PARADOXES OF ARGUMENTATION and REFUTATION

1. Paradoxes of argumentation

1.1 Producing an argumentative question legitimates all the answers

Should there be a “scientific and public debate” about whether there were gas chambers in Nazi Germany? This is exactly what the revisionist Roger Garaudy has demanded: the organization of a debate would legitimize the different positions taken in this debate.

Roger Garaudy has persistent doubts about the existence of gas chambers
Later in the book, Roger Garaudy refers to Shoah, the film by Claude Lanzmann, which he considers a “stinker”. ‘You talk about “Shoah business”, you say that this film only brings testimonies without demonstrations. This is a way of saying that the gas chambers do not exist’, the president [of the court] suggested. ‘Certainly not’ Roger Garaudy protests: As long as there is no scientific and public debate on the subject, doubts are allowed’. (Le Monde, January 11-12 1998, p. 7)

Here, Garaudy takes the position of the third party. He might even say that the president is arguing fallaciously from ignorance – to say that P is not proven is not say that non-P is proven. The refutation must consider the contextual knowledge: here the claim is false, because the historical and scientific work has been done and published and the libraries stay open late into the night. We are exactly in the situation of the Aristotelian indisputability, see conditions of Discussion.

1.2 Arguing for P weakens P

Arguing for P weakens P, first of all because of the reasons that justify the discourse against the argumentative personalities, which is often the same as the discourse against the debate. This discourse unfolds as follows:

People don’t accept living in doubt, not to being committed to a cause, not knowing, not having an opinion on everything, not challenging the other’s opinion. They are ready to argue for or against all and anything and everything. They enjoy disputes, and are inherently incapable of arguing, as the Port-Royal philosophers show. Arguments are only substitutes for fights or playground games, they always produce more heat than light. Querulousness is a disease. The will to be right, to attack and to defend is the transparent mask of the will to power. Our most entrenched opinions are not based on argument, but on our reptilian brain mechanisms, we don’t argue, we just reformulate our opinions, etc.

Second, arguing for P weakens P because argument-based knowledge is inferential, i.e., indirect knowledge. Indirect knowledge is often considered inferior to direct knowledge is expressed in a simple, clear statement of fact, especially to direct, revelation-based religious knowledge, see self-evidence. Newman expressed this idea with particular force, first in the epigraph to his Grammar of Assent (1870), taken from St. Ambrose, « It did not please God to save his people by dialectic », and further:

Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.
No one, I say, will die for his own calculations[1]: he dies for realities. (p. 73) [1]

To most men, argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful, and considerably less impressive. (Id., p. 74)

Along the same lines, Thomas Aquinas, when discussing the question of “whether one should argue with unbelievers in public,” considers the following objection to an affirmative answer:

Objection 3: Disputations are conducted by means of arguments. But an argument is a reason in settlement of a dubious matter: whereas things that are of faith, being most certain, ought not to be a matter of doubt. Therefore, one ought not to dispute in public about matters of faith. (ST, Part 2, 2, Quest 10, Art 7)

Arguments develop from a question; they are reflected in counter-arguments, attested or conceivable. This explains the existence of the paradoxes of argumentation: each position casts doubt on the other. This explains why the first step in the process of legitimizing a new position is to open a debate about it and, to do this, one must first find some opponents.

2. Paradoxes of refutation

2.1 The absence of refutation strengthens the opposing position (even if that position is insignificant or absurd)

It is much better to be criticized than to be ignored. Being at the center of a polemic can be an ideal and comfortable position. Finding someone who will make an argument that contradicts your own is an argumentative strategy that gives initial legitimacy to a point of view. The refutation creates a question where there was none, and that question, by feedback, legitimizes all the speeches that answer it. The proponent is weak because he or she bears the burden of proof, but strong because he or she creates a question.

The historian P. Vidal-Naquet describes this argumentative trap in the case of the negationist discourse, as follows,

I hesitated for a long time before writing these pages about the alleged revisionism, about a book whose editors tell us without laughing that, “Faurisson’s arguments are serious. They must be answered”. The reasons for not speaking were many, but of unequal value. […] In the end, was not the answer to recognize the idea that there was indeed a debate, and to publicize a man who is passionately hungry for it? […]
This last objection that is actually the most serious. […] It is also true that to attempt a debate would be to admit the inadmissible argument of the two “historical schools”, the “revisionist” and the “exterminationist”. There would be, as an October 1980 pamphlet put it, “advocates of the existence of homicidal gas chambers” and the others, just as there are advocates of a high chronology and of a low chronology for the tyrants of Corinth. […]
From the day that R. Faurisson, a duly qualified academic, a professor at a leading university, was first allowed to write for the first time in Le Monde¹, even if it was immediately refuted, the question ceased to be marginal. This became central a central question, and those who had no direct knowledge of the events in question, especially young people, had the right to ask whether some people were trying to hide something from them. Hence the decision of Les Temps modernes¹ and by Esprit¹ to answer.
But how to answer, since the discussion is impossible? We must discuss [Fausrisson] like a sophist, that is to say, with a man who resembles the one who speaks the truth, and whose arguments must be dismantled, piece by piece, in order to expose the pretense.
Pierre Vidal-Naquet, [A Paper Eichmann], 1987.[2]

2.2. Weak or inconclusive refutations strengthen the position they attack

According to the law of weakness, a weak argument for a conclusion is an argument for the opposite conclusion. Symmetrically, a weak refutation of a thesis strengthens this thesis.

Gérard Chauvy is on trial for slandering Raymond and Lucie Aubrac, two leaders of the French Resistance against the Nazis.
He cited a letter written by Klaus Barbie in which he described them as members of the Resistance turned into double agents.
Gérard Chauvy, who claims to have discovered Klaus Barbie’s memoirs in 1991, was the first to publish these sixty pages, which, until then, had been “circulating under cover”, by reproducing them in extenso in the appendices of his work. Does he share this thesis, as the civil party claims? Are his apparent reservations about this memoir just another maneuver to accredit it? In any case, this document is at the center of the debate. (Le Monde, February 7, 1998, p. 10; my emphasis).

An inconclusive refutation by a known good arguer strengthens the position under attack. Since the given refutation is taken as the best possible (according to Grice’s maxims), and since it remains inconclusive, the reader will conclude that, “since even such an arguer finds nothing else to say, then, the criticized position must actually be correct”, even if this conclusion is ad ignorantiam, see counter-argumentation.

 A very special case: argumentation by ironic refutation.
This is the possibility of strategically using a weak and inconclusive refutation to support a position that one cannot openly support. This may be necessary in times of tyranny.
The refutation contains obvious errors that alert the careful reader; there is a contrast between the quality and care of the exposition and the meager character of the rebuttal. Moreover, the refutation is not presented in the author’s usual argumentative style. For example, a good theologian develops in a dialectical and detailed manner, a position condemned by the official authorities of his religion, and refutes it only with arguments drawn from various authorities (which the reader may know are considered questionable), so that the careful reader is led to think that this oddity is strategic. The speech is apparently refuted, only to be better affirmed in reality, the negation then serving to cover the author. This case of indirectness was theorized by Strauss (1953). When a discourse is forbidden under certain historical, social, or religious circumstances, it is still possible to give voice to it, under the guise of its refutation, the negation then serving to protect the speaker from tyrannical authorities.

This ironic argumentation can be dangerous. The authorities are not necessarily naive or uninformed, and they may be well aware of the intended purpose of the pseudo-rebuttal, which will rightly be interpreted as a denial of a belief which is actually held by the speaker: “How can you so be such an expert on heterodox positions and such a fool when it comes to orthodoxy?”.
Such a strategy, based on the opacity of the writer’s intentions, presupposes a double argumentative address, the true intentions of which can be grasped only by a careful reader, while they remain unknown to the hasty reader, who appreciates the weak refutation because it can be easily understood, absorbed and repeated.

2.3 A Strong Refutation can Strengthen the Attacked Position

In 2001, Elisabeth Tessier, a renowned astrologer, successfully defended her doctoral thesis in sociology entitled “Epistemological Situation of Astrology” at the Sorbonne University. This thesis was received with great indignation by a large number of academics. Four Nobel laureates and leading academics intervened to deny that it had any scientific value, dismissing it as supporting irrationality and pseudoscience.

As a result of this intervention, the debate was reframed as follows: on the one hand, the authorities, renowned professors and scientists, pitted against a woman. Now, a quick peripheral reasoning, supported by the argument of proportionality, is enough to conclude that the former are deeply disturbed by this thesis; and the trap of the strong refutation closes on its own initiators: the very prestige of the opponents reinforces the refuted thesis, at least in the eyes of the adepts of peripheral reasoning, and they are many.

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[1] “Non in dialecticà complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum”.

[1b] This may be an allusion to Galileo who accepted to publicly recant heliocentrism and the movement of the earth, while privately maintaining the truth: “E pur si muove” (And yet it moves)

[2] Pierre Vical-Naquet, Un Eichmann de papier [An Eichman of paper]. In Les Assassins de la mémoire. [« The Assassins of Memory »] Paris: La Découverte, 1987, p. 11-13. Le Monde, a major French newspaper; Les Temps Modernes, a journal of philosophy, founded by Jean-Paul Sartre; Esprit, a journal of philosophy founded by Emmanuel Mounier.

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ORNAMENTAL FALLACY

The contrast between a rhetoric of figures and a rhetoric of arguments stems from and exacerbates the classical distinction between the two basic production stages of rhetorical discourse, researching arguments and thexpressing them verbally. The break between inventio and elocutio is generally attributed to Ramus (Ong, 1958). According to this view, only elocutio and actio fall within the realm of rhetoric, while inventio, dispositio and memoria are reassigned to thinking (cognition). This popular opposition between an ornate, figurative, rhetorical discourse on the one hand, and an argumentative discourse ideally free of subjectivity or figuration, on the other, was strongly reasserted by Locke in the modern perspective of a discourse aimed at developping scientific thought. This antagonism has been pushed to the confrontation and mutual rejection of a discourse of pleasure and emotion and an austere discourse of reason.

