Rhetoric and Statis

Rhetoric and Statis
Crowley’s book was interesting to underline the importance of statis. I do not remember reading about it before (if it was in Touliman’s book, probably I did not understand it). This comment stood out for me not just because it was new information for me, but it is a very common problem today’s arguments. People having different ideas on subjects just state their ideas and try to prove the legitimacy of theirs but their argument, claim does not have any relationship between the other side’s ideas or claims. So they are arguing together for different things.
I believe the most recent sample for this is Libya sample. Protestors and people in Libya want a change in the country because they think their country is not a democracy and they are not happy with the current government. They want the president resign. On the other hand, the president claims that there is no reason for him to resign, some people governed other countries more than him, and it is not Libyan people who started these rebels but other people. They do talk about the same problem but they “do not agree on the point which they disagree…” (p. 29).
This is the same with some of the political discussions. I do not remember how many times I though “What are you talking about, he did not ask you this” while watching discussions on TV.
Hayley, his comment “I use the masculine pronoun here because the liberal subject is coded as masculine” (p. 35) reminded me of you:))

Embodying Argument

Ever since Nilu's interesting post about protesters and the arguments they make, I've been thinking about different ways people argue with their bodies. Protest is an interesting test-case of argumentation because it combines the use of the body with the more familiar use of words/speech. Add some witty signs to this mix and there's a lot to consider.
Another example of this that's been in the news lately, is the Democrat walkout of the state Senators from Wisconsin. Having a controversial legislation forced upon the State Assembly without the expected political process, the dissenting Senators left the state, leaving the Republicans without the quorum necessary to enact law. At first I was skeptical of this move, but after a very interesting conversation in a coffee shop today, perhaps this rhetorical act by the Senators is more justified than I originally thought. With no other recourse for action, these lawmakers used their bodies to make very loud arguments about the legislation, about the state of democratic politics in Wisconsin, and about their role in the lawmaking process. Utilizing their silence as a rhetorical move is different than my understanding of protest, and leads to some very interesting questions.
This might be an example of a Performance, but that's a post for another day. Can you help me think of other ways to argue with your body?

Constructing the Audience, Collectively

The issue of audience of an important aspect of any discussion on rhetoric and argumentation. As one of the three components of the rhetorical situation, the audience always attracts our attention, as perhaps the most important aspect of any communication situation. That is why in writing instruction, we so often reiterate the need to understand the audience. We often ask our students – okay, who is your audience?

But the concept of the audience is much more complex than it appears to be, and I’ve realized it even more so after reading Perelman and Oldrechts-Tyteca. No text can be taken to be addressing to a single audience, or a particular set of audience, especially when it’s about writing. In the first place, understanding even a single, clearly known audience, and addressing the needs of that audience is itself a very tough job – how would I know my all the needs of my reader and shape my text to meet his/ her expectations? And when it comes to a text that is directed to a more varied, abstract audience, the issue become much more complicated.

Yet, we cannot do away with the audience. Even if we cannot understand our audience properly or figure out our audience’s need and expectations clearly, we are bound to create a concept of an audience, a fiction of an audience and have to shape out text to suit that audience. It’s perhaps because of it, Walter Ong Jr. claims that a writer’s audience is always a fiction. In his article, “A Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction” he makes difference between a speaer’s position and a writer’s position, and contends that, unlike a speaker, a writer needs to construct his audience, which relates well to Perelman and Oldrechts-Tyteca’s discussion of various possible forms of the audience. According to Ong, the audience is fiction at least in two ways: the writer must construct in his imagination, and the audience must correspondingly fictionalize itself. In this sense, the writer and the reader are in a way trying to construct a phenomenon called the audience. It is true that while reading a text we often try to imagine a reader that the writer might have imagined. In this sense, the reader does not read a text just as a reader, but trying to construct a reader as the writer might have wanted him to be.

Interesting stuff. Liked Perelman and Oldrechts-Tyteca’s discussion very much. 

Dialogue vs. Debate

I loved this book. P&O.T found some great ways to explain things. I really like their distinction between dialogue and debate. " Dialogue as we consider it, is not suppose to be a debate, in which the partisans of opposed settled convictions defend their perspective views, but rather discussion interlocutors search honestly and with out bias for the best solution to a controversial problem" (p. 37). If we turn to Tannen's Argument Culture most of the cases she mentioned were debates, not discussions or dialogues. People were just there to defeat each other.
The P & O.T also makes a great discussion of types of objectives of argument. I haven't finishes that chapter yet, but so far I believe they highlight very important components of argument: facts and truths, presumptions, values... I believe these are very important to have a great discussion and come to a solution as mentioned in the description above.

