Abstract : Knowledge society can be characterized as a society where the classical instruments of rhetoric, doxa-based substantial knowledge and topical inference rules, are constantly thwarted by scientific knowledge, calculus and method. In such a context, argument cannot be construed as antagonistic to demonstration and restricted to a purely linguistic inference or to as an “artistic” rhetorical prowess.
A strong research community nowadays focuses on argumentation as a tool for knowledge acquisition and knowledge-based social decision making (ex: “Bees exposed to high levels of pesticides suspected in colony collapse”). A concept of argument is needed which could be used to build bridge between the « two cultures”. To take a step in that direction, the form and substance of the argumentative dialog have to be reconsidered. First, the kind of dialogue appropriate to knowledge building is not formal dialog but substantial dialog, the “default-reasoning dialog”; Toulmin’s scheme can be read as such a reasoning dialog. Second, a core set of « knowledge-based » arguments (arguments connecting objects) can be delimited. This may suggest that we are not jailed in a maybe comfortable but finally sterile opposition between “those who prove” and “those who (at their best) argue”.

Key words : argumentation, rhetoric, proof, demonstration, socio-scientific issues, science education, debate

argumentation-in-the-knowledge-society