Lecture Notes for Argumentation
Lecture 2 Underlying Assumptions of Argumentation
1.Argumentation takes place with an audience in mind, and the audience is the ultimate judge of the success or failure.
I suppose it means it is the audience that you should always keep in mind. They are who you should address. Why stress that? Too often, we argue only from our perspective, which can only make sure we convince ourselves successfully.
But I do not quite agree that the audience ought to be the judge, though usually it is. So who is? I do not know, but I bet the validity of the argue does not completely depend on the result(you win the audience), it must derive from something deeper sometimes the audience would failure to recognize.
2.Argumentation takes place under conditions of uncertainty
Informal argumentation happens more often than the mathematical formal argumentation in everyday life. When I learn the logic by myself from the boring textbooks, I get confused a lot in that I can not find a way to apply it in the argue. After seeing some informal argumentation, I begin to realize the argumentation I need might be quite different from the formal one which is more proper for the computers and mathematicians. Now lecture two confirmed my idea, the problem now is what is the informal logic after all, maybe it mainly features sort of uncertainty.
3.Argumentation involved justification for claims.
Justification is different from proof, it is subjetive and dependent upon a particular audience. It really surprise me, to be honest, I still doubt it. Maybe the argumentation can take some level of uncertainty, but is it subjective?
4.Despite its seemingly adversarial character, argumentation is fundamentally a cooperative enterprise.
It is fundamentally a cooperative enterprise. It is the premise. When you feel you are involved in an uncooperative augue and you can not change that, my suggestion is to quit the argue. It is meaningless to engage in that kind of augue in which one party or both is just for vanity and pride but the truth. You can not expect to convince everyone even you own the truth.
5.Argumentation entails risks.
You have to accept the result of the argue if it is fair. That is a matter of moral.
