The correlative concepts of argument scale and laws of discourse have been developed by Ducrot (1973) in the framework of the theory of Argumentation within Language to describe the grammar of co-oriented arguments.

Argument scale translates “échelle argumentative”, word for word “argumentative₁ scale”. Argument scales strictly deal with argument₁ “good reason” or premise for a conclusion, not with argument₂, “dispute”, S. To argue.

1. Cooriented arguments on a scale

An argumentative class is defined as follows:

A speaker places two statements p and p’ in the argumentative class determined by an utterance r if he considers p and p’ as arguments for r. (Ducrot [1973], p. 17)

S: — Your great grandmother spent time in The Two Maggots, she dressed in black, she read Simone de Beauvoir, she was a true existentialist!

S presents three convergent arguments co-oriented towards the conclusion “She was a true existentialist” (a mid-twentieth century popular philosophy). These arguments correspond to features borrowed from the stereotype of what existentialists are and do. S. Categorization.

The word class refers to an unordered and non-hierarchical set of elements. There is no reason to think that “spending time in The Two Maggots” (an existentialist Parisian café) is considered by S as a stronger or weaker argument than “reading Simone de Beauvoir”.

Two utterances p and q belong to the same argument scale (for a given speaker in a given situation) “if the speaker considers that p and q are both arguments for the same conclusion r (they belong therefore to the argumentative class of r), and if he considers that one of these arguments is stronger than the other” (Ducrot, [1973], p. 18).

The following scale represents a situation where q is stronger than p for the conclusion r.

The situation where the speaker considers that “reading Simone de Beauvoir” is a stronger argument than “spending time in The Two Maggots” for the conclusion “to be a true existentialist” is represented as follows:

The scales where the force of the arguments p and q is determined solely by the speaker, are called relative, S. Force.

Scales for which the gradation is objectively determined are called absolute, for example the scale of the cold:

2. Laws of discourse

The functioning of argument scales is regulated by four laws: Lowering Law,  law of Negation, law of Inversion, and law of Weakness.

2.1 Lowering law

According to this law “in many cases, (descriptive) negation is equivalent to less than” (Id, p.31).

Negation is asymmetric; it does not exclude just a point on the argument scale, but the whole zone including the denied argument and all arguments which are potentially stronger. Denying an argument which is positioned at a higher point on a given scale implies the affirmation of the lower argument.
Let’s consider the argument scale determined by a positive answer to the argumentative question “should we invite him to our hunting party?”, under the presupposed context “we are ourselves a group of decent hunters”.

In such a context, “he or she is not a good hunter” means, “he or she is a poor hunter”, not “he or she is a first rate hunter”.

The statement “he or she is not a good hunter, he or she is a first rate hunter” (stress on good and first class) involves a very particular form of negation, whereby an earlier statement is refuted, S. Denying. The stronger argument is necessarily expressed, while the weaker argument remains implicit in the unmarked use of negation.

2.2 Law of weakness

According to this law, “if a sentence p is fundamentally an argument for r, and if, on the other hand, when certain conditions (in particular contextual conditions) are met, it appears as a weak argument (for r), then it becomes an argument for not-r (Anscombre and Ducrot 1983, p. 66):

He’s a good hunter: he killed two partridges last year

In particular, the weak argument must be presented in isolation, and not in conjunction with conclusive arguments. Grice’s principle of exhaustiveness can also account for this fact: an isolated weak argument will be interpreted not only as weak, but also as the best possible, which results in the rejection of the attached conclusion, and consequently, in a binary situation, as a good reason to go for the opposite conclusion, S. Cooperation.

From an interactional point of view, putting forward a weak argument might also serve a positive purpose, serving to open a discussion and clarify the positions of the participants.

2.3 Law of negation

The law of negation posits as a regularity that, “if p is an argument for r, not-p is an argument for not-r” (Ducrot 1973, p. 27). If “the weather is nice” is an argument for “let’s have a walk”, then “the weather is not nice” is an argument for “let’s stay at home”. This law corresponds to the argument by the opposite (corresponding to the paralogism of negation of the antecedent).

The following example combines the law of weakness with the law of negation; a weak argument for a conclusion is reversed as a strong argument for the opposite conclusion:

After the Second Iraq War, which began in 2003, Saddam Hussein, former President of the Republic of Iraq, was tried and executed in 2006. Some commentators felt that the trial had not been conducted fairly, and considered that the trial was so rigged that even Human Rights Watch, the largest unit in the US human rights industry, had to condemn it as a total masquerade.
Tariq Ali, [A Well-Orchestrated Lynch], 2007[1].

According to the author, the Association Human Rights Watch generally approves decisions in the interests of the United States. So, the fact that they approve the sentence is a weak argument for the conclusion “the sentence is fair”. In this case, the fact that even the association has condemned the decision (like other persons or associations more inclined to criticize the United States) is a strong argument for the conclusion that the sentence is unfair.

Inversely, a weak refutation of r reinforces r. This strategy falls within the general framework of the paradoxes of argumentation.

2.4 Law of inversion

If p’ is stronger than p with respect to r, then not-p is stronger than not-p’ with respect to not-r. (Ducrot 1973, p. 239; 1980, p. 27)

— “Leo has a Bachelor’s degree” and “Leo has a Master’s degree” are two arguments for “Leo is a qualified person”.
— “Leo has a Master’s degree” is a stronger argument that “Leo has a Bachelor’s degree” for this conclusion: under normal circumstances, we can say:

Leo has the Bachelor degree and even a Master’s degree.

