About Old and New Dialectic: Dialogues, Fallacies, and Strategies

Abstract

We shall investigate the similarities and dissimilarities between old and new dialectic. For the ‘old dialectic’, we base our survey mainly on Aristotle’s Topics and Sophistical Refutations, whereas for the ‘new dialectic’, we turn to contemporary views on dialogical interaction, such as can, for the greater part, be found in Walton’s The New Dialectic. Three issues are taken up: types of dialogue, fallacies, and strategies. Though one should not belittle the differences in scope and outlook that obtain between the old and the new dialectic, the paper will show that in many respects the old dialectic foreshadows the new dialectic.

The Argument of Mathematics

“…They also occur in different types of dialogue , here seen as activity types (Van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2005), and display different functions of reasoning (Krabbe and Van Laar, 2007). In this, one should keep in mind that mathematical proofs come in kinds as to their objectives and the audiences they are aimed at.…”

Ambiguity in argument

“…This typology has been widely applied in artificial intelligence (Parsons, Wooldridge, and Amgoud 2003;McBurney and Parsons 2002;Prakken 2005;Wells and Reed 2005). For each type of dialogue, a distinction can be made between a descriptive and a normative approach (Krabbe and van Laar 2007). Given a main goal that in part characterises a type of dialogue, norms can be stated that, in a theorist's eyes, are to be followed in order for the participants to achieve this main goal.…”

Cooperation and competition in argumentative exchanges

“…One may wonder whether this could lead to another critical discussion. About this and other problems of the concluding stage, seeKrabbe 2007.…”

“…The types of dialogue must here be conceived as activity types(Van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2005). See alsoKrabbe and Van Laar 2007: Section 3.1. The level of cooperativeness of a normative model depends on the activity type (type of dialogue) for which the model is to be a model.16 See, for instance, Van Eemeren and Houtlosser (eds.)…”