Paper Review: A Pragma-dialectical Procedure for a Critical Discussion
Pragma-dialectics is a type of argumentation theory used to evaluate argument in practice. Pragma refers to the pragmatic notion while dialectics denotes the fact that argument typically takes place within a dialectic process. The idea is that argumentation is a speech act with specific goals depending on the objectives of the conversation.
Referring to the Wikipedia page, the theoretical justification states:
In pragma-dialectics, argumentation is viewed as a communicative and interactional discourse phenomenon that is to be studied from a normative as well as a descriptive perspective. The dialectical dimension is inspired by normative insights from critical rationalism and formal dialectics, the pragmatic dimension by descriptive insights from speech act theory, Gricean language philosophy and discourse analysis.[2]
The term "dialectic" has a long history ranging from Plato to Hegel. Without going into much depth, it refers to a process by which one or more participants in a dialogue converge on the truth of a proposition. Rather than argumentation in isolation, it is context bound and interactive. It involves multiple viewpoints and can be seen as an evolutionary process. The Socratic Method can be thought of as a dialectical process between Socrates and whoever is participating with him. The "quaestio disputata" was the Medieval version of the "dialectic" which based its foundation on Aristotle. The dialectic became subsumed in later years by Hegelianism and Marxism as a philosophical approach to understanding the dynamics of history; a mechanism for explaining how history "unfolds" rather than an instrument of discussion (see historicism for more). In modern times, logicians such as Stephen Toulmin , Frans H Van Eemeren, John Pollock, and Douglas Walton have attempted to formalize the dialectic; even computationally as applied to AI and reasoning systems. The formal aspect of dialectic is based on defeasible reasoning, the logic of games, and dialogical logic. So in this sense, dialectics can be formalized and descriptive in a rigorous way. Since it is dialectic, it is not concerned with "axiomatic proofs" but rather what can be known in absence of such rigor. Naturally, this fits with critical rationalism in that if it cannot be verified or logically deduced, a proposition can nevertheless be falsified when submitted to critical scrutiny. This fits well with the defeasible argumentation schemas proposed by Walton and others. Someone proposes an argument for a proposition and interlocutors can subject it to critical questions.
So far so good; argumentation can be seen as a dialectical process of back and forth critical questioning. It differs from traditional approaches to argument in that it sees argument as a natural language phenomenon conducted between multiple agents interacting. This is where the notion of speech act becomes important. When we communicate and argue with one another, we are not doing formal argumentation. We are typically expressing more than what is implied by the premises alone. Speech act theory helps us understand argument as a natural language process. An overview of speech act levels can be described here:
Speech acts can be analysed on multiple levels:
- A locutionary act: the performance of an utterance: the actual utterance and its apparent meaning, comprising any and all of its verbal, social, and rhetorical meanings, all of which correspond to the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance;
- an illocutionary act: the active result of the implied request or meaning presented by the locutionary act. For example, if the locutionary act in an interaction is the question "Is there any salt?" the implied illocutionary request is "Please pass the salt to me." or at least "I wish to add salt to my meal.";
- and under certain conditions a further perlocutionary act: the actual effect of the locutionary and illocutionary acts, such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something, whether intended or not.[1]
- Additionally, a metalocutionary act categorizes speech acts that refer to the forms and functions of the discourse itself rather than continuing the substantive development of the discourse, or to the configurational functions of prosody and punctuation.[11]: 88–93
The idea is that when we communicate or argue, we are conveying more meaning than what is denoted or connoted by the word. This is the pragmatic aspect of pragma dialectics. Paul Grice devised the closely related notion of an implicature; something expressed or implied but not literally uttered. Pragmatic expressions like this are useful in different dialogues due to their efficiency; not everything needs to be literally expressed. On the flip side, sometimes we express meanings not intended on being conveyed. The example on Wikipedia; "Person A: I am out of gas", "Person B: There is a gas station around the corner". The first person is implicitly asking a question of the second person who understands this conversational implicature and responds with their best guess. Note that it is not simply a guess; the speakers share a common communicative context in which the response is naturally inferred based on common assumptions. If the response was successful, it will be deemed relevant. If not immediately, it is possible additional reasoning will be needed to bridge the gap in understanding. Note that this is very similar to what people in AI are attempting to do when programming "common sense". These differ from "conventional implicatures" in that conventional ones typically use words like "but" or "therefore" to express conceptual differences.