While “Peter has a Master’s degree and even a Bachelor’s degree” is incomprehensible. One can say, “he has a thesis, and even a Bachelor’s degree”, but with some irony on the value of diplomas S. A fortiori. If one wants to argue against Peter, to show that he is insufficiently qualified, one will say:

Peter does not have a Master’s degree, let alone a Bachelor’s degree.

The negation turns the weakest argument for qualification into the strongest argument for the lack of qualification.

Argument scales can express the argument a fortiori: “He doesn’t have a Bachelor’s degree, a fortiori he doesn’t have a Master’s degree”.

[1] Tariq Ali, Un Lynchage bien orchestré [A well-orchestrated lynching]. Afrique-Asie, feb. 2007.

1. Question as interrogation

A question may be a sentence “attempting to get the addressee to supply information” (SIL, Question), using the specific morphemes and syntactic transformation attached to the interrogative form.

— The fallacy of many questions or loaded question is one of the six Aristotelian linguistic fallacies, S. Fallacy (I). A loaded question is a question about a complex statement, containing several implicit statements. The loaded question presupposes the truth of these underlying statements, which may be disputed by the recipient of the question. Such questions are said to be oriented, S. Orientation.

— Rhetoric uses a series of common place ontological questions to gather information.

— A rhetorical question, in the traditional sense of the term, re-frames the argumentative question as a question admitting a self-evident answer, S. Argumentative question, §4

2. Question as problem

A question can also be the subject of a discussion, an “issue; broadly: a problem” (MW, Question). It doesn’t necessarily have an interrogative form.

An argumentative question represents the discursive confrontation generating an argumentative situation. Such a question does not refer to a quest for information, but to a problem. S. Argumentative question.

The arguments from wealth and from poverty are two subspecies of the argument from authority. Special weight can be given to the word of the wealthy — because wealthy, as well as to that of the poor — because poor. The Rich and the Poor are then believed on their word, and their words are exploited as an argument from authority by a speaker, who validates a position by putting it in the mouth of a rich or a poor man, S. Authority; Common place. Both arguments are extremely common and equally formidable.

Argument of wealth, or “top people” argument

The argument from wealth is the substrate of a family of discourses elaborating upon the key topic:

She is rich, therefore what she says is true; I consider her advice to be authoritative; she made the best financial decision; she has an extraordinary artistic taste, as proved by the value of her collections — I vote for her!

This argument easily extends from the rich to the upper classes and the ruling class, the most glamorous and lucrative professions, etc. It could be called “the top people” argument.

Argument of poverty: appeal to “people down there”

The argument of poverty is symmetrical to the argument of wealth. It validates a speech by the authority derived from poverty, “the poor are right”:

The poor are good, because they who have no money, and who has no money has no vice; they are not corrupt; what they say is authentic; they are the repositories of common sense; their opinions are basically sound.

As the argument of wealth, the argument of poverty extends beyond the poor to all “the people down there”, that is the exploited proletariat, the dominated, the lower 10%… as well as to country people, who live close to nature (naturalistic argument), or to the tramp as a wise philosopher … Truth comes out from their mouths, as it comes from the children’s mouth.

The adage vox populi vox dei, “the voice of the people is the voice of God”, which underlies the ad populum argument, is grounded in the argument of poverty and in that of number.

These arguments are different from the appeal to money, or the wallet argument, attached to the argumentation by punishment and reward, S. Threat and Promise.

In an argumentative exchange, the participants are part of a complex system of roles and characters, according to which they speak and act. Some of these roles are general; others are specific to the argumentative situation.

1. General interactional roles (not specific to argumentation)

1.1 Roles attached to the “participation framework” (Goffman)

The concept of a participation framework details and clarifies the traditional concept of a verbal exchange between a speaker and one or many listeners. The participation format is defined as a relation with two complex speech structures, the production format and the reception format (Goffman, 1981). These concepts are instrumental to the analysis of all argumentative interactions, from rhetorical addresses to everyday argumentative interactions. They are relevant to the analysis of the ethos, and the polyphonic structure of the argumentative text.

• Reception format (id., pp. 141-142)

The people who can actually hear the words said by a speaker occupy various statuses in relation to these words.

— The addressed participants are the people to whom the words are openly directed; the pronoun you refers to the addressed participant(s). Everyday group conversations show that successfully addressing a specific person may demand complex maneuvers.

— The ratified participants are the members of the group constituted around the ongoing speech event. They may be addressed or non-addressed. To get the floor in a discussion, one must be a ratified participant. Ratified, non-addressed participants may be addressed in the further development of the speech event.

In a codified dialectical exchange, the opponent is the only participant both ratified and addressed. Both participants alternately hold the floor. The referee of the debate, if there is one, is a ratified participant, who will be addressed only as a resource if a crisis looms, or during a planned slot in order to move forward, to evaluate and conclude the debate. If the debate is open to a broader audience, the members of the audience are ratified participants but not addressed participants.

In a classical rhetorical address, the audience is ratified and addressed. The difference with the dialectical situation is that the audience has no official right to the floor; nonetheless, it may applaud and boo its reactions (Goffman 1981).

— Overhearers and eavesdroppers. Any people passing within earshot are non-ratified participants. Overhearers accidentally hear the sounds and words of the conversation, possibly without even listening. Eavesdroppers intentionally spy on the conversation.

• Production Format

Speech is produced by the speaker. Goffman (1981) and Ducrot (1980) have independently shown that the speaker should not be considered to be a unified entity but as a complex articulation of different discursive personae; in Goffman’s words the Animator, the Author, the Figure and the Principal (id., p. 144; p. 167).

