1. Arguing for P weakens P

Arguing for P weakens P, firstly in virtue of the grounds substantiating the discourse against the arguments, which is often the same as the discourse against the debate, S. Debate. This discourse develops as follows:

People don’t accept living in doubt, not to being committed to some cause, not knowing, not having an opinion on everything, not challenging the other’s opinions. They are ready to argue for or against all and everything. They relish dispute, and are inherently unable to dispute, as shown by the Port-Royal philosophers. Disputes are just 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 defend is the transparent mask of the will to power. Our most entrenched opinions are not grounded in argument, but in our reptilian brain, we don’t argue, we just reformulate our opinions. Conclusion: let us rather strive to clearly say what we have to say, etc., etc.

Secondly, arguing for P weakens P because argument-based knowledge is inferential, i.e., indirect knowledge. Indirect knowledge is frequently considered inferior to direct knowledge, which is expressed in a simple, plain statement of fact, especially to direct, revelation-based religious knowledge, S. Self-Evidence. Newman expressed this idea in particularly energetic words, first in the epigraph of his Grammar of Assent (1870), taken from St. Ambrose, “it did not please God to save his people through dialectic” (“Non in dialecticà complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum”), 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. (Id., p. 73)

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

Arguing along the same line, Thomas Aquinas, when discussing the question of “whether one ought to dispute with unbelievers in public?”, envisages the following objection to a positive answer:

Objection 3: Further, 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 mirrored in counter-arguments, attested or conceivable. The same doubt is cast upon both positions. This explains the existence of the paradoxes of argumentation: to contest a position is both to accept that one’s own becomes debatable and to acknowledge the attacked position as debatable. This explains why the first step in the process of legitimizing a new position involves opening a debate about it and, to do so, one must first find some opponents.

2. Producing a question legitimates the variety of answers

Should there be a “scientific and public debate” on the issue of 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 various positions taken in this debate.

Roger Garaudy has a persisting doubt about the existence of gas chambers
Later in the book, Roger Garaudy evokes Shoah, the film of Claude Lanzmann, which he considers a “stinker”. ‘You are talking about “Shoah business”, you say that this film only brings testimonials without demonstration. This is a way of saying that the gas chambers do not exist’, suggests the President [of the Court]. ‘Certainly not’ protests Roger Garaudy. ‘Until a scientific and public debate is held on the issue, doubt will be allowed’. (Le Monde, 11-12 January 1998, p. 7)

Here, Garaudy claims the third party position. He may even say that the president fallaciously argues from ignorance — saying that P is not proved is not claiming that non-P. The refutation must take into account the contextual knowledge: here the affirmation is false, because the historical and scientific work is done, has been published and libraries stay opened late into the night. We are exactly in the situation of the Aristotelian indisputability, S. Conditions of Discussion.

3. Refuting P reinforces P; but not to, even more

To be criticized is much better than to be ignored. Being at the center of a polemic may be an ideal and comfortable position. Seeking somebody who can put forward an argument that contradicts one’s own is an argumentative strategy which gives initial legitimacy to a viewpoint. Refuting and opposing counter-arguments generates a question where there was none, and this question, by feedback, legitimizes all the speeches that give it an answer. The proponent is weak since 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 as follows in the case of the negationist discourse.

I long hesitated before writing these pages on 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 multiple, but of unequal value. […] Finally, was not replying accrediting the idea that there was indeed debate, and to publicize a man who is passionately greedy of it? […]
This is the last objection that is actually the most serious one. […] It is also true that attempting to debate would be to admit the inadmissible argument of the two “historical schools”, the “revisionist” and the “exterminationist”. There would be, as is expressed a leaflet of October 1980, “supporters of the existence of homicide gas chambers” and the others, as there are supporters of a high chronology and of a low chronology for the tyrants of Corinth. […]
Since the day that R. Faurisson, a duly qualified academic, a professor at a leading university, was first allowed to write 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 if some people wanted to hide something from them. Hence the decision made by Les Temps modernes¹ and by Esprit¹ to reply.
But how to reply, since the discussion is impossible? We have to reply as we do with 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, to unmask the make-believe.
Pierre Vidal-Naquet, [A Paper Eichmann], 1987.[2]

4. A weak refutation reinforces the attacked position

According to the law of weakness, a weak argument for a conclusion is an argument for the opposite conclusion, S. Argumentative Scale. Symmetrically, a weak refutation of a thesis reinforces this same thesis.

Gérard Chauvy appears in court for a libel against Raymond and Lucie Aubrac, two leaders of the French Resistance against the Nazis.
He quoted a brief from Klaus Barbie describing them as members of the resistance turned into double agents.
Gérard Chauvy, who has said that he discovered Klaus Barbie’s memoir in 1991, was the first to give these sixty pages, which had, until then, being “circulating under the cloak”, a broad public dissemination, reproducing them in extenso in the annexes of his work. Does he share this thesis, as the civil party maintains? Are his apparent reservations about this memoir but one more maneuver to accredit it? In any case, this document is at the center of the debate. (Le Monde, 7 February 1998, p. 10; my emphasis).

5. A strong refutation reinforces the attacked position

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

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

---

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

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

---

 

The contrast between a rhetoric of figures and a rhetoric of arguments is a remainder and an exacerbation of the classical distinction between the two fundamental production stages of rhetorical discourse, the research of arguments and their verbal expression. The rupture between inventio and elocutio is generally attributed to Ramus (Ong, 1958). Only the elocutio and the actio would fall within the realm of rhetoric, the inventio, the dispositio and the memoria being independently re-assigned to thought (cognition). This opposition, which quickly became popular, between, on the one hand, an ornate, figurative, rhetorical discourse, and, on the other hand, an argumentative discourse ideally free from subjectivity or figuration, has been strongly reasserted by Locke in the modern perspective of a discourse aimed at the development of 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?

The whole enterprise of rhetoric, as the art of constructing a persuasive discourse, has been rejected in the name of a transcendental truth, by Socrates, as staged by Plato in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, S. Argumentation (1); Persuasion; Probable. In the modern age, this age-old criticism was strengthened by a new wave of criticism developed on behalf of scientific discourse. Rhetorical discourse is now routinely belittled as substituting the search for pleasure for the search for truth. Rhetoric is seen to fulfill a perverse desire for ornament, and, to root out this evil, ornament, and therefore figures, should be eliminated.

Persuasive rhetoric is therefore reconstructed as an ornate discourse, a discourse of passion, perverse and magical. The figures and the tropes are defined within the framework of the ornatus, then, by synecdoche, the elocutio is assimilated to the ornatus, and finally rhetoric itself is reduced to the elocutio. It is this ornamental vision of a “makeup rhetoric” that has been opposed to the natural, healthy discourse of reasonable argument, S. Verbiage. The following extract from Locke serves as an authoritative reference in discourses attacking 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 the issue here is 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). But this observation does not directly invalidate Locke’s thesis, for it is possible to consider that this thesis deals with ordinary language and its capacity to carry the new mathematical forms of scientific knowledge. In fact, in the modern age, the language in which “we preserve and develop truth and knowledge” is no longer natural language, but the languages ​​of calculation. Nevertheless, de Man rightly emphasizes the contradictory nature of an undertaking that would engage in an analysis of reasoning in natural language by first condemning natural language.

2. Against ornate discourse

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

2.1 Fallacy of irrelevance and inconsistency

In an unfolding argumentative discourse, all decoration is a form of entertainment, that is to say a distractor. As a result, the figures show a lack of relevance, they are fallacious by virtue of the ignorance of the question, permanently serving as “red herrings ».

The figures knowingly flout three Gricean principles, the maxims of quality, quality and relevance. To use Klinkenberg’s French term, figures are impertinences, that is, they are both “irrelevant” and “brazen” (Klinkenberg 2000; Klinkenberg 1990, p. 129-130). Moreover, they do not respect the non-contradiction principle. The metaphor is true and false, guilty of ambiguity and category mistake.

2.2 Fallacies of verbiage and emotion

The classical concept of figurative discourse is based on the possibility of choosing between two chains of signifiers to express the same idea, to refer to the same being, to the same state of the world or the same semantic content. This presupposes a superabundance of words compared with 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 opens the way to all others S. Connective.