1. Fallacious rhetoric?

Socrates rejected the entire enterprise of rhetoric, as the art of constructing a persuasive discourse, in the name of a transcendental truth, as exposed by Plato in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, see argumentation (1); persuasion; probable.
In modern times, this ancient critique has been reinforced by a new wave of criticism developed in the name of scientific discourse. Rhetorical discourse is now routinely disparaged for substituting the search for pleasure for the search for truth. Rhetoric is seen as fulfilling a futile and perverse desire for ornamentation, and in order to eradicate this evil, figures of speech should be eliminated.

Ornamental-persuasive rhetoric is thus reconstructed as a discourse of passion, perverse and magical.  Figures and tropes are defined within the framework of ornatus, then, the elocutio is assimilated to the ornatus, through synecdoche. Finally rhetoric itself is reduced to elocutio. This ornamental vision of “make-up rhetoric” that has been opposed to the natural, healthy discourse of reasoned argument, see verbiage. The following excerpt from Locke is an authoritative reference in discourses that attack ornate language.

[34] Seventhly, language is often abused by figurative speech. Since wit and fancy find easier entertainment in the world than dry truth and real knowledge, figurative speeches and allusion in language will hardly be admitted as an imperfection or abuse of it. I confess, in discourses where we seek rather pleasure and delight than information and improvement, such ornaments as are borrowed from them can scarce pass for faults. But yet if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness; all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats: and therefore, however laudable or allowable oratory may render them in harangues and popular addresses, they are certainly, in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided; and where truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a great fault, either of the language or person that makes use of them. What and how various they are, will be superfluous here to take notice; the books of rhetoric which abound in the world, will instruct those who want to be informed: only I cannot but observe how little the preservation and improvement of truth and knowledge is the care and concern of mankind; since the arts of fallacy are endowed and preferred. It is evident how much men love to deceive and be deceived, since rhetoric, that powerful instrument of error and deceit, has its established professors, is publicly taught, and has always been had in great reputation: and I doubt not but it will be thought great boldness, if not brutality, in me to have said thus much against it. Eloquence, like the fair sex, has too prevailing beauties in it to suffer itself ever to be spoken against. And it is in vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving, wherein men find pleasure to be deceived. (Locke, Essay, III, X; Fraser, p. 146-147)

De Man has shown that this is all about the status of natural language in science and philosophy:

At times, it seems as if Locke would have liked nothing better than to be allowed to forget about language altogether, difficult as this may be in an essay having to do with understanding (1972, p. 12).

This observation does not directly invalidate Locke’s thesis because it is possible to interpret the thesis as beeing concerned with the capacity of ordinary language to convey the new mathematical forms of scientific knowledge.
In the modern age, the language through which “we preserve and develop truth and knowledge” is not natural language, but rather the languages ​​of calculation. Nevertheless, de Man rightly emphasizes the contradictory nature of an undertaking that engages in an analysis of reasoning in natural language after first condemning it.

2. Against Ornate Discourse

The main argumentative topoi of the discourse which condemns figures as fallacious ornaments are as follows.

2.1 Fallacy of irrelevance and inconsistency

In an argumentative discourse under development, all decoration is a form of entertainment, that is to say a distraction for the audience. As a result, the figures, permanently serve as “red herrings »,  lacking of relevance; they are fallacious because they deviate from the question.

During the delivery of an argumentative speech, any embellishment serves as entertainment and distracts the audience. In argumentative language, rhetorical devices are as « red herrings » because they are irrelevant and divert attention from the issue at hand.

These figures knowingly violate three Gricean principles, the maxims of quality, quantity and relevance. To use Klinkenberg’s French term, the use of figures is an impertinence (Fr), meaning that they are both “irrelevant” and “impertinent” (Klinkenberg 2000; Klinkenberg 1990, pp. 129–130). Moreover, they violate the principle of non-contradiction. The metaphor is both true and false, and guilty of ambiguity and category mistake.

2.2 Fallacies of verbiage and emotion

The classical concept of figurative discourse is based on the ability to choose between two chains of signifiers to express the same idea, or refer to the same entity, state of the world or semantic content. This results in an excess of words compared to the strict requirements of the objective discourse. The coexistence of different signifiers to express the same thing or the same truth is at the root of the fallacy of verbiage–a kind of meta-fallacy that leads to all others.

Moreover, the figurative language tends to favor the complicated and the rare, which are the opposite of  ordinary, simple and direct speech. When an apparently simple form appears in such an elaborate discourse, it only seems simple due to a double subtlety. An unsophisticated addressee expects a simple expression, while a sophisticated addressee anticipates that this expectation will be thwarted and anticipates the figuration. This second-level expectation is then itself frustrated by the simplicity of the expression itself. The ornamental figure is outlandish, and thus produces a surprise, the prodrom of emotion. This opens the way to numerous ad passiones fallacies; aesthetic emotions being fallacious like any other passion. This connection is explicit in Locke’s quotation.

2.3 The language transparency fallacy

Taking scientific language as the norm in order to guarantee direct access to objects and their natural relations, the language of argumentation should be regulated and unambiguous. It should lack neither nor exceed what is necessary, and be proportionate to the nature of things. In other words, it should be transparent and ad judicium. Figures, that pretend to glorify the truth, actually veil it. Ornaments are worse than fallacies because they are their source and mask.

However, the problem is that figures are the flesh and bones of everyday expression. To eliminate them would require renouncing natural language and argumentation in human affairs altogether.

3. An etymological argument against the decorative view of the ornatus

Are the figures ornaments? The word ornament is derives from the Latin ornamentum (adj. ornatus, verb ornare). The primary meaning of ornamentum is: “1. Apparatus, tackle, equipment […] harness, collar […] armor” (Gaffiot [1934], Ornamentum). The past participle adjective ornatus shares this basic meaning.
The phrase: « naves omni genere armorum ornatissimae » (C. Julius Caesar [The Gallic Wars] 3, 14, 2) translates to “boats with ample equipment [weapons and tackles].” (Ibid.). Thus, an ornatus speech is, litterally speaking, a speech well equipped to fulfill its function. In the context of public affairs, a well-equipped rhetorical discourse is a well-argued one. The arguments are in fact part of the ornamenta, the equipment of the discourse.

When considered as part of the discourse’s equipment, figures can be integrated into the analysis of argument, for example as instruments for constructing  discourse objects and schematizations. In any case, they should not be seen as constituting an extraneous “level” that accompany and distorts the purely cognitive level. Rather, they should be seen as part and parcel of all the operations that construct the argumentative discourse.

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PATHOS 1: RHETORICAL PROOF

The word pathos comes from a Greek word meaning “what we experience, as opposed to what we do” (Bailly, [Pathos]).
In Latin, pathos is sometimes translated as dolor, which basically means “pain”; Cicero uses dolor to refer to passionate eloquence (Gaffiot [1934], Dolor).

In classical rhetoric, pathos is a kind of evidence, complementary to that derived from logos and ethos. “Evidence” here means “persuasion”, in the sense of pressure and control exerted on the audience. The word pathos encompasses a set of social emotions that the speaker can draw upon in order to direct his audience towards the conclusions and actions he or she advocates.

1. Ancient rhetoric: Emotions as a manipulative tool

1.1 Ethos and pathos, two levels of affects?

The trinitarian account “ethos, logos, pathos” isolates each of these components, especially ethos from pathos; but Quintilian understands pathos and ethos as two kinds of feelings (adfectus):

Pathos and ēthos are sometimes of the same nature, the one to a greater and the other to a lesser degree, as love, for instance, will be pathos, and friendship ēthos, and sometimes of a different nature, as pathos in a peroration will excite the judges, and ēthos soothe them. (IO, VI, 2, 12)

Of feelings, as we are taught by the old writers, there are two kinds, the first of which the Greeks included under the term πάθος (pathos), which we translate rightly and literally by the word “passion” [adfectus]. The other, to which they give the appellation ἦθος (ēthos), for which, as I consider, the Roman language has no equivalent term, is rendered, however, by mores, “manners”; whence that part of philosophy, which the Greeks call ἠθική (ēthikē), is called moralis, “moral”. 9. […] The more cautious writers, therefore, have chosen rather to express the sense than to interpret the words and have designated the one class of feelings as the more violent, the other as the more gentle and calm, under pathos they have included the stronger passions, under ēthos the gentler, saying that the former are adapted to command, the latter to persuade, the former to disturb, the latter to conciliate. 10. Some of the very learned add that the effect of pathos is but transitory. (Id., 8-10)

The following table summarizes the major oppositions between ethos and pathos.

ethos	pathos
has its source in the character of the speaker	has its source in the occasion
makes the speaker sympathetic	moves the audience
inclines the audience to benevolence	brings about, snatches the decision
is pleasing	is moving
low arousal: calm, measured, sweet	high arousal: vehement
typical ethotic emotions: affection, sympathy	typical pathemic emotion: love, anger, hate, fear, envy, pity
ongoing thymic tonality of the discourse	phasic emotion episodes
convincing	commanding
the introduction focuses on ethos	the conclusion (end of the discourse) focuses on pathos
speech genre: comedy	speech genre: tragedy
type of causes: ethical (moral)	type of causes: pathetic
moral satisfaction	aesthetic satisfaction

As two complementary types of feeling, ethos organizes the ongoing thymic basic tonality of the discourse, upon which the speaker will base the phasic variations of intensity that characterize emotion episodes.
The doses of ethos and pathos must be carefully balanced according to the goals of the discourse.

