Elements of the Historical Approach

The primary purpose of this chapter is to elucidate and illustrate an historical approach to the study of argumentation. I am also interested in justifying this approach and in discussing a number of difficulties that it faces and some fruitful lines of inquiry it suggests. However, space limitations will force me to be rather sketchy and allusive in regard to this justification and discussion, whose details will have to await some other occasion. Nevertheless, I invite reactions to the secondary topics as well as to the central ones.

By way of elucidation, an historical approach is to be understood as a type of empirical approach, empirical primarily in the sense in which this term is contrasted to an apriorist, rationalistic, or intellectualist orientation. In this context, formal logic, or at least the relevant parts of formal logic, may be taken as an example of the apriorist approach, while cognitive psychology may be regarded as an instance of a different type of empirical approach. The main methodological difference between cognitive psychology and the historical approach advocated here is that the former is experimental, while the latter is merely observational. Whether the historical-observational or psychological-experimental approach is preferable is an issue of great interest and importance, which for the moment I merely want to raise rather than discuss, let alone settle.

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to explore the ways in which the work of Antonio Gramsci may be fruitful for a proper understanding of the nature and relationship of logic and politics.

First, without denying the existence of other conceptions, I would want to advocate conceiving logic as the judiciously empirical study of reasoning and argument. As long as we do not equate the notion of the empirical with the excesses of empiricism or with the experimental method of cognitive psychologists, I believe this to be a very fruitful approach. In this enterprise which corresponds in large measure to what is called “empirical logic” by some and “informal logic” by others, one may follow an historical approach in which one studies reasoning and argument as these occur in some appropriately chosen book such as Galileo Galilei's Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems or Lenin's What Is to Be Done? or Spinoza's Ethics. From the viewpoint of such an historical approach to empirical or informal logic, the potential fruitfulness of Gramsci becomes apparent once one realizes that he is the author of a modern classic of political and social thought, namely the Prison Notebooks. This means that his work becomes susceptible of being studied in order to determine what logical patterns it exhibits, to what extent these patterns are generalizable to political thought in general, and how they compare and contrast with other patterns of reasoning in other fields.

The concept of argument has always been of central importance in the philosophy of science. This was true even in the heyday of logical empiricism, since the logical component of the latter in effect meant that great emphasis was being placed on a particular conception of argument, which may be called formal, mathematical, deductive, demonstrative, or logicist. More recently, other approaches have displaced logical empiricism from its position of dominance, but it would be as much of a mistake to think that the focus on argument has thereby waned, as it would be to think that the empirical component of logical empiricism really involved that much empiricism, or at least any more than what would be allowed by proponents of other approaches. On the contrary, what has happened is that the concept of argument has become even more central since the nonlogicist conception of argument turns out to be very useful in analyzing features of science that recent empirical-historical research about science has shown to be of paramount importance, such as the phenomena of scientific change and disagreement (e.g., see Pera 1982). Thus, the proper appreciation of the role of argument in science requires a proper appreciation of a nonlogicist, argumentative conception of argument, just as to appreciate that the death of logical empiricism does not mean the demise of any empirical science one must not take the meaning of empiricism for granted.

Introduction

The problem I should like to explore is the question of whether there are significant differences between the positive and the negative evaluation of arguments, what is the nature and origin of these differences, and what are their implications for theory, practice, and teaching. Because this is a relatively novel problem, most of my discussion will have to be concerned with a formulation and clarification of the issues. Nevertheless, I hope to be able to focus on a few details, and perhaps suggest some fruitful lines of inquiry for the resolution of some of these issues.

Preliminary Conceptual Clarifications

Evaluation is here something I would distinguish from the construction and the interpretation arguments, without however separating these three activities. In other words, the construction, the interpretation, and the evaluation of arguments are interrelated, but that is not to say that they are the same. In short, the distinction is meant to avoid confusion and conflation, not to establish a separation or bifurcation. At the terminological level, I think it would be proper to refer to what I have in mind by means of other labels such as appraisal, assessment, and judgment. I am reluctant to add the term “criticism” to this list of near-synonyms because I think criticism tends to have a negative connotation, in the sense of negative evaluation; nevertheless, to the extent that this connotation can be avoided, I would have no objection to speaking also of criticism.

The Role of Argument and Rhetoric in Science

The interrelations among argument, rhetoric, and philosophy are well known in rhetorical circles, at least in the sense that they are widely discussed and argued about. The same cannot be said of the interrelationships among argument, rhetoric, and science. This question has, however, had been recently touched upon by philosophers of science. The context has been the problem of scientific rationality and the question of whether the transition from one scientific theory to another can be made in a rational manner. The problem arose from the realization that, in the case of very fundamental scientific developments such as the Copernican revolution and the transition from classical to modern physics, purely logical considerations, rational argumentation, and appeals to the rules of scientific method are not enough to make a scientist change his mind. This realization was then generalized to conclude that the same limitation applies to all, or at least most, or at least the important and interesting, scientific developments. The generalization is I believe illegitimate, but it has generated a lot of discussion and confusion. The more conservative philosophers of science, feeling that the rationality of science was being threatened, have tended to counterargue that transitions from one theory to another can be and have historically been made in a logical manner, using as evidence the admittedly less problematic minor transitions or at least the less problematic aspects of the major transitions.