Grice utilizes the notion of Cooperative Principle to describe how people come to mutual understanding. From Wiki:
— Grice (1975:26–27), Levinson (1983:100–102)
The idea is pretty straight forward when you think about it. There are pragmatic and dialectic aspects of argumentative discourse. The question becomes: how do people converge in understanding? There must be some sort of general rules or procedures in different dialogue types which loosely govern these processes. Pragma-dialectics describes and prescribes these structures; especially during critical discussions. Later I will review Walton & Macagno Implicatures as Forms of Argument which shows how conversational implicature is a form of argument during a specific stage in a dialogue where information or knowledge is lacking. The idea is that the implicature is an argument used to reduce doubt in order to achieve a goal. All of this work is interrelated. I think the implications for AI are severely understated.
On to the discussion of the paper: A Pragma-dialectical Procedure for a Critical Discussion. The main idea here is that argument takes place in a dialogue. There are multiple stages within a dialogue in which specific argumentative strategies are or are not allowed. There are many different types of dialogues, and different stages within each dialogue. The figure below shows a few catalogued by Walton
On the surface this should feel very intuitive. Different communication contexts are different from one another. There will be different stages within each of them and different rules governing them. At this level, a fallacy can be seen as a violation of some rule within a type of dialogue. These are not top down rules, but rather ideal forms of dialogues. We can readily transition from one to another rapidly during communication. Think about presidential debates; how quickly do they devolve to Eristic dialogue? Also, think about how this relates to conversational implicature. If the person responds to the other person needing gas with "prove it", wouldn't that seem a little off?
In Argumentation: analysis and evaluation Eemeren presents a list of rules for critical discussion. These are different than the ones in the paper but I thought they would be good to know.
- Freedom rule
Parties must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or from casting doubt on standpoints. - Burden of proof rule
A party that advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if asked by the other party to do so. - Standpoint rule
A party's attack on a standpoint must relate to the standpoint that has indeed been advanced by the other party. - Relevance rule
A party may defend a standpoint only by advancing argumentation relating to that standpoint. - Unexpressed premise rule
A party may not deny premise that he or she has left implicit or falsely present something as a premise that has been left unexpressed by the other party. - Starting point rule
A party may not falsely present a premise as an accepted starting point nor deny a premise representing an accepted starting point. - Argument scheme rule
A party may not regard a standpoint as conclusively defended if the defense does not take place by means of an appropriate argumentation scheme that is correctly applied. - Validity rule
A party may only use arguments in its argumentation that are logically valid or capable of being made logically valid by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises. - Closure rule
A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the party that put forward the standpoint retracting it and a conclusive defense of the standpoint must result in the other party retracting its doubt about the standpoint. - Usage rule
A party must not use formulations that are insufficiently clear or confusingly ambiguous and a party must interpret the other party's formulations as carefully and accurately as possible.
Enough background, Now lets jump into the paper
The central idea: Can a protagonist's standpoint withstand the antagonist's criticism? There is a series of defense and justification and at some point the antagonist accepts the position or not. What are the rules governing this critical discussion? The rules should promote resolution, allow for flexibility, and also constrain participants in such a way to stay on track. The rules should extend to multiple agents and standpoints. The rules should be able to determine whether a speech act contributes to the goal of resolution; but not prematurely. Remember, the question to ask yourself is "If I could create optimal rules for critical discussion, how could they be formed?". Naturally, this will at various times mean that certain gestures or statements will be unacceptable. Think of what a judge does during a criminal case. The authors demonstrate the universality of these rules.
"This makes it necessary to indicate for each discussion stage when exactly the parties are entitled to perform a particular kind of speech act, and if and when they are even obliged to do so." (Pg.3)
Lets begin with the rules:
RULE 1
a. Special conditions apply neither to the propositional content of the assertives by which a standpoint is expressed, nor to the propositional content of the negation of the commissive by means of which a standpoint is called into question;
b. in the performance of these assertives and negative commissives, no special preparatory conditions apply to the position or status of the speaker or writer and listener or reader.