1.2 Pathos: a bundle of emotions

n the Rhetoric, Aristotle distinguishes a dozen of basic rhetorical social emotions grouped in complementary pairs (Rhet., II, 1-11; RR. p. 257-310):

anger vs. calm, serenity
friendship vs. hostility, hatred
fear vs. confidence
shame vs. impudence, insolence
kindness, helpfulness vs. unkindness (eliminating the feeling of kindness)
pity vs. indignation
envy vs. imitation, emulation.

This enumeration does not cover all the political and legal emotions:

Aristotle neglects, as not relevant for this purpose, a number of emotions that a more general independently conceived treatment of the emotions would presumably give prominence to. Thus grief, pride (of family, ownership, accomplishments), (erotic) love, joy, and yearning for an absent or lost loved one (Greek pothos) hardly come in for mention in the Rhetoric […] The same is true even for regret, which one would think would be of special importance for an ancient orator to know about, especially in judicial contexts. (Cooper 1996, p. 251)

1.3 Manipulation through emotions

The question of the impact of emotion on judgment is one of balance between logo-logical demonstration on the one hand, and ethotic and pathemic pressures on the other. Logical arguments transform the representations, and representations determine the will; but, in some situations, pathos can still outweigh will. This makes pathos something mysterious and powerful, a little bit superhuman, a little bit demonic. Classical texts are full of such declarations pitting pathos against logos, that is emotion against reason and judgment, in terms of their ability to make decisions:

Now nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favor of his public, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling a mental impulse or emotion, rather than by judgment or deliberation. For men decide far more problems by hate, or love, or lust, or rage, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or illusion, or some other inward emotion, than by reality, or authority or any legal standard, or judicial precedent, or statute. (Cicero, De Or., 178 XLII).

In a powerful passage, Quintilian contrasts the dull character of logical argument with the violent and vicious action of emotion:

As to arguments, they generally arise out of the cause, and are more numerous on the side that has the greater justice, so that he who gains his cause by force of arguments will only have the satisfaction of knowing that his advocate did not fail him. 5. But when violence is to be offered to the minds of the judges and their thoughts are to be drawn away from the contemplation of truth, then is this peculiar duty of the orator required. This the contending parties cannot teach; this cannot be put into written instructions. (IO VI, 2, 4-5)

Such praise of passionate speech as capable of distracting the judge away from reality and truth is the source of the still dominant manipulative view of rhetoric.

2. Rhetoric and Magic

One may be surprised by such an open admission of the cynical, immoral and manipulative character of rhetorical pathemic persuasion. But one can remain skeptical about the very possibility of such manipulation.
First, such claims must be taken with a grain of salt. They can be read as a form of professional advertising designed to magnify the power of the professional rhetorician, and inflate course fees: “Follow my teachings, and you’ll become a magician of the spoken word!”.
Perhaps more important,, as Romilly points out in reference to Gorgias, these claims seem to transfer the virtues attributed to magical speech to emotional rhetorical speech: “what can we say about this, except that the words, in ways that seem irrational,  bind and affect the listener in spite of himself?” (Romilly 1988, p. 102).
This is precisely Socrates’ viewpoint when he holds that the art of speech-makers:

is part of the enchanters’ art and but slightly inferior to it. For the enchanter’s art consists in charming vipers and scorpions and other wild things, and in curing diseases, while the other art consists in charming and persuading the members of juries and assemblies and other sorts of crowds. (Plato, Euthydemus, XVII, 289e, p. 130).

Magic formulas, as chanted by Tibullus, actually had the power to alter the very physical perception of reality:

For me she [= the witch] has made chants with which you can deceive.
Sing them thrice, and spit thrice when you have sung.
Then he [= your husband] cannot believe anyone about us,
Even if he himself has seen us on the soft bed.
Tibullus, Elegy I, 2, v. 55sq (my emphasis)[1]

Pericles’ persuasive speech had the same powers:

Plutarch quotes the words of an opponent of Pericles, who was asked who, out of him and Pericles, was the strongest in the fight. His answer was: ‘“When I bring him down in the fight, he argues that he did not fall, and he wins by persuading all the assistants” (Pericles, 8). (Id., p. 119)

Notice that the defeated Pericles addresses his persuasive speech to the spectators, not to his victorious opponent, who is holding him down. Fortunately,  the argumentative situation is in fact a three-pole situation, involving the speaker, the adversary and the judge(s) or arbiter, in the role of the third party, see Roles.

Be that as it may, these views express an ancient classical and popular theory of the functioning of the human mind, in which emotion, will and action oppose, distort and compete victoriously with reason, understanding and contemplation.

In contrast to all these explanations, Aristotle simply warns against the overly effective use of the pathos:

It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger, envy or pity — one might as well warp a carpenter’s rule before using it. (Rhet., I, 1, 1354a25; RR, p. 96-97)

The judge is “the rule.” The rejection of pathos is not based on moral considerations but on a cognitive imperative; distorting the rule is harmful not only to others and to the world, but first of all to oneself; error is more fundamental than deception.

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[1] The Complete Poems of Tibullus: An En Face Edition. Trans. by R. G. Dennis and M. C. J. Putnam. With an introd. by J. H. Gaisser. Berkeley, etc: University of California Press, 2013.

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PERSONAL ATTACK
Ad Personam

Personal attacks (Latin: ad personam attack) may target any aspect of the person, public or private, including his or her human dignity. Such attacks violate basic rules of politeness, courtesy and all ethical prohibitions that protect the individual, as a unique human being.
Personal attacks are absolutely antinomic to argument.  Argumentation is not war; personal attacks are private wars.

The personal attack on the opponent is quite different from the ad hominem attack. The latter refers to a contradiction found between what the opponent says or between what he says  and his behavior, whereas the personal attack bypasses the opponent’s positions and smears the opponent as a person in order to devalue the argument itself and exclude the person from the conversation.
Nevertheless the label ad hominem is often used to refer to personal attacks.

1. Overt and Covert Attacks 

Insult is the simplest form of attack ad personam: “Sir, you are just a poorly educated dishonest person!”. Overt personal attacks can be a very effective strategy for undermining the debate and avoiding the issue at hand. The opponent will become agitated, he will lose track of the argument and eventually resort to personal attacks and insults. Third parties will then be tempted to let the arguers fight it our, or just enjoy the show.

The personal attack may refer to the opponent’s personal life: “You better take care of your children!” said to an opponent whose children are badly behaved, is a personal attack that many would consider extremely offensive. In a debate, such a personal attack could be more subtly launched by introducing the issue of family policy, emphasizing the need for parents to give priority to their children’s education, without openly mentioning the opponent’s circumstances. The rumors and the media will explain the insinuations.

He cannot rule his family, and he pretends to rule Syldavia!

2. Relevance of the Attack 

Personal attacks can be more or less relevant to the issue at hand. Consider the negative descriptions of the opponent made in the context of the argumentative question, “Should we go to war against Syldavia?”:

S1       — We must take military action against Syldavia!
S2₁   — Shut up, you stupid warmonger!
S2₂   — Please, stop this nonsense!
S2₃   — Poor fool, manipulated by the media!
S2₄   — Poor you, last week you couldn’t even find Syldavia on the map!

Considering the available context, S2₁ and S2₂ are unprovoked and irrelevant attacks against the person; that is, they have very little relevance to the argumentative question. But in the case of S2₃, nothing is clear; S2 is certainly wrong to insult the opponent, but he (S2) does provides an argument that invalidates S1 because of his or her lack of basic geopolitical knowledge. If we apply the “no argument without information” principle, the attack is certainly not irrelevant. There is a difference between calling a reasonable, upstanding citizen a fool, and calling a fool a fool. But, concretely, if this difference were accepted, all slander would be reinstated  as well-suited literal descriptions of the person; hence the general prohibition of descriptive or performative insults.

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[1] Latin ad personam; the term persona refers to the actor’s mask in a play.
Metaphorically, it corresponds to the interactional face or social role of the person, not precisely to his or her personal identity.

ORIENTING WORDS

A morpheme (a concept, an expression) is argumentative if, when inserted into an utterance,
– It does not alter the factual referential value of the utterance (it has no quantifying function).
– It changes the argumentative orientation of the utterance, i.e. the set of conclusions compatible with the utterance, that is, the set of propositions that can follow it.

Anscombre and Ducrot developed the semantic concept of an argumentative morpheme  (orienting word) is as an essential part of the Awl theory, see orientation reversal.
This concept has been applied to the linguistic description of « empty » words or « argumentative operators » such as the pair little / a little, and to « full » words such as the pair helpful / servile.

1. Anti-Oriented Words

The English pair helpful/servile and the French pair serviable/servile

Servile (Fr.) and servile (Eng.) both derive from the word serf, a type of slave in medieval times. Servile (Fr.) can be translated as servile (Eng.) and is a synonym for “submissive, obsequious, subservient.”

Serviable (Fr.) comes from the root [serv-], which is also found in the English word serviceable, plus the suffix -able in both languages. Service comes from the same root.
Serviable and serviceable are false friends. Their morphological similarity covers very different meanings:
– Serviceable (Eng.) refers to objects, etc., and means « suitable for use » (CD).
– Serviable (Fr.) refers exclusively to people and means a « kind, helpful person. »
In English, servile is the opposite of helpful.

Contrast between helpful and servile – Consider the statements (1) “Peter is helpful” and (2) “Peter is servile [submissive].” Do these two statements describe two different types of character and behavior, or one and the same attitude? Either position can be argued.

♦ Statements (1) and (2) describe two types of behavior. For example, helping your grandmother set the table is helpful, whereas offering to carry your boss’s small suitcase is submissive. Consequently, each behavior is assigned a different value; helpfulness is positive, while submissiveness is negative. To determine the nature of Peter’s behavior, one must examine its details and  context.

♦ It can also be argued that these two words describe one type of behavior viewed in two different ways. If I view the behavior positively I might say, « Peter is helpful. » I might judge the same behavior negatively, saying, « Peter is servile« . Reality says nothing about helpfulness or servility. This distinction originates not in reality, but in the speaker’s subjectivity, or the active structuring of perception, involving emotions and value judgments.