Furthermore, the figurative form systematically favors the intricate and the rare, the exact opposite of the ordinary, simple and direct manner of speaking. And when an apparently plain form appears in such elaborate discourse, it only seems plain due to a double subtlety. The unsophisticated addressee anticipates a simple expression; the sophisticated addressee knows that this expectation will be frustrated and thus anticipates the figuration. This second-level expectation is then itself frustrated by the simplicity of the expression. The ornamental figure is offbeat, and thus produces a surprise, the prodrom to emotion, opening the way for numerous ad passiones fallacies; aesthetic emotions are banned as any other passion. This link is explicit in Locke’s quotation.

2.3 The language transparency fallacy

Taking scientific language as the norm, in order to guarantee a direct access to objects and their natural connections, the language of argument should be regulated, unambiguous, without defect or excess, exactly proportioned to the nature of things, in other words, transparent, ad judicium. The figures, which pretend to glorify the truth, in fact veil it. Ornaments are worse than fallacies; they are their source and mask.

The problem is that figures are the bones and flesh of everyday expression; to get rid of them one would have to renounce natural language and argumentation in human affairs as a whole.

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

Are the figures ornaments? The word ornament is a copy of 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 fundamental meaning. The phrase: “naves omni genere armorum ornatissimae” (C. Julius Caesar [The Gallic Wars] 3, 14, 2) translates as “boats with ample equipment [weapons and tackles]” (ibid.). Thus, an ornatus speech is a speech well equipped to fulfill its function. When dealing with a choice to be made in public affairs, a well-equipped rhetorical discourse is a well-argued discourse. The arguments are indeed part of the ornamenta, the equipment of the discourse.

Considered to be part of the discourse equipment, figures can be integrated into argument analysis, for example as instruments for the construction of objects of discourse and schematizations. In any case, they should not be seen as constituting an extraneous “level” disfiguring the pure cognitive level, but as part and parcel of all the operations constructing the argumentative discourse.

---

 

The word pathos is patterned after 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 drawn from logos and ethos. “Evidence” here means “persuasion”, in the sense of pressure and control exerted on the audience. The word pathos covers a set of socio-linguistic emotions upon which the speaker might draw in order to orient 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 presentation “ethos, logos, pathos” isolates each of these components, in particular ethos from pathos; but Quintilian understands pathos and ethos as two varieties 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 main complementary oppositions between ethos and pathos.

ethos	pathos
has its source in the orator’s character	has its source in the occasion
makes the speaker likeable	causes a disturbance in the audience
inclines the audience to benevolence	entails, 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 kinds of feelings, the ethos organizes the ongoing thymic basic tonality of the discourse, upon which the speaker will base the phasic variations of intensity which characterize episodes of emotion. The doses of ethos and pathos must be carefully balanced according to the objectives of the discourse.

1.2 The pathos: a bundle of emotions

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

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

This enumeration does not cover all the political and judicial 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 Manipulating through emotions

The question of the impact of emotion on judgment is that of the equilibrium between logo-ic demonstration on the one side, and ethotic and pathemic pressures on the other side. Logical arguments transform the representations, and representations determine the will; but, in some situations, pathos can nonetheless outweigh the will. This makes pathos something mysterious and powerful, a little bit superhuman, a little bit demonic. Classical texts abound in such declarations opposing the pathos to the logos, that is emotions to reason and judgment, in terms of their decision-making capacity:

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 resounding passage, Quintilian opposes the pedestrian character of argument to 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 praises of passionate speech as capable of swaying the judge away from reality and truth is the source of the still prevailing manipulative vision of rhetoric.

2. Rhetoric and magic

One may be taken aback by such an open acknowledgement of the cynical, immoral and manipulative character of rhetorical pathemic persuasion. But one can remain skeptical as to the very possibility of such manipulation. Firstly such claims must be taken with a pinch of salt. They can be read as a form of professional advertisement intended to magnify the powers of the professional rhetorician, and push up course fees: “follow my teaching, and you’ll become a magician of spoken word!”.

More important, perhaps, as Romilly points out when referring to Gorgias, is the fact that these claims seem to transfer the virtues attributed to magic speech to emotional rhetorical speech: “what can we say about that, except that, by ways that seem irrational, the words 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, had actually the power to alter the very physical perception of reality:

For me she [= the witch] made chants you can use to deceive.
Sing them thrice, and spit thrice when you have sung.
Then he [= your husband] cannot believe anyone about us, not 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)

Note that the defeated Pericles addresses his persuasive speech to the public, not to his victorious opponent, who holds him firmly on the ground. The argumentative situation is in fact a three-pole situation, involving the speaker, the adversary and the judge(s), S. Roles.

Whatever may be, these views express an age-old classical and popular theory of the functioning of the human mind, for which emotion, will and action oppose, distort and victoriously compete with reason, understanding and contemplation.

In contrast with all these declarations, 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; to distort the rule is harmful not only to others and to the world, but first to oneself; error is more fundamental than deceit.

3. Emotion, from proof to fallacy

The standard theory of fallacies considers affects as the major pollutant of rational discursive behavior; to be valid, the argumentative discourse should be an-emotional. Pathos, the essential component of rhetorical argumentation, is therefore the typical target of this criticism. The “passions” are collected into a family of ad passiones fallacies, and these are to be eliminated. This is an essential point of articulation and opposition between rhetorical and logical-epistemic argumentation. With the capacity to subvert the mind and bypass rational reflection, emotions are considered to be the most powerful of rhetorical tools and, for the same reason, they are prohibited by within critical argumentation.

3.1 Ad passiones arguments

The standard theory of fallacies considers that reason risks being overshadowed wherever emotion is allowed to blossom in discourse:

I add finally, when an Argument is borrowed from any Topic which are suited to engage the Inclinations and Passions of the Hearers on the side of the Speaker, rather than to convince the Judgment, this is Argumentum ad passiones, an Address to the Passions: or, if it be made publicly, ’tis called an Appeal to the People. (Watts, Logick, 1725, quoted in Hamblin 1970, p. 164; capitalized in the text).

In an argumentative situation, emotions, like fallacies, tend to be the emotion of the other, the opponent: “I try to remain cool and reasonable, why are you getting so excited?”. This is a current strategy in controversies on scientific as well as on political topics (Doury 2000). It can be considered to be a typical case of ad fallaciam argument, S. Evaluation.

These sophisms of passion are not included in the original Aristotelian list, S. Fallacy (2). The label “ad + Latin Name” was widely used in modern times to refer to “fallacies of emotion”, and traces of this use are still to be found. The ad passiones herbarium is well supplied: as shown by Hamblin’s list of fallacious arguments in ad: the labels making a clear and direct reference to the affects have been underlined.

The argumentum ad hominem, the argumentum ad verecundiam, the argumentum ad misericordiam, and the argumenta ad ignorantiam, populum, baculum, passiones, superstitionem, imaginationem, invidiam (envy), crumenam (purse), quietem (repose, conservatism), metum (fear), fidem (faith), socordiam (weak-mindedness), superbiam (pride), odium (hatred), amicitiam (friendship), ludicrum (dramatics), captandum vulgus (playing for the gallery), fulmen [thunderbolt], vertiginem (dizziness)) and a carcere (from prison). We feel like adding: ad nauseam but even this has been suggested before. (Hamblin, 1970, p. 41)

This list contains not only emotional arguments: for example, the appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam) is an epistemic, not an emotional argument. Others designate various forms of appeal to subjectivity, but the majority of the labels mentioned refers to personal interests and have a clear emotional content. Nonetheless, the concept of emotional language and the analytical method backing the diagnostic of these ad passiones fallacious appeals remain unclear.

The literature on fallacies mentions a dozen fallacies involving emotions, mainly fallacies in ad; as permitted by the generic ad passiones label, this list can be expanded to include all emotions.

— fear, designated either directly (ad metum) or metonymically by the instrument of threat, ad baculum, a carcere, ad fulmen, ad crumenam
— respectful fear, ad reverentiam
— affection, love, friendship, ad amicitiam
— joy, gaiety, laughter: ad captandum vulgus; ad ludicrum; ad ridiculum
— pride, vanity, ad superbiam
— calm, laziness, tranquility, ad quietem
— envy, ad invidiam
— popular feeling, ad populum
— indignation, anger, hatred: ad odium; ad personam
— modesty: ad verecundiam
— pity: ad misericordiam.

