic regarding
related concepts and ideas, etc.
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 467
123
has given rise to an ordinary, non-negative use of the term ‘‘rhetorical,’’ which may
be worth examining further. According to this use, we can say that the rhetorical
value of a performance is a measure of its instrumental value towards the end of
persuading an addressee or audience. This kind of value is particularly close to
argumentation, because persuasion is the main goal we usually pursue by arguing
and its most characteristic perlocutionary effect indeed. After all, humans strongly
tend to believe what they think is correct, so by showing our claims to be correct, we
normally achieve the persuasion of our addressees.
However, there are different means of persuading, and not all of them involve
argumentation. Bribes, coercions, suggestions, etc. may also be powerful rhetorical
devices. In fact, as marketing professionals well know, sometimes, such means
prove to be much more powerful than argumentation. With regard to determining
the best means for persuading, good rhetoricians certainly appear as masters of a
‘‘how and when’’ technique, even if they proceed by argumentation. For them, good
argumentation is just argumentation serving for persuading.
In my view, the use of instrumental criteria to determine the rhetorical value of
argumentation—or the rationality of a speaker’s way of displaying her discourse,
given her rhetorical goals—would not properly belong to Argumentation Theory,
but to a general account of practical rationality that has communicative rationality
as a particular case. Argumentation can indeed be appraised according to rhetorical
criteria determining its instrumental rationality towards the end of persuading. But,
as argued in the last sections, the sort of value that Argumentation Theory’s models
are to determine is neither rhetorical nor instrumental. That is why I think that
rhetorical normativity (i.e. the determination of rhetorical goodness) should not be
identified with argumentative normativity (i.e. the determination of argumentative
goodness). After all, as pragma-dialecticians have pointed out, the sort of things that
may be advisable for persuading a given audience or addressee may go against our
argumentative duties. The fact that argumentation can be rhetorically appraisable
just means, as Johnson would have pointed out, that rhetorical normative models for
argumentation provide certain type of standards to appraise argumentation, namely,
standards determining argumentation’s value as a means of persuasion.
Now, in contrast with the traditional intentionalist account, contemporary rhetori-
cians seem to be far from having reached a consensus about a definition of Rhetoric
that settles its object, nature, task and scope as a discipline. However, taking into
account the variety of things that are currently studied under a rhetorical perspective:
institutions like art, religion, science, politics, etc., images, speeches, rituals, films,
advertisements, or even music, and considering the sort of treatment that these
rhetorical objects receive within such a perspective, I think it is sensible to assume
Wenzel’s view of Rhetoric ‘‘as a broad field [that] seeks to understand all the uses
of ‘symbolic inducement’’’ (Wenzel 1982). According to this conception, Rhetoric
would mainly be a tool for interpreting communication as a means of influence.
Certainly, even if we adopt the traditional intentionalist conception, we can
understand rhetorical analyses as playing an interpretative function, as Pragma-
dialectics contends: by assuming that arguers want to resolve their difference of
opinion in their own favor, we can interpret their performances as strategic maneuvers
for each one making her own way. However, Wenzel’s definition points at a deeper
468 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
view of the rhetorical. According to this view, the persuasive intentions of the speaker
would be but one of the elements shaping the rhetorical properties of her
performance: unintentionally, and even unexpectedly to performers themselves, all
communicative activities would have rhetorical properties due to the sort of effects
they are to produce in their addressees. These effects are caused by individuals’
susceptibility to symbols, meanings and other material and structural features
constituting particular communicative activities. As a result of this power to influence
that communication, in general, has, individuals adopt attitudes, desires, beliefs, etc.