Statements (1) and (2) create opposite discursive expectations in the listener. Helpful is a recommendation, “A nice guy!”, while servile and submissive are rejections, “I can’t stand his ways. »

If the job involves interacting with someone specifically concerned with deferential behavior, then Peter is servile might also serve as an ironic recommendation, implying disapproval of both people: “they will make a nice couple.”

These opposing orientations correspond to the rhetorical phenomenon known as paradiastole, “The world is moving backwards; words have lost their meaning. The miser is thrifty, the unconscious is brave.” Normative theories of logical inspiration interpret this phenomenon as the expression of linguistic bias, see orientation reversal.

Antithetical designations — The opposition between discourse and counter-discourse is sometimes reflected in the word morphology, as in the previous case, see antithesis; derived words; ambiguity:

Disputation vs. disputatiousness.
Politician vs. politico.
Philosopher vs. philosophizer.
Scientific vs. scientistic.

In general, parties use different terms to refer to those at the center of the debate. You are the persecutor, I am the victim. He is the evil rich man, I am the poor but honest person. Your approach is scientistic while mine is scientific, see discursive object.

What criteria can I use to classify someone as a terrorist or as a resistance fighter? Is the resistance fighter a successful terrorist, and the terrorist the resistance fighter of a lost cause? Should their actions be considered (categorized) as a cowardly act of terrorism or as a heroic act of resistance? Are everyone’s hands dirty, and does everything depend on the speaker’s partisan preferences?
Accepted international conventions are needed. The systematic discussion dates back to the works of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, two landmark thinkers in the debate on the laws of war. The modern world has defined war crimes and crimes against humanity.

2. Adverbial Orientation Operators

2.1 Even

The adverb even is argumentative in the following statement:

(1) Leo has a bachelor’s degree and even a master’s degree.

This discourse “p, and even p1 ” is characterized by the relative position of p and p1 on an argument scale.

There is a certain [conclusion] r which determines an argument scale where p1 is [a stronger argument] than p [for the conclusion c]. (Ducrot 1973, p. 229)

In other words, some even statements are inherently argumentative. They are oriented toward a conclusion, c, that can be recovered from the context. These statements coordinate two arguments p and p1 which both support the conclusion c, and hierarchize those two statements, presenting p1 as stronger than p.

Statement (1) is argumentative.
– It coordinates the arguments “Leo has a bachelor’s degree” and “Leo has a Master’s degree.”
– Both are directed toward the conclusion that “Leo can teach some mathematics.” Statement (1) considers the latter argument, “Leo has a Master’s degree,” to be a stronger argument than the former, « Leo has a Bachelor’s degree, »  for this same conclusion. This gradation can be represented on an argument scale as follows:

The relative positions of p and p’ on this scale depend on the speaker.

We had a great meal, we even had cheese pasta.

Other gourmets may not consider macaroni and cheese to be an essential part of a great meal.

2.2 Too

The theory of scales is governed by the “plus … plus …” principle: the higher you are on the scale, the closer you are to the conclusion. However, this principle leads to an apparent paradox.
For example, « you reluctantly bathe in water that’s twenty-two degrees, you’d be happier bathing in water that’s twenty-five degrees, thirty degrees, or even warmer degree. The hotter the water, the better. Therefore, you really should try bathing directly in the cauldron. » The progression is intended as a joke.

Too inverts the argumentative orientation:

S1       — It’s cheap, buy it.
S2       — It’s too cheap.

But sometimes it reinforces this orientation: S1       — It’s expensive, too expensive, don’t buy it

2.3 Almost / hardly

Almost is a paradoxical word. “Almost P” presupposes not-P and argues as P. If I say « Today, Leo was almost on time« , then I acknowledge the fact that he was not on time. Nevertheless, you could say:

Excuse him, he was almost on time. He should not be punished.

In other words, “almost on time” is co-oriented with “on time”. The argumentative orientation of an almost utterance might be rejected by a rigid superior, who refuses the positive framing being imposed on him. The superior applies the topos of the strict meaning of the law:

Therefore, you confirm that he was not on time. The sanction will be applied.

This co-orientation of P and almost P does not apply to predicates referring to the crossing of a threshold. For example, when transporting a critically ill patient, for example, the nurse might urge the ambulance driver: “Hurry up, he is almost dead,” but the nurse would not say, “Hurry up, he is dead.” However, in an alternative scenario–say a rather laborious assassination–the killer might say to his accomplice, “Hurry up! He’s almost dead, and you still haven’t found anything to wrap his body in.” A fortiori, he might say “Hurry up! He is dead.”

Substituting « hardly » for « almost » reverses the argumentative orientation of the statements in which they appear.

You’re almost cured, you can join our party!
I’m hardly cured, I can’t join your party.

The appeal to the strict meaning can be opposed to the thresholds raised by almost and hardly.

2.4 Little / A Little

These two adverbs give opposite argumentative orientations to the predicates that they modify.

(1) There is now little faith in market mechanisms.
(1′) There is now a little faith in market mechanisms.

(2) He has eaten a little, he feels well.
(2′) He feels unwell, he has eaten little.

(1) is oriented towards “there is no confidence at all”, while (1′) is oriented towards “confidence.” In (2) little and a little are not quantifiers that refer to different amounts of faith or food (a little trust being more than little trust). They give opposite orientations to what is essentially the same quantity.

3. Adjectives as Orientation Operators

Adjectives can alter the argumentative strength or the orientation of a sentence.

De-realizing operators are defined as follows:

A lexical word Y is de-realizing with respect to a predicate X if and only if the combination XY is on the one hand is not perceived as contradictory, and, on the other hand, reverses or reduces X’s argumentative strength. (Ducrot 1995, pp. 147)

Consider the following statements (Ducrot 1995, pp. 148–150)

He is a relative, and even a close one.
He’s a relative, but a distant one.

Close is a realizing operator (id., p. 147). “They are close relatives” is co-oriented with “They are relatives,” towards conclusions such as “They know each other well.”
They are located on the corresponding argument scale as follows:

Distant is a de-realizing operator. The sentence “He is a distant relative of mine” can be oriented toward “We don’t know each other well”, i.e., it has an opposite orientation to “He is a relative of mine.”

It can also be oriented toward “We know each other well”, similar to “He is a relative of mine”, but with less force:

ORIENTATION REVERSAL

The argumentative orientation of an utterance  U towards a conclusion C is reversed when a slight change to its form, Ux, causes its argumentative value to switch from C to not C.

The argumentative orientation of an utterance can be redirected by substituting one morpheme for another. For example, consider the difference in meaning between the adverbs little and a little, see orientation; orienting words. The adverb precisely, can also produce a reversal of argumentative orientation, in one of its uses,

S1: — Peter doesn’t want to go out, he’s depressed.
S2: — Well, precisely.He would breathe the clean country air, it would clear his head.

The reversal of orientation is based on the literal content of what the S1 says. S2 replies to S1 “Your argument does not support your claim, it even points to the opposite. You give arguments against your own position.” S2 contradicts S1 using S1‘s own statement. his or her own saying. This typical response “to the letter” (ad litteram), serves a strategy of discourse destruction, see matter;; objection; refutation.

Classical rhetoric has identified many inversion phenomena with the same effect, such as irony.

« Everything is possible with the SNCF* » (*) , That is the best slogan you have ever found! (The SNCF is a French railway company).
A passenger said this to a train conductor when the train was stopped for two hours between stations.

The slogan is oriented towards “the SNCF can be incredibly positive and pleasant ”; the circumstances show that “the SNCF can be incredibly negative”.

Some of these strategies have been identified and named in classical rhetoric:

— Antanaclasis: Exploiting the different meanings of a term to reverse its argumentative orientation.
— Antimetabole: Inversion of an expression.
— Antiparastasis: Reversing the qualification of an action.
— Paradiastole: Reversing the orientation of a term by substituting a quasi-synonymous term or description:

1. Antanaclasis

Antanaclasis is the repetition of a polysemous or homonymous term or expression so that upon its second occurrence, the term has a different meaning and a different orientation than upon its first occurrence.
In other words, the signifier S⁰ has the meanings Sa and Sb. In its first occurrence S⁰ has the meaning Sa with the orientation Oa and, in its second occurrence it has the meaning Sb with the orientation Ob.

The resumption of the signifier S⁰ must occur within the same discursive unit, whether it be statement, a paragraph, a turn or a pair of turns. This can be done either by the same speaker within the same discursive unit, or by a second speaker within a second turn.

In a same-speaker intervention, antanaclasis introduces ambiguity because the same word is used to denote different things. In a syllogism, the antanaclasis actually introduces two terms under the cover of the same signifier S⁰. Thus, it produces a syllogism not of three but of four terms, i.e., a paralogism.

In interaction, the two meanings of the term are used in two successive turns of speech, the second  of which invalidates the first. Antanaclasis is a kind of ironic echo and aggressive retaliation.
The word « tolerance » refers to a virtue, whereas the expression “house of tolerance”, refers to a legal, licensed, brothel.

S1: — A little tolerance please! (tolerance is a virtue)
S2: — Tolerance! There are places for that (tolerance allows vice).

In French une foire can mean “a fair”, a commercial exhibition; or “a mess”, a state of general noise and confusion.

S1: — We could not book a hotel for you, because they are all fully booked, due to the fair in town.
S2: — It seems that there is often la foire in town. Fr. foire = “mess”

In the example, the second term transforms the initial excuse into a reproach: “You can’t get organized.” This word-for-word restatement undermines S1’s speech.