Participants in the dialogue will have the unconditional right to call into question every stance of every other discussant. This is the confrontation stage. If people agree, there is no need to embark to the next stage. There are no propositions that are off limits, and there is no status of a speaker which is off limits. You are not allowed to prevent others from voicing potential questions. Participants are not obligated to state anything, but once something is stated they can freely question its grounds and engage in critical discussion. At this point, everyone begins to converge on what some of the rules of engagement might be.
RULE 2
The discussant that has called the standpoint of the other discussant into question in the confrontation stage is always entitled to challenge this discussant to defend his or her standpoint.
A follow up on this rule is that the person advancing a standpoint can simply retract. If they do choose to defend, then:
A discussant that has successfully defended a standpoint is not subsequently obliged to defend the same standpoint again according to the same discussion rules and with the same premises against the same discussant. This principle does not apply to discussions either with a different challenger, or with the same challenger but with different premises, or different discussion rules. (p.6)
Discussion can be reopened, but only with new premises or if the initial response was subject to doubt after additional information became available. Note that the person advancing the claim is always obligated to defend or retract.
RULE 3
The discussant who is challenged by the other discussant to defend the standpoint that he or she has put forward in the confrontation stage is always obliged to accept this challenge, unless the other discussant is not prepared to accept certain shared premises and discussion rules; the discussant remains obliged to defend the standpoint as long as he or she does not retract it and as long as he or she has not successfully defended it against the other discussant on the basis of the agreed premises and discussion rules.
If you cannot agree on definitions, preliminary conceptions, or shared rules of engagement you do not have to accept the challenge, but are still obligated to defend the standpoint assuming it is not retracted. If you already defended it in another place, you can refer the antagonist to that defense. "Agree to disagree" is not how an argument is resolved. This accounts for the burden of proof: whoever puts forth a position is obligated to defend it. Who has to demonstrate the weight of evidence? The protagonist.
RULE 4
The discussant that in the opening stage has accepted the other discussant’s challenge to defend his or her standpoint will fulfill the role of protagonist in the argumentation stage, and the other discussant will fulfill the role of antagonist, unless they agree otherwise; the distribution of roles is maintained until the end of the discussion.
During the argumentation stage, which rules should apply? In court of law, certain evidence is admissible. Certain inferences like "speculation" are not allowed. Character attacks are also frowned upon unless the persons character is somehow relevant to the goal of the discussion. There can be exceptional cases for this say if a psychologist deems it likely that person of type X will do such and such. The weight or force of this inference may be defined as less significant compared to something more demonstrable and evident. All of these rules can be determined during the argumentation stage and the key is to remain consistent with the rules and to clearly delineate their boundaries. In non-legal settings, any rule can be called into question. How strongly should the rule apply? What are the conditions of good argument? Discussion about the rules of discussion leads to a metadiscussion.
RULE 5
The discussants who will fulfill the roles of protagonist and antagonist in the argumentation stage agree before the start of the argumentation stage on the rules for the following: how the protagonist is to defend the initial standpoint and how the antagonist is to attack this standpoint, and in which case the protagonist has successfully defended the standpoint and in which case the antagonist has successfully attacked it; the rules in which this is laid down apply throughout the duration of the discussion, and may not be called into question during the discussion itself by either of the parties
Are there certain arguments that are inherently unethical? Are there counter arguments that simply distract from the original objective? When does the burden of proof become fulfilled? All of these should be considered beforehand. During the discussion, if you are losing, you cannot simply revise the standards by which you assess the arguments. While arguing, the propositional content and relevance of the reasons can be attacked. If we are going to argue about something controversial, or anything for that matter, we have to specify the scope of the discussion and what are reasonable constraints. The antagonist has the right to probe any defense that is provisionally put fourth by the protagonist. Do you have enough evidence, do you have the right kind of evidence, is your claim overstated, are there any obvious fallacies, are there any obvious cognitive biases? This is the only way to attack or propose; you cannot say things like "you are dumb".