Any piece of communication has an indefinitely number of features constituting
it. The speaker’s tone of the voice, mood, gestures, etc., the colors, shapes, angles,
etc. of the images chosen to convey a certain message, the connotations of the words
and other symbolic elements, the timing and rhythm, the situation at stake and so
much more, can be seen as causally effective on individuals’ reactions to
communicative activities. This kind of causal effectiveness constitutes the
perlocutionary aspect of communication. However, in my view, the rhetorical
dimension of communication would only be one aspect of its perlocutionary power:
if we think of perlocutionary properties as a matter of communication’s ability to
produce a variety of effects in addressees—apart from those of understanding the
speaker’s meaning—we can take rhetorical properties to be a matter of commu-
nication’s ability to produce a sub-set of these effects, namely, beliefs and related
dispositions. In this account, frightening would not be a rhetorical effect, just a
perlocutionary one, whereas conveying (without meaning) that something is
dangerous would be. At any rate, the rhetorical dimension of argumentation would
be a matter of argumentation’s ability to induce certain beliefs on the world, not on
the communicative intentions of the speaker.
Remarkably, the rhetorical properties of a performance, so defined, would not
depend on its actual effects on different audiences, but on its causal powers,
understood in terms of empirical regularities in individuals’ behaviour respecting
those features of a performance that are a means for inducing beliefs, desires and
attitudes, in general.
6
The possibility of making sense of certain communicative
properties of a performance by considering the sort of effects its elements would
normally produce in its audiences enables us to take some of its characteristics—like
its being scary, funny, sad, clear, boring, convincing, etc.- as independent, both from
the audiences’ actual reactions, and also from the performer’s actual intentions.
7
6
A big issue within this account is ‘‘who is the subject whose behaviour counts for determining the
causal power of a performance, and consequently, its rhetorical properties’’. We may either establish a
‘‘general subject’’, or consider different subjects, depending, for example, on the expected audiences of
each performance. We can think of individuals or groups, or we can take a feminist approach and demand
gender considerations, etc. Whatever the case, in my view, the only thing we cannot do is to consider a
transcendental subject, for such a subject does not exhibit empirical regularities in behaviour.
I cannot deal with this question here, but my suggestion is that the variety of subjects we can consider
results in a variety of types of rhetorical properties.
7
I think this is an important gain. For example, sometimes, the badness of a movie, a play, a painting,
etc. appears as a mismatch between the perceived rhetorical intentions of the author and the rhetorical
import of his work—whether or not such work is able to achieve, here and there, the desired reaction.
Consider, for example, Ed Woods’ intensely scary movies, where such mismatches are so evident that
they are able to bring about a sort of ‘‘second order’’ rhetorical import.
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 469
123
On the other hand, as long as, in this broader sense, the rhetorical properties
of communication are not a function of speakers’ communicative intentions, but of
communication’s causal power of influence on individuals, the rhetorical analysis of
a performance, its interpretation as a rhetorical device, does not bring about its
meaning, but what we may call its import, i.e. the sort of symbolic inducements it is
to produce. Whereas the intentional meaning of a piece of communication only
becomes available through its interpretation, its rhetorical import may be effective
whether or not we are able to discover it (through a rhetorical analysis). And vice
versa: actually, in many cases, to discover the rhetorical import of a piece of
communication—i.e. to interpret it as a rhetorical device- is a way to immunize
ourselves against its power of influence.
8
8 Rhetorical Conditions for Argumentation Goodness
As already pointed out, I see argumentation as a communicative practice by means
of which speakers convey their communicative intention of showing a target-claim
to be correct. Because of this, I contend that good argumentation is argumentation
able to show a target-claim to be correct. According to this value monist conception
of argumentative value, a normative model for argumentation would then consist of
semantic conditions determining whether a target-claim is correct or not, and also of
pragmatic conditions determining how good an act of arguing is a means for
showing.
These pragmatic conditions are a matter of the fact that argumentation has certain
features that happen to be causally efficient in bringing about the effect of making it
salient to others that the target-claim is correct. This is why such pragmatic
conditions address the rhetorical dimension of argumentation, i.e. its ability to
induce beliefs and belief-like attitudes: the rhetorical properties of an act of arguing
that make it a good means for showing are the subset of its rhetorical properties that
determine whether this act of arguing is a means to fulfill its constitutive goal—
namely, to show a target-claim to be correct. So, how could we specify these
rhetorical normative conditions of argumentation?