— The Animator (Goffman) is the talking machine, physically producing the discourse. In the same function, the Speaker is re-defined by Ducrot as “the empirical being” to which all the external determinations of speech can be attributed, “the psychological or even the physiological process which is at the origin of the utterance, the actual intentions, cognitive processes that have made the statement possible” (Ducrot 1980, p. 34).

The counterpart in the reception format of this talking machine is the hearing machine, that is the listeners, the whole range of ratified and non ratified participants, as persons who physically hear the speech and listen to it or not (Ducrot 1980, p. 35).

— The Author selects the thoughts expressed and the words to encode them. A speaker reading a book or quoting another person is the Animator of the words taken up without being their Author (Schiffrin 1990, p. 242). The pronoun I refers to the Author of the speech (except in quoted speech).

— The Figure corresponds to the discursive self-image of the Author, that is, the ethos.

— The Principal is “(in the legalistic sense) someone whose position is established by the words that are spoken, someone whose beliefs have been told, someone who is committed to what the words say … a person acting under a certain identity, in a certain social role” (Goffman 1987, p. 144). “The same individual can very quickly alter the social role in which he is active, even though his capacity as animator and author remains constant” (id., p. 145). The same Author can address a student as a teacher, as an adult, as a citizen, as a New Yorker, etc. Defined as “someone who believes personally in what is being said and takes the position that is implied in the remarks” (id., p. 167), the Principal plays a key role in the polyphonic space, as the person taking the responsibility of what is said (Ducrot’s énonciateur, 1980, p. 38). S. Interaction, Dialogue, Polyphony.

For example, in the following statement:

The weather is nice (V1), but I must work (V2)

the Author stages two voices:

— In V1, the voice of a person arguing that a nice weather is a good reason to have a walk.
— In E2, the voice of a person arguing that having to work is a good reason to stay home

The decisive point is that, the Principal identifies to voice V2; that is, the argument E1 is dropped, and the argument E2 validated.

There is no intrinsic superiority of argument E2 over E1. The speaker authors E1 and E2, and, as a principal, acts upon E2, not E1.

To sum up, “the Animator produces talk, the Author creates talk, the Figure is portrayed through talk, and the Principal is responsible for talk” (Schiffrin 1990, p. 241).

1.2 Roles attached to different types and genres of speech

To account for the variety of discursive genres, one must introduce new roles, such as narrator and narratee for storytelling; expert and profane for explanation; proponent, opponent and third party for argumentation (see below).

Interactional genres bring their share of professional or occupational roles: seller and customer for shop interactions; teacher and students in classroom interactions; physician and patient for therapeutic interactions, etc.

1.3 Socio-interactional roles

Linguistic roles combine with a set of social roles, in which we distinguish (after Rocheblave-Spenlé [1962]):

— Global social roles: gentleman, cool guy, cheerleader, troublemaker…
— Biosocial roles: young/old, male/female/transgender…
— Social class roles: bourgeois, aristocrat, white or blue collar…
— Professional roles: farmer, trader, truck driver…
— Community roles: religious believer, member of a trade union, a political party, a sport team…
— Family roles: husband, wife, child, father, uncle …

2. Argument-acting roles: Proponent, Opponent, Third party

The argumentative situation is defined as a three-pole situation, that is to say a three-role situation: Proponent, Opponent and Third Party. Each of these poles corresponds to a specific discursive modality, a discourse of proposition, supported by a proponent, a discourse of opposition, supported by the opponent, and a discourse of doubt or questioning, which defines the Third Party position.

2.1 Proponent and Opponent

The terms proponent and opponent are defined in dialectical theory, which frames argumentation as a game between these two partners, S. Dialectic. From an interactive perspective, the argument becomes dialectical when the third party is eliminated and each actor is assigned a role (“you will be the proponent, and I the opponent”) that must be assumed during the whole “dialectic round” (Brunschwig 1967). The elimination of the third party goes hand in hand with the expulsion of rhetoric and the constitution of a system of objective-rational norms. In a figurative sense, one could say that the third party is then replaced by Reason or Nature, in other words by the rules of truth.

If we take a rhetorical view of argumentation, the argumentative game is defined first as an interaction between a proponent, the speaker, and a third party, who is the silent audience to be persuaded. Opponent and counter-discourse are not absent, but are consigned to the background.

By getting into a discussion, participants acknowledge the fact that none of them has enough power or authority to decide on the matter at stake, and that they are engaged in a problematic situation.

2.2 Third Party

Considering that the argumentative question as a full systemic component of argumentative interaction emphasizes the role of the third party. This figure materializes what is publicly at stake and the contact between the contradictory discourses.

In its prototypical form, the argumentative situation appears as a situation of interaction between the speech of the proponent, the counter-discourse of the opponent, both mediated by a third, mediating, interrogative discourse. The third party stabilizes or manages the question, and decides upon the external relevance of the participants’ interventions. The argumentative situation, as embodied in an exemplary way in public adversarial exchanges is therefore a three-role situation. Basic argumentative situations such as political debates and cases being tried before the courts, are tripole. Argumentative speech is systematically multi-addressed, the addressee is not only, or not necessarily, the adversary-interlocutor, but in one case the public about to cast their vote, and in the other, the judge about to pronounce a verdict.

In contrast to the categorical assertions and denials of the proponent and the opponent, the third party may appear as a softer and undecided character. In reality, it is the third party who refuses to accept either of the opposing proposals or points of view, asking for more arguments, remaining doubtful and leaving the question open, in the name of making an informed decision. In this sense, and in accordance with the most classical concept of argumentation, the judge is the prototypical figure of the third party. In the third party position are all ratified participants of the argumentative situation who consider that the argumentative forces are balanced, or, more subtly, that even if one seems to prevail, the other cannot be considered to be null. In philosophy, the radicalization and reification of this position is elaborated as methodological skepticism.