The use of derived words makes such maneuvers possible. Anyone who finds their work alienating (as in “the work on the assembly line work alienates the workers”), is accused of being an aliéné (F), that is, a madman:

The ideological policeman of collectivism can say almost the same thing to an opponent: « For those who protest against alienation, our society has asylums for the insane. » Thierry Maulnier, [The Meaning of Words], 1976[1])

The reorientation of antanaclasis differs from that of the adverb precisely. This adverb takes a statement that is oriented toward a given conclusion, grants the statement (accepts the information), and transforms it in order to reach the opposite conclusion. In the preceding case, it could be, “Well, precisely, the fair was announced a long time ago, you should have taken precautions.” The antanaclasis does not take the excuse seriously, it disorients the discourse.

2. Antimetabole

Similar to antanaclasis, the antimetabole is a linguistic trick used to dismantle an opponent’s speech. The discourse is taken up and restructured syntactically in order to make it lose its orientation, or even to give it an opposite one.
Dupriez cites the permutation mechanisms « determined / determining »  « N0 + N1=> N1 + N0 » which can be used ironically, for example, a discourse on “the life of words” can be destroyed by the affirmation of a preference for “the words of life” (Dupriez 1984: 53-54).

We do not live in a time of change, we live in a change of time.
These announcements (Fr. effets d’annonce) quickly become ineffective announcements (Fr. annonces sans effets)

See refutation; prolepsis; destruction; converse.

3. Antiparastasis

This term refers to the theory of stasis. An accusation is made against someone who fully admits to the accusation, and affirms the reason why he did it. Based on this, he rejects the blame.

L:     — You killed him!
L:     — At his request, I ended his suffering.

The first statement is an accusation: “Shame on you! You deserve to be condemned!” The second statement introduces an argument that cancels out the accusation: “What I have done is an act of devotion”, or even reverses the accusation: “What I have done deserves admiration, not blame », citing motives and good reasons.

This form of counterargument gives two opposiing orientations to the same fact. Antanaclasis is a pseudo-acceptance and an implicit reversal, while the antiparastasis explicitly reverses the negative orientation given to the fact by the opponent.

This defense strategy gives the speaker a militant or rebellious ethos. Situations based on radically opposed values have high dramatic potential. For instance, the confrontation between Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’s play Antigone examplifies such a situation of antiparastasis.

4. Paradiastole

The term paradiastole comes from a Greek word expressing a movement of expansion and differentiation. In a monologue, the paradiastole “establishes a system of nuance and precision, generally developed on the basis of parallel statements” (Molinié 1992, Paradiastole). The Latin term distinguo refers to a similar process. Paradiastole refines the definition of a concept or establishes a distinction between two similar concepts that the speaker believes should not be confused, for example “sadness is not depression”. In a dialogue, the paradiastole rejects a partner’s word as inadequate, and replaces it with a more contextually appropriate word, that reorients the discourse. Although depression and sadness are semantically similar, they can still be contrasted, as in:

L1:   — I’m depressed. I need to see a psychiatrist.
L2:   — No, you’re not depressed, you’re sad. Sadness is not a disease.

Discourse constantly builds up such anti-oriented pairs, see orienting words.

As we know, all lovers boast of their choice. The chatterer [is] good-humored, and the silent one maintains her virtuous modesty (Molière, [The Misanthrope], 1666[2])

(What is presented as) the true strongly negative description of a person as a chatterbox or a stupid person contrasts with how she appears to her lover, good-humored or maintaining her virtuously modest. The following example shows that this situation generalizes to discourse, where parladiastole no longer operates strictly between two terms, but between two discourses opposing two points of view.

L1:   — He’s brave.
L2:   — I would not say that. He knows how to face danger, okay, but it seems to me that to be really brave you also need a system of values, and a clear sense of what you’re fighting for​​. Maybe he is just a hothead?

Starting from a mere nuance, paradiastole can develop into a permanent opposition.

L1:        — This is just ignorance.
L2:        — No, it’s simply bad faith.

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[1] Thierry Maulnier, Le sens des mots, Paris: Flammarion, 1976, pp. 9-10.
[2] Molière, Le Misanthrope, II, 4. Quoted from Molière, The Misanthrope. Ed. by, Girard KS: E. Haldeman-Julius, 1922. Pp. 26-27. https://archive.org/details/misanthropecomed00molirich (11-04-2017).

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ORIENTATION

The concept of orientation (argumentative orientation, oriented statement or expression), combined with the correlative concept of argumentative scale (Ducrot 1972), is fundamental to the theory of argumentation within language (Awl theory). This theory was developed by Oswald Ducrot and Jean-Claude Anscombre (Anscombre & Ducrot 1983, Ducrot 1988, Anscombre 1995a, 1995b, etc.).
In this entry, the term discourse refers exclusively to (polyphonic) monologue, not dialogue or interaction.

The following equivalences may be helpful in grasping the general concept of meaning as argument, or the orientation of a statement E1 toward a subsequent statement E2, that has the status of a conclusion.

He said E1. What does that mean?
He says E1 from the perspective of E2.
The reason for saying E1  is E2.
The meaning of E1 is E2.
E1, that is to say, E2.

1. But and the Grammar of Orientation

The conjunction but, has played a central role in constructing a grammar for argumentation. The privileged construction chosen for analyzing this conjunction is schematized as “E1 but E2”, for example:

The restaurant is good, but expensive.

The basic observations are as follows: E1 and E2 are true (the restaurant is good and expensive). But refers to an opposition that is not between the predicates “to be good’ and “to be expensive”: one knows that “everything good is expensive”, and tends to think that all expensive restaurants are necessarily good. The opposition lies in the conclusions drawn from E1 and E2, which both function as arguments. If the restaurant is good, then, let’s eat there. If it’s expensive, let’s go somewhere else. The final decision is based on the latter argument, E2.
The conjunction but here articulates two statements that lead to contradictory conclusions, and the conclusion derived from the second argument is retained.

Connectives provide guidance for interpreting the utterances they articulate. They instruct the listener to infer and reconstruct from the left context E1 a proposition C in opposition to another one, not-C, that can be inferred from E2). It is up to the listener to reconstruct an argumentative opposition.
In the context of dialogical argumentation, these “instructions” themselves fall within the scope of an argumentative question, and influence the reconstruction of the conclusions derived from E1 and E2.

The previous but comes under a question like “Why not try this restaurant?”. If the question were “Which restaurant should we buy to make the best investment?”, the interpretation would be different: “This restaurant is good (= “delivers outstanding financial performance”) but it is expensive (to buy)”. The inferred, implicit conclusion would be “so, let’s invest our money somewhere else.” The argumentative question that structures the text creates the field of relevance and provides the interpretive constraints.

These questions and their corresponding conclusions-answers are said to be “implicit” only insofar as the data supporting the analysis of but are generally limited to a pair of statements. The analyst may legitimately posit that her intuition can provide a plausible context. However, to the extent that argument analysis is seen as a discursive-cognitive matter, rather than a linguistic-semantic one, this authentic context can facilitate the task and introduce new issues.

2. Linguistic Constraints on the {Argument, Conclusion} Sequence

Like the classical approaches, the Awl theory considers argumentation as essentially a combination of statements, “argument + conclusion.” The crucial difference lies in the concept of the link that authorizes the “step” from argument to conclusion, i.e., the argument scheme. Discourse coherence is attributed to a semantic principle, a « topos » which is defined as a purely semantic link  that connects the predicate of the argument to the predicate of the conclusion.

Ducrot defines “the argumentative value of a word” as “the orientation that this word gives to the discourse” (Ducrot 1988, p. 51). The linguistic meaning of the word smart lies in the orientation it gives to a statement, i.e., the constraints it imposes on subsequent discourse. It does not lie in its descriptive value of a capacity measured by the intellectual quotient of the person concerned. For example:

1. Peter is smart, he will solve this problem.

This is opposed to the incoherent chain:

1′. * Peter is smart, he will not be able to solve this problem.

Argumentation (1) is indeed convincing, because its conclusion, “solving problems” belongs to the set of predicates semantically correlated with “being smart.” A set of pre-established conclusions is already given in the semantic definition of the predicate of the argument. In other words, the problem is entirely linguistic (lexical), not cognitive. The dictionary is the « place » to look for arguments.

The two argumentative morphemes, little / a little give opposite argumentative orientations to the statement they modify, see orienting words:

He has taken a little food, he is getting better
He has taken little food, he is getting worse.

Building on these intuitions, Ducrot defines the argumentative orientation of a statement (or its argumentative value)  as “the set of possibilities or impossibilities of discursive continuation determined by its use” (ibid.).

The argumentative orientation of a statement S1 is defined as the selection that statement S1 makes from the class of statements S2 that can follow it in a grammatically well-formed discourse. In the same field, in theory, any statement S2 can follow a first statement S1, as both are independent linguistic units. However, according to the Awl theory, the use of the first statement S1 introduces constraints that impose certain properties on the second statement S2; that is, it excludes some continuations and favors others.

These linguistic constraints imposed by the argument on the conclusion are particularly visible in quasi-analytical sequences, such as “This proposal is absurd, so it must be rejected.” By the very meaning of the words, saying that a proposition is absurd, is saying that it must be rejected. This apparent conclusion is a pseudo-conclusion, because it merely expresses the definition of the word absurd, “which should not exist” as the dictionary attests.

[Speaking of a manifestation of human activity such as speech, judgment, belief, behavior, or action] That which is manifestly and immediately felt to be contrary to reason or common sense. Sometimes almost synonymous with the impossible in the sense of “that which cannot or should not exist” (TLFi, [Absurd]).

In a famous yet objectionable formula, Roland Barthes wrote that “language is neither reactionary nor progressive; language is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech” ([1977], p. 366). Barthes’s perspective is certainly different from Ducrot’s. Nevertheless, according to Ducrot, the argument grammatically « compels the conclusion. Playing with words, one might say that the inference is compulsive. This is common argumentative experience, in ordinary language, hearing the argument is enough to guess the conclusion.