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca: Argument and Possibility

Having gone through Toulmin’s tough text, reading Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s New Rhetoric has been a pleasant experience. Much easier reading, and a lot of things coming from classical rhetoric, especially Aristotle. In fact, they have called it a return to classical rhetoric, moving away from Cartesian focus on empirical truth.

I liked their discussion of the issue of possibility in argumentation, directly related to Aristotle. According to Aristotle, rhetoric is all about possibilities. If things are for certain, there is no need of rhetoric. Argumentation is required to establish truth in a situation when there are various possibilities. And it is where Aristotle differs so much from Plato. Plato wanted rhetoric to be something that showed already existing truth, the essential truth. But for Aristotle, rhetoric does not deal with things that are for certain. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca are with Aristotle, and they write, “It is to be observed that where rational self-evidence comes into play, the adherence of the mind seems to be suspended to a compelling truth, and no role is played by the process of argumentation” (31).

I think just this thought is sufficient to explain why everything we call argument cannot be an argument in the real sense. In the recent years, we have the tendency to call every thing an argument; any text can be an argument for us. Even a wall, as a text, can be interpreted as making some argument within a context – I think this tendency came from social construction theories. In a sense that might be right. Everything has a meaning. Even a water bottle thrown in the park speaks something – the carelessness of the person who visited the park or the park authority’s lack of action, and the like. But Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s discussion of argument shows why we cannot conflate argument with everything.

This leads me to our questions on first year writing and argument. How can each writing be an argument? What about scientific writings where there is only one possibility? That could be argument in Cartesian sense, but if we follow Aristotle, we might want to interpret argument differently.

Bittman on Subsidies

One of the newest New York Times Opinionator bloggers is Mark Bittman. He is a food writer who, like many these days, has grown wary of the current system of production, distribution, and consumption. One of his latest posts is about food subsidies in the Farm Bill that is to be passed in 2012. However, unlike many opponents of the direct-subsidies that pay farmers directly (often to global agri-businesses and wealthy land owners), Bittman employs some arguing differently strategies as part of his rhetorical style.

Instead of getting rid of the direct-subsidies, Bittman argues, we --as Americans --should look for ways to use them more effectively. Some of his suggestions are:

• Fund research and innovation in sustainable agriculture
• Provide incentives to attract new farmers
• Save more farmland from development
• Provide support for farmers who grow more than just the commodity crops that hurt the environment, the health of the nation, and the economic well-being of the country
• Level the playing field so non-agribusiness farmers can compete

The money to do these things is already in the budget, and in these days of deficit-reigning and budget tightening, any money that is left on the table will certainly be unavailable in the future. I wonder though, what will it take to restructure legislation to take money out of the hands of the fortunate few who can afford lobbying, land, and platforms to have their voices heard?

What do you think? Is Bittman arguing differently? How has he 'reconstructed' the debate on direct-payment subsidies? Is his plan feasible? Will others listen? Is there enough incentive for those power/money/influence wielding few to buy into this course of action?

Descartes, Logic, and the Legitimization of Audience

I'm not sure why Donna had us read The New Rhetoric immediately after Uses of Argument, but reading these two texts one after the other has helped me puzzle through them both better. As I read through P&O-T, I was trying to place it chronologically with UoA. I realized, however, that Toulmin's work came out in England the same year TNR was published in France (1958). Perhaps we can talk in class about the intellectual climate in Europe at the time that led to two such important works on Argumentation to be published at the same time. Also, I wonder if there was any American scholarship being done on this topic, or were we too busy reveling in the 'American Century' that we didn't care about the arguments underlying it?

Toulmin takes for granted Logic as an Epistemology that can explain argument. And while P&O-T don't necessarily rail against the use of Logic as principle assumption in forming arguments, it is certainly clear that these authors feel that stopping at Logic is not enough. In the Introduction, the reader is presented with the Descartian ideal of Logic approaching a science, and the desire by many Enlightenment philosophers to argue using this paradigm. However, P&O-T see this as a method for proving what is self-evident, a pursuit that is limiting. They see rationalist argumentation as "a perfectly unjustified and unwarranted limitation of the domain of action of our faculty of reasoning and proving" (3). This quote alone helped me understand Toulmin's work more thoroughly because I was able to compare his assumptions to another model.