Once the third party and the argumentative question have been accepted as key elements of the argumentative exchange, the proponent and opponent may be granted full responsibility for their speeches. One may answer, “No!” and the other “Yes, of course!” without either of them being systematically accused of manipulation, bad faith or other kinds of fallacious speech.

Institutions may stabilize the argumentative roles and their attribution to individuals. In an ordinary interaction, the argumentative roles correspond not to permanent roles but to footings in the sense of Goffman (1987, chapter 3), in particular, in that they are labile. In the same speech turn, the same person can take the role of both the third party and proponent in relation to an issue (affirming a position while expressing a certain degree of doubt about it), or speak as a Proponent on an issue and as Opponent on another.

3. Argument-actors [Fr. actants] and Actors [Fr. actors]

The individuals engaged in the argument are the physical participants, or actors of the argumentative situation. When clarification is needed, the expression argument-actor (Fr. actant, borrowed from semiotic theory), may be used to refer to the three basic argumentative roles, Proponent, Opponent, Third Party.

Any actor can occupy successively each of the three argument-acting roles (Fr. rôle actantiel), according to all the possible paths. For example, an actor may abandon his or her discourse of opposition in order to develop a discourse of doubt, switching from the argument-acting role of opponent to that of third party. An argumentative issue remains unsolved as long as the contradiction survives, even if some actors change their point of view. If two actors swap their argument-acting roles, that is to say, if they convince each other, the issue remains open.

In the case of an argumentative alliance, or co-argumentation, the same argument-acting position can be occupied simultaneously by several actors; that is to say, by several individuals producing co-oriented interventions. The study of the argument should focus as much upon co-oriented interventions as upon anti-oriented interventions.

The distinction between argument-actors / actors makes it possible to revisit the famous and strangely prized slogan “argument is war”, accompanied with its family of connected bellicose metaphors (Lakoff, Johnson 1980). Argument_2 may be a kind of war, luckily with a more limited number of casualties, but argument_1, that is argumentation, is not. The opposition between discourses, that is between argument-actors [Fr. actants], is not necessarily confused with possible collaborations or oppositions between people, that is, between actors [Fr. acteurs]. Argumentative situations are confrontational only when the actors identify themselves with their argumentative roles. In the most obvious case, that of internal deliberation, the same actor may progress quite peacefully go through all the argument-acting positions. If a group deliberates upon a question involving their common interest, it fortunately happens that the associated members will together examine the various facets of the problem, that is to say the different possible answers to the question and the arguments that support them. During this process, they systematically occupy the different argument-acting positions, without clear identification with one of these positions, and without necessarily transforming this process into a war between the actors. The argumentative situation is not inherently polemical; but it certainly can be so when the features defining the identity of the participants are involved and are put at risk in the discussion.

Ancient argumentative rhetoric is grounded in the natural speaking competence. This natural skill is developed through conceptualization and practical exercises concerning general or social issues. Such a rhetoric combines linguistic, interactional and citizenship’s competencies.

1. The rhetorical address

The rhetorical address corresponds to discourse in its traditional sense, that is to say, “that which, in public, treats a subject with a certain method, and a certain length” (Littré, [Discourse]); a discourse is a “formal and orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a subject.” (W., Discourse). This concept of discourse has nothing to do with the concept of discourse as defined by Foucault (1969, 1971) or Pêcheux (Maldidier, 1990). Moreover, this meaning of discourse does not appear among the six meanings considered by Maingueneau in his founding presentation of “French discourse analysis” (1976, p. 11-12).

A rhetorical address is a speech delivered by a speaker or orator to an audience, along the following lines.

— The orator deals with an urgent issue of general interest, typically he or she aims to influence an ongoing decision-making process developing under certain time constraints. Classical rhetoric considers an orator, addressing an audience. In reality, a full rhetorical situation is a situation of choice, involving as many orators or voices as there are possible choices.

— The speech is a relatively long, planned monologue composed of a set of speech acts constructing a unified representation, supposed to lead to action.

— It is produced in the context of discursive competition taking place between different speeches of mutual opponents, supporting incompatible proposals. The rhetorical address is given in a space of contradictory discourse, where all interventions are positioned in view of one another. Even if the speaker tries to erase all traces of the counter-discourses that surround him or her, the speech is nevertheless structured by the competing discourses.

— This speech is delivered to an audience, composed of all the people who will play a role in the decision-making process relevant to the matter in hand. The audience is divided in regard to what the right decision would be; it includes staunch supporters and opponents of each proposal, as well as undecided people, S. Roles. The focus traditionally put on persuasion suggests that the orator focuses upon those who doubt and question, more than upon the determined opponents. The job is to remove doubt, to create and lead the opinion, S. Logos, Ethos, Pathos.

The rhetorical audience is both lowered and magnified. It is lowered, because it is defined by its lack of knowledge, its indecision and dissension. But within the New Rhetoric framework at least, the audience is also magnified as a critical instance, somewhere on the way to achieving a universal, deeply rooted and justified consensus.
Argumentative rhetoric has theorized, codified, evaluated and stimulated this kind of public communication, which was the only kind of public address possible before the appearance of the radio, cinema, television and the internet. Its theoretical object, the circulation of contradictory speeches within a decision-making group, remains well-defined. S. Argumentation (II); Persuasion.

2. The rhetorical catechism

At least until the modern age, rhetorical argumentation was the backbone of teaching and education in the Western world. In the Middle Ages, rhetorical argumentation served as one of the three arts of speech constituting the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric), propaedeutic to the quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music).