Ducrot’s theory is based on the linguistic observation that every state statement, regardless of its informational content, specifies its possible continuations and excludes others. This impossibility is not due to informational reasons, but to semantic and grammatical reasons. There are semantic constraints on the construction of discourse.

At the sentence level, this idea is expressed through the syntactic concept of selection restriction (linguistic constraints on the type of well-formed expression (E2, conclusion) that can follow a given well-formed expression (E1).
In its non-metaphorical use, the statement “Pluto barks” implies that Pluto is a dog. Taken literally, barking carries with it a selection restriction of that determines the class of entities that can be its subject.
Similarly, at the discourse level, E1 restricts the class of the statements E2 that can follow it. An argumentation is a pair of statements (E1, E2), such that E2, the conclusion, respects the orientation conditions imposed by E1, the argument.

3. Meaning as Intention

The AwL theory rejects the notions of meaning as adequacy to reality, whether logical (theories of truth conditions) or analogical (theories of prototypes). The AwL theory is based on a quasi-spatial conception of meaning as « sense » as « direction », « way ».  in a given context, what the statement S1 (and the speaker) publicly means, is the conclusion S2 to which the statement is directed. The art of argumentation here is the art of managing transitions in discourse.

The relationship “argument S1 – conclusion S2” is reinterpreted from a language production perspective (French perspective énonciative) where the meaning of the argument is contained in and revealed by the next statement. Understanding what is meant by the statement “Nice weather today!” does not involve developing a corresponding mental image or cognitive scheme, but rather grasping the speaker’s intention such as “Let’s go to the beach.” This is well expressed in the Chinese proverb, “When the wise man points to the stars, the fool looks at the finger”.

The meaning of S1 is S2. Meaning is defined as the final cause of the speech act. Thus, the Awl theory updates a terminology that refers to the conclusion of a syllogism as its intention. This reflects the fact that a reformulation connector such as « that is to say » can introduce a conclusion:

L1:   — This restaurant is expensive.
L2:   — That means / you mean / in other words/ you don’t want us to go there?

The Awl theory has developed in three main directions, argumentative expressions, or orienting words; connectives as argumentative indicators; and the concept of semantic topos.

4. Some Consequences

4.1 Reason in Discourse

Tarski claims that it is impossible to develop a coherent concept of truth within ordinary language. In Ducrot’s vision of argumentation, the question of the validity of an argument is reinterpreted as grammatical validity. An argumentation is valid if the conclusion is grammatically consistent with its premises (i.e., if it obeys the constraints imposed by the argument).
Therefore, the rationality and reasonableness associated with the argumentative derivation is merely an unsubstantial reflection of routine discursive concatenation of meanings, or, as Ducrot says, a mere “illusion”, see demonstration. This is consistent with the structuralist project of reducing the order of discourse to that of language (Saussure’s langue). Ordinary discourse is seen as incapable to expressing truth and reality. It follows that, according to the AwL theory, discourse is denied any rational or reasonable capacity.

4.2 Redefining Homonymy and Synonymy

Since the AwL theory is based exclusively on the concept of orientation, and not on quantitative data or measures, it follows that if the same segment S can be followed by the segment Sa and by the segment Sb which contradicts Sa, then S does not have the same meaning in these two occurrences. Since we can say “it’s hot (S), let’s stay at home (Sa)” as well as “it’s hot (S), let’s go for a walk (Sb)” we have to admit that the two occurrences of the statement S “[are] not about the same heat in both cases” (Ducrot 1988, p. 55). This is a new definition of homonymy.
By analogous considerations, Anscombre concludes that there are two verbs to buy, one corresponding to the senses of “the more expensive, the more I buy” and the other “the less expensive, the more I buy” (Anscombre 1995, p. 45).

Conversely, we can assume an equivalence between statements that select the same conclusion: if the same segment S is preceded, in a first occurrence by the segment Sa, and in a second occurrence by a different segment Sb, then Sa and Sb have the same meaning, because they serve the same intention: “it’s hot (Sa), I’ll stay at home (S)” vs. “I have work (Sb), I’ll stay at home (S)”. This is a new definition of synonymy, with respect to the same conclusion.

Finally, “if segment S1 only makes sense in the context of segment S2, then the sequence S1 + S2 constitutes a single utterance”, a single linguistic unit (Ducrot 1988: 51). One could probably go a step further, and consider that they form a single sign, with S1 functioning as a signifier of S2. This conclusion reduces the proper “order of discourse” to that of the utterance, even of the sign.

5. Orientation and Inferential License

Ducrot contrasts his “semantic” point of view with what he calls the “traditional or naive” view of argumentation (Ducrot 1988, pp. 72-76), without referencing specific authors. Let’s consider Toulmin’s layout of argument.
– Argumentation is essentially a pair of statements (S1, S2), that have the status of argument and conclusion respectively.
-Each statement has an autonomous meaning, and refers to a distinct specific fact, that can be evaluated independently.
– There is a relation of implication–a physical or social extra-linguistic law–between these two facts (Ducrot 1988, p. 75).

This concept of argumentation can be schematized as follows: Curved arrows, going from the discourse level to the reality level, enact the referring process.

This conception may be “naive” in that it assumes that language is a transparent, inert medium–a pure mirror of reality. This is not the case for natural languages (Récanati 1979). Such conditions are only met by controlled languages ​​such as scientific languages, in relation to realities that they construct as much as they refer to them.

The Awl theory emphasizes the strength of purely linguistic constraints. The orientation of a statement is precisely its ability to project its meaning not only onto, but also as the following statement. Thus, that what appears to be “the conclusion” is merely a reformulation of the “argument”. For the Awl theory, discourse is an arguing machine, that systematically commits the fallacy of the vicious circle.

In sum, the AwL theory opposes ancient and neoclassical theories and practices of argumentation, as a semantic theory of language oppose theories and techniques of conscious discursive planning, that would operate according to referential data and principles. Logical theories evaluate argumentative discourse and declare it is valid or fallacious. For semantic theory, an argumentation can only be evaluated at the grammatical level, as acceptable or unacceptable, that is, as a coherent or incoherent discourse. According to this theory, the persuasiveness of an argument depends entirely on language. To reject an argument is to break the thread of the ideal discourse.
This position redefines the notion of argumentation, Anscombre thus speaks of argumentation “in our sense” (1995b, p.16).

6. Natural reasoning combines semantic inference with cognitive inferences

The transition from argument to conclusion may be based on a natural or a social law, or on a semantic coupling of the argument and conclusion. These two types of inferences are currently intertwined in ordinary discourse.

You speak about the birth of the gods (1). Then, you say that at one time the gods did not exist; so, you deny their existence (2). This is blasphemy and punishable by law. Accordingly, you will be punished (3) a pari, according to the law that punishes those who speak of the death of the gods.

First, a semantic law deduces (2) from (1), see inference. Second, a social law, which is not primarily concerned with linguistic data, but with social data, proceeds on from (2) to (3). The punishment is finally determined by an a pari adjustment.
Social law can be naturalized by integrating the meaning of the words:

You are an impious man, impiety is punishable by death, so you must die.

It is difficult to tell to what extent the very meaning of the word impious has integrated the law “impiety is punished with death.”
Nonetheless, the link with social reality is clear. if I want to reform the law, I’m not engaged in semantic reform, see definition; layout.

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PRAGMATIC Argument 

1. The Topos

The topos of pragmatic argumentation corresponds to topos (scheme of argument) #13 in Aristotle’s Rhetoric:

Since in most human affairs the same thing is accompanied by some bad or good result, another topic consists in employing the consequence to exhort or dissuade, accuse or defend, praise or blame. (Rhet., II, 23; Freese, p. 311)

Since positive and negative effects can always be attributed to any plan of action, public or private, under discussion or already partialy implemented, this plan can always be directly supported and praised by emphasizing its positive effects (actual or alleged), or attacked and blamed by emphasizing its negative effects (actual or alleged).

Pragmatic argumentation requires a chain of argumentative operations:

(0) A question: Should we do this?

(1) A cause-to-effect argument: the intended action coupled with an alleged causal law, will produce some mechanical effect.

(2) This effect is evaluated as positive or negative.

(3) Taking this consequence as an argument, an effect-to-cause argument transfers the positive or negative evaluation of the effect to the cause, i.e. the intended action, the positive or negative assessment of the effect,

— to recommend it, if the value judgment carried on it is positive: answer Yes to the question
— or to reject it, if it is negative: answer No to the question.

With regard to this last operation, pragmatic argumentation can be seen to be a kind of effect to cause argumentation, see consequences. In fact, it is very different from diagnostic argumentation, which reconstructs a cause from a given consequence. Pragmatic arguments do not reconstruct causes; they transfer to the cause value judgments that have already been made about the consequences.

In scientific fields, pragmatic arguments are based on established facts, “You smoke« ; they are based on a statistical-causal law “Smoking increases the risk of cancer”; and thus lead to the conclusion “Your smoking increases your risk of getting lung cancer.” Since no one likes to get cancer, negative judgment is retroactive to the cause “I (should) stop smoking.”
In socio-political fields as in everyday reasoning the causal deduction that characterizes stage (1) is reduced to a series of vaguely plausibly correlated elements, i.e., to a kind of “causal novel”, and, usually to a mere metonymic transfer “this will result in that”; see metonymy.

2. Against Pragmatic Arguments

The effect is the end, the proposed action is a means to that end, and the evaluation made of the end is immediately transferred to the means: in other words, the end justifies the means. Consequently, the pragmatic argument can be countered by an objection that rejects the means on a priori moral grounds.

2.1 Indirect refutation through unintended perverse effects

Positive pragmatic arguments are currently refuted by arguments about their negative and perverse effects.

