Tonight marked a very special occasion for the entire argumentation theory community: the inaugural lecture opening the Argumentation Studies Ph.D. program at the University of Windsor.
To be clear the program’s first class of students began classes at the start of this term, so tonight’s event was more ceremonial than operational, but it was a great event. It was an honor to be there. The lecture was given by guest of honor Frans van Eemeren, and covered the history, recent trends in and future prospects of the pragma-dialectic school of argumentation theory. It was a lovely talk and Professor van Eemeren closed it with words of encouragement for the first class of Argumentation Studies Ph.D. students:
“The future is yours.”
RAIL 