In ‘‘Logic and Conversation,’’ Grice (1975) argued that talk exchanges are not a
mere ‘‘succession of disconnected remarks,’’ but rather full-fledged activities which
are rational inasmuch as they are goal-oriented. Each particular exchange has its
own purpose; but, in general, the possibility of achieving communicative purposes
would depend, according to Grice, on the existence of a Cooperative Principle
prescribing to ‘‘make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the
stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged’’ (1975: 45). The Cooperative Principle would establish
general conditions for a talk exchange to be pragmatically adequate, in the sense of
being ‘‘efficiently informative,’’ which is, according to Grice, the primary purpose
of any talk exchange. My contention is that such informative efficiency in
8
In Bermejo-Luque (2009) I further explain the distinction between rhetorical acts and rhetorical effects,
and between rhetorical meaning and rhetorical import, etc.
470 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
communication mirrors the quality of a speech act as an act of showing. Thus,
I propose adopting Grice’s Cooperative Principle as a standard to determine the
value of acts of arguing as a means for showing.
Noticeably, it is under the assumption that speakers aim to be maximally efficient
in conveying their meanings that we can interpret their performances as meaning
what the speakers intends to communicate. As a result, on Grice’s account, the
Cooperative Principle happens to be constitutive of the speaker’s meaning of a
performance. This is also Bach and Harnish’s (1979) view, who see the Cooperative
Principle as a tool for determining the illocution that the speaker has produced (and
not as a tool for determining how well this performance produces a certain
perlocutionary effect, namely, the effect of making it salient to her addressee that
her target-claim is correct). On the contrary, our proposal at this point is to use the
Cooperative Principle as regulative, as a standard for rational communication, or,
rather, as a set of general conditions that an act of arguing must fulfill in order to be
a good means for showing. So, how can such a normative shift be accounted for?
In principle, we can only appraise the adequacy of a speaker’s performance as a
means to achieve a certain communicative goal if we can determine this goal
independently of taking each movement as a means to achieve it. However, in
Grice’s view, the interpretation of an utterance is a matter of recognizing the
speaker’s communicative intention by assuming that the utterance is a good way of
satisfying it, given the assumption that the speaker is being faithful to the
Cooperative Principle. This is the sense in which communicative intentions are
constitutive of the speaker’s meaning. Accordingly, in order to take Grice’s
Cooperative Principle as an account of the pragmatic value of argumentation as a
communicative act, we should be able to make a distinction between the
communicative intentions of the speaker, which usually determine the interpretation
of her communicative act, i.e. the locution that she makes, and her argumentative
goals, which determine the pragmatic value of her argumentative act in terms of its
adequacy as a means to achieve these goals.
In assuming that the constitutive goal of argumentation is to show a target-claim
to be correct, I contend that any performance that cannot be interpreted as aiming at
this goal is to be dismissed as argumentation. So, can we really determine that a
given performance is argumentation without already assuming that it is a good way
to satisfy the communicative intention of showing a target-claim to be correct? Yes,
precisely because we have defined the illocutionary act complex of arguing as an
attempt at showing a target-claim to be correct. The communicative intention that
satisfies any performance that is an argumentative act is the intention of being
recognized as an attempt to show a target-claim to be correct. In fact, that is why we
would also be able to recognize bad argumentation as argumentation. In contrast, its
pragmatic value qua argumentation would be a measure of its achievements
respecting this pragmatic argumentative goal, namely, to show that a target-claim is
correct. From a pragmatic point of view, a good act of arguing is an act of showing.
Consequently, we can take the Cooperative Principle—which constitutively
determines the meaning of the illocutions that compose the act of arguing—as a
regulative principle regarding the goodness of this act of arguing as an act of
showing. In this sense, the Cooperative Principle would happen to be a set of
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 471
123
regulative conditions sanctioning the pragmatic rationality, the instrumental
adequacy, of the act of arguing as a means for showing.
