逸仙逻辑讲坛第三十期预告｜Marcin Lewiński：Argumentation and polylogues

第三十期  逸仙逻辑讲坛

题目：Argumentation and polylogues

主讲人：Marcin Lewiński

新里斯本大学社会科学与人文学院传播学系

主持人：谢耘

中山大学哲学系逻辑与认知研究所

时   间：4月17日（周四）上午9:30

地   点：中山大学锡昌堂322室

主办方：中山大学逻辑与认知研究所

           论辩实验室

主讲人简介 

       Marcin Lewiński is Associate Professor in the Argumentation Lab, NOVA Institute of Philosophy, NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal. His research applying philosophical concepts to the study of public argumentation has been published in journals, edited volumes, and special issues. Marcin’s work focuses on the basic issues in the philosophy of language and argumentation theory such as rationality of everyday conversations, practical reasoning, pragmatic meaning, social and strategic aspects of speech acts, conceptual / metalinguistic disputes, and fallacies. His recent monograph (co-authored with Mark Aakhus, Rutgers University) Argumentation in Complex Communication: Managing Disagreement in a Polylogue was published by the Cambridge University Press (2023). He has led several research projects, including COST Action European network for argumentation and public policy analysis (APPLY: 2018-2023), funded by th European Commission. He is the Associate Editor of Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy, reponsible for its “Philosophy of Argument” section.

内容简介 

       What is the relation between the (ideal) concept of argument(ation) and the (actual) practices of argument(ation)? The lecture sketches an answer to this question based on the monograph Argumentation in complex communication: Managing disagreement in a polylogue (Lewinski & Aakhus, 2023, Cambridge University Press).

       In the dialectical tradition dating back, in the Western world, to the Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, argumentation is predominantly conceptualized as two parties arguing pro and con positions with each other in one place. I defend this as a powerful conceptualization, since the two parties (proponent-opponent) match the two basic truth values (true-false) – in this way, there is an isomorphic relation between the classic dyadic dialectic and the classic bi-valued logic. However, as I argue, the fact that some regimented one-on-one conversations might reflect the order of bivalued