I feel like the P&O-T model is more in line with my understanding of Rhetoric and Argumentation. The intellectual milieu of the 21st century is different than when these texts were written, but I see this more-inclusive, more-complicated, more-exploratory vision of Argumentation as more-sympathetic to our current reality. The aspects of TNR that show me this are held in P&O-T's inclusion of Psychology, a wider view of Text, and a greater importance of pathos to create a more-realistic vision of what it means to argue. Most importantly, however, the reason I see this as a better model for explaining how and why people argue, is the fact that they (re)legitimize the importance of audience in the production of arguments. Like Nilu, I see the importance AND the complexity of considering the audience as a part of the rhetorical situation, but without it, any understanding of Argumentation is incomplete, close-minded, and faulty.

After posting here, I will go over to my Personal Blog and try and extend some of these thoughts on audience in a more pointed way.

Audince in argumentation

I agree with Cathy that Perelman’s language is much easier to understand. I especially liked the part how he mentioned the role of the audience in argumentation. That reminded me Rumi’s phrase “ No matter how much you know and how much you say, your talk will not go beyond what your audience understands”. So taking the values of the audience, education, interests and social environment is very important. This is so important that it is sometimes impossible to start an argument without taking these into consideration.
I am writing a paper (for almost a year, I hope I will be able to finish it) on affect of socio-cultural norms on address forms. This paper is on politeness theory and the main finding so far is that: people, if not addressed properly, even stop talking or lose interest in having conversation. So it is very important to know the values of the audience even to start a conversation and to make your message meaningful for them.
I remember reading a research conducted with lower-income students. Several math instructors made a research on a very poor country in Asia (I believe it was in Asia) to see the relation between school instruction and practical knowledge. Teachers asked one of the students “OK, you have ten dollars and you spend 5 on candies how much do you have”
Student “Ten”
Teachers “Be careful, you had 10 and spent 5 on candies. How much do you have left?”
Student “10”
It goes on like this for a while and at the end the student says “if I have ten dollars, I would not spend 5 dollars on candies, it would be wasteful”.
Money is very precious for these students. The teacher convinced the student to answer the question but could not persuade him in the rationality of the question. If the teachers knew, or paid attention how much $10 meant to these kids, I believe they would ask the question in a different way and would nor spend this much time with one question.

Adherence, Values, and Epideictic Rhetoric

So far, Perelman is quite a fascinating read! I appreciate the clarity of his prose, and have been interested to see (for the first time since beginning my study of rhetoric at MU) references to preaching that are illustrative rather than pejorative. [If I had a dime for every use of "preach" to mean talking at/talking down/power-over/non-listening, even amongst well-meaning colleagues, I would be significantly richer].

Perelman emphasizes the importance of what he calls "adherence" in his discussion of argumentation and persuasion. It is not enough to engage in logical proofs of an almost mathematical precision. What is needed is an awareness of an actual audience who will be disposed to respond to a speaker based on the extent to which the speaker shares or moves their values. Forensic and deliberative rhetoric, as important as they have been seen to be in the history of teaching persuasion, do not cover the whole of what is needed when it comes to making arguments that persuade others. Perelman writes: "epidictic oratory has significance and importance for argumentation, because it strengthens the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds" (p. 50). Even more strongly, Perelman notes on the next page: "the speaker tries to establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience" (p. 51). In Perelman, I believe we do indeed see a "new" rhetoric in the sense that he seems to be moving towards an almost Burkean emphasis on identification here, rather than a traditional Aristotelian emphasis upon logical proof.

Perelman's emphasis on values, communion, and adherence raises very interesting questions that once again (as with Toulmin) move us towards a more realistic view of how people actually engage in argumentation. Who defines the shared values? How do they come to be the values of that audience? That speaker? To what extent does the appeal to values involve an "appeal to a universal order, to a nature, or a god that would vouch for the unquestioned, and supposedly unquestionable, values" (p. 51)? As a preacher working in diverse communities, I recognize these questions as real and significant, and I take them seriously every time I get in the pulpit. Looking forward to more reflecting on this in days to come!

For Nilu

Here is the documentary I was trying to remember the name of in class.