The Fallacy Approach

The evaluation of reasoning is perhaps the central practice in philosophical scholarship, yet theoretical discussions of it are very rare. To be sure, the theory of validity in formal logic is in a sense a theoretical analysis of the evaluation of reasoning, insofar as formal validity is supposedly the fundamental concept expressing a positive, favorable evaluation of an argument, while an argument is supposedly the fundamental unit of reasoning. In the present context, however, the relevance of formal validity does not seem to go very far; moreover, insofar as it is relevant, it faces the difficulty stemming from the well-known fact that formal validity is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for the favorable evaluation of an argument. It is not sufficient because it excludes neither question-begging arguments nor self-contradictory ones (i.e., argument with inconsistent premises). It is not necessary partly because of the Toulmin-type objection that most good arguments most of the time (in the empirical sciences, legal contexts, humanities, and everyday life) are not formally valid, and partly because formal validity presupposes fully reconstructed arguments, which in human reasoning are the exception rather than the rule.

The theory of fallacies may be interpreted as a more relevant contribution to the evaluation of reasoning. This applies to the somewhat informal accounts of fallacies found in many logic textbooks, rather than to theories of fallacies.

Introduction

In the contemporary philosophical scene, the work of L. Jonathan Cohen stands out in several ways. One stems from the significance, range, and combination of topics on which he focuses, which are primarily reasoning and rationality, induction and probability, metaphilosophy, philosophy of science, and philosophy of law. Another relates to the character of the approach he follows in his investigations, and which I would describe as both theoretically deep and practically relevant, both insightful and well argued, rigorous without being pedantic, and original without being cranky. Cohen's work also deserves admiration and emulation because of the particular stand he takes on the issues and the particular conclusions he arrives at in regard to the topics studied; and here I have in mind his defense of human rationality from the attacks of experimental psychologists, his defense of democratic values and principles in regard to the use of lay juries in jurisprudence, and his defense of pluralism, open-mindedness, and dialogue in analytical philosophy.

In the light of all this, it is obvious that my remarks here cannot do full justice to the depth and variety of Cohen's work. I shall limit myself to some issues in his latest book (1986), and even in regard to them I feel that all I can do is to provide what may serve as the beginning of a potential dialogue, rather than a full analysis and resolution of them.

A Logical Approach

Newton's Third Rule of Philosophizing has recently been investigated from several points of view: by studying the vicissitudes of its metamorphosis from “hypothesis” to “rule,” the fact of its augmentation by four sentences in the third edition of the Principia, the Aristotelian and neo-scholastic flavor of some of its language, the scholarly significance of its editorial history. All these investigations have been carried on with relatively little concern for the actual intellectual content of the rule itself. The following analysis is intended to supplement and not to replace the studies previously undertaken. The supplement, however, is a necessity, not a luxury, and the historian can neglect it only at his own loss.

What does the rule actually say? Here too the discussion will start with a quotation of the standard English translation, but that will not be followed by a comparison with previous English translations, other language translations, the Latin text of the third edition, that of the second, that of the first, the various drafts of it that can be found among Newton's private papers, and other analogous rules and principles formulated by Newton's contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. Instead I shall proceed to analyze the rule logically, which too could be regarded as a comparison of sorts, a comparison with certain ideals and universals present in the human mind. In my view this kind of comparison — logical analysis — is prior to all the others.

Introduction

In a number of papers I have advocated a type of empirical approach to the study of reasoning which may be called the historical-textual or informal-logic approach. Here reasoning is conceived as a special type of thinking which consists of interrelating thoughts in such a way that some are dependent on and follow from others. To this abstract definition one may add something of an operational definition by saying that reasoning occurs paradigmatically in written or oral discourse which contains a high incidence of reasoning indicator terms such as therefore, thus, hence, consequently, since, because, and for. What this means is that, while all reasoning is thinking, not all thinking is reasoning, and hence the study of reasoning is only a part of the study of mental and cognitive activities. I am not uninterested, of course, in the relationships between reasoning per se and thinking in general, but my own special focus is on the former.

In this context the empirical is contrasted primarily to the apriorist approach, in regard to which I would give the example that, if and to the extent that we regard formal logic as a theory of reasoning, it would be a type of apriorist approach. On the other hand, I do not mean to contrast the empirical to the normative, and in fact the aim of the historical-textual approach is the formulation of normative and evaluative principles besides descriptive, analytical, and explanatory ones.