Thus, once we determine the meaning of a performance as an attempt to show a
target-claim to be correct, we can consider how good it is as a means to achieve this
goal. In other words, that is how it is possible to adopt Grice’s Cooperative Principle
both as constitutive of the meaning of acts of arguing and as a set of regulative
conditions sanctioning their pragmatic adequacy. The Cooperative Principle and its
maxims would indeed be constitutive of a talk exchange whose purpose is to argue,
and, by reference to this principle, we would be entitled to make any required
pragmatic implicatures that would restore its rationality as an attempt at showing a
target-claim to be correct. However, as regards the argumentative goal of this talk
exchange, the principle would be regulative, that is, it would give us a measure of
the instrumental value of this talk exchange respecting the goal of showing a target-
claim to be correct.
The regulative use of the Cooperative Principle would be grounded in the
assumption that acts of arguing (whose interpretation depends on the Cooperative
Principle as constitutive of meaning) can also be evaluated as acts of showing. In
this account, violating the cooperative conditions would result in a variety of types
of failures in being efficiently informative (that is, in ‘‘showing,’’ under the
assumption that there is just an internal constraint for ‘‘showing something,’’
namely, to be ‘‘efficiently informative’’). As Grice puts it, being efficiently
informative is the primary purpose of any talk exchange, and this explains the
general applicability of these conditions.
According to this explanation, if by arguing, i.e. by satisfying our intention of
being attributed an intention of showing a target-claim to be correct, we want to
show that a target-claim is indeed correct, then we will have to fulfill the following
maxims of any talk exchange aimed at being ‘‘a maximally effective exchange of
information’’ (Grice 1975: 47). The pragmatic conditions that determine how well
an act of arguing makes it salient that a target-claim is correct establish that an act of
arguing will only succeed if it is relevant respecting that goal, if it is adequately
informative quantitatively and qualitatively and clear enough to be understood.
Thus, argumentation that is irrelevant, quantitatively or qualitatively inadequate, or
unclear will fail to show what it was aimed to show, namely, that a target-claim is
correct: it will be pragmatically flawed, it will not succeed in justifying, or, in other
words, it will be bad argumentation.
Nonetheless, as Grice himself points out, there may be different sorts of other
maxims operative in different types of talk exchanges, so we should leave the
possibility open of drawing additional conditions for ‘‘correctly showing’’ within
particular argumentative frameworks. For example, forensic debate and jurispru-
dence are talk exchanges procedurally regulated to the effect of arranging different
sorts of circumstantial constraints. The Cooperative Principle—as a standard for the
pragmatic appraisal of argumentation—only settles general conditions for a talk
exchange to be pragmatically adequate, in the sense of ‘‘efficiently informative.’’
However, additional conditions may be necessary in order to deal with the
pragmatic appraisal of argumentation in contexts where external constraints, like the
472 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
distribution of time or the maximization of resources, also determine what counts as
‘‘being a good act of showing.’’
As outlined by Grice, ‘‘there are, of course, all sorts of other maxims (aesthetic,
social, or moral in character), such as ‘Be polite’, that are also normally observed by
participants in talk exchanges.’’ But in his view, the maxims constituting the
Cooperative Principle ‘‘are specially connected (…) with the particular purposes
that talk (and so, talk exchange) is adapted to serve and is primarily employed to
serve’’ (1975: 47). In that sense, in taking Grice’s Cooperative Principle as a
standard for the pragmatic appraisal of argumentation, these maxims should be
considered as general rules whose violation results in a more or less serious failure
in showing that a target-claim is correct.
9
9 Conclusion
In this paper I have drawn a survey of possible strategies for dealing with the
rhetorical within Argumentation Theory by following Kock’s criticisms of current
proposals. I have argued that Kock is right in saying that nowadays Rhetoric has not
been properly integrated within Argumentation Theory. However, I have tried to
show that his criticisms of Johnson’s, Tindale’s and Pragma-dialectics’ accounts of
the rhetorical are wrong because they are grounded on the presumption that the only
way of properly accomplishing this task is by dealing with what he calls ‘‘rhetorical
argumentation’’, i.e. the domain of practical decisions.
