La tragedia de la modernidad

There is a distinction that is fundamental to critical argumentation that will run through this whole book. This is the distinction between asserting a proposition and questioning a proposition. When you assert a proposi- tion, you are claiming that it is true. You are making a definite claim. You are saying that you are for the proposition, meaning that you are express- ing a pro point of view with respect to it. This assertion represents a commitment to the proposition asserted. So you have to stand behind that claim in a dialogue if you wish to continue to maintain it in the face of questioning or objections that arise as the dialogue proceeds. Question- ing a proposition is a different matter. When you question a proposition, you are not necessarily making a claim that the proposition is false, or that it is true. Questioning expresses a neutral point of view if it is merely an expression of doubt. For doubt does not need to imply belief or commit- ment. Questioning is, at least very often, a suspension of one’s opinion or claim about truth or falsehood. A question typically says, “I don’t know whether this proposition is true or false,” so it makes no claim that the proposition is true or that it is false. In other words, questioning a propo- sition represents a weaker kind of commitment than asserting it. When you make a statement, you are staking out a claim, so to speak, and you have to defend it if you want to maintain it. But you are free to question any proposition without committing to it as something you hold to be true or false.

This distinction between asserting and questioning has fundamental implications about how moves in a dialogue are related to previous moves. Let’s say that there are two participants in a dialogue called White and Black. White moves first and puts forward an argument. At his next move, Black can react critically to the argument. He can put forward an opposed

7. Criticizing by Questioning or Rebuttal 27

argument, meant to attack the prior argument by giving a reason to think that its conclusion is not true. In other words, he can put forward a new argument that has a conclusion that is the opposite of White’s conclusion. This kind of move is called presenting a counter-argument (or rebuttal) to the original argument. Such a rebuttal would (presumably) show that White’s argument is wrong. Or at least it would offer a reason to show that White’s argument does not prove what she supposed it to prove. If it does not present a reason, then Black can attack it by simply pointing that out. Another way Black can react critically is to question White’s argument, but without presenting a reason to show its conclusion is false. He can raise a question about the argument, perhaps by finding some weak point in it, representing some aspect in which it is open to doubt. Thus there are two basic ways to attack an argument. One is to present a rebuttal or counter-argument, a comparatively strong form of attack. The other is to ask questions that raise doubts about the argument but not going so far as to rebut it by putting forward a counter-argument.

For example, suppose White asserted that Uranus is the seventh planet in orbit around the sun, because it said so in a newspaper. Black might question this argument, asking, “Is that newspaper a reli- able source?” Here Black is not offering a counter-argument, but only asking a question that raises doubt about some aspect of the argument. On the other hand, Black might take the stronger stance of putting for- ward an opposed argument, such as, “It says in my astronomy textbook that Venus is the seventh planet in orbit around the sun.” The conclusion of this argument, ‘Venus is the seventh planet in orbit around the sun’, is opposed to the conclusion of White’s argument, ‘Uranus is the seventh planet in orbit around the sun’. They are opposed in the sense that both cannot be true. If the one proposition is true, the other is false. Thus Black has made an opposed claim, and presented a counter-argument to back it up. Since an astronomy textbook is generally a more reliable source than a newspaper, Black’s argument is the stronger of the two. It is a rebuttal of White’s argument.

Consider the last part of the dialogue on tipping once again as a sequence of moves where Bob and Helen exchanged opposed arguments.

Bob (4): A lot of students depend on tips to help pay their tuition costs.

University education is a good thing. Discontinuing tipping would mean that fewer students could afford it.

Helen (5): That’s no problem. All we need to do is to raise the minimum

Bob (5): That might just put a lot of restaurants out of business, with a result-

ing job loss for students and others.

Here Bob began this exchange by putting forward an argument. As shown above, his argument can be expressed as a set of premises that support a conclusion that he is arguing for. Let’s sum up the main thrust of his argument as follows.

PREMISE: University education is a good thing.

PREMISE: A lot of students depend on tips to help pay their tuition costs.

PREMISE: Discontinuing tipping would mean that fewer students

could afford a university education.

CONCLUSION: Discontinuing tipping would be a bad thing.

Helen replied with another argument, saying, “That’s no problem. All we need to do is to raise the minimum wage.” She put forward another argument opposed to Bob’s, and thus her move is classified as a rebut- tal. A rebuttal occurs, as defined above, where one argument has been put forward by one party in a dialogue, and another argument with the conclusion opposite to that of the first argument is put forward by the other party. The way such rebuttal works is that it undermines the sup- port given by the premises for the conclusion of the first argument, often by introducing a new premise. Helen’s rebuttal can be put in the form of an argument as follows.

PREMISE: If we raise the minimum wage, students would not have to depend on tips to afford tuition costs.

PREMISE: If students didn’t have to depend on tips to afford tuition costs, it would not be necessary for them to rely on tips to afford a university education.

CONCLUSION: It’s not true that discontinuing tipping would be a bad thing.

Her first premise introduces a new assumption into the argumentation in the dialogue. Based on this assumption as a premise, and also on another premise, as indicated above, Helen arrived at a conclusion. The conclu- sion is the opposite of Bob’s conclusion in his prior argument above. The premises of Bob’s argument supported the conclusion. But Helen’s new

8. Criticizing an Argument by Asking Questions 29

argument, which was introduced into the dialogue at the next move, gave a reason to support its conclusion, the opposite of Bob’s. Thus Helen’s argument is a rebuttal of Bob’s previous argument.

We noted above that relevance is an important property of argumen- tation and that an argument is relevant if it leads to an arguer’s thesis that he or she is supposed to prove in a dialogue. But there is another factor that is crucial to relevance. This is the relationship of one argu- ment to the next argument, or move made by the other party, that makes a dialogue hang together and makes it productive as a dialogue. Bob’s argu- ment responds to Helen’s, and then her rebuttal responds to his last one. Thus the dialogue as a whole has a certain connectivity of argumentation. One move is relevant to the next one. The whole chain of argumentation hangs together and leads in a certain direction, toward the resolution of the central issue. Looking at an argument from a local viewpoint is very useful when we want to isolate the specific premises and conclusion for analysis and evaluation, and see how one move is related to a next move. But it can also be useful to look at an argument from a global viewpoint, especially where the argument is a long one and we know more about the context of how it is being used and where it is leading.

EXERCISE 1.7

1.Find an example in the Santa Claus dialogue where one party rebuts the previous argument of the other party. Express each argument as a set of premises and a conclusion.

2.Find an example in the Santa Claus dialogue where one party questions the previous argument of the other party but makes no attempt to rebut it.

3.Find a chain of argumentation in the Santa Claus dialogue and identify all the premises and conclusions in the chain.