For pedagogical purposes, rhetoric has constructed a standard self-representation of both the production process of the address, and its product, the address as delivered to the audience:

— A five-step production process, invention, disposition, speech, memory, pronunciation.

— Three genres of discourse, deliberative, judicial, epideictic.

— Three actors: the rhetorical interaction is functionally three-poles. It brings together “the speaker who wants to persuade, the interlocutor who must be persuaded, and the opponent whom he must refute” (Fumaroli 1980, p. 3).

— Three discursive means of pressure focused on the transformation of the audience representations and desire for action. The speaker seeks:

To inform and teach, by his or her logos, that is the logic of the narrative and the argumen
To please and attract by his or her style, that is the self-image, or ethos, projected in the speech.
To move to action, through the pathos.

— According to the tradition, the acts aimed at producing these effects are concentrated in the strategic moments of the discourse:

The introduction is the ethotic moment.
The narration and the argumentation are ruled by the logos.
The conclusion is the pathemic, emotional moment, through which the speaker hopes to wrest the final decision.

3. Organizing the process

The process of constructing argumentative rhetorical discourse is traditionally described as involving five stages. The corresponding Latin words are mentioned in order to avoid possible confusion with the English words, of which they are false cognates.

(i) Inventio: Finding the arguments

“Invention [inuentio] is the devising of matter, true or plausible, that would make the case convincing” (Ad Her., i, 3). The inventio is the cognitive step corresponding to the methodical search for arguments, guided by the technique of “topical questions”, S. Common Places.
The Latin word inventio does not mean “invention” taken as a creation of something that did not exist before. The meaning is “to find, to discover” (Gaffiot [1934], Inventio).
Psycho-linguistic research on the production of written and oral discourse has taken over the reflection on the inventio techniques.

Rhetorical arguments are found on the basis of an exploration of reality, guided by a natural, substantial ontology. Religious argument has introduced a fundamental change in this vision. Good reasons are not statements expressing sense data or elaborated intellectual conceptions, but are sacred statements drawn from the foundational sacred text and, to a lesser extent, from the texts of tradition.

(ii) Dispositio: Planning the argumentation

“Arrangement [dispositio] is the ordering and distribution of the matter” (ibid.), that is, speech planning. Inventio and dispositio are the two cognitive stages of this process.

(iii) Elocutio: Expressing the argumentation

“Style [elocutio] is the adaptation of suitable words and sentences to the matter devised” (ibid.). The word style used in translation may evoke a superficial arrangement of the expression, but the elocutio is more than that, it corresponds to the “putting into language” of the arguments, to their semantization, corresponding to the whole linguistic expression.

The elocutio is characterized by four qualities, the grammatical correctness (latinitas), the clarity of the message (perspicuitas), the customization of the message to suit the audience (aptum) and the density and wealth of its expression (ornatus). A discourse may be rejected as defective on any of these levels, S. Destruction.

The English word elocution currently refers to “the skill of clear and expressive speech, especially of distinct pronunciation and articulation” (W., Elocution); elocution clearly belongs first to pronuntiatio, and only peripherally to elocutio, as expression and style.

(iv) Memoria: Memorizing the speech

The discourse must be memorized since it is intended to be delivered orally, without the use of paper documents or autocues. As the invention, the memory involves cognitive factors. The cultural import of this memorization work, which might seem anecdotal, was revealed by Yates (1966).

(v) Pronuntiatio: Delivering the speech

“Delivery [pronuntiatio] is the graceful regulation of voice, countenance, and gesture” (ibid.). The Latin word pronuntiatio refers not only to this physical process of speech production and modulation, but also expresses the idea of an ​​assertive speech: a pronuntiatio is a “declaration, announcement, proposal” (Gaffiot [1934], Pronuntiativus). The judge does not say or read the verdict, he or she pronounces it. Rhetorical tradition sees delivery as the moment of performance, and dramatization of discourse, requiring a special education of the body, the gesture and the voice. The orator, the preacher, the actor are under the same public performance constraints, although their techniques, social statuses and messages are quite different.

In short, finding arguments, ordering them, expressing them in writing: the rhetorical prescriptions are particularly suited to general academic essays. They seem clear and they are easy enough to teach ­— but, unfortunately, not so easy to put into practice.

In the Divisions of Oratory Art, Cicero has framed the concepts of ancient rhetoric as a succession of question-answers, “very similar to a catechism”, as Bornecque notes ([1924], p. VII). Rhetoric may have suffered from such allegedly pedagogical representation where everything has to be done and said by the book.

4. Textual organization of the speech

This process leads to a finished product, the speech delivered in a specific situation. It is articulated in parts, traditionally named:

Introduction (exordium)
Narration
Argumentation (a confirmation followed by a refutation)
Conclusion.

The argument is the central part of the speech. Contrary to a simplistic vision of discourse, there is no opposition between argumentation, narration and description. Argumentative narrations or descriptions, like literary narrations or descriptions, are made from a particular viewpoint.

5. Extensions and restrictions of rhetoric

Ancient argumentative rhetoric has been redefined on various dimensions.

— Restriction to its expressive dimension. Argumentative rhetoric can be oriented towards persuasive communication or the quality of expression.

— Generalization to its persuasive dimension. Nietzsche assimilates the rhetorical function to the persuasive function of language, S. Persuasion.

— Restriction to its linguistic dimension and liquidation of its cognitive dimensions. The apparent logic of the five components of rhetorical production was profoundly challenged in the Renaissance (Ong 1958). The three components related to thought (invention, disposition, memory) were separated from those related to language (expression and delivery). Inventio, the bones of argumentation, rejected out of rhetoric and language was no longer considered to be the fundamental moment of the discursive process. An orphan of the inventio, rhetoric redefined its object, moving away from social discourses to focus on literature and belles-lettres, and developing a passion for the autonomous study of the discourse variations and figures of style.

