Argument Midterm

Reluctant conclusion

Act as though you felt compelled to reach your conclusion, despite your own desires. Make it sound as if you reached your opinion only after confronting overwhelming evidence. This rhetorical strategy is often used to persuade an audience by suggesting that the speaker has arrived at their conclusion reluctantly, enhancing the credibility of their argument.

Cicero

He mentioned an excellent tactic for promoting objectivity: seeming reluctant to deal with something you are really eager to prove. Cicero advocated presenting arguments as if you were reluctantly defending them, enhancing the perception of objectivity and credibility and creating the tool: the reluctant conclusion.

He also wrote De Oratore - modeling controversial issues and the art of persuasive speaking.

Enthymeme

Pattern of reasoning in which a syllogism is left deliberately incomplete by the argument → left intentionally incomplete..This rhetorical device allows the audience to fill in the missing premise, making the argument more engaging and persuasive.

Controversia

A specific term of art to describe an exercise to practice. A debate, dispute, or lawsuit of a rhetorical exercise.

• A way arguments can be refuted by questioning assumptions, pointing out fallacies, or countering with a stronger argument. This rhetorical exercise involves presenting opposing viewpoints in a structured manner to develop persuasive skills.

Peritrope

courteous contradiction - a way of engaging in an argument with treating them with respect while also challenging their position. This rhetorical technique allows for a constructive dialogue, emphasizing understanding and respect in the debate.

Ethos

Appeals to the ethical side of argument, the credibility of the speaker. Trust hinges on how others perceive you. Demonstrate that you are honest, competent, and caring. Your credibility—based on your character—will help establish trust.

Phronesis

practical wisdom: Show off your experience, bend the rules, seem to take the middle course.

Pathos

• Sympathy: Start with the audience’s mood (p. 44)

• Emotion: Design arguments that stir the audience's emotions (vivid suggestions, stories, imagination visions)

Logos - logic

• Deductive logic: start with a general premise, end with a specific conclusion 

• Enthymeme: Deliberately incomplete arguments 

• Inductive logic: Start with a specific fact, comparison, or story, and end with a general conclusion 

• Paralipsis: Mention something by saying you are not mentioning it

Decorum

Behavior in keeping with good taste and properly.

Dubitatio

Don’t look tricky. Seem to be in doubt about what to say: Quintilian explains: A speaker might choose to feign helplessness by pretending to be uncertain how to begin to proceed with his speech. This makes it appear not so much as a skilled master of rhetoric, but as an honest man.

Protagoras

• Born in Thrace, moved to Athens in 460 BC 

• Key transitional figure bridging “mythopoetic” to “rational-humanistic” worldview 

• Created Two-logi fragment

• Created human measure fragment

• founding father of education in humanities

• taught antilogic: mutivocal, oppositional, dynamic. Only left fragments (two-logoi and human measure). are left

Socrates

Using reason to create an ethical system for society

• best known for his creation of the Socratic method of question and answer

• Socrates believed that rhetoric, or persuasive speech, was often used to flatter people and appeal to their desires rather than to educate them. He believed that this practice left people ignorant, and that true education came from a position of knowledge

Carneadas

• The new head of “Third Academy” 

• Aware of apraxia charge - aware that students are suffering from apraxia charge not being able to take a position 

• Modified scepticism: to pithanon (possibility).

  • You can be skeptical without being too skeptical = be skeptical enough to stimulate thoughts and encounter many alternatives to different topics 

  • Ataraxia - mental tranquility - ability to hold multiple perspectives in mind, as you test them and provisionally select one for interim action

  • Gave two speeches - praised Roman system of justice (genius), then said to come back for another speech 

  • Comes back the next day and did the reverse: said the Roman system of justice was terrible; presented a unique juxtaposition to spark ataraxia 

Marcus Antonius

• distinguished in his skill in invention, for the strategic manner with which he marshalled his arguments, memory,

• noted for his ability at altercatio - the quick trading of opposing ideas in debate, a talent on display throughout his career in the forum

• willingness to scrutinize and modify his own initial position resides at the core of the antilogical process, a process that is nothing if it is not dynamic, is the collision of opposites does not operate to prompt a shift in stance by the interlocutors - responds with readiness to change.

Crassus

• introduces a conversation on the pursuit of oratory, with a view of relieving all our minds from the discourse of the day before

• praised the power of oratory which not only echoes Cicero’s own preface, but also recalls the commonplaces of Isocrates, who originates the notion that it is by refinements of speech that we rise from “brutish creation” and exercise “wise control” pf the state at large. This was met with opposition.