It should be pointed out that basic emotions mingle with vices (pride, envy, hatred, laziness) and virtues (pity, modesty, friendship), which are evaluated emotional states.

One can see that the list of emotions composing the pathos in the preceding paragraph and the list of emotions stigmatized as fallacies, largely overlap. The pathemic proofs of rhetoric have become the sophisms ad passiones in the modern standard fallacy theory.

3.2 Four “emotional fallacies”:
ad hominem, ad baculum, ad populum, ad ignoratiam

All emotions can intervene in ordinary argumentative speech, but not all of these emotions have received the same attention, the focus being placed on the emotional and subjective character of the following four fallacies.

— Arguments attacking the opponent, and other manifestations of contempt, S. Personal Attack; Dismissal. Ad hominem involves epistemic subjectivity, not emotions.

— The call to popular feelings in populist argumentation corresponds to a complex range of positive or negative emotional movements: the public is amused, enthusiastic, pleased, ashamed; the speech plays on its pride, vanity, incites hatred, etc., S. Ad Populum; Laughter, Irony.

— Ad baculum argument relies on various forms of threat or intimidation. Fear, possibly respectful, is opposed to the positive emotion of hope, created by the promise of a reward, S. Threat.

— The appeal to pity, ad misericordiam, may serve as a fundamental example of the role of emotion in argumentation. Firstly, the speaker S has to back his or her appeal to pity, justifications are necessary to produce in the listener L a movement of pity. Then, L will take his or her well-constructed emotion as a good reason to help L, S. Emotion.

In conclusion, rhetoric and argumentation can be opposed on the basis of their relation to affects. If there is a concept of argument defined within rhetoric (inventio), there is also a concept of argument defined against rhetoric. Rhetoric is oriented towards discourse production, whilst argumentation is oriented towards the critical reception of discourse. Confronting proactive, aggressive, rhetorical precepts, critical argumentation is defensive.

4. Emotion, rationality and action

The field of argumentation is built on the rejection of the evidence that rhetoric considers the strongest: the ethotic and pathemic proofs. This an-emotional vision of argumentation corresponds to a classical and popular vision of the functioning of the human mind, which opposes reason, understanding, and contemplation respectively to emotion, will and action. The following passage is a synthesis of this representation:

Hitherto we have dealt with the proofs of truth, which constrains human understanding when it knows them, and for this they are effective in persuading men accustomed to follow reason. But they are incapable of compelling the will to follow them, since, like Medea, according to Ovid, “I see and approve the best; I follow the worst.” This arises from the misuse of the passions of the soul, and therefore we must deal with them in so far as they produce persuasion, and this in the popular manner, and not with all this subtlety possible if one treated philosophically. (Mayans and Siscar 1786, p. 144)

Two functions are assigned to the “passions”: they alter the perception of reality, put knowledge between parenthesis and, in so doing, give a decisive impulse to action. This vision or emotion as a stimulus to action seems to be grounded in an etymological argument. The word emotion derives from Lat. emovere, e- (ex-) “out of” and movere, “to move”; an emotion is something that “sets people in motion”. In any case, passions are the almighty manipulative instrument of action-oriented discourse favored by rhetoric, and the main enemy of truth oriented discourse favored by logicians.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the psychologists Fraisse & Piaget considered that emotion is not an organized reaction but a disorder of conduct, resulting in a “decrease in the level of performance” (1968, p. 98):

People get angry when they substitute violent words and gestures for efforts to find a solution to the difficulties they experience (solving a conflict, overcoming an obstacle). […] [Anger] is also a response to the situation (hitting an object or a person who resists you), but the level of that response is lower than it should be, given the standards of a given culture. (Ibid.)

According to this vision, emotion would trigger low-quality behavior, and therefore poor reasoning. In interaction, it would be necessarily manipulative: the candidate cries in an effort to distract the examiner from his or her shortcomings, magically reframing the examination situation into a more interpersonal, private, relation.

This leads to a kind of paradox: for rhetoricians, emotions lead to action while psychologists on the other hand, consider that emotions deteriorate action. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca share this vision of emotions as “obstacles” to reason, and thus consider emotions to be incompatible with sound argument. Yet they retain the motivational quality of emotion in order to explain the relevance of argumentative discourse for action. The solution is found in a dissociation^@ opposing emotions to values:

We should point out that the passions as obstacles must not be confused with the passions that provide a support for a positive argument. The latter will generally be designated by a less pejorative term, such as value, for instance. (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca [1958], p. 475 ; my emphasis)

By this skillful operation, emotions are disposed of, and these remain pejoratively marked as obstacles to reason, while their dynamic potential is transferred to values. So the effect of argument can be extended beyond the mere production of mental persuasion to become the determiner of action,  (id., p. 45); S. Persuasion

5. Emotion, alexithymia and everyday rationality

If emotions are seen as the ideal manipulative tool, the equation “emotion = fallacy” seems more than justified, so, extending the example of scientific language to ordinary linguistic practices, a solution can be found in the pure and simple elimination of emotions. But the price to pay for the elimination of emotions from ordinary discourse is high: in everyday circumstances, the use of an-emotional discourse is actually considered to be the symptom of a mental disturbance, alexithymia. The word alexithymia is composed of three lexemes a-lexis-thymos, “lack – of words – for emotion”; alexithymic language is defined as a language from which all expression of feelings and emotions is banished:

Alexithymia: term proposed by Sifneos to describe patients predisposed to psychosomatic disorders and characterized by: 1) the inability to verbally express the affects; 2) the poverty of imaginary life; (3) the tendency to resort to action; and (4) the tendency to focus on the material and objective aspects of events, situations and relationships. (Cosnier 1994, p. 160)

Such a discourse which is deprived of emotion is reduced to the expression of operational thinking, mirroring, “a mental mode of functioning organized on the purely factual aspects of everyday life. The discourse that makes it possible to spot it is characterized by objectivity and ignores any fantasy, emotional expression or subjective evaluation” (id., p. 141).

Similarly, the repression of affect by the neurotic personality can lead to the same result. From a neurobiological perspective, Damasio has shown that a theory of pure logical reasoning, leaving aside the emotions, cannot account for the way people actually deal with everyday issues:

The ‘high-reason’ view, which is none other than the common­ sense view, assumes that when we are at our decision-making best, we are the pride and joy of Plato, Descartes and Kant. Formal logic will, by itself, get us to the best available solution for any problem. An important aspect of the rationalist conception is that to obtain the best results, emotions must be kept out. Rational processing must be unencumbered by passion. (1994, p. 171)

Pure reasoning on everyday affairs can actually be observed in patients having suffered prefrontal damages:

What the experience with patients such as Elliot suggests is that the cool strategy advocated by Kant, among others, has far more to do with the way patients with prefrontal damage go about deciding than with how normals usually operate. (Id., p. 172)

The exclusion of subjectivity and emotions risks transforming argumentation into an operative alexithymic practice. As far as argumentation studies are interested in the treatment of everyday problems in common language, they cannot adopt as ideal discourse the discourse of neurotic, alexithymic or brain damaged individuals. The question of how emotions develop in argumentative discourse demands much more than simple a priori censorship. The adequate level of emotionality will be one of the by-product of a felicitous argumentative exchange.

---

[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.

---

 

Lat. ad personam, Lat. persona referring to the actor’s mask, corresponding to the interactional face or social role of the person, not precisely to his or her personal identity.

The Latin label ad personam is also used to refer to personal attacks. Personal attacks can target all aspects of the person, public or private, including his or her human dignity. Such attacks flout the rules of politeness and all ethical prohibitions that protect the individual, as a unique human being.

The personal attack against the adversary is, in principle, quite distinct from the ad hominem attack. The latter refers to a marked contradiction found between the positions taken by the opponent and his or hers beliefs or behavior, whereas personal attack bypasses the opponent’s positions, smearing the opponent in order to devalue the argument itself. Nonetheless the label ad hominem is frequently used to refer to personal attacks.

1. Open and covered attacks 

Insult is the simplest form of attack ad personam: “Sir, you are only a badly educated dishonest person!”. Open personal attack can be a very efficient strategy to undermine the debate and avoid the substantial issue. The opponent will be upset, he or she will lose track of the argument and will finally resort in turn to personal attacks and insults. Third parties will then be tempted to leave the arguers to their fight, or to simply enjoy the show.

