Topic Philosophy & Subtopic “Pure intellectual stimulation that can be popped into Intellectual History Modern Philosophy the [audio or video player] anytime.” —Harvard Magazine A Argumentation: “Passionate, erudite, living legend lecturers. Academia’s r g best lecturers are being captured on tape.” um —The Los Angeles Times en The Study of Effective t a t io “A serious force in American education.” n Reasoning, 2nd Edition —The Wall Street Journal Course Guidebook Professor David Zarefsky Northwestern University Professor David Zarefsky is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, where he has taught for over 30 years. A nationally recognized authority on rhetoric and a widely published author, he is the former president of the National Communication Association. Professor Zarefsky has been included on Northwestern’s Associated Student Government Honor Roll for Teaching 13 times in recognition of his outstanding lecturing skills. THE GREAT COURSES® Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfields Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, VA 20151-2299 G USA u Phone: 1-800-832-2412 id www.thegreatcourses.com e b o Cover Image: © Galushko Sergey/Shutterstock. o Course No. 4294 © 2005 The Teaching Company. PB4294A k PUBLISHED BY: THE GREAT COURSES Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfi elds Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, Virginia 20151-2299 Phone: 1-800-832-2412 Fax: 703-378-3819 www.thegreatcourses.com Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2005 Printed in the United States of America This book is in copyright. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of The Teaching Company. David Zarefsky, Ph.D. Professor of Argumentation and Debate Professor of Communication Studies Northwestern University D avid Zarefsky received his B.S. (with highest distinction) from Northwestern University and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees also from Northwestern. He has taught at Northwestern for more than 30 years. From 1988 through 2000, he was dean of the School of Speech. Currently, he is Owen L. Coon Professor of Argumentation and Debate and Professor of Communication Studies. Dr. Zarefsky has served as president of the National Communication Association (NCA), one of the nation’s oldest and largest professional organizations for scholars, teachers, and practitioners in communication and performance studies. He also has been president of the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA), an interdisciplinary society of scholars interested in studying public discourse. He has held a number of other leadership positions in NCA and other professional associations and is a former editor of the journal Argumentation and Advocacy. A proli(cid:191) c writer, Dr. Zarefsky has written (cid:191) ve books and edited three more and has an impressive list of scholarly articles and reviews to his credit. He received the 1986 NCA Winans-Wichelns Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address for his book President Johnson’s War on Poverty: Rhetoric and History. He won the same award in 1991 for Lincoln, Douglas, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate. He is one of only three people to have received this prestigious award twice. A nationally recognized authority on rhetoric, argumentation, and forensics, Dr. Zarefsky maintains a busy schedule as a member of external review committees for departments of communication studies, as well as of speech communication, at various universities. At Northwestern, Dr. Zarefsky i teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of American public discourse, argumentation theory and practice, and rhetorical analysis and criticism. He has been elected to Northwestern University’s Associated Student Government Honor Roll for Teaching on 13 occasions. (cid:374) ii Table of Contents INTRODUCTION Professor Biography ............................................................................i Course Scope .....................................................................................1 LECTURE GUIDES LECTURE 1 Introducing Argumentation and Rhetoric ............................................6 LECTURE 2 Underlying Assumptions of Argumentation .......................................10 LECTURE 3 Formal and Informal Argumentation .................................................14 LECTURE 4 History of Argumentation Studies .....................................................18 LECTURE 5 Argument Analysis and Diagramming ..............................................22 LECTURE 6 Complex Structures of Argument......................................................28 LECTURE 7 Case Construction—Requirements and Options..............................34 LECTURE 8 Stasis—The Heart of the Controversy ..............................................38 LECTURE 9 Attack and Defense I ........................................................................42 LECTURE 10 Attack and Defense II .......................................................................45 iii Table of Contents LECTURE 11 Language and Style in Argument .....................................................48 LECTURE 12 Evaluating Evidence .........................................................................52 LECTURE 13 Reasoning from Parts to Whole........................................................57 LECTURE 14 Reasoning with Comparisons ...........................................................60 LECTURE 15 Establishing Correlations ..................................................................63 LECTURE 16 Moving from Cause to Effect ............................................................66 LECTURE 17 Commonplaces and Arguments from Form ......................................69 LECTURE 18 Hybrid Patterns of Inference .............................................................73 LECTURE 19 Validity and Fallacies I ......................................................................78 LECTURE 20 Validity and Fallacies II .....................................................................83 LECTURE 21 Arguments between Friends.............................................................87 LECTURE 22 Arguments among Experts ...............................................................92 LECTURE 23 Public Argument and Democratic Life ..............................................96 iv Table of Contents LECTURE 24 The Ends of Argumentation ............................................................100 SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL Glossary .........................................................................................105 Biographical Notes .........................................................................115 Bibliography ....................................................................................119 v vi Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning, 2nd Edition Scope: T his series of 24 lectures examines a common but understudied aspect of human communication: argumentation. Far from the stereotypes of contentiousness or quarrelsomeness, argumentation is the study of reasons given by people to justify their acts or beliefs and to in(cid:192) uence the thought or action of others. It is concerned with communication that seeks to persuade others through reasoned judgment. The course is introductory in that it does not presume any prior study of argumentation. Because all of us practice argumentation, however, the course is also sophisticated in that it offers a systematic analysis, a precise vocabulary, and a philosophical foundation for what all too often is an activity that we conduct intuitively and unconsciously. The (cid:191) rst four lectures provide the necessary intellectual background. Lecture 1 de(cid:191) nes argumentation and situates it among a family of terms: rhetoric, logic, and dialectic. Unfortunately, these terms either have acquired negative stereotypes in contemporary culture or they have fallen into disuse; therefore, it is necessary to understand them in their classical context. Each term is de(cid:191) ned, and the terms are related to one another. Lecture 2 then identi(cid:191) es a series of assumptions that undergird the practice of argumentation: the importance of an audience, the regulation of uncertainty, the difference between justi(cid:191) cation and proof, the cooperative nature of the enterprise, and the acceptance of risk. These assumptions provide the philosophical base for understanding what it means to argue as a means of reaching decisions. Much of the contemporary revival of argumentation has emphasized its informal character and, hence, the inapplicability of formal logic as a model. Lecture 3 thus is devoted to the differences between formal and informal reasoning. The main patterns of formal deduction—categorical, conditional, and disjunctive reasoning—are described and illustrated. The lecture 1 identi(cid:191) es the limitations of formal reasoning as a prototype and explains how informal reasoning is fundamentally different. Although the emphasis on informal reasoning may seem new, it actually has a long tradition, and Lecture 4 surveys, in broad-brush fashion, how the study of argumentation has evolved from classical times to the present. Originally, argumentation was the heart and soul of rhetorical studies, and rhetoric was regarded as one of the seven basic liberal arts. During the intervening centuries, rhetoric was separated from its most intellectual elements, argumentation was taken over by philosophy, and formal logic (especially symbolic or mathematical logic) was regarded as the prototype for all reasoning. The lecture summarizes consequences of these trends and includes a discussion of several late-20th-century efforts to refocus argumentation studies. The next seven lectures, 5 through 11, examine aspects of argumentation strategies and tactics. Lecture 5 begins this series by considering how controversies arise and how the most basic element of argument is the claim. It then de(cid:191) nes the major components of an argument (a claim, evidence, an inference linking the evidence to the claim, and a warrant authorizing the inference) and describes how these components can be represented diagrammatically. Lecture 6 moves from simple arguments to examine the structure of more complex arguments. Multiple, coordinative, and subordinative structures illustrate the patterns by which parts of complex arguments are brought together. We will explore how the choices among these patterns make a difference to the understanding of the overall argument. The structures exposed in Lecture 6 can be thought of as ways to map an arguer’s case, that is, the set of arguments that he or she brings forward to support or oppose a claim. Lecture 7 considers the arguer’s responsibility to speak to all the relevant issues in the assembly of the case. This consideration will lead into a discussion of the nature of issues, means of identifying issues in a speci(cid:191) c case, and why addressing the issues meets the initial burden of proof. The lecture then shifts from responsibilities to choices and focuses on the arguer’s options with respect to selection and arrangement of arguments. e p o c S 2