RULE 6
a. The protagonist may always defend the standpoint that he or she adopts in the initial difference of opinion or in a sub-difference of opinion by performing a complex speech act of argumentation, which then counts as a provisional defense of this standpoint;
b. the antagonist may always attack a standpoint by calling into question its propositional content or the force of the argumentation as a justification or refutation;
c. the protagonist and the antagonist may not defend or attack standpoints in any other way.
How do we know if an argument is good? If the protagonist has put forth an argument in accordance with the rules established, and the antagonist has accepted the argument according to the rules. The protagonist "successfully defended" the position in this case, and if they do not do this, then the antagonist has "successfully attacked" the argument. But how do we know if a proposition is acceptable?
The propositions that are accepted by both parties may concern facts, truths, norms, values or value hierarchies. The discussants are completely free to draw up a list of propositions accepted by both parties. All of the propositions that they both accept may be included. The only restriction is that the list must be consistent. It may not contain any propositions that contradict other propositions. Otherwise it would always be possible to defend successfully any arbitrary standpoint against any attacker, which inevitably renders the resolution of a difference of opinion impossible. That a proposition is included in the list of accepted propositions means only that the discussants are agreed that the proposition in question may not be called into question during the discussion. In other words, they may treat this proposition in the discussion as though they accept it, whether or not this is actually the case. The list specifies which propositions have been accepted by the discussants for the duration of the discussion and can therefore be regarded as their shared premises.
This is the intersubjective nature about finding the common ground among the participants. These are your base "facts"; they are beyond dispute at this point in time. They cannot be contradictory or inconsistent as this would render argumentation unresolvable. If the antagonist argues against something that resembles, to a remarkable degree, one of the basic assumptions, the protagonist can reference this as a defense. However, the protagonist is not required to devise a set of agreed upon premises. They can also reference premises in which no prior agreement has been established; in light of new information. This means that, the means for acquiring information and what is acceptable, must be established if new information is brought into bear on premises that have not yet been established universally. This can be summarized below:
RULE 7
a. The protagonist has successfully defended a complex speech act of argumentation against an attack by the antagonist with regard to its propositional content if the application of the intersubjective identification procedure yields a positive result or if the propositional content is in the second instance accepted by both parties as a result of a subdiscussion in which the protagonist has succesfully defended a positive sub-standpoint with regard to this propositional content;
b. the antagonist has successfully attacked the propositional content of the complex speech act of argumentation if the application of the intersubjective identification procedure yields a negative result and the protagonist has not succesfully defended a positive sub-standpoint with regard to this propositional content in a sub-discussion.
A reoccurring theme throughout this paper is that there must be: reasons for acceptance and the force of the reasons made explicit. How something is argued, is also important. The authors refer to the "intersubjective explicitization" of the argumentation scheme used by the protagonist; and that this must be accepted by both parties before argument has taken place. This is a very fancy way of saying that certain types of arguments will not be admissible. This is similar to a judge not allowing speculative inference on part of the prosecution. In this example, you cannot imply what the defense would have done had certain conditions be true. At that point, you are outside the realm of "matters of fact".
There are many different types of argument schemes. Reasoning Lab has a nice collection of some of the main catalogues various authors have proposed. I came to study reasoning through Douglas Walton's collection, where you can find here. In A Classification System for Argumentation Schemes Walton proposes general categories of schemes that share similarities. Some of the categories are: Schemes for source based arguments, Arguments from analogy, Arguments from Cause to Effect, Arguments from Expert Opinion, Schemes for practical argumentation, Schemes for applying rules to cases, Arguments from Discovery, Arguments based on Cases, Reasoning from Sign, Reasoning from Effect to Cause, Argument from Position to Know, and Arguments based on consequences to name just a few. When we reason for something, we are almost always instantiating a type of argumentation scheme. Here is a useful reference to begin argument mining. The idea is that reasoning tends to fall into one of these broad schemas, there is an associated structure, and there are critical questions associated with each.