It's a wonderful description of how contrastive rhetoric plays out in the first-year Composition classroom.

Flushing Out Epistemology: How it is that we know what we think we know & how it is that we claim to know what it is that we think we know

Flushing out epistemological inquiry as the exploration into how it is that we know what we think we know compared to the study of epistemology as the study of how it is that we claim to know what we think we know is a useful conversation to have. When studying the process of claiming to know- logic and rational theories seem to have room for appropriation; however, I have to add that I believe emotion and cognition outside of logic can also be applied. First, rational and logical theories and steps seem to have a place here because these are process that we have learned to follow in order to explain, defend, argue and sound like rational beings. But these aren’t necessarily the only processes one may engage or practice, or may be good at. For example, may people aren’t logical or rational as “traditionally” understood and therefore may not explain how they claim to know in this way. Another concern is whether or not these are learned or innate processes, although I tend to understand these processes as mostly learned, with some human elements that may not always be traceable. Generally, I side with social constructionists in that I believe that we claim to know what we think we know based on our socially constructed ideas of knowledge, knowledge production, authority, etc. It is at this point that I believe there is overlap between what it is that that we think we know and how we claim to know what it is that we think we know. Because, both are socially constructed. Knowledge and claims to knowledge are both socially constructed practices that have similar components of power, hegemony, normalization, cultural relativism, and social constructedness. For example if we step outside of Western ideas of rationality and logic and looked at other cultural interpretations of knowing and claiming to know we may be provided with information and experiences that produces cognitive dissonance because they may be so foreign to our socially constructed ideas of knowing, knowledge, knowledge production, rationality, logic, etc.

Toulmin's Model

This book is the first time I have encountered Toulmin's argument model. I can see why many have used it as a heuristic tool. Datum, Claim, Warrant, Qualifier, Rebuttal, Backing--these terms make excellent focus-inducing tools for studying and uncovering an arguments. Yet by book's end, it does not seem that Toulmin intended for his descriptive analysis to be used as a prescriptive form. That is, nowhere I find does he imply that this is the form your arguments should take or this is how to judge if you are making good arguments. Of course it's reasonable to come to that conclusion, but it doesn't seem in the spirit Toulmin's book. After all, The Uses of Argument makes a very narrow, (and to my mind) helpful argument in the field of logic: Analytic Arguments are not the proper model or criterion for understanding and determining how we come to make reliable conclusions using reason. That paraphrase may seem reductive (and probably is) but Toulmin's book seems to be very much a book of its time. It is of our time, too. After all, I think the theory of logic he wants to undermine is still too often the water we swim in.

The Conclusive Shift

Toulmin insists on the distinction between conclusive and analytic. In a way, this distinction is the book's argument. For Toulmin, analytical arguments (those traditionally defined) are simply a special case of argument. And as a special case, we should be wary of generalizing about argument using analytic arguments as our models. We see why this is the case when Toulmin argues that conclusiveness is a criteria- and discipline-dependent concept.

Have I been arguing that only analytic arguments can be conclusive? Certainly arguments alone are analytic--and so, in the professional logician's sense, 'conclusive'; but in other fields also a time comes when we have produced in support of our conclusions data and warrants full and strong enough, in the context, for further investigation to be unnecessary--so in this sense non-analytic arguments can also be conclusive. (216)

If we accept Toulmin's redeployment of conclusive, I think here we can agree with Tannen that many debates will have only one side worth knowing (e.g. the Holocaust.)

“Logical-looking answers to psychological-looking questions”!

The term “epistemology” attracted my attention in the last chapter in the Toulmin book. But I found his discussion so complex that I’m not sure if I can make any concrete sense of this discussion of logical-looking answers to psychological-looking questions. Even then, I am tempted by how he discusses argument in relation to epistemology – “the theory of knowledge.”

Is knowledge construction a cognitive process or a mathematical process based on logical steps? Or can they be the same?

What I found very interesting in Toulmin, so far I could understand, or rather I thought I understood, is that he does not see them as entirely separable. His example is really revealing: “A child doing a sum, a counsel presenting a case, an astronomer predicting an eclipse, all their activities can be looked at either psychologically, as involving ‘cognitive processes,’ or instead critically, as involving the employment or misemployment of rational procedures” (196). So, on the one hand we seem to be working “cognitively” but on the other, logical (mathematical) calculations are influencing our ‘psychological’ perceptions. In this sense, when we know something, if it is possible at all to say so, we know it collectively – psychologically and logically.