This is Kock’s preferred strategy for an integration of the rhetorical. But in my
view, it is just another strategy, like Johnson’s assumption that it is possible to
provide rhetorical normative models for argumentation, i.e. models telling good from
bad argumentation, from a rhetorical point of view; or like Pragma-dialectics’
acknowledgement of a rhetorical dimension to every argumentation which should be
taken into account in order to properly interpret it; or like Tindale’s view that we
have to provide rhetorical normative conditions, i.e. conditions determining what is
good argumentation, under the assumption that argumentation, in general, is a
rhetorical object. Kock says instead that we should deal with certain type of
argumentative discourse that, allegedly, is essentially rhetorical. I have criticised the
shortcomings of this strategy by contrasting it with the one that I favour. According
to it, there would be a rhetorical dimension to every argumentation, so that any
account of the rhetorical not taking into account its normative dimension, that is, its
role in determining the very property of argumentation goodness, would be flawed.
In my account, the rhetorical dimension of argumentation would provide conditions,
not only for its interpretation, as Pragma-dialectics says, but also for its appraisal, as
suggested by Tindale. However, in contrast with Tindale’s proposal, I have argued
for the view that these rhetorical conditions should not serve for shaping a rhetorical,
instrumental conception of argumentative value. Actually, I have tried to show that
even if we adopt what I have described as a constitutive value monism—for which
9
In Bermejo-Luque (forthcoming), I give an account of the rhetorical nature of certain traditional
fallacies, as long as they are violations of such rhetorical normative conditions.
The Rhetorical Dimension of Argumentation 473
123
argumentation goodness is a matter of justification- we should take into account
certain rhetorical conditions determining how well does an act of arguing play at
showing a target-claim to be correct.
Acknowledgements The work presented in this paper has been financed by a JAE-doc Research
Fellowship of the Spanish National Research Council and by the research project FFI2008-00085 of the
Spanish Ministry of Science.
References
Bermejo-Luque. 2009. Two conceptions of rhetoric and their role in argumentation theory. Paper
presented in the 2009 OSSA conference.
Bermejo-Luque. forthcoming. Giving reasons. A linguistic approach to argumentation theory.
Bach, K., and R.M. Harnish. 1979. Linguistic communication and speech acts. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Biro, J., and H. Siegel. 1992. Normativity, argumentation and an epistemic theory of fallacies.
In Argumentation illuminated, ed. F.H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, et al., 85–103. Amsterdam:
Sic Sat.
Goodwin, J. 2005. Argument has no function. In The uses of argument: Proceedings of a conference at
McMaster University, ed. D. Hitchcock, 165–166. Hamilton: OSSA.
Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and semantics, Vol. 3, speech acts, ed. P. Cole and
J.L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.
Jacobs, S. 2000. Rhetoric and dialectics from the standpoint of normative pragmatics. Argumentation
14: 261–286.
Johnson, R.H. 2000. Manifest rationality: A pragmatic theory of argument. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Kock, C. 2007. The domain of rhetorical argumentation. In Proceedings of the sixth conference of the
international society for the study of argumentation, ed. F.H. van Eemeren, J. Anthony Blair, C.A.
Willard, and B. Garssen, 785–788. Amsterdam: Sic Sat.
Kock, C. 2009. Choice is not true or false: The domain of rhetorical argumentation. Argumentation
23: 61–80.
Moore, G.E. 1903. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tindale, C. 1999. Acts of arguing. A rhetorical model of argument. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Toulmin, S.E. 1958. The uses of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2000a. ‘‘Rhetoric in Pragma-dialectics’’, in Argumentation,
Interpretation, Rhetoric, www.argumentation.spb.ru/2000_1/index.htm.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2000b. Rhetorical analysis within a pragma-dialectical framework.
The case of R. J. Reynolds. Argumentation 14: 293–305.
van Eemeren, F.H., and P. Houtlosser. 2002. Strategic manoeuvring: maintaining a delicate balance.
In The Warp and Woof of argumentation analysis (argumentation library, 6), ed. F.H. van Eemeren
and P. van Houtlosser, 131–160. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
van Eemeren, F.H., and R. Grootendorst. 2004. A systematic theory of argumentation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wenzel, J.W. 1982. On fields of argument as propositional systems. Journal of the American Forensic
Association 18: 204–213.
474 L. Bermejo-Luque
123