The personal attack may invoke the opponent’s private life: “you’d better take care of your children!” said to an opponent whose children are badly behaved, is a personal attack which many would consider extremely offensive. In a debate, such a personal attack might be brought in more subtly 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 rumor and the media will explain the innuendos.

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

2. Degree of relevance of the attack 

Personal attacks may be more or less relevant to the issue at stake. Consider the negative descriptions of the adversary made in the context of the argumentative question, “Should we wage war against Syldavia?”:

S1       — We must take military action against Syldavia!
S2_1   — Shut your mouth, stupid warmonger!
S2_2   — Please, stop this bullshit!
S2_3   — Poor fool, manipulated by the media!
S2_4   — Poor you, last week you couldn’t even locate Syldavia on the map!

Considering the available context, S2_1 and S2_2 are unprovoked and irrelevant attacks against the person. That is to say that they have very little relevance to the argumentative question. But in case S2_3, nothing is clear; S2 is certainly wrong in calling the opponent names, but he/she does provides an argument invalidating S1 for his or her lack of basic geopolitical knowledge. If we apply the principle “no argumentation without information”, the attack is certainly not irrelevant. A distinction must be made between calling a sensible upright citizen a fool, and calling a fool a fool. But if this were the case, all slurs and attacks would be reinterpreted as well-suited literal or metaphorical descriptions of the person; hence the general prohibition of insults.

---

 

The semantic concept of an argumentative morpheme, or orienting word, is developed by Anscombre and Ducrot as an essential part of the theory of Argumentation within Language. A morpheme (an expression) is said to be argumentative if its introduction into an utterance:

— does not modify the factual referential value of this statement (it has no quantifying function)

— modifies its argumentative orientation, that is to say, the set of conclusions compatible with this statement; the set of statements that may follow it, S. Orientation.

The concept has been applied to the linguistic description of “empty” words or “argumentative operators” such as little / a little, as well as to “full” words such as the helpful / servile pair.

1. Opposition of anti-oriented words

Consider the statements (1) “Peter is helpful” and (2) “Peter is servile”. Do these two statements describe two different kinds of behaviors, or one and the same attitude? Both positions can be argued.

(i) Statements (1) and (2) describe two behaviors. Helping one’s grandmother cut up the chicken would be helpful; accepting to carry your boss’ small suitcase would be servile. As a result, a different value is attached to each behavior; a positive value is attributed to helpfulness, whilst a negative value is placed on servility. In order to determine the nature of Peter’s behavior, one must scrutinize reality.

(ii) It can also be said that these two words describe a single behavior cast it in two different lights, i.e. two subjectivities, involving emotions and value judgments. I judge this behavior positively, and I say, “Peter is helpful”; I judge it negatively, and claim, “Peter is servile”. Reality says nothing about helpfulness or servility. The origin of the distinction is not grounded in reality, but in the active structuring operated by the speaker’s perception.

Statements (1) and (2) create opposed discursive expectations within the listener: Helpful is a recommendation, “A nice guy!”, while servile is a rejection, “I can’t bear him”.

If the job implies contacts with a person concerned specifically about deferential behavior, then Peter is servile might also serve as an ironic recommendation, encompassing the disapproval of the two people: “they will make a nice pair”.

These opposed orientations correspond to the rhetorical phenomenon known as paradiastole, “the world moves backwards, words have lost their meaning: the miser is economical, the unconscious courageous”; they are interpreted as the expression of linguistic bias by normative theories of logical inspiration. S. Orientation Reversal.

Antithetical designations — The opposition discourse vs. counter-discourse is sometimes reflected in the morphology of words, as in the previous case, S. Antithesis; Derivatives; Ambiguity:

disputation vs. disputatiousness
politician vs. politico
philosopher vs. philosophizer
scientific vs. scientistic

In general, parties will use different terms to refer to beings at the center of the debate: you are the persecutor, I am the victim; he is the bad rich man, I am the poor but honest person; your approach is scientistic while mine is scientific, S. Discursive Object.

According to what criteria can I categorize this individual 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 his acts be considered (categorized) as a coward act of terrorism or as a heroic act of resistance? Shall we say that everyone has dirty hands and that everything depends on the speaker’s partisan options? Humanity can and does establish universal criteria for deciding who is who, such as “targeting civilians; using and targeting children”, “torturing people”, S. Categorization.

2. Adverbial orientation operators

2.1 Even

The adverb even is argumentative in:

Leo has a bachelor’s degree and even a Master’s degree.

Statements “ p, and even p’ ” are characterized by their relative position on an argument scale:

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

In other words, even statements are inherently argumentative; they are oriented towards a conclusion r, that can be recovered from the context; they coordinate two arguments p and p’ supporting this conclusion; and they hierarchize those two statements, presenting p’ as stronger than p.

Statement (1) is argumentative; it coordinates two arguments “Leo has a bachelor’s degree” and “Leo has a Master’s degree”; both are oriented towards a conclusion, for example “Leo can teach some mathematics”; and it considers that the latter “Leo has a Master’s degree” is a stronger argument than the former for this same conclusion. This gradation can be represented as follows on an argument scale:

The relative positions of p and p’ on that scale depend on the speaker:

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

Some gastronomes may not consider cheese pasta to be an essential component of a great meal.

2.2 Too

The theory of scales is governed by a “plus” principle: the higher one is on the scale, the closer one is to the conclusion. But this principle leads to a paradox:

You reluctantly bathe in water with a temperature of twenty-two degrees, you’d be happier to bathe in water at twenty-five, at thirty, or even warmer. The hotter the water, the better for you; so you really should try bathing directly in the kettle.

Too often inverts the argumentative orientation:

S1       — that’s cheap, buy it.
S2       — (Precisely) that’s too cheap.

And sometimes 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 Leo is almost on time, he’s not on time. Nonetheless, one can say:

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

In other words, “almost on time” is co-oriented with “on time”. The argumentative orientation of an almost utterance might be rejected by an inflexible superior, who rejects the positive framing being imposed upon him. The superior applies the topos of the letter of the law, S. Strict meaning:

So you do 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. When transporting a seriously ill patient, the nurse might urge the ambulance driver: “hurry, he is almost dead” but the nurse would not say, “hurry, he is dead”. Yet, in an alternative scenario, say that of a rather laborious assassination, the murderer can tell his accomplice, “hurry up, he is almost dead, and you still haven’t found anything to wrap his body in”, and a fortiori “hurry up, he is dead, etc.”

The permutation almost / hardly reverses the argumentative orientation of the statements in which they enter:

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

The appeal to the strict meaning is opposed to the raising of the thresholds produced by almost and scarcely, S. Strict Meaning.

2.4 Little / A Little

These two adverbs give opposing argumentative orientations to the predicates that they modify:

(1) now, there is little trust in market mechanisms.
(2) now, there is a little trust in market mechanisms.

(1) is oriented towards “there is no trust at all”, while (2) is oriented towards “trust”. Little and a little are not quantifiers referring to different quantities of food (a little trust being more than little trust), but give opposed orientations to a quantity that is fundamentally the same.

3. Adjectives as orientation operators

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

De-realizing operators are defined as follows:

A lexical word Y is de-realizing in relation to a predicate X if and only if the combination XY on the one hand is not felt as contradictory, and, on the other hand, reverses or lowers the argumentative strength of X. (Ducrot 1995, p. 147)

Consider the statements (Ducrot 1995, p. 148-150)

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

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 situated as follows on the corresponding argument scale:

Distant is a de-realizing operator. The sentence “he is a distant relative of mine”:

— can be oriented towards “we don’t know each other well”, i.e., it has an opposite orientation to “he is a relative of mine”.

— can be oriented towards “we know each other well”, like “he is a relative of mine”, but with a lesser force:

The argumentative orientation of an utterance can be reversed by the substitution of one morpheme for another, for example, by substituting little for a little, S. Orientation; Orienting words. The adverb precisely, in one of its uses, can also operate a reversal of argumentative orientation:

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

“He is depressed” justifies the decision not to go out; precisely accepts the fact that Peter is depressed, but re-orients it towards the opposite conclusion: Peter should go out (Ducrot 1982), by applying to it the different rule: “When one is depressed, one wants to stay home” vs. “Going out is good for depression”.