A language deprived of thought and a thought deprived of language: this orphaned rhetoric would become the target of violent attacks from Locke, S. Ornamental fallacies. In France, in the nineteenth century, Fontanier ([1827], [1831]) was the emblematic figure associated with this “restricted rhetoric” (Genette, 1970), in opposition to the so-called “general” rhetoric, which was revived by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958) — The question of a revival of an integral concept of rhetoric remaining a topos of rhetorical studies.

— Generalization along its linguistic dimension. A rhetoric restricted to figures of speech can itself be called “general”: this paradoxical expression corresponds to the “Group μ” approach in their General Rhetoric (1970). The problems of figures are taken up in a structuralist framework, and figures are reconsidered under the two basic dimensions of language, the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes. Issues of argumentation, public speaking, interaction or communication, are not accounted for, nor indeed are the aesthetics of figures. This General Rhetoric was virtually the only concept of rhetoric to be considered in the French literature during the 1970s, and Perelman’s New Rhetoric occupied only a marginal position. Wenzel devoted an avenging paragraph to this “alarming” view of rhetoric (1987, p. 103; see Klinkenberg, 1990, 2001). The contrast with the status of rhetoric in the United States’ Speech and Communication Departments could not be greater.

— Extension to ordinary speech. The rhetorical approach can be extended to everyday forms of talk, insofar as they involve face management (ethos), data processing oriented towards a practical end (logos), and a correlative treatment of the affects (pathos) (Kallmeyer, 1996). The rhetorical trilogy can thus be regarded as the ancestor of the different theories of the functions of language (Bühler 1933, Jakobson [1960]), in a completely distinct theoretical atmosphere. This extension also retains a fundamental characteristic of rhetorical speech: to alter reality and participate in the structuration of ongoing actions. This view may resonate with Bitzer’s evocation of the dialogue between fishermen at work in the Trobriand Islands, and his definition of the “rhetorical situation” as involving a degree of “urgency”:

Rhetorical situations may be defined as complexes of persons, events, objects and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence, which can be partially or completely removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence (Bitzer [1968], p. 5).

— Extension to any semiotic domain. Rhetoric naturally extends to the co-verbal and paraverbal signifiers. Moreover, any strategic implementation of a semiotic system can be legitimately regarded as a rhetorical practice; the rhetoric of painting, of music, of architecture, for example.

Argument ad reverentiam, Lat. reverentia “respectful fear’.

Respect is a feeling projected by authorities, whatever or whoever they may be. If organizations and individuals are legally invested with due authority in order to carry out a mission, then, in this role, they claim respect, whatever one’s private opinion may be about their relevance or efficiency.

The claim to respect is in principle distinct from the claim to obedience; one can be constrained to obey by the use of lawful violence; showing respect is essentially a supplement to compliance. This means that interactions with common authorities are ruled by specific conventions of politeness, such as the concluding formula “Yours respectfully”, used to convey this due conventional respect to the authority addressed in a formal letter.

As an inner sentiment, respect has to be earned. Nonetheless, a behavior, intentional or not, can be felt as disrespectful, and, if a public servant or a police officer is involved, it might be qualified as an insult and punished as such. The argument from respect is basically used to justify a sanction for a lack of respect. S. Authority; Modesty.

Any person who is in a position of authority and feeling that his prerogatives are not respected might invoke the argument from respect. The problem arises when this claim to authority is not recognized, or is considered to be oppressive, as may be the case of religious authorities. At a more abstract level, the right to respect is claimed for all beliefs in general, and for one’s own beliefs in particular. Disrespect is qualified as a provocation, a scandal, a blasphemy that gravely hurts the believer’s feelings, and a complaint can be filed in court to uphold the right to respect.

“Odious profanation of a Christ on the cross”

An argumentative situation involving an argument from respect developed around a photographic work by the American artist Andres Serrano, entitled Immersion Piss Christ. The work features a crucifix dipped in the artist’s urine. It was vandalized on Sunday, April 17, 2011, at the Yvon Lambert contemporary art collection in Avignon, France.

The Archbishop of Avignon issued a statement protesting the exhibition of this work, and so justifying the destruction. The argument of (lack of) respect is invoked in the following passage:

Are not the local authorities, among other things, under the obligation to ensure respect for the faith of believers of every religion? Yet such a work remains a desecration which, on the eve of Good Friday, when we remember Christ who gave his life for us while dying on the Cross, touches us deeply in our hearts.

The argument is then repeated and amplified (our emphasis):

— The odious profanation of a Christ on the cross (Title)
— Can art be in such bad taste for no other reason than to serve as an insult?
— I have to react to this odious picture which flouts the image of Christ on the cross, the heart of our Christian faith. Any attack on our faith hurts us, any believer is affected deep within his faith.
— Given the gravity of such an affront
— For me, as a Bishop, as for every Christian and every believer, this is a provocation, a profanation that hurts us at the very heart of our faith!
— Did the Lambert collection not perceive that these pictures seriously wounded all those for whom the Cross of Christ is the heart of their faith? Or did they want to provoke believers by flouting what for them is at the heart of their lives.
— A serious desecration, a scandal affecting the faith of these believers.
— [These pictures] seriously harm the faith of Christians.
— A behavior that hurts us at the heart of our faith.
Infocatho, [Odious Profanation of a Christ on the Cross], 2011[1]

In some countries, blasphemy laws punish what they qualify as contempt and disrespect towards the State’s religion; blasphemy is punished as any other crime. Campaigns against blasphemy laws develop a counter-discourse positing that such laws are medieval and obscurantist; that they are incompatible with the basic democratic principle of freedom of expression; and that they make all philosophical and historical inquiry about religious belief impossible.