Bohr: Critical Thinking versus Logical Thinking

In his autobiography, physicist Otto R. Frisch tells the following revealing anecdote about Niels Bohr. Bohr, we are told, “never trusted a purely formal or mathematical argument. ‘No, no’ he would say ‘You are not thinking; you are just being logical’ ” (Frisch 1979, 95). It would be arbitrary and uncharitable to interpret Bohr's point as implying that being logical is not a form of thinking. Rather it seems obvious that he is distinguishing between two types of thinking, logical thinking and another kind which may be appropriately labeled critical thinking. By logical thinking here Bohr seems to mean a mental activity which progresses from one thought to another in accordance with strict rules, namely rules that are clear, distinct, and exact. It might be better to call such thinking formal, or algorithmic, or deductive, in order not to limit the concept of logic to a one-sided and prejudicial conception. However, I do not want to focus on that, but rather on the other type of thinking. It is obvious from the context that critical thinking is different from logical thinking, not in the sense of being illogical, but rather in the sense that either it follows no rules or it follows rules that are not formal. One may speak of informal judgment to refer to this feature of critical thinking being suggested here.

Introduction: Critique of the Dialogue Model

For several years I have been exploring the nature of the dialectical approach to argument, its relationship to other approaches, its methodological fruitfulness, and its limitations. Although the precise meaning of the dialectical approach is part of the problem, I can say immediately that I mean it in the sense in which it is distinguished from monological or monolectical approaches, and not in the sense it is distinguished from logical and rhetorical approaches; for these two distinctions crisscross each other, as is obvious from the work of many scholars that is both dialectical and logical (Barth and Krabbe 1982; Blair and Johnson 1987; Woods and Walton 1989). My main motivation stems from the fact that the dialectical approach has become the dominant one in argumentation theory. Now, whenever any approach in any field becomes dominant, there is always the danger that it will lead to the neglect or loss of insights which are easily discernible from other orientations; this in turn may even prevent the dominant approach from being developed to its fullest as a result of the competition with other approaches.

Let us begin with a review of some background results from the relevant literature. One of the best examples of the dialectical approach is a work entitled From Axiom to Dialogue by Else Barth and Erik Krabbe (1982; cf. Barth and Martens 1982).

When I first began thinking about the issues discussed in this book, some four decades ago, one of the problems I was concerned with was the existence of God. I felt the problem to be of vital importance, as important as anything that was a matter of life and death; indeed that it was a question of everlasting life, of eternal salvation or damnation. Thus I tried to learn all I could about the arguments for the existence of God. I wanted to be sure that I knew them all and none escaped my attention; that I understood them properly and did not misinterpret them; and that I could evaluate or assess their correctness, worth, or strength. This concern led me to read the relevant works of classic authors such as Aristotle, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, and David Hume, as well as those of contemporary authors like Karl Barth, Antony Flew, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Robinson, and Wallace Matson; and I soon realized that another aspect of the same problem was to learn, understand, and evaluate the arguments against the existence of God, such as the objection from evil.

Examples of the questions I happened to think about are the following. The first of Aquinas's arguments begins with the undeniable premise that there is motion in the world and by a series of steps arrives at the conclusion that there must be a prime unmoved mover, which is called God.

A Definition of Informal Logic

Informal logic seems to be suffering from an image problem, a bad conscience, and an identity crisis. The image problem derives from the somewhat negative connotations of the term “informal,” which often conveys the impression that what we have here is a sloppy, nonserious approach to the study of logical problems. The bad conscience stems from conceiving the field as the theory of informal fallacies, and then taking the notion of “theory” to be such as to imply that a theory worthy of the name is necessarily formal; this would make the label “informal logic” a disguise for the formal theory of those fallacies different from the deductive and inductive ones. These two views are, respectively, a methodological interpretation of informal logic in terms of its alleged approach (“informality”), and a substantive definition in terms of its alleged subject matter (“informal fallacies”); now, since it is not easy to devise alternative interpretations as long as one keeps close to the terminological and verbal level, this may lead to the identity crisis of wondering what on earth informal logic is supposed to be. In this chapter I plan to bypass these difficulties by conceiving informal logic as the theory of reasoning. By theory of reasoning I mean the attempt to formulate, to test, to clarify, and to systematize concepts and principles for the interpretation, the evaluation, and the sound practice of reasoning.

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is a critical examination of the thesis that valid philosophical arguments are ad hominem. This thesis was advanced by Henry W. Johnstone, Jr. and constitutes a highly original contribution, a brilliant idea, and a constant theme of his half a century of philosophical effort. In general, his work was a pioneering effort in the informal logic of philosophical argument and included other related themes, such as metaphilosophy and the role of rhetoric and of formal logic in philosophy. In focusing on this thesis, I do so because it is probably his key contribution and is emblematic of both the rest of his work and of the informal logic of philosophy. I shall first discuss several clarifications, then a concrete illustration, then some supporting arguments, and finally several objections.

Clarifications

The thesis can be expressed in several ways: that “all valid philosophical arguments are ad hominem” (PA81); that in philosophy only ad hominem arguments are valid (PA3; VR56); that the validity of philosophical arguments lies in the property of being ad hominem (PA57–92); that ad hominem argument “is the only valid argument in philosophy” (VR134); and that in order to be valid philosophical arguments must be ad hominem.