Nouvel Observateur[1] — A.C., in the book you published with C.B., “The Domestic Dragon”, you support the legalization of drugs. Aren’t you afraid of being seen as working for the devil?
AC. — Instead of legalization, we prefer to talk about domestication, because it implies a progressive strategy […]. It will not eliminate the drug problem. But it is a more rational solution, that will eliminate the mafias, reduce crime, and also reduce all the fantasies that feed the use of drugs, and are part of the marketing of drugs.
J.PJ. — I think that legalization would create a pull effect, the consequences of which cannot be completely controlled. The more of a product is available on the market, the more potential users have access to it. This would lead to many more people taking drugs.
Le Nouvel Observateur [The New Observer], October 12-18, 1989.

A.C. argues pragmatically, emphasizing the positive effects that legalizing the drug will have, “the elimination of the mafias, the reduction of crime, and also the reduction of all fantasies”. She does not specify by what mechanism, but this is certainly not a fallacious move in a first turn of speech, considering the constraints of length in interviews.

This assertion could be countered by denying the postulated causal link, for example by arguing that “legalization will not have such reducing effects but will only shift mafias and delinquents to new occupations and fantasies to new objects ». J.-P. J. chooses to refute the assertion by claiming that  this measure would have a perverse “pull effect”, diametrically opposed to the good intentions of A.C. (note the opposition will / would in the argument and in its refutation).
This effect is called perverse because it is unexpected, unintended by the person proposing the measure. The opponent gives her credit for it: J.-P. J. does not accuse A.C. of proposing this measure so that “many more people will take drugs”.

Now, the evaluation of an effect as negative by one can be considered as positive by the other.

L1:        — But this policy would destroy our research group!
L2:        — That is exactly the plan.

This case falls under Hedge’s rules (§2.2) #5 and #6 (1838, pp. 159-162):

1. 5. No one has a right to accuse his adversary of indirect motive.
   6. The consequences of any doctrine are not to be charged on him who maintains it, unless he expressly avows them.

To assert that the opponent’s policy would lead the country to ruin and chaos is a pragmatic refutation of the policy by its negative consequences. To assert that this policy is being deliberately implemented by the opponents in order to lead the country to ruin and chaos, and thus create conditions favorable to their dictatorship, is to accuse them of conspiracy, and would justify the use of force against them. see norms; rule; evaluation.

This accusation of having a hidden agenda also refers to the strategy of refuting public good reasons with hidden intentions, see motives.

2. Against the Pragmatic Argument: Direct Refutation.

The pragmatic argument is characterized by the fact that the evaluation of the measure is indirect. In the case of drug legalization, a direct evaluation of the measure might be « This despicable tendency to solve problems by legalizing anything and everything should be stopped. So, I won’t even consider your argument. »
Another direct objection to the measure might be that drug addicts have a problem with legal and moral prohibition. It follows that, legalizing the drug would actually increase addiction.

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[1] A French weekly political and cultural weekly.

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Argument from OPPOSITES

We follow Freese and Rhys Roberts who use the term “(topos) from / of the opposite” in their translation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Ryan uses the equivalent term contrary in his discussion of the topos (Ryan 1984). Contrary is also used in logic in the pair contrary / contradictory proposition.
Since the topos plays with two pairs of opposites, the plural « topos of opposites » also seems appropriate.

In a broader sense, the terms opposition and opposite can cover a number of specific argumentative phenomena, see opposition; contradiction; contrary and contradictory.

1. Topos of opposites

Cicero recognized the enthymeme based on opposites as the archetypal enthymeme.
The topos of the opposites is the first on Aristotle’s list of rhetorical topoi:

One line of positive proof is based upon consideration of the opposite of the thing in question. Observe whether that opposite has the opposite quality. If it has not, you refute the original position. If it has, you establish it. (Rhet., II, 23; RR, p. 355)

If courage is a virtue, then cowardice is a vice.

Ryan restates the Aristotelian topos as follows

If A is the contrary of B, and C is the contrary of D,
1A — then, if C is not predicated of A, then D is not predicated of B.
1B — then if C is predicated of A, then D is predicated of B (1984, p. 97)

2. A dialectical resource

The topos of opposites is a dialectical resource,  used to evaluate claims such as « A is B », “courage is a virtue.” If the proponent holds that « A is B« , then the opponent can examine the opposites of A and B.
In a dialogical format:

Confirmation – The test using the method of opposites is as follows

Question: Is courage a virtue?
Topos of the opposites:

Opposite of courage: cowardice.
Opposite of virtue: vice.

Let’s a apply the opposite of virtue to the opposite of courage:
“Cowardice is a vice.”
This proposition seems indisputable. Therefore, we can conclude that courage is indeed a virtue.

Argumentation: “Courage is (indeed) a virtue, since cowardice is certainly a vice.”

Refutation – Let’s apply the same test to the statement “Pleasant things are (intrinsically) good. »

Question: “Are pleasant things good?”

Topos of the opposite:
Opposite of pleasant: unpleasant.
Opposite of  good: bad.
Derived statement: “Unpleasant things are bad.”

New question: “Are unpleasant things always bad?”
The answer is no, because cod liver oil is quite unpleasant to drink (in its natural state), yet it is good for your health.

Conclusion: unpleasant things are not always bad.
Some unpleasant things are good.

Argumentation: “Pleasant things are not intrinsically good, since unpleasant things can also be good.”

The topos of opposites can also be used to suggest practical actions:

Inhaling black coal dust made the miners sick, they will recover if they drink white milk

If the cold rain has given him a cold, a hot tea will do him good.

2.1 Linguistic and logical forms of the topos of opposites

Aristotle expresses the topos of opposites in a language that is ordinary in its construction but technical in its use of a specialized vocabulary: rhetorical terms such as topos or enthymeme, or grammatical ontological terms such as subject or predicate. These terms are indeterminate, meaning they are taken in their broadest sense: « a subject (a being), a property (a predicate) ». This is a a generic formulation of the topos.

The topos expresses a structure common to a set of enthymemes. Unlike other topoi, the logical form of the topos of opposites is very simple.
According to Ryan’s formulation (1984, p. 97, cf. above), this basic form is as follows:
          1A – If A is the opposite of B, and C the opposite of D,
          then, if C is not predicated of A, then D is not predicated of B.

          1B – If A is the opposite of B, and C is the opposite of D,
          then, if C is predicated of A, then D is predicated of B.

The clause “— is not predicated” can be read as “is not true, acceptable, possible, etc.”.

According to etWalton & al. (2008, p 107), the argument « from opposites » has two forms:

Positive form:
The opposite of the subject S has the property P.
Therefore, S has the property non-P (the opposite of the property P).

Negative form:
The opposite of the subject S has the property non P
Therefore, S has the property P (the opposite of the property non P)

In practice, the « logical form » is obtained by replacing the indefinite terms (the variables), with letters. The original proposition is written in the standard form of the analyzed propositions, « A is C » (Ryan), or « S is P » (Walton). This shorthand is, very useful because it avoids the complicated formulations that are sometimes necessary to correctly express coreference.
A « logical form », in the strong sense, would be a form that could be used in a logical calculation. But the only operation here is the actualization of the generic form (topos) into a specified form (enthymeme).

2.2 Is the topos of opposites fallacious in itself?

The topos of opposites is logically fallacious

The phrase « is not predicated” can be read as “is not true, acceptable, possible etc. »
Applied to the logical implication, « A implies B« , the topos validates the conclusion « not P implies not Q« . A sufficient condition is mistakenly considered to be necessary and sufficient. So, the conclusion is not « quasi-logical », but simply false, as a case of a negation of the antecedent (modus tollens), see Deduction.

The topos of opposites is conditionally valid

Consider an opaque box: 1) It contains two kinds of objects, cubes and spheres. 2) These objects are either red or green (or exclusive). 3) objects of the same shape have the same color.
An observer pulls an object out of the box: it is a ball, and it is green.
In this case, a ball is a non-cube, and a non-green object is red. We can safely conclude that the balls are green; and that the non balls (cubes) are non green (i.e., red).

2.3 The topos of the opposites in literature

The topos of the opposites can be found in literary passages, where it serves as poetic oratorical amplification without losing its argumentative value of confirmation.

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, [1667], Satan leads the war against the angels, and has just suffered a cruel defeat. He calls “his potentates to council”, and explains to their assembly how a new weapon of his invention — gunpowder and cannons — will enable them to take their revenge.

He ended, and his words their drooping cheer
Enlighten’d, and their languish’d hope reviv’d
Th’invention all admir’d, and each how he
To be th’inventor mifs’d; so easy’ it feemed
Once found, which yet unfound moft would have thought
Impossible.
Milton, Paradise Lost, [1667], Book VI, 498-501; (My italics) [1].

The same conclusion applies to Columbus’ egg: « what seemed impossible before seems easy after. »

2. How does the topos apply?

In the preceding cases, the topos is quite easy to apply, because it operates on the basic linguistic structure “A is B” (as in the previous cases), which can be easily transformed into “Non A is non B”.

The topos is also easy to identify, when the final formulation of the argumentation “A is B, therefore not-A is not-B”, makes the relationship between the opposites transparent.

In other cases, the topos is more deeply embedded in the discourse, and its perception and reconstruction are more complex. In all cases, simple or complex, an argument is needed to show that a given passage corresponds to such and such a specific type of argument, see waste; argument scheme. For example, how can we decide whether the following passage is structured by the topos of opposites (i.e., corresponds to an occurrence of the topos of opposites)?

It took billions of years and ideal conditions before humans appeared on the planet, maybe one global warming will be enough to make it disappear. (Original formulation)

This is clearly an inferential structure, moving from a categorical statement about the past to a restricted statement about the future:

E1, maybe E2

The corresponding Toulminian structure is « Data, SO, Modal, Claim. » The two related statements have the same structure, and express consecutions. This parallelism bodes well for the occurrence of the topos of the opposites.
The structure to be considered for the operation is not the simple grammatical structure « S is P », but rather the consecutive structure:

« Conditions, Result« , « C resulted in R« , or « C (resultative) R. »

Do these C and R contain opposite predications about opposite subjects?