Other schemes
The following list is a selection of names of argumentation schemes from Walton, Reed & Macagno (2008); other sources may give different names:
- Argument from witness testimony
- Argument from popular opinion
- Argument from popular practice
- Argument from example
- Argument from composition
- Argument from division
- Argument from oppositions
- Argument from alternatives
- Argument from verbal classification
- Argument from definition to verbal classification
- Argument from vagueness of a verbal classification
- Argument from arbitrariness of a verbal classification
- Argument from interaction of act and person
- Argument from values
- Argument from the group and its members
- Practical reasoning argument
- Argument from waste
- Argument from sunk costs
- Argument from correlation to cause
- Argument from sign
- Argument from evidence to a hypothesis
- Argument from consequences
- Argument from threat
- Argument from fear appeal
- Argument from danger appeal
- Argument from need for help
- Argument from distress
- Argument from commitment
- Ethotic argument
- Generic ad hominem argument
- Pragmatic inconsistency argument
- Argument from inconsistent commitment
- Circumstantial ad hominem argument
- Argument from bias
- Bias ad hominem argument
- Argument from gradualism
- Slippery slope argument
See Practical reason § In argumentation for a description of argumentation schemes for practical reasoning.
Argumentation Schemes capture stereotypical, non-deductive, and non-monotonic forms of reasoning.
The definite clause logic is monotonic in the sense that anything that could be concluded before a clause is added can still be concluded after it is added; adding knowledge does not reduce the set of propositions that can be derived.
A logic is non-monotonic if some conclusions can be invalidated by adding more knowledge. The logic of definite clauses with negation as failure is non-monotonic. Non-monotonic reasoning is useful for representing defaults. A default is a rule that can be used unless it overridden by an exception. (Artificial Intelligence: Foundations for Computational Agents).
Non monotonic logic captures the notion of "defeasibility"; which characterize most of our natural language argumentation. The Stanford Encyclopedia article on Defeasibility very well; and my personal take on this is that its very possible that almost all forms of reasoning actually reduces to defeasible inference. The idea is that we can never ascertain certainty, so in this sense, all forms of reasoning from uncertainty are defeasible. These argumentation schemes help us make our forms of reasoning clearer. You can see how this overlaps with this Pragma Dialectical notion of argument in a context. To understand Monotonicity of entailment, remember that for a proposition P to entail Q, Q has to be true whenever P is true (P or Q entails not P and Q, as an example).
Monotonicity implies that learning new information does not reduce the set of what is known. Contrast this with defeasibility. P1: All Birds fly, P2: Tweety is a bird C: Tweety Flies; What if tweety is a penguin? The argument appears like a deductive inference but really it is a defeasible inference from what is known about the world; a world in which the knowledge base is open and ever changing. This is inherently tied to the idea of Belief Revision: how rational agents revise their beliefs when new information is presented. The major premise in the argument above can be qualified with "Typically" to reduce the scope of the argument. Think about how that relates to the article we are reading; is the protagonist inflating the scope of their claim? Defeasible reasoning is non-demonstrative, meaning that the ultimate claim is never demonstrated with certainty.
Defeasible reasoning finds its fullest expression in jurisprudence, ethics and moral philosophy, epistemology, pragmatics and conversational conventions in linguistics, constructivist decision theories, and in knowledge representation and planning in artificial intelligence. It is also closely identified with prima facie (presumptive) reasoning (i.e., reasoning on the "face" of evidence), and ceteris paribus (default) reasoning (i.e., reasoning, all things "being equal").
Other kinds of non-demonstrative reasoning are probabilistic reasoning, inductive reasoning, statistical reasoning, abductive reasoning, and paraconsistent reasoning.
