Xixi Logic Seminars #64

Speaker: Prof. Frans van Eemeren (Amsterdam & Leiden)
Date & Time: 4 May 2017 (Thursday), 14:00 – 16:00
Place: Cafe in the Administrative Building, Xixi campus, Zhejiang University

Pragma-dialectics: From ideal model to argumentative patterns

Prof. Frans van Eemeren explains how the pragma-dialectical research program has progressed systematically from the development of an ideal model of critical discussion to the identification of prototypical argumentative patterns in argumentative reality. First he draws attention to the main characteristics of the pragma-dialectical “standard” theory of dialectical reasonableness and sketches the consolidation of the standard theory by means analytical an empirical research. Then he discusses the “extended” pragma-dialectical theory, with its inclusion of the rhetorical dimension of effectiveness. After explaining how the institutional context of argumentative discourse is taken into account in the extended pragma-dialectical theorizing, van Eemeren discusses the latest development in pragma-dialectical research: the identification of prototypical argumentative patterns connected with the institutional preconditions for strategic maneuvering in specific communicative activity types in the political, the legal and the medical domain.