It led me to think about how the body and the mind are bound to function in unison. As we were doing rhetoric and the body last year, we were talking a lot about how the mind is a part of the body, and how their functions are inseparable. On the surface, we seem to be employing one or the other faculty to do something, but in fact we are working as one.

Is that the way Toulmin is looking at logical and psychological methods of understanding something? He writes, “Rational produces and methods do not exist in the air, apart from the actual reasoners [can we equate it to the body?]; they are things which are learned, employed, sometimes modified, on occasion even abandoned, by the people doing the reasoning, and to this extent, the field of logic is inevitably open on one side to the field of psychology. On the other hand, psychologists cannot afford to talk as though ‘cognitive processes’ were purely natural phenomena, which spring into existence in individual human beings or reasons known only to known only to God (or natural selection) and which can accordingly be studied in a purely empirical, a posteriori manner” (196).

I think it makes a very good connection to the mind-body discussion.

Reliability and unreliability in the arguments

Toulmin states that consistency and coherence are prerequisites for a rational assessment of an argument and conclusion (p. 172). After I read this sentence and the post on the blog, I remember Kaddafi’s two different statements about his ruling. In one of them (last week) he compared himself with Queen Elizabeth and in a way said “Why are you criticizing me for ruling more than forty years, Queen Elizabeth has ruled more than me”. And this week (yesterday) he made another announcement saying that “All of the powers are in Libyan citizens’ hands and they decide who are going to govern them”. (Zaman Newspaper and Today’s zaman newspaper). These two statements contradict with each other and make each other unreliable!!! In one of them he resembles his ruling to a monarchy and then he talks about democracy. I agree with Toulmin that the statements in an argument should support each other to make the conclusion/assessment reliable. I might not pay as much attention to this claim in the book if I did not read these two conflicting sentences of Kaddafi and get really mad, I think this also a good sample for selective perception.

Analytic arguments, Quine and Toulmin

Last week I posted a summary of Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature on my blog, where I briefly discussed the difference between analytic (true in virtue of meaning alone) and synthetic (true in virtue of meaning + how the world is) truths. Rorty draws on Quine, who earlier had made a convincing argument that there are, in reality, no analytic truths, since every statement is inextricably connected to a set of assumptions about reality. In reading Toulmin, I once again hear echoes of the philosophical arguments going on around him. Warrants have backing, and one can, ad infinitum, continue to ask for backing for the backing. Yet it is interesting to notice that Toulmin makes a practical claim that Quine does not, which is to say that certain warrants (or backing for those warrants) can be accepted on face value alone: "the acceptability of the most reliable warrants is something we are entitled to take for granted" (p. 99). Once again we see Toulmin's interest in the actual practical level of engaging with one another in making arguments, for his concern is that if we become caught up in the infinite web of backing for our warrants, we will never begin to argue!

Yet, I wonder, how it is that some warrants would be deemed to be “reliable” and others not? Is it, as Rorty would contend, a matter of whether society allows us to claim it as true? And, if then, what is “society”? Who decides? One of the exciting things about inquiry is to question assumed truths. Yet, at a certain point, we do just need to sit down and talk with one another!

One of my hopes is to teach a course on communication ethics. It certainly seems that this question of reliable warrants would be particularly sharpened when making ethical arguments. Hmmm…a possible semester project?

Warrants- Returning to Toulmin as a path to arguing differently

I wanted to take a moment to focus on warrants since they are important parts of arguments, but also seem to be a topic of discussion on the blog. First, it seems important to distinguish what a warrant is. According to Toulmin warrants are appealed to implicitly, while data is what is appealed to explicitly (1). Also, data depend on warrants we operate within and therefore qualifiers  are necessary to discuss explicitly the extent to which the degree of force in which the data confers the claim (2). However, with this said qualifiers must be understood as distinct from warrants (2).

From Toulmins framework it seems as though the implicit nature of a warrant would then seem to be a reason why it may be hard to explicitly identify in a source, and even harder to articulate. I could imagine this being a problem not just for undergraduates, but for us (academics) as well as politicians. For example, it seems as though some of the political debates that the public are privy to watch or listen to may miss the mark when it comes to identifying the warrants and engaging arguments on their basis. Additionally, when thinking about arguing differently we may come to see that this could be just including the step of identifying warrants, engaging debate through warrants, and thus returning to a Toulmin model. Thoughts?
 