“It took billions of years and ideal conditions before humans appeared on the planet.”
It took B before A = B was necessary for A.
Billions of years and ideal conditions ==> (resulted in) humans appearing on the planet.
CONDITION C1  ==>   RESULT R1

“Maybe one global warming will be enough to make it disappear”.
Maybe W will be enough for D
One global warming ==> will make humans disappear from the planet.
CONDITION C2]    ==> RESULT R2

The opposites are not to be sought in a simple predicative structure, but rather in the two parallel structures, “C [results in] R”. The results R1 and R2 are clearly opposites:

Humans appeared on the planet.
to make [humanity] disappear.

Are their respective conditions in the same relationship? Condition C2, “one global warming” cannot be self-evidently opposed to condition C1, “it took billions of years and ideal conditions.” Nevertheless, their argumentative orientations are clearly opposed:

(i) C1, it took billions of years and ideal conditions before …

— Billions of years leads to conclusions like “that’s a long time”
— ideal conditions leads to conclusions like “it’s rare, difficult to obtain”
— The construction “it takes X(time) to do Y” is oriented toward “it’s a lot (of time)”.

These three orientations converge to give rise to the global conclusion, “This is a very complex process.”

(ii) Conversely, C2 is oriented toward a class of conclusions of the type: “this is a very simple process”:

— The determiner “one” is oriented towards uniqueness, “just one”, and simplicity.
— Will be enough is oriented toward limitation, such as “not more than”, or “less than expected”, for a given performance.

If this reconstruction is acceptable, then the following argumentative structure is attributed to the discourse:

It was really complicated to produce R,
so, maybe, it will be very easy for R to disappear.

These examples also suggest that the classical Aristotelian formulation of the topos may be oversimplified.

3. Trivial and non-trivial conclusions provided by the topos

The use of the topos of opposites is a semantic reflex. Reasoning from opposites is a basic way of thinking, much like causal reasoning, or reasoning by analogy or by definition. Reasoning from opposites may seem to produce commonplace conclusions, empty because analytical reformulations of the original proposition, when both terms are equally obvious.

Nevertheless, even in this case the topos helps to clarify the meaning of the words, which is no less necessary in philosophy than in general disputes:

Temperance is beneficial; for licentiousness is hurtful. (Aristotle, Rhet., II, 23; RR, p. 355)

There are, however, cases in which the “opposite reflex” may, or must, be inhibited: If a prayer says “Peace to those who love you”, should we apply the topos and conclude something like “War to those who don’t”?

Let us consider the following arguments based on the opposites:

If war is the cause of our present problems, then peace is what we need to set things right. (Ibid.)
Those who plunged the country into crisis may not be the best people to lead us out of it.
We cannot trust the same failed market mechanisms to successfully steer the country out of this crisis (after Linguee, 25-10-2015).

These conclusions are countered with the argument that « we failed because of a lack of determination and radicalism »:

If we are in trouble, it is because we just have only fought a limited war; this limited war is the cause of our current difficulties, an all-out war is what we need to put things right again; only an all-out victory will bring us peace.

Our policy has not failed, you have prevented us from actually implementing it

The conclusion of the following example is not trivial:

For even not evil-doers should / Anger us if they meant not what they did / Then can we owe no gratitude to such / As were constrained to do the good they did us. (Aristotle, Rhet., II, 23; RR, p. 355)

The following one is also quite suggestive:

Since in this world liars may win belief, / Be sure of the opposite likewise – that this world / Hears many a true word and believes it not (id., p. 357).

The opposites reflex is a typical example of how argumentation leads us to see things from a different perspective, under a different formulation; or, as Grize would say, in a different light, see Schematization.

4. A transcultural topos

As a semantic reflex, the topos of opposites combines well with analogical reasoning. Like the topos a fortiori, the topos of opposites has cross-cultural validity. The following two examples come from the Chinese tradition.

Wang Chung, Four Things to be Avoided. [2]

There are four things which, according to public opinion, must be avoided by all means. The first is to build an annex to a building on the west side, for such an annex is held to be inauspicious, and being so, is followed by a case of death. Owing to this apprehension, nobody in the world would dare to build facing the west. This prohibition dates from days of yore.  […]
On all the four sides of a house there is earth; how is it that three sides are not looked upon as of ill omen, and only an annex in the west is said to be unpropitious? How could such an annex be injurious to the body of earth. or hurtful to the spirit of the house? In case an annex in the west be unpropitious, would a demolition there be a good augury? Or, if an annex in the west be inauspicious, would it be a lucky omen in the east? For if there be something inauspicious, there must also be something auspicious, as bad luck has good luck as its correlate. […]

Han Fei Tzu. “Precautions within the palace”. [3]

Moreover, whether one is ruler of a state of ten thousand chariots or of a thousand only, it is quite likely that his consort, his concubines, or the son he has designated as heir to his throne will wish for his early death. How do I know this is so? A wife is not bound to her husband by any ties of blood. If he loves her, she remains close to him; if not she becomes estranged. The saying goes, “if the mother is favored, the son will be embraced”. But if this is so, then the opposite must be, “if the mother is despised, the son will be cast away.”

5. A contrario

Latin contrarius, “contrary”. Two constructions can be used to refer to the argument, with the same meaning:
— the Latin preposition a: argument a contrario sensu, “by the opposite meaning”
— or, less commonly, the Latin preposition ex: “complecti ex contrario” “conclude on the basis of the opposite meaning” (Cicero, quoted in Dicolat, art. Complector).
S. Latin labels

The label “argument a contrario” can be used with the meaning of “inversion”, to refer to the various kinds of argumentations based on contradiction, S. Contradiction.

Argumentation from the opposites, as defined in law, corresponds to one kind of argumentation a contrario:

A discursive process according to which given a legal proposition asserting an obligation (or other normative qualification) of a subject (or a class of subjects), in the absence of any other express provision, we must exclude the validity of another legal proposition asserting the same obligation (or other normative qualification) with respect to any other subject (or class of subjects)” (Tarello 1972, p. 104).
Thus, if a provision requires all young men, who have reached the age of 20, to perform their military service, it will be concluded, a contrario, that young girls are not subject to the same obligation. (Perelman 1979, p. 55)

When a rule explicitly refers to a category of things, then it does not apply to the things that do not belong to that category. The rule applies only in the defined domain, to all the specified things, and only to them.
This is an application of Grice’s rule of quantity, which states that the speaker must provide just the necessary amount of information, no more and no less, see Cooperative principle.

This rule assumes that the legal system of law is well designed and stable, see systemic principle. In a period of social change and revision of the law, the argumentation a pari will be opposed to argumentation on the opposites. Women fighting for gender equality will refuse to contrast their status with that of men, and will demand that laws be applied a pari, be they beneficial (voting rights) or quite possibly less attractive (military service).

There is no paradox in the fact that a pari / a contrario argumentation can be applied to the same material situation. Legal issues are not unanimous, and cannot be resolved by the automatic application of an algorithm; their discussion involves historical considerations, values and affects.

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[1] Edinburgh: Donaldson.
[2] Wang Chung, Four Things to be Avoided. In Lun-hêng, “Balanced Discussions”, Book XXIII, Ch. III, 68. Translation and notes by Alfred Forke, Leipzig, 1906. Reprinted by Paragon Book Gallery, New York, 1962. (p. 793-794)
Quoted from http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/wang_chung/lunheng/wangchung_lunheng.pdf
[3] Han Fei Tzu. Basic Writings. Section 17, “Precautions within the Palace”. Translated by Burton Watson. New York, London, Columbia University Press, 1964. P. 84-85.

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OPPOSITION

The relationship of opposition between (opposite) words is roughly equivalent to the lexical relationship of antonymy. These terms cover a number of classical lexical oppositions such as:

Male / female: terms in a two-dimensional opposition (classical gender regime).
Obligatory / permissible / forbidden: terms in a multidimensional opposition.
Sight / blindness: terms in a possession / deprivation relation.
Mother / son: correlative terms.

These relations of opposition are exploited in various argumentative maneuvers, involving negation,and/or terms and propositions containing opposite terms:

– Negation, see denying.
– Rhetorical figures of opposition, see opposition (in French).
– Opposition between terms, see correlative terms.
– Opposition between propositions: see contradiction; contrary and contradictory
– The argument scheme of the opposites predicates a contrary predicate upon a contrary subject, see argumentative scale.
— The refutation by the observation of the opposite rejects the predication “A is P” based on the constatation that the opposite predicate, Q, is actually true of A, see refutation.

Refutation and destruction by an opposite

A statement of fact admitting an opposite can be refuted by establishing that its opposite is true, see opposite, opposition.

A statement can be invalidated by the use of a misleading opposite.
It only makes sense to attribute a quality to an entity if it also makes sense to attribute  the opposite quality to the same entity.

If entity A cannot receive the predicate O1, then it cannot receive its opposite O2, Friendly and unfriendly are opposites.
L1: – Peter acted in a friendly way (so you should be grateful to him.
L2: – To say he acted in a friendly way, he must have had  the possibility of acting in an unfriendly way.

It is ironic to praise poor people for their sobriety because to be praised for sobriety, they must first have enough to eat.
Who can say that he’s brave if he’s never had the chance to prove it?
He can’t say otherwise, so what he says isn’t relevant.

This can be generalized. For a statement to provide meaningful information in a given situation, the opposite statement must also be meaningful.

In today’s Le Figaro , the CEO of EDF claims that the French nuclear power plants are in very good condition. It’s hard to imagine him saying  he could have said the opposite. (France Culture Radio News, 04/18/2011; the CEO of EDF is in charge of the French nuclear park).

This is a very powerful tool for destroying discourse. An entire argument can be dismissed on this basis. He cannot speak otherwise because of his position: “As a teacher, you have to speak in this way.”

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