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CFP: Pre-ISSA Workshop: Mobility and Argument in Motion

March 16, 2018 by SP

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

July 2, 2018

The recent movement of people from one place to another due to precarious circumstances furnishes a decisive, contemporary subject for inquiry. Arguers assemble and move themselves and things about within cities and across countries via material and immaterial networks. Identities are mixed. Status split. Pro and con arguments work amid situations where the roles of hospitality, exchange, and collaboration mix and meet restrictions, group disconnections, and resistance. What are the stances, schemes, and genre of rescuers, smugglers, camp-life, border life, and residential enclaves? What are the dialogical capacities, apparatus, and ties of migrants, refugees, diasporatic groups, displaced persons, specious document holders, extended visa holders, temporary workers, and students? After what scholars call the mobility turn, the history of movement provides new language to understand the ambit of everyday, informal reasoning, as the new “normal”: exile, exodus, migration, expatriation, place-less-ness, multiple identities, and anonymity often without the option of returning “home.”

Posted in Argumentation, CFP, Rhetoric | Tagged borders, immigration, migration | Leave a Comment »

“Fake News” as Phenomenon and Fallacy

December 13, 2017 by SP

800px-Decoys — “Decoys” by V.H. Hatter, CC SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. No endorsement implied.

The Phenomenon

The “fake news” phenomenon plays on highly predictable and prevalent weaknesses in human cognition: confirmation bias, ownership/endowment effects, and belief overkill using messages with high affective valence, usually negative. Emotions of fear, outrage, and suspicion typically are featured, but sometimes positive themes are used too, like appeals to feelings of patriotism or nostalgia for an idealized past. The images selected typically reflect whatever the emotional focus is, or whoever (or whatever, in the case of abstract institutions) is the target of that focus. There is no attempt at truthful communication. Sources are often described rather than named (think pizzagate’s “New York City police detective”, or phrases like “sources close to the Trump family”). Essentially, fake news stories follow the same sort of style as tabloid writing: sensationalistic, unverifiable, and over-the-top claims are made about publicly recognizable figures for money. That’s nothing new. Tabloid journalism has been around since papers started being printed. What’s “new” about fake news is that:

Posted in Argumentation, Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, Fallacies, Informal Logic, News | Tagged critical thinking and journalism, dark arts, fake news, politifact, Snopes | Leave a Comment »

Argumentation Studies Ph.D. @ Windsor

September 29, 2017 by SP

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.”

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Posted in Argumentation, Graduate Studies, Informal Logic, Linguistics, Logic, Pragma-dialectics, Rhetoric | Leave a Comment »

This is the Life We Have Chosen

September 7, 2017 by SP

Via The Non Sequitur, the blog of Scott Akin and John Casey:

School has started again. For some of us academics, this means shifting from reading professional literature to papers written by absolute beginners. Over the years this can wear on you, especially since you’ll encounter the same moves over and over and over. The sheer repetitiveness of it will cause you to ask whether you’re having any effect at all on their work. If you’re smart, you’ll vent about it to your trusted colleagues in the friendly confines of the faculty lounge. They will commiserate with you, and hopefully remind you of your obligations as a teacher. After a scotch or two and some quality time in a chesterfield chair, you’ll return to class refreshed, or maybe a bit buzzed, but nonetheless ready to do whatever it is you do.

Should you lack good mentors or quality whisky, you may be tempted to go online with a post about how stupid the kids are. Before you do this, you need to remind yourself of three critical things…

Read the rest of this excellent post here.

Posted in Argumentation, Discussion, Teaching | Leave a Comment »

CFP: “The Philosophy of Argumentation”: a special issue of Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

September 5, 2017 by SP

Philosophy of Argumentation – An Issue of Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

We invite the submission of papers to an issue of the journal Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric (https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/slgr) entitled ‘The Philosophy of Argumentation’. This issue is designed to build on the impact of recent events in argumentation and linguistics in Poland and aims to bring together researchers with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds in a discussion of the philosophical aspects of argumentation theory, and to further enhance the growing reputation of Poland as a centre for study in the field.

The journal issue will be co-edited by Martin Hinton (University of Łódź) and Marcin Koszowy (University of Białystok and Polish Academy of Science).

Topics

A philosophical approach to argument and persuasion may touch on many areas and this list is not designed to be exhaustive, but contributions might discuss:

Posted in Argumentation, CFP, Communication, Connections, Fallacies, Informal Logic, Linguistics, Logic, Rhetoric | Leave a Comment »

CFP: Journal for Discourse Studies

September 5, 2017 by SP

via https://www.diskursanalyse.net/

Journal for Discourse Studies / Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung (ZfD)

we would like to remind you that the Journal for Discourse Studies is interested in your submissions! You may submit your manuscripts at any time in German or English by sending them to zfd@phil.uni-augsburg.de. Many different formats are possible, including but not limited to long or short articles, essays, or discussions.

Guidelines for submissions and more information about the journal can be found at www.uni-augsburg.de/zfd.

Posted in CFP, Communication, Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, Rhetoric | Leave a Comment »

Unilateral Disarmament in the “War on Science”

September 3, 2017 by SP

Source: Unilateral Disarmament in the “War on Science”

Some scientists perceive themselves as an embattled minority, fending off attacks from a public whose declining trust in science has been manufactured by self-interested adversaries aided by an easily-duped press. This perception is largely unfounded. When scientists communicate to the public from this point of view, they don’t contribute usefully to public deliberations. In fact, they add more toxins to the already polluted science communication environment. There has to be a better way.

Read the rest of the post at Jean’s excellent blog.

Posted in Communication, Connections, Discussion, Rhetoric | Leave a Comment »

CFP: Second Call for ISSA 2018

September 3, 2017 by SP

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE 9th ISSA CONFERENCE ON ARGUMENTATION

From July 3 to July 6, 2018, the 9th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA) will be held at the University of Amsterdam. The aim of the conference is to draw together scholars from a variety of disciplines that are working in the field of argumentation theory.

The keynote speakers are:

Marianne Doury (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris)
Dale Hample (University of Maryland)
David Hitchcock (McMaster University)

The planning committee of the 9th ISSA Conference invites presentations of original, non-published work on argumentation. Argumentation theorists, (informal) logicians, discourse analysts, communication scholars, rhetoricians, legal scholars, AI scholars, and other scholars involved in the study of argumentation are all encouraged to take part.

Important dates

Posted in Argumentation, CFP, Communication, Computation, Connections, Discourse Analysis, Fallacies, Workshops | Leave a Comment »

CFP: Topoi Special Issue on Disagreement

September 3, 2017 by SP

Call for Papers

Disagreement: Perspectives from Argumentation Theory and Epistemology: a special issue of Topoi 

Submission Deadline: 31 October, 2017

Guest Edited by Patrick Bondy and David Godden

Topoi invites submissions to Disagreement: Perspectives from Argumentation Theory and Epistemology, a special issue edited by Patrick Bondy (Brandon University) and David Godden (Michigan State University).

The subject of this special issue is disagreement and how to rationally respond to it. The issue itself aims to bring together multiple perspectives bearing on the epistemological dimensions of disagreement broadly conceived.

Posted in Argumentation, CFP, Informal Logic | Leave a Comment »

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A blog about Reasoning, Argumentation, and Informal Logic

CFP: Pre-ISSA Workshop: Mobility and Argument in Motion