The orientation reversal is based on the letter of what the S1 says; S2 replies to S1 “Your argument does not support your claim, it even points to the contrary; you give arguments against your position”. S2 opposes to S1 his or her own saying, and thus affects his conversational face. This can be considered to be a typical reply “to the letter” (ad litteram), a strategy of discourse destruction, S. Matter; Destruction; Objection; Refutation.

Classical rhetoric has identified many phenomena of reversal of the same order, such as irony:

Everything is possible with the SNCF (French Railway Company), that is the best slogan you ever found!
Said by a traveler to a train conductor when the train had been held between two stations for two hours.

The slogan is oriented towards “the SNCF is capable of being incredibly positive and pleasant for you”; the circumstances show that “the SNCF is capable of being incredibly negative”, S. Irony.

 

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

— Exploiting the various acceptances of a term to reverse its argumentative orientation: antanaclasis.
— Turning over an expression, to the same effect: antimetabole.
— Reversing the qualification of an act: antiparastasis.
— Reversing the orientation of a term by substituting another quasi-synonymous term or description: paradiastole.

1. Antanaclasis

Antanaclasis is a phenomenon of repetition of a polysemous or homonymous term or expression. In its second occurrence, the term has a meaning and a direction different from that which it had in the 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 the second occurrence the meaning Sb with the orientation Ob.

The resumption of the signifier S⁰ must take place in the same discursive unit, whether a statement, a paragraph, a turn or pair of turns. It can be performed either by the same speaker in the same speech unit or by a second speaker in a second turn.

Within the same-speaker intervention, the antanaclasis introduces an ambiguity, since the same word is used to designate different things. In a syllogism, the antanaclasis introduces in fact two terms under the cover of the same signifier S⁰, and thus produces a syllogism not of three but of four terms, that is, to a paralogism.

In interaction, the two meanings of the term are used in two consecutive turns of speech, the second invalidating the first. The antanaclasis is a kind of ironic echoing and aggressive retaliation. The word tolerance refers to a virtue; the French expression maison de tolérance, “house of tolerance”, refers to a legal, licensed… tolerated brothel:

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

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

S1: — We could not book you a hotel, all are fully booked, there is a foire (“a fair”) downtown
S2: — It seems that it is often la foire downtown. Fr. foire = “mess”

In the second example, the second term reorients what was said as an excuse to a reproach: “you cannot get organized”; this word-for-word resumption undermines S1’s speech. The use of derivative words authorizes maneuvers of this type. The one who finds his work aliénant (F), that is “alienating” (as in “assembly line work alienates workers”), is accused of being an aliéné (F), that is an insane person:

The ideological policeman of collectivism can say almost the same to the opponent: “For those who come to protest against alienation, in our society we have lunatic asylums (F. asiles d’aliénés)”. (Thierry Maulnier, [The Meaning of Words], 1976[1])

The antanaclasis reorientation differs from that operated by precisely. This adverb takes a statement oriented towards a given conclusion, grants the statement (accepts the information), and transforms it in order to make it back 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

Like antanaclasis, the antimetabole is a language ploy used to dismantle the opponent’s speech. The discourse is resumed and restructured syntactically so as to make it lose its orientation, or even to give it an opposite orientation. Dupriez quotes the determined / determining permutation mechanisms, by which a discourse on “the life of words” can be ironically 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 effects (F. effets d’annonce) will quickly reduce to ineffective announcements (F. annonces sans effets)

S. Refutation; Prolepsis; Destruction; Converse.

3. Antiparastasis

This word refers to the stasis theory. A charge is laid against somebody; the accused acknowledges the fact for which he or she is blamed, but does not accept the blame:

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

The first statement is an accusation, “Shame on you, you deserve a condemnation!”; the second introduces an argument that cancels this orientation “what I have done is an act of courage”, or even reverses the accusation: “what I have done deserves every respect”, S. Motives.

This form of counter-argumentation gives the same fact two opposite orientations. The antanaclasis is a pseudo-acceptance and an implicit reversal, whereas the antiparastasis explicitly reverses the negative orientation given to the fact by the opponent.

This choice of defense gives the speaker a militant or rebellious ethos. Such situations based on radically opposite values have a high dramatic potential, for example, the confrontation between Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ play Antigone enacts such a situation of antiparastasis.

4. Paradiastole

The term paradiastole originates from a Greek word expressing a movement of expansion and distinction. In a monologue, the paradiastole “establishes a system of nuancing and precision, generally developed upon parallel statements” (Molinié 1992, Paradiastole). The Latin term distinguo refers to a similar operation. The paradiastole refines the definition of a concept or establishes a distinction between two close concepts that, from the point of view of the speaker, should not be confused: “sadness is not depression”. In a dialogue, paradiastole rejects a partner’s word as inadequate, and substitutes for it another word, considered to be contextually more adequate, which reorients the discourse. Depression and sadness may be semantically close, but they can nevertheless be opposed as in:

L1:   — I’m depressed, I have to see a shrink.
L2:   — No, you’re not depressed, you’re sad, and sadness is not a medical condition.

Discourse constantly builds up such anti-oriented pairs, S. Orienting words.

All lovers, as we know, boast of their choice; […] The chatterer [is] good humored; 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 is opposed to how she appears in her lover’s eyes, as good humored or maintaining her virtuous modesty. The following example shows that this situation is generalized to discourse, where paradiastole 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 truly brave you also need a system of values, a clear sense of what you are fighting for​​… may be he is more of a hothead?

Starting from a mere nuancing, paradiastole can evolve into a term-to-term opposition:

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

---

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

---

 

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 (sometimes referred to as AwL theory) developed by Oswald Ducrot and Jean-Claude Anscombre since the 1970s (Anscombre, Ducrot 1983, Ducrot 1988, Anscombre 1995a, 1995b, etc.). In this entry, the word discourse will refer exclusively to (polyphonic) monologue, not to dialogue or interaction.

The following equivalences can be helpful to grasp the general concept of meaning as argument, that is orientation towards a following statement, having the status of conclusion:

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

1. But and the grammar of orientation

The stimulating case of but, has played a pivotal role in the construction of a grammar for argumentation. The privileged construction chosen to analyze this conjunction is schematized by “E1 but E2”:

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; this opposition 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 is between the conclusions drawn from E1 and E2, functioning as arguments: if the restaurant is good, then, let’s have dinner there; if it is expensive, let’s go to another place; and the final decision is the latter. But here articulates two statements oriented towards contradictory conclusions, and retains the conclusion derived from the second argument.

Under such analysis, the meaning of but is instructional: connectives provide guidance for the interpretation of the speeches they articulate. They give the receiver the instruction to infer, to reconstruct from the left context E1 a proposition C opposed to something, not-C, that can be inferred from the context to the right of E2 (following E2). It is up to the listener to rebuild an argumentative opposition.

In the context of dialogical argumentation, these “instructors” themselves fall into the scope of an argumentative question, conditioning the reconstruction of the conclusions derived from E1 and E2. The preceding but came under a question like “Why not try this restaurant?”. If the question was “Which restaurant should we buy to make the best investment?”, the interpretation would be totally different: “This restaurant is good (= “delivers outstanding financial performance”) but is expensive (to buy)” the inferred, implicit conclusion would be “so, let’s invest our money somewhere else”. The argumentative question structuring the text creates the field of relevance and provides the interpretive constraints. This question and the relevant 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 considering that intuition can supply the missing context.

2. Linguistic constraint on the {argument, conclusion} sequence

As classical approaches, this theory considers argumentation essentially as a combination of statements “argument + conclusion”. The crucial difference lies in the concept of the link authorizing the “step” from argument to conclusion, that is the “topic”. The coherence of discourse is attributed to a semantic principle called a topos which binds 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 discourse” (Ducrot 1988, p. 51). The linguistic meaning of the word clever must not be sought in its descriptive value of a capacity measured by the intellectual quotient of the person concerned, but in the orientation it gives to a statement, namely, the constraints it imposes on the subsequent discourse. For example:

Peter is clever, he will solve this problem

is opposed to the chain perceived as incoherent:

* Peter is clever, he will not be able to solve this problem.

