Abstract

EEMEREN, Frans H. van. Strategic Maneuvering: Combining Reasonableness and Effectiveness in Argumentative Discourse. Acta poét [online]. 2012, vol.33, n.1, pp.19-47. ISSN 2448-735X.

After explaining his view on argumentation as a subject matter for theorizing, Frans H. van Eemeren sketches the research program of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation and introduces the main components of the theory of argumentation resulting from carrying out this program. Next he concentrates on the fundamental problem argumentation theorists are confronted with of distinguishing between sound and fallacious argumentative moves. He presents the pragma-dialectical treatment of the fallacies as a constructive alternative to the severely criticized Logical Standard Treatment. In the pragmadialectical approach fallacies are treated as violations of rules for conducting a critical discussion that is aimed at resolving a difference of opinion which is at issue in argumentative discourse on the merits. To tackle the problem of the persuasiveness that fallacies, in spite of their unreasonableness, may have, van Eemeren introduces the notion of strategic maneuvering, which captures the predicament inherent in every argumentative move of having to reconcile aiming for effectiveness and maintaining reasonableness. Fallacies are derailments of strategic maneuvering in which one or more of the rules for critical discussion have been violated. Using the distinction between a sound argument from authority and the fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam as a case in point, van Eemeren concludes his essay by discussing the reasons why derailments of strategic manoeuvring can in practice go so easily unnoticed, so that fallacies are not detected.

Keywords : Pragma-dialectics; critical discussion; fallacy; strategic maneuvering; argumentum ad verecundiam.

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