Some other countries have laws prohibiting hate speech or discriminatory speech, especially intended as guarantees of the equality of rights for minority communities, religious or others.

The argument of (a lack of) respect was at the heart of the case concerning the cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad published in 2005 in a Danish satirical weekly journal. This case culminated in the 2015 terrorist attack on the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, resulting in the shooting of 11 journalists and collaborators by two Islamist terrorists.

[1] “Odieuse Profanation d’un Christ en Croix”, Infocatho. http://infocatho.cef.fr/fichiers_html/archives/deuxmil11sem/semaine15/210nx151europeb.html 09-20-2013

The proof by repetition is sometimes metonymically designated under the Latin name of its effect, arg. ad nauseam, Lat. nausea “nausea, disgust”.

Any meaningful or pragmatically relevant segment can be repeated for a variety of purposes: something may be repeated because it has not been clearly heard or understood; the second speaker may repeat the end of the first turn to link it with his or her second turn, etc. Repetition may consist in repeating an initial phrase or speech act word for word, as is the case in formal quotations. Alternatively, repetition might slightly reformulate something which can be heard everywhere, as a well-known argumentation borrowed from a script. Conscious, strategic repetition of slightly modulated core contents is the key of traditional methods in education; repetition of the same action is the basis of learning-by-doing.

While most repetitions are unplanned and remain unnoticed, the argument by repetition or proof by repeated assertion is part of a strategy to impose on people a unilateral, uncritical vision of things. The focus is put upon a single key statement, presented not as a claim but as an obvious necessary truth, repetition creating a feeling of self-evidence.

Although called “argument”, this process is characterized by the absence of argument. It offers no reason, good or bad, to support the claim; reasons are not implied or contextually retrievable but are carefully ignored. Such strategic repetition can therefore be considered to be argumentative only if an argument is defined by its effect, persuasion. Repetition is instrumental to persuasion, which could itself be seen as a disposition, or a readiness to repeat under appropriate circumstances. Note that repeating a whole complex argument results in an argument by repetition rather than any other kind of argument: “we will win because we are the strongest”.

The sociologist Gustave Le Bon emphasized the power of repetition to gain people’s assent:

Pure and simple assertion [affirmation], kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds […]
Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms. It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. The thing affirmed comes by repetition to fix itself in the mind in such a way that it is accepted in the end as a demonstrated truth. […]
To this circumstance is due the astonishing power of advertisements. When we have read a hundred, a thousand times that X’s chocolate is the best, we imagine we have heard it said in many quarters, and we end by acquiring the certitude that such is the fact. (Le Bon [1895], p. 126-127)

This last remark shows that repetition produces an illusion of legitimation by the authority of great number, S. Consensus.

From the point of view of the evaluation of arguments, this form of repetition is regarded as a fallacy, and even as the fallacy par excellence, since it imposes the acceptance of a statement not only without justification but against all justification.

1. “Ignorance of refutation”, a fallacy of method

Lat. ignoratio elenchi. The Greek word [elenkhos] means: “1. Argument to refute … 2. Proof in general” (Bailly, [elenkhos])”. The Latin title of Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations is De Sophisticis elenchi (Hamblin 1970, 305).

The fallacy of “ignorance of refutation” (ignoratio elenchi) is defined in the context of the dialectical game, where a participant, the Respondent (or Proponent), is committed to a statement, and the partner, the Questioner (or Opponent), tries to lead the Respondent to a contradiction, to thus refute the statement he or she (the Respondent) had previously accepted. The dialectical game considers only contradictory propositions (one and only one of them is true). The opponent must conform to the rules of the method in order to truly refute (and not in appearance) the primitive affirmation, S. Dialectic. The fallacy of ignorance of refutation is independent of language, it occurs “because the terms ‘proof’ or ‘refutation’ have not been defined, and because something is left out in their definition”. (Aristotle, R. S., 167a20, §5), S. Fallacy: Aristotle. In other words, the misconception of refutation is a general term covering all methodological errors occurring in a dialectical game.

This concept may be extended to any argumentative language game: “the arguer argues and does not know how to argue; thinks something is being proven or successfully refuted, when this is not the case; his or her practical concept of argument is flawed, etc.” This basically occurs when the argument does not respect the principles of relevance: on the one hand, the argument must be relevant to the conclusion (internal relevance) and, on the other hand, the conclusion must be relevant as a reply to the question (external relevance), S. Argumentative question.

2. Relevance of the argument for the conclusion

In the context of a dialectic game, the Respondent asserts P. Starting from P, the Questioner deductively constructs a chain of propositions ending with proposition not-P. So, the Questioner claims that this chain proves proposition not-P. Apparently, the Respondent has been refuted, and the Questioner has won the game. But the Respondent claims that the chain of proofs backing not-P is not valid because the arguments put forward do not actually support this conclusion; so, the Respondent claims that the Questioner actually failed to demonstrate not-P.

This schematizes the general situation when an arguer claims to have refuted the opponent ex datis, that is using only beliefs and modes of inference supposedly admitted by the opponent. In the same way, in an ex datis or ad hominem procedure, the opponent can resist the refutation by breaking the inference chain leading to the conclusive step s/he is supposedly compelled to concede. In other words, he or she argues that the arguments are not relevant to the conclusion. This issue actually involves all the program of criticism of argumentation.

