Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation

Abstract

Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation presents the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners. The book teaches by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed. Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton shows how arguments can be reasonable under the right dialogue conditions by using critical questions to evaluate them. The book teaches by example, both in the text itself and in exercises, but it is based on methods that have been developed through the author's thirty years of research in argumentation studies.

The Argument Web: an Online Ecosystem of Tools, Systems and Services for Argumentation

“…in patterns such as Kienpointner's (1992) 'warrant-establishing arguments'). Inference captured by multiple incoming scheme nodes thus naturally corresponds to convergent argumentation; that covered by multiple premises supporting a single incoming scheme node corresponds to linked argumentation (Walton 2006). The AIF also provides, in the extensions developed for the Argument Web (Rahwan et al 2007), the concept of a 'Form' (as distinct from the 'Content' of information and scheme nodes).…”

Online visit opinions about attractions of the religious heritage: an argumentative approach

“…This corresponds to the argument scheme called argument from position to know (Walton 1997(Walton , 2006) -which is a particular type of argument from authority -where the standpoint -here the visit recommendation (stdp 1) -is supported by an argument referring to the position of the person who puts it forward. The argument supporting the standpoint is often left implicit because it is presupposed, and can be expressed in this terms: 'I recommend a visit to site X, because I was there and I know about it'.…”

“…One-third argument scheme, which is indeed the very base of the OTR logic, is the one that represents the basic scheme for practical reasoning: the argument from final cause (Walton 2006;Rigotti 2008). Here, the advice of performing some course of action is justified by its consequence that is the possibility to reach a desirable/good goal.…”

Volumen VI. Número 9. Enero 2015

“…No fue hasta a mediados del siglo pasado, con la aparición en 1958 de The Uses of Argument de Stephen Toulmin y el Traité de l'Argumentation de Perelman y OlbrechtsTyteca, que los estudios sobre nuestros intercambios argumentativos ordinarios recibieron una atención independiente. Merecen también la atención los trabajos de Hamblin (1970), Johnson (2000), Walton (2006), y van Eemeren y Grootendorst (1992).…”