The differences between these kinds of reasoning correspond to differences about the conditional that each kind of reasoning uses, and on what premise (or on what authority) the conditional is adopted:
- Deductive (from meaning postulate or axiom): if p then q (equivalent to q or not-p in classical logic, not necessarily in other logics)
- Defeasible (from authority): if p then (defeasibly) q
- Probabilistic (from combinatorics and indifference): if p then (probably) q
- Statistical (from data and presumption): the frequency of qs among ps is high (or inference from a model fit to data); hence, (in the right context) if p then (probably) q
- Inductive (theory formation; from data, coherence, simplicity, and confirmation): (inducibly) "if p then q"; hence, if p then (deducibly-but-revisably) q
- Abductive (from data and theory): p and q are correlated, and q is sufficient for p; hence, if p then (abducibly) q as cause
Now think back to the argumentation stage of the protagonist and antagonist in Rule #7. Maybe beforehand, you rule out the "Argument from Popular Opinion" because of its lack of reliability in discerning the truth of a proposition. If someone brings in this form of argument, you can rightly dismiss it on grounds of it being fallacious. Think of the Argument from Analogy; in a scientific investigation of cause and effect will this be acceptable? In some sense we cannot think outside of analogy. The question "Does drug X work in curing Y" cannot be "proven" by arguing from the analogy that "Drug Z is similar to Drug X, therefore it will cure Y" in a scientific discipline because the community has ruled this out as an effective way to establish cause and effect. Analogy is notoriously defeasible, so maybe from a practical perspective, we should not allow this form of argument. But in some sense, medical practitioners use this sort of reasoning all of the time. They use the Abductive reasoning version, at the very least. Suppose you have symptoms X, Y, and Z. Drug X has worked for another patient with symptoms X, Y, and B. Therefore, the doctor reasons, this may also work for you given your similarity to the other patient. Should we rule this out? Should doctors only be able to recommend a medication if there is a higher degree of reliability with their diagnostic method? Short of a direct test, or a genomic sequence of the virus, what are they to do? This also captures the notion of defeasibility and the open knowledge base. Suppose new information is released stating that drug X has a side effect S on patients with attributes A,B, and C. Is it worth the risk now?
Whatever set of acceptable arguments you agree on; there will be a corresponding set of critical questions that can be used to probe into the premises of the defeasible argument. Think about it from a very basic perspective. Suppose someone advances the proposition X on the account that Expert A states it to be true. What sort of questions can you use to probe into the strength of this argument? Maybe you can say: Is the source actually a genuine expert in this subject? This seems obvious and fairly intuitive as a means for assessing the reliability of the expert. Or you can ask: Is expertise even possible in this domain of knowledge? What is the degree of acceptance among other experts in this domain? Why is the expert's statement relevant? Does the expert have all of the information necessary to make a credible inference or is their inference based on limited data that reduces the strength of their claim? This has a high degree of similarity with Arguing from "Position to Know". Walton has a compendium of critical questions associated with each schema, but you can come up with your own as well. These sort of questions assess the quality of the premises, but then there is the question of force. So what if an expert says something? The protagonist will have to explain why this has a strong "force"; maybe combined with other forms of reasoning it is strong, but on its own it is not. The key point is this: critical questions provide an evaluative function in assessing arguments and some argument schemes may not be allowed in certain contexts. It seems obvious, but would we allow argument from analogy in the court? "Person X is like person Y who did Z, therefore they are guilty!" or "Person X hangs around person Y who might have done Z, therefore they are both guilty!". I think, we moved out of the middle ages by realizing the stupidity of arguments like this. Before you start reasoning, think about how you are going to reason. Does argument from authority work in scriptural interpretation?
RULE 8
a. The protagonist has successfully defended a complex speech act of argumentation against an attack by the antagonist with regard to its force of justification or refutation if the application of the intersubjective inference procedure or (after application of the intersubjective explicitization procedure) the application of the intersubjective testing procedure, yields a positive result;
b. if the application of the intersubjective inference procedure or (after application of the intersubjective explicitization procedure) the application of the intersubjective testing procedure yields a negative result, the antagonist has successfully attacked the force of justification or refutation of the argumentation.
For a conclusive defense of a standpoint, the protagonist must have defended both the propositional content of the argumentation (as prescribed in rule 7) and its force of justification or refutation with regard to the proposition on which the standpoint bears (as prescribed in rule 8). For a conclusive attack on a standpoint, the antagonist must have successfully attacked either the propositional content of the argumentation or its force of justification or refutation (as prescribed in rules 7 and 8).