• contradicts socrates by praising the intellectual versatality of the “finished orator”

List summaries

a summary that simply lists the main points of an argument without connecting them to a larger claim

• This type of summary is ineffective because it does not show how the reader understands the source or what the author found important.

• Summarize what the opponent has said 

• When your opponent says something and you want to refute it, you need to package it by acknowledging what they said 

Syllogism

A statement in which conclusion is inferred from the truth of two premises. In a perfect ___, the major premise speaks a universal truth.

Deductive reasoning

moves from whole to part, general to specific

Inductive reasoning

Start with a specific fact, comparison, or story, and end with a general conclusion 

Burden of proof

The obligation to offer reasons sufficient to overcome presumption

• an important concept for determining when you should assent to a claim that another person achieves

Satirical summaries

Takes the main points of the argument and humorously exaggerates or mocks them, often pointing out flaws, contradictions, or absurdities in a lighthearted or ironic manner,

Aidos

• Greek goddess of honor and respect. Should have respect for partner 

• Might change your own beliefs 

• Opponent is an ally and can help measure (metron) the soundness of arguments, including your own position

Apraxia

paralysis by scepticsm - those who were in the new academy could not take a position on anything - stuck due to always attacking every position and not taking a position for themselves

Atraxia

mental tranquility - ability to hold multiple perspectives in mind, as you test them and provisionally select one for interim action

Two-logoi fragment - Protagoras

Two accounts (logoi) are present about every “thing”, opposed to each other

• one can always construct arguments on both sides of an issue

Human-measure fragment - Protagoras

• Of all things, the measure is Man, of all the things that are, that they are; and of the things 

• Depends on circumstance and perspective

• Metron: measurement 

  • Can measure the soundness and/or strength of an argument

Marie Hochmuth

• Article on Lincoln’s inaugural considered classic neo-aristotelian public address criticism 

• Brought argument to communications 

  • Carly Woods wrote a dissertation on Hochmuth’s piece 

• was active on debate team at Pitt

• Her experience as a debater, college student, and debate coach serves as a representative case for understanding tensions between traditional ideas about feminity and the popular image of debaters as smart, outspoken, and masculine

“Your Gown is Lovely, But…” 

QQ2: How can the statement be completed in a way that captures Hochmuth’s message” 

• They took too much into their appearance and how they looked versus their argumentation techniques 

• What were the causes of women’s inferior debate performance 

  • Unwillingness to study tough subjects 

  • Coached to incorporate charm-school (etiquette and manners) graces 

  • Mistaken belief that poise and confidence run counter to femininity 

  • Lack of passion: “foul tasting medicine”

  • Coached give inadequate instruction, treat women debaters with kid gloves

Backfire effect

Is a controversal psychological mechanism who is presented with corrections to a partisan belief, instead of updating/changing belief, you increase your backing on the belief you had (belief becomes emboldened).

Cognitive debiasing

•  to generate reasons for the contrary position to explain an alternative outcome. 

• process of reducing the influence of cognitive biases on decision-making

Metacognition

• Being aware of your thinking

• critical thinking  

• Argument mapping, fallacy organization, implicit premise identification

• Consider the opposite strategy → cognitive debiasing strategy, to generate reasons for the contrary position to explain an alternative outcome.

Presumption

A predisposition to believe that a claim is correct until overwhelming evidence is presented

Argument field

Norms and rules of argument shift depending on the context 

Sophists

• manipulative, deceptive - in the context of these people 

• Some were sketchy - they had disputable reputations 

• Protagoras taught antilogic: mutivocal, oppositional, dynamic. Only left fragments (two-logoi and human measure). Other sophists: Lysias, Gorgias 

Isocrates

• Teaches philosophy 

• Focus: logos politics- logos politicos (public argument) - applied argument 

• Adapts Protagorean antilogic 

• Criticizes some sophists for “eristic” - (wordy wrangling - quick wits that aren’t useful to an argument - not substantial) 

• The school was also called Philosophia (371 BC) 

• Taught three chief principles of antilogic from Protagoras  

Lucy Stone

• found secret debating society with Antoinette Brown - both found the activities of the lLS lacking, as Stone’s prospective career as ant-slaver lecturer and aBrown’s as preacher came into focus