Such an argumentation is convincing indeed, because its conclusion, “solving problems” belongs to the set of predicates semantically correlated with “to be clever”. A set of pre-established conclusions is already given in the semantic definition of the predicate of the statement used as argument.

The two argumentative morphemes, little / a little give opposed argumentative orientations to the statement they modify, S. Orienting words:

he has taken a little food, he is improving
he has taken little food, he is getting worse.

 

Building upon such intuitions, Ducrot defines the argumentative orientation (or argumentative value) of a statement 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 operated by this statement among the class of statements S2 likely to follow it in a grammatically well-formed discourse. Theoretically, a first statement S1 can be followed by any other statement S2, both being independent linguistic units. According to the Argumentation within Language theory, the use of the first statement S1 introduces restrictions imposing certain characteristics upon the second statement S2; that is, it excludes some continuations and favors others.

The linguistic constraints imposed by the argument upon the conclusion are particularly visible on quasi-analytical sequences, such as “this proposition is absurd, so it must be rejected”. By the very meaning of words, to say that a proposition is absurd, is to say that it must be rejected. This apparent conclusion is a pseudo-conclusion, for it merely expresses the definiens of the word absurd, “which should not exist” as testified by the dictionary:

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

In a formula as famous as it is objectionable, 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’ perspective is certainly different from Ducrot’s. Nonetheless, in Ducrot’s perspective, the argument literally 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 constructed on the linguistic observation that, regardless of its informational content, any statement specifies its possible continuations and excludes others. Not just any statement can follow any other statement, not only for informational reasons, but also for semantical and grammatical reasons. There are semantic constraints on discourse construction.

At the sentence level, this idea is expressed in the purely syntactic language of the restriction of selection. In its non-metaphorical use, the statement “Pluto barks” assumes that Pluto is a dog. Literally taken, barking carries a restriction of selection determining the class of entities it admits as subject. Similarly, but at the discourse level, S1 operates a selection upon the class of the statements S2 that can succeed it. An argumentation is a pair of statements (S1, S2), such that S2, called the conclusion, respects the orientation conditions imposed by S1, called the argument.

3. Meaning as intention

The AwL theory rejects the conceptions of meaning as adequacy to reality, whether logical (theories of truth conditions) or analogical (theories of prototypes). It is built on a quasi-spatial conception of meaning as sense, direction: what the statement S1 (as well as the speaker publicly) means, in a specific context, is the conclusion S2 to which this statement is oriented. The art of arguing here is the art of managing discourse transition.

The relation “argument S1 – conclusion S2” is reinterpreted in a language production perspective (Fr. perspective énonciative) where the meaning of the argument statement is contained in and revealed by the next statement. The understanding of what is meant by the statement “nice weather today!” is not developing a corresponding mental image or cognitive scheme, but accessing the intentions displayed by the speaker, that is, “let’s go to the beach”. This is in perfect agreement with the Chinese proverb, “when the wise man points to the stars, the fool looks at the finger”.

The meaning of S1 is S2. The meaning here is defined as the final cause of the speech act. The AwL thus updates a terminology referring 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 is/ you mean / in other words/ you do not want us to go there?

The 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 maintains that it is not possible to develop a coherent concept of truth within ordinary language, S. Probable. In Ducrot’s vision of argumentation, the question of the validity of an argument is re-interpreted as grammatical validity. An argumentation is valid if the conclusion grammatically agrees with its argument (if it respects the restrictions imposed by the argument). It follows that the rationality and reasonableness attached to the argumentative derivation are no more than an insubstantial reflection of a routine discursive concatenation of meanings, or, as Ducrot says, a mere “illusion”, S. Demonstration. This is coherent with the structuralist project reducing the order of discourse to that of language (Saussurian langue). Ordinary discourse is seen as unsuited to expressing truth and reality. It follows that discourse is denied any rational or reasonable capacity.

4.2 A re-definition of homonymy and synonymy

As the theory is based exclusively on the concept of orientation, and not on quantitative data or measures, it follows that if the same segment S is followed in a first occurrence of the segment Sa and in a second occurrence of the segment Sb that contradicts Sa, then S does not have the same meaning in these two occurrences. As we can say “it’s hot (S), let’s stay at home (Sa)” as well as “it’s hot (S), let’s take a walk (Sb)” we have to admit that the statements “[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, corresponding to the senses of “the more expensive, the more I buy” and “the less expensive, the more I buy” (Anscombre 1995, p. 45).

Conversely, we can assume an equivalence between statements selecting 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)”. It is a new definition of synonymy, in relation to the same conclusion.

Finally, “if segment S1 only makes sense from segment S2, then 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 make up a single sign, S1 becoming a kind of signifier of S2. This conclusion reduces the proper “order of discourse” back to that of the statement, even of the sign.

5. Orientation and inferring license

Ducrot opposes his “semantic” point of view to what he calls the “traditional or naive” view of argumentation (Ducrot 1988, p. 72-76), without referring to specific authors. Let’s consider Toulmin’s layout of argument.

— Argumentation is basically a pair of statements (S1, S2), having respectively the status of argument and of conclusion.

— Each of these statements has an autonomous meaning, and refers to a distinct specific fact, each of these facts being independently assessable.

— 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” insofar as it postulates that language is a transparent and inert medium, a pure mirror of reality. This is not the case for natural language (Récanati 1979); such conditions are only met by controlled languages ​​like the languages ​​of the sciences, in relation to realities that they construct as much as they refer to them.

Contrary to this view, the AwL theory emphasizes the strength of purely linguistic constraints. The orientation of a statement is precisely its capacity to project its meaning not only on, but also as the following statement, so that what appears as “the conclusion” is only a re-formulation of the “argument”. For the AwL theory, discourse is an arguing machine, systematically committing the vicious circle fallacy.

To sum up, the AwL theory opposes ancient or neoclassical theories and practices of argumentation, as a semantic theory of language opposes theories and techniques of conscious discursive planning, operating according to referential data and principles. For classical theories, argumentative discourse is likely to be evaluated and declared valid or fallacious. For semantic theory, an argumentation can be evaluated only at the grammatical level, as a concatenation (E1, E2) that is acceptable or not, coherent or not. In this theory, the compelling character of an argument is entirely a matter of language. It is no different from the coherence of discourse. To reject an argument is to break the thread of the ideal discourse. This position redefines the notion of argumentation; Anscombre speaks thus of argument “in our sense” (1995b, p.16).

6. Natural reasoning combines the two kinds of inferences

The transition from argument to conclusion can be based on a natural or social law or on a semantic coupling of the argument with the conclusion. These two kinds of inferences are currently connected in ordinary discourse:

You talk about the birth of the gods (1). You say, then, that at one time the gods did not exist; so you deny the existence of the gods (2), which is a blasphemy and punished by the law. So you will be punished (3) a pari, according to the law punishing those who speak of the death of the gods.

First, a semantic law deduces (2) from (1), S. Inference; second, a social law, having nothing to do with language or discourse, goes on from (2) to (3), the punishment being finally determined by an a pari alignment. Social law can be naturalized by somehow integrating the meaning of the words:

You are an impious man, impiety is punished with 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 wish to reform the legislation, my revolt is not a semantic revolt. S. Definition; Layout.

---

 

1. The topos

Pragmatic argument is described by argument scheme n^o 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)

Thus, since positive and negative effects can always be attributed to any action plan, public or private, under discussion or already partly implemented, the plan can always be directly supported and eulogized by emphasizing its positive effects (actual or alleged), or attacked and blamed by emphasizing its negative effects, (actual or alleged).

Pragmatic argument presupposes 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 positively or negatively valued.

(3) Taking this consequence as an argument, an effect-to-cause argument transfers to the cause, that is the planned 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 reference to this last operation, pragmatic argumentation can be considered to be a kind of effect to cause argumentation, S. Consequences. In fact, it is very different from a diagnostic argumentation reconstructing a cause from a consequence. Pragmatic arguments do not reconstruct causes; they transfer to the cause value judgments already cast upon the consequences.