 
(1)- Toulman, S. E. (2003). The Uses of Argument. NY:Cambridge University Press.- p. 92
(2)- Toulman- p. 93

The new language of argument?

Wilkinson, asserts the prosecutor in court, has committed an offence against Road Traffic Act: in support of this claim, two policemen are prepared to testify that they times him driving at 45 m.p.h in a built-up area. In each case, an original assertion is supported by producing other facts bearing on it (90).

I found Toumin’s example very interesting, esp. because of its circularity in argument. The man has been testified (claim) as violating a traffic law, based on what the policemen recorded, and in the meantime, the same policemen’s record has been presented as a support. And I think this nature of argument is worth considering. Toulmin’s contention that argument is not simply about finding more and more data and supports but finding the “justification of the step” (91) that we take in an argument. I find it really revealing when he writes, “Our task is no longer to strengthen the ground on which our argument is constructed, but is rather to show that, taking these data as a starting point, the step to the original claim or conclusion is an appropriate and legitimate one” (91).  

Usually we understand an argument in terms of making claims and justifying them. But the issue is certainly much more complex as Toulmin exhibits. He questions the steps and warrants, and moves on to the need to qualify each of them. In an argument, we can go on asking questions about the authenticity of a claim indefinitely. So, Toulmin’s emphasis on validating steps and justifying warrants, with qualifications, sounds important to me.

Toulmin’s micro level analysis of argument was always reminding me of our class discussions - where do the arguments of the Egyptian people or the Libyans fit in this structure? What are their claims and what are their warrants? Does the all rational, well-carved, formula work for their resistance?

It takes me to the idea of the need to break linguistic barriers to talk about certain human conditions – for instance, feminist insistence on creative a different vocabulary/ language to talk about their experiences/ exploitation, which would not be rightly expressed in the ‘male’ language. Political uprisings, which seem to be guided more by the unconscious, more or less irrationality, or at least the desire to challenge the exiting modes of maintaining order through master narratives with established modes of argument, perhaps create a new language of argument that a well-structure, conscious schemata of Toulmin may not be able to explain. Or is there a better Toumminian way of explaining it?

Do I argue differently?

Chapter three of Uses of Argument was much clearer for me than the previous ones. After I read the book, I felt like “ Sure, this is how it should be, isn’t it that way already?” and I decided to do the little assignment Cathy mentioned. It was really easy to find the claim and the conclusion in the news but warrant, backings for the conclusions were harder to find. (Cathy you have another proof here).
I also believe that in a discussion providing warrants is very important. But when I turned to my own conclusions, arguments, I recognized that I skip providing warrants most of the times, to be honest if I am really engaged into discussion I sometimes do not really think about them either. I believe recognizing this is a huge gain for me. After reading this chapter and the comments in the class blog, I tried to be more careful about stating my warrants in our last Turkish community weekly meetings. It was so interesting how people did not really focus on the conclusions but the warrants more, discussed about them and the conclusion came out automatically.
It was fascinating to see it!!!

Teaching Toulmin and Recognizing Warrants

During the last month we have taught the students in Communication 3050 (Survey of Communication Theory) the Toulmin Method for analyzing arguments. They had a homework exercise in which they had to read a news article and label the claim, data, and warrant, and also find the reservation, qualifier, and backing. What quickly became clear is that they found it much easier to label the claim and the data than to articulate the warrant. They also had a hard time distinguishing the data that supported the warrant (the backing) from the data that supported the primary claim.

Being able to articulate the warrant, it seems to me, is crucial to understanding an argument, and also to being able to listen generously to someone else’s argument. If part of our goal is to argue differently, to be able to, in Aikido fashion, move alongside someone else who may differ from us, it seems to me that doing so means being able to name the warrant in our own position, and in the other person’s position. The warrants may be diametrically opposed (as in the abortion debate), but they may just be implicit and not well understood, even by the one holding the position.

One of the reasons I enjoy philosophy (and particularly philosophy of language) so much is that good philosophical investigation, it seems to me, asks us to step back and examine the warrants in our arguments. How does this connect with that? What assumptions are we making to connect that data to that claim? Do we really have a warrant for using this example to support our position? Could we grant that someone else’s position is, in fact, based on the same data, but seeing it through the lens of a different warrant?