The explicitization procedure should look beyond your immediate circle or bubble. What if for some reason, the people in a discussion have agreed that arguments from correlation to causation are sufficient for warranting a conclusion. Suppose the example is vaccinations. Person X and Y agree not to get vaccination Z on the basis that there is anecdotal evidence claiming that vaccines cause autism; citing some correlation. This is actually a very practical, real world example, where poor reasoning can lead to bad outcomes. The problem with anecdotes is that data was not collected in a systematic or standardized manner. There is no experimental control; and no reference to randomized control trials. Anything goes at this point; what is stopping you from claiming vaccines cause cancer? There must be a way to constrain this sort of poor inference. If, in your bubble, you have not referred to medical articles which use rigorous methods, should you feel confident in your conclusion you've reached solely on the basis of the intersubjective standards you and the antagonist have put forth? If you do not know statistics, I can see where this could be a bit of a problem. How do you even know the level of your own ignorance? This is why establishing the conditions of a successful argument are important. Generalize this to other examples. If someone else uses different argumentation standards, like requiring the presence of experimental evidence, should you just dismiss them on the account that they are "biased"? These procedures for dialog are important, but just know that "following" them does not guarantee something true.
RULE 9
a. The protagonist has conclusively defended an initial standpoint or substandpoint by means of a complex speech act of argumentation if he or she has successfully defended both the propositional content called into question by the antagonist and its force of justification or refutation called into question by the antagonist;
b. the antagonist has conclusively attacked the standpoint of the protagonist if he or she has successfully attacked either the propositional content or the force of justification or refutation of the complex speech act of argumentation.
I think I should reinforce the "complex" in "complex speech act" because it will make more sense in the commentary I made above. There is no sufficient, objective measure, to say a speech act is complex enough. However, it should be obvious that "Because I say so" might be one of the least complex speech acts ever uttered. The complexity of a speech act refers to how deep, broad, precise, strong, and comprehensive your reasons are for your conclusion. "Complex" is reiterated throughout the article because the authors are really trying to drive home the point that simple arguments or assertions are not really even in the domain of critical discussion. The main point of rule 9 is to show that you, as the antagonist, only need to demonstrate that one component of the argument is insufficient while the protagonist has to show that all of the components are justified. If one point is destroyed, why do you need to take apart all of the other details? Now, if the protagonist successfully defends the first point, you can move on to a second point.
RULE 10
The antagonist retains throughout the entire discussion the right to call into question both the propositional content and the force of justification or refutation of every complex speech act of argumentation of the protagonist that the latter has not yet successfully defended.
The antagonist can attack anything, while the protagonist must defend everything. If the protagonist claims that "they did not refute the most important part", this is fallacious because it is not their decision as to what is the most "important". However, this does not mean that you "won the argument" by bringing up Trivial Objections. If someone is making a claim where little details are not relevant to the general claim, and someone attacks the argument on the basis that it lacks factual accuracy, this could be seen as trivial. For example, if I am saying that water fowl are annoying on the account that the geese outside of my apartment won't shut up, and someone says "well ducks are not loud", they missed the main thrust of my assertion. This is a type of red herring fallacy that ignores what the main point is. Although, you cannot simply assert that all objections are trivial. That would be arbitrary. So the rule stands; you should be obliged to defend all of your positions.
RULE 11
The protagonist retains throughout the entire discussion the right to defend both the propositional content and the force of justification or refutation of every complex speech act of argumentation that he or she has performed and not yet successfully defended against every attack by the antagonist.
This follows from Rule 10, it does not need any more explanation.
RULE 12
The protagonist retains throughout the entire discussion the right to retract the complex speech act of argumentation that he or she has performed and thereby to remove the obligation to defend it.
If the opinion is shifting through the course of a debate, the protagonist can edit their original arguments. They are not bound for life to their initial argument, they can change it as they see fit if antagonists have dismantled it.
RULE 13
a. The protagonist and the antagonist may only once perform the same speech act or the same complex speech act with the same role in the discussion.
b. The protagonist and the antagonist must perform speech acts or complex speech acts in turn.
c. The protagonist and the antagonist may not perform more than one speech act or complex speech act at one time.