3. Relevance of the conclusion as a reply to the Question

In the general case, the proponent commits himself to P, the opponent constructs from P a chain of propositions, at the end of which the proposition Q is reached. The proponent therefore claims that “Q = Not-P”. The proponent argues that proposition Q is not contradictory to P, and that, accordingly, it has not been rebutted. The arguments may be relevant to the conclusion, but the conclusion does not disprove the original thesis.

To argue that an intervention is externally irrelevant is to argue that it misses the point, is off-topic, etc. It may also be denounced as an attempt to put the adversary on a false trail, S. Red herring; the accusation of paralogism is reinforced by a suspicion of sophistry.

Criticisms of internal relevance and external relevance are cumulative. They invalidate a speech by saying that it does not back its conclusion, and that, besides, the conclusion has nothing to do with the issue.

4. The question is not relevant to the “real debate”

The dialectical framework is binary, the proposition to discuss is expressed in a simple and explicit proposition, and the methodology of a refutative discussion is well defined. Since the question is “P or not-P?”, claiming that the opponent’s conclusion does not logically contradict P, is to claim that it is not relevant to the debate.

The situation can be equally clear in an ordinary discussion. A student contests, that is, wants to “refute” the grade he has received: “if you don’t up my grade, I’ll fail the exam; please, I badly need just three extra points!”. The argumentation by the consequences is quite valid, but the negative consequences of the bad grade are irrelevant to the determination of the grade (according to the classical scientific and educational regimes at least). The student’s conclusion is irrelevant, failing to acknowledge the real issue: “what mark does my assignment deserve in itself?”. The student’s question is different from the teacher’s question, and the teacher is the master of the question.

Things may be more complicated. When the proponent refutes the rebuttal by saying, “what you disagree with has nothing to do with what I am saying”, what he actually says can be difficult to pin down, and may be constantly reformulated and reinterpreted S. Resumption of speech. On the other hand, even when the original claim and its intended rebuttal have been previously set down in writing, the link between the two does not necessarily have the clarity of the binary contradiction. For example, does S2 refute S1, or merely show that the issue is complex:

S1: — Speculators buy raw material in advance just to speculate on future price variations. Such operations on raw material should be banned by law.
S2: — Nonetheless, it is essential for companies to purchase in advance the raw materials they need, to cover themselves against price fluctuations.

Finally, in ordinary argumentation, the issue itself may be controversial. When none of the participants is the (natural or conventional) master of the question, each key participant will be tempted to give a definition of the question, and, will, accordingly reject the opponent’s answer as irrelevant to the real issue:

S1: — That’s not the question!
S2: — This is my answer to the problems that really arise. You’re not asking the right question.

The accusation of fallacy of conclusion irrelevant to the question under debate can be answered by a counter accusation of a fallacious, wrongly framed question, irrelevant to the “real” debate.

The function of the participating third party, be it the judge, the (universal) audience or the informed participants, is to construct, manage and decide upon the question, and accordingly, to determine what is or is not relevant in the debate.

A relation is a two-place predicate R associating two objects, a and b, denoted by “aRb”. Relations are characterized by three general properties, symmetry, transitivity, and reflexivity.

— Symmetry, or Reciprocity: The same relationship holds between “a and b” and “b and a”.
— Reflexivity: The relationship connects an object to itself.
— Transitivity: The relationship connecting a to b and b to c also connects a to c.

1. Symmetry, or reciprocity

A relation is symmetric or reciprocal if it relates both a to b and b to a. In other words, both “aRb” and “bRa” hold. If a loves b, b does not necessarily love a: a love relationship is not symmetrical. “Meeting” is a symmetric relationship. The following argument is neither more nor less logical than any other, but it would make a valid point in any detective novel; it can only be rejected by accusing Peter of lying:

If Peter confessed to having met Paul at the bar, we must assume that Paul met Peter. Paul cannot deny the obvious.

2. Reflexivity

A reflexive relation relates a being to itself, noted “aRa”. “— being contemporary of —” is a reflexive relationship: a is its own strict contemporary. For the average person, the causal relationship is not reflexive; only God is causa sui, his own cause.

The reflexive relation can be used ad hominem. The principle “charity begins at home” for example forces the reflexivity of the relationship “a makes charity to b”; all the same, the love of others can be used to encourage self-care:

You who love the whole of humanity, you should try to love yourself as well!

The competence of an adviser can be challenged by inciting him to make a reflexive application of his talents:

Physician, heal thyself!

Such replies correspond to the ad hominem variety setting up practices against words.

3. Transitivity

A relation is transitive if, when it relates a to b and b to c, it also connects a to c; in other words, “aRb and bRc” imply that “aRc”.

If a loves b, and if b loves c, then a does not necessarily love c; a relationship of love is thus not transitive. The relation “— be the father of —” is not transitive, but “— being an ancestor of —” is transitive. If a is an ancestor of b and if b is an ancestor of c, then a is an ancestor of c.

Inferences based on the transitivity of a predicate apply whenever at least three objects are positioned on a graduated scale:

If a is bigger, older, richer … than b
and b larger, older, richer … than c,
Then a is bigger, older, richer … than c.

Inferences based on these properties are part of the unnoticed evidences exploited by everyday reasoning and argument. They are sometimes considered to be “quasi-logical”, S. Quasi-logic; but being sound and valid does not preclude being an argument.

4. Conversion

S. Conversion

Lat. A conjugata argument, Lat. conjugatus, “related, of the same family”

Three types of argument are based on the fact that two words are materially related, depending on the nature of their relationship:

An etymological link S. True Meaning of the world.
A morphological link, S. Derived Words.
A phonic or graphic resemblance, S. Ambiguity.

Synonymy and antonymy are semantic relations.