In scientific fields, pragmatic arguments are based upon established facts, “You smoke”; they rely upon a statistical-causal law “smoking increases the risk of cancer”; and thus lead to a conclusion “your smoking increases your risks of getting lung cancer”. As nobody likes to have cancer, negative judgment retroacts on the cause “I (should) quit smoking”.
In socio-political fields as in everyday reasoning the causal deduction characterizing stage (1) is reduced to a series of vaguely plausible correlated elements, that is to say, to a kind of “causal novel”, and, commonly to a mere metonymic transfer “this will result in that”; S. Metonymy.

2. Against pragmatic arguments

The effect is the end, the measure corresponds to a means to this end, and evaluation made on the ends is immediately transferred to the means: in other words, the end justifies the means. As a consequence, the pragmatic argument can be countered by an objection rejecting the means on a priori moral grounds.

Pragmatic arguments are currently refuted by arguments about their adverse and perverse effects.

Nouvel Observateur[1] — A. C., in the book you publish 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. — Rather than legalization, we prefer to speak of domestication, as this implies a progressive strategy […]. It will not eliminate the problem of drugs. But it is a more rational solution, which will eliminate the mafias, reduce delinquency, and also reduce all the fantasies that feed drug taking itself, and are part of drug marketing.
J.PJ.— I believe that legalization would produce a pull effect, the consequences of which cannot be completely controlled. The more of a product is available on the market, the more potential consumers have access to it. This would result in a great many more people taking drugs.
Le Nouvel Observateur [The New Observer], 12-18 October 1989.

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

This claim could be countered by denying the postulated causal link, arguing for example, “legalization will not have such reducing effects but will just shift mafias and delinquents towards new occupations and fantasies towards new objects. J.-P. J. chooses to refute the claim by alleging this measure would have a perverse “pull effect”, diametrically opposed to the good intentions of A. C. (note the will / would opposition in the argument and in its refutation).
This effect is said to be perverse because unexpected, unintended by the person proposing the measure. The opponent credits her for that: 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 to be positive by the other.

L1:        — But this policy would blow up our research group!
L2:        — This is precisely the plan.

This case falls under Hedge’s Rules 5 and 6 (1838, p. 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 claim that the opponent’s policy would lead the country to downfall and chaos is a pragmatic refutation of the policy by its negative consequences. To claim that this policy is intentionally implemented by the opponents in order to lead the country to ruin and chaos, thus creating conditions conducive to their dictatorship, is to accuse them of conspiracy, and justify the use of violence against them. S. Norms; Rule; Evaluation.

This accusation of having a hidden agenda also refers to the strategy of refutation of public good reasons by hidden intentions. S. Motives.

Pragmatic argument is characterized by the fact that the evaluation of the measure is indirect. In the case of drugs legalization, a direct evaluation of the measure might be “this despicable trend to solve problems by legalizing anything and everything should be stopped. So, I don’t even want to consider your argument”.

A psychologist could object that drug addicts have a problem with law and moral prohibition. It follows that, legalizing the drug would in fact reinforce addiction.

---

[1] A French weekly political and cultural publication.

---

---

 

“Topic from the opposite » (Freese & Rhys Roberts); « from the contrary » (Ryan).
As the topos plays on two pairs of opposites, the plural « topos of opposites » can be used.

In a broad sense, the words opposition and opposite can cover a series of specific argumentative phenomena, S. Opposite terms; Contradiction

1. Topos of the opposites

Cicero recognizes the enthymeme based on opposites as the archetypal enthymeme, S. Enthymeme. The topos of the opposite 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, cowardice is a vice

Ryan reformulates the Aristotelian topic as:

“1A — If A is the contrary of B, and C the contrary of D,
then if C is not predicated of A, then D is not predicated of B

1B — If A is the contrary of B, and C the contrary of D,
then if C is predicated of A, then D is predicated of B” (1984, p. 97)

We follow Freese and Rhys Roberts and use the label “topic from the opposite”. Ryan uses the equivalent word “contrary” in his discussion of the topic.

The clause “— is not predicated” can be read as “is not true, acceptable, possible…”. Applied to the logical implication, “P implies Q”, the topic validates the conclusion “not-P implies not-Q”; this conclusion is not quasi-logical, but plainly false, as a case of a negation of the antecedent (modus tollens), S. Deduction.

The problem here is that logical negation applies to a predicate saying something about its subject, but not to a name. A bottle and a gloomy thought equally qualify as non-cows. As the argument from the opposite is formulated in ordinary language in a given situation, the application of negation to any word is open-ended and debatable. But whoever wants to discuss that point becomes vulnerable to the accusation of “trying to pick up a senseless quarrel over semantics”.

2 A dialectical resource

The topos of opposites is a dialectical resource,  used to test claims such as A is B, “courage is a virtue”. If the proponent holds that “A is B”, then the opponent can examine what is going on with the opposites of A and B. In a dialogue format:

Confirmation:
The test procedure using the method of opposites develops as follows

Question: Is courage a virtue?
Topos of the opposite:
Opposite of courage: cowardice
                    Opposite of “— being a virtue”: “— being a vice”

Let’s predicate the contrary of virtue upon the contrary of courage:
                    “cowardice is a vice”
This proposition seems undisputable. So, let’s conclude that courage is indeed a virtue.

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

Refutation:
Let’s submit the claim “pleasant things are (intrinsically) good” to the same test.

Question: “are pleasant things good?”

Topos of the opposite:
Opposite of pleasant: unpleasant
Opposite of “— being good”: “— being bad”
Derived claim: “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) and nonetheless good for the health.

Conclusion: (not all) pleasant things are not (intrinsically) 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 their health if they drink white milk
If the cold rain has given him a cold, a hot tea will do him good.

2.3 Generic linguistic form and logical form of the topos of opposites

The topos of opposites is expressed by Aristotle in a language that is both ordinary in its construction and technical in its use of a specialized vocabulary: rhetorical terms like topos or enthymeme, or grammatical ontological terms like subject or predicate. These terms are indeterminate, that is, taken in their broadest intension: « a subject (a being), a property (a predicate) ». This corresponds to a generic formulation of topos.

Since the topos expresses a structure common to a set of enthymemes, it can be defined as their common logical form. The logical form of the topos of opposites is very simple which is not the case for all topoi.

According to Ryan’s formulation (1984, p. 97, cf. supra), it is written:
                    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 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 …”.

According to the formulation of Walton & al. (2008, p 107) the argument « from opposites » argument 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), by letters. The initial proposition is noted in the standard form of the analyzed propositions « A is C » (Ryan), or « S is P » (Walton). This writing abbreviation, very useful because it avoids the tortuous formulations sometimes necessary to correctly express the coreference.

A « logical form » in the strong sense would be a form capable of being used in a logical calculation. But the only operation here is the actualization of the generic form (topos) into a specified form (enthymeme).

1.3 Is the topos of opposites intrinsically fallacious?

1.3.1The topos of opposites is logically invalid

Applied to the logical implication, « A implies B », the topos validates the conclusion « not-P implies not-Q ». A sufficient condition is taken as necessary and sufficient. The conclusion is not « quasi-logical », but simply false, as a case of a negation of the antecedent (modus tollens), S. Deduction.
Logical negation applies to a predicate insofar as it asserts or not something about a subject, but does not apply to a noun. A bottle and a gloomy thought equally qualify as non-cows.
Moreover, since the topos occurs in natural speech and situation, the true meaning of negation applied to one of the components of a sentence is open-ended and debatable. But whoever who would venture to discuss that point would be dismissed as “trying to pick up a meaningless quarrel over semantics”.

1.3.2 The topos of opposites is conditionally valid

Let us consider a non-transparent box; we know that1) It contains two kinds of objects, cubes and balls; 2) These objects are red or green (or exclusive); 3) Objects of the same shape are of the same color.
The observer draws an object from the box, for example a ball, and sees that it is green. In this case, a ball is a non-cube; and the non-green is red. We can safely conclude that the balls are green; and that the non-balls (cubes) are non-green (i.e., blue).

1.4 Topos of the opposites in literature

Corresponding to a semantic rule, the topos of the opposites can be found in literary passages, where it serves poetic oratory amplification without losing its argumentative value of confirmation.

Satan leads the war against the angels, and has just undergone a cruel defeat. He calls “His potentates to council”, and explains to their assembly how a new weapon of his invention — powder and gun — will permit 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 the topos applies

In the preceding cases, the topos is quite easy to apply, because it operates on an elementary linguistic structure “A is B” (as in previous cases), easily transformed into “Not-A is not-B”.