To summarize this rule: a) refers to the fact that you cannot shift the burden of proof. If the antagonist has an objection, you cannot hit them with the "well, you prove me wrong then" response B) is referring to the fact that you shouldn't talk over one another, wait until the point has been made and C) refers to the fact that we should keep arguments orderly, do not bounce from one topic to another. This refers to the conduct of an argument. It makes sense; procedures should have norms for conduct in order for the procedure to be successful.
RULE 14
a. The protagonist is obliged to retract the initial standpoint if the antagonist has conclusively attacked it (in the manner prescribed in rule 9) in the argumentation stage (and has also observed the other discussion rules);
b. the antagonist is obliged to retract the calling into question of the initial standpoint if the protagonist has conclusively defended it (in the manner prescribed in rule 9) in the argumentation stage (and has also observed the other discussion rules);
c. in all other cases the protagonist is not obliged to retract the initial standpoint, nor is the antagonist obliged to withdraw his or her calling into question the initial standpoint.
If the antagonist lost, you lost. You can't keep bringing it up. If your attacks were more convincing than the defense, then you won. If no one was a winner, you can both keep your standpoint. You can always bring up a new discussion. And lastly:
RULE 15
a. The discussants have the right at every stage of the discussion to request the other discussant to perform a usage declarative and to perform one themselves.
b. the discussant who is requested to perform a usage declarative by the other discussant is obliged to do so.
This last rule refers to the rights and obligations regarding usage declaratives. It is simple, you must understand the arguments the other person is putting forward. If you are unclear in formulating and expressing your standpoint, or if the other person misinterprets it, you will be speaking cross purposes. "To this end, discussants must formulate optimally and they must also interpret optimally"; this is where things like Principle of Charity and Steelmaning comes in. If you cannot express your position clearly, or if the antagonist cannot interpret your position clearly, you will likely not resolve anything. If you deliberately misinterpret your opponent this is even worse. "Moreover, where necessary, all discussants must be prepared to replace their formulations and interpretations by better ones"; this is obvious as it contributes to the overall quality of the discussion. Many times in "debate" people are engaging with someone they literally perceive to be an enemy. They want to win so bad that they might misinterpret or misunderstand what the other person is saying. Think of an example like border control in the United States. If someone is "for a stronger border" (whatever that means), an enraged opponent might say "so you are saying that....(insert worst thing ever)". This is arguable the most difficult thing to do when arguing about emotionally induced topics because we feel so strongly that we can't help but perceive others as the enemy; it is not a debate but an existential defense. A critical thinker can empathize and represent the argument as it is; not impose the worst interpretation over it.
Aiming for optimal formulations and optimal interpretations does not, unfortunately, automatically mean that these aims are attained. To be on the safe side, discussants who doubt the clarity of their formulation do well to replace it by a formulation that they consider to be clearer, and discussants who doubt their interpretation do well, to be on the safe side, to put it to the other discussant and to ask for an amplification, specification or other usage declarative.
Think of the language you use to formulate your position. Think about a better way to frame your opponents position. My general rule of thumb is that when a person starts saying "So you are saying that...", you are not in a critical discussion anymore but rather approaching an "argument" that is a complete waste of time. If you try to reclarify yourself (as allowed by rule 15), and they continue to misrepresent your position, don't waste your time.
This is not to say that you should not try to clarify your position and terminology if someone is genuinely confused. The antagonist has the right to ask for clarification, because how else can they understand your position? Maybe there is not even a need for the antagonist to attack it if you clarified it properly. From the antagonists perspective, if the protagonist has not been clear about what their stance is, why even engage unless necessary?
Conclusion:
This was a lot. Ask yourself: do political debates follow any of this? Do YOU follow any of this? These rules can actually help critical discussion converge to a point of resolution. It can also prevent hard discussions from devolving into the gems we see on TV. Why would you be convinced by someone who does not, at least implicitly, apply any of this? Are you blind to the fact that your favorite political pundit is probably guilty of violating every single rule? Are you concerned with truth? Or are you only concerned with maintaining the illusion that you are right?
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