The topos is also easy to identify, when the final formulation of the argumentation “A is B, then non-A is non-B”, leaves the topical relation 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 such and such a passage corresponds to such and such a type of argument, S. Waste; Type of argument. For example, how can we decide if the following passage is structured by the topos of opposites (corresponds to an occurrence of the topos of the 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

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

E1, maybe E2

The corresponding Toulminian structure is « Data, SO, Modal, Claim« . The two connected statements have the same structure, and express consecutions. This parallelism augurs well for an 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 the consecutive structure:

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

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

“It took billions of years and ideal conditions before humans appeared on the planet”
it took B before A = B has been necessary for A
billions of years and ideal conditions result humans appeared on the planet
[condition C1] billions of years and ideal conditions [result R1] humans appeared on the planet

“may be one global warming will be enough to make it disappear”
may be W will be enough for D
one global warming result [makes] it disappear
[condition C2] one global warming [result R2] [makes] it disappear.

The contraries are to be looked for not on a simple predicative structure, but on 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”. Nonetheless, their argumentative orientations are clearly opposed.

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

— billions of years is oriented towards conclusions like “that’s a long time”
— ideal conditions is oriented towards conclusions like “it’s rare, difficult to obtain”
— The construction “it takes X to Y” is oriented towards “it’s a lot”.

These three orientations converge to give rise to the global inference “this is a very complex process”.

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

— the determiner “one” is oriented towards unicity, “just one”, and simplicity;
— will be enough is oriented towards a limitation “no more than”, maybe “less than expected”, for such and such accomplishment.

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

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

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

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

The application of the topos of opposites is a semantic reflex. Reasoning from opposites is a basic way of thought, in much the same way as causal reasoning, or reasoning by analogy or by definition. Reasoning from opposites may seem to deliver commonplace conclusions, empty because analytical reformulations of the original sentence when both terms are equally obvious.

Nonetheless, even in this case the topos does help 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 where the “opposite reflex” may, or must, be inhibited: If a prayer says “Peace to the people who love you”, should we apply the topos and conclude something like “War on those who don’t”?

Let us consider the following argumentations based on the opposites:

If war is the cause of our present troubles, peace is what we need to put things right again. (Ibid.)
Those who sank the country into the crisis are perhaps not the best suited to get us out of the mess.
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 met with the argument that « we have failed for lack of determination and radicalism »:

If we are in trouble, it is because we just have waged a limited war; this limited war is the cause of our present troubles, an all-out war is what we need to put things right again; only an outright victory will bring us peace.
Our policy did not fail, you 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 a contrario reflex is a typical example of how argumentation leads us to contemplate things from a different perspective, under a different wordings; or, as Grize would say, in a different light, S. Schematization.

4. A transcultural topos

The application of the topos from opposites is a semantic reflex that combines well with analogical reasoning. Like the topos a fortiori, the topos from 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

Lat. Contrarius, “contrary”. Two constructions might be used to refer to the argument, with the same meaning:
— the Latin proposition a: argument a contrario sensu, “by 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 which draw on contradiction, S. Contradiction.

Argumentation from the opposite corresponds to one kind of argumentation a contrario. In law, an a contrario argument is defined as:

A discursive process according to which a legal proposition being given which asserts an obligation (or other normative qualification) of a subject (or a class of subjects), for want of any other express provision, we must exclude the validity of a different legal proposition, which asserts this same obligation (or other normative qualification) with respect to any other subject (or class of subjects)” (Tarello 1972, p. 104). Thus, if a provision obliges all young men, who have attained 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)

If a rule explicitly concerns a category of things, then it does not apply to the things that are not part of this category. The rule applies only in the defined area, to all the specified things, and only to them. This is an application of Grice’s Rule of Quantity, stipulating that the speaker must provide just the necessary amount of information, no more and no less.

This rule assumes that the system of law is well made and stable. In a period of social change and revision of the law, the argumentation a pari will be opposed to argumentation on the opposites. Women engaged in a battle for gender equality will refuse to oppose their status to men’s status, and will demand that laws be applied a pari, be it beneficial (right to vote) or quite possibly less attractive (military service).

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

---

[1] Edinburgh: Donaldson.
[2] Wang Chung, Four Things to be Avoided. In Lun-hêng, “Balanced discussions”, Book XXIII, Chap. III, 68. Translation and notes by Alfred Forke., Leipzig, 1906. Reprint by Paragon Book Gallery, New York, 1962. (p. 793-794)
Quoted after 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.

---

 

 1. Refutation by the observation of the opposite

Two opposite predicates cannot simultaneously be attached to the same subject. In other words, if an individual says something and one can see and show that the opposite is true, what the first speaker has said is rejected. This is a clear application of the principle of non-contradiction, two opposites cannot simultaneously exist in the same subject. This topic, as trivial as it is effective, is consistent with the view the facts are the best argument: “You say this, but I can see the opposite.” Example:

1. 1. Claim: Peter has white hair.
   2. Actual observed reality: Peter has black hair
   3. Rule of opposites: “white” and “black” are opposite properties (here of contrary opposite, they cannot be simultaneously true but can be simultaneously false, for example, if Peter has red hair).
   4. Conclusion Peter has white hair is false and must be rejected.

This argument has very broad scope when it comes to the refutation of factual assertions; it is actually the standard rebuttal scheme. If we are able to call upon a case in which an opposite property can be predicated of the same subject, the opponent’s claim in refuted.

The refutation predicates an opposite term of the subject, so we will use the singular, “refutation by (the predication of an) opposite”. In the quite different case of the topic of the opposites, the word is used in the plural. S. Opposites.

The condition of belonging to the same family of opposites is necessary: « Marie has a cat” (claim) is not refuted by stating, “Marie has a rabbit”.

The same procedure works for contrary and contradictory opposites. In the traditional system of genres, the claim “Mary is a man” is denied by the observed contradictory fact that Mary is a woman. Similarly, if two terms are in a relationship of possession / deprivation, (another form of opposites). If I am accused of having ripped off someone’s ear, I can refute the accusation by asking that person to come to court and show that he still has both his ears.

2. Facts against theories

The scheme applies to predictive discourse, somebody predicts that event E should happen, but, in due time, anybody can see that not-E, as is often the case in practical discourse.

In science, the scheme is involved in the Popperian concept of experimental refutation (Popper, 1963). When the predictions made by the theory are clearly false, the theory should be rejected or seriously revised. But at least in the humanities, the finding of the opposite is much less conclusive than it appears to be in the previous examples. The theory asserts, directly or indirectly P. Yet, common sense urges rather to notice and report Q, excluding P. How can we solve the dilemma? Several solutions are available:

— Rejecting the theory, a costly and painful solution.

— Minimizing and marginalizing the inconvenient fact, by opposing the mass of facts explained by the theory, that support, confirm the theory.

— Reform the intuition, and decide that the theory is brilliant, precisely because it makes us see things “differently”, so richer and deeper, and that in fact P is a kind of deep structure underlying the elementary intuition expressed by Q. The refutation can be resisted by choosing to reform the internal hypotheses (the theory) or the external hypotheses (what counts for a fact).

3. Refutation by the impossibility of the opposite

Refutation by the impossibility of the opposite rejects a judgment about a person, arguing that it is not possible for this person to be the subject of contrary opinion: “To be praised for his sobriety, he must have the opportunity to be intemperate”; it is ironic to praise poor people for their sobriety.

This is the topic “he cannot say otherwise”, so what you say makes no sense. Suppose that the Proponent says of Peter that “he is kind”. This quality has an opposite, “to be mean”. In order that the statement makes sense, the quality can be attributed to the individual only if, in another state of the world, the attribution of the opposite quality to this same individual would also make sense:

L1: — Peter acted in a friendly manner (so you have to be grateful to him)
L2: — To say that, still he would have to have the possibility of not being friendly (i.e. of being mean), I definitely owe him nothing

For a statement to contribute real information in a given situation, it is necessary that the opposite information be meaningful, “everyone agrees, how not to agree”.

In Le Figaro today the CEO of EDF asserts that the French nuclear park is in a very good state; well, it is difficult to see how he could have said the contrary. (France Culture Radio News, 04-18-2011; the CEO of EDF is in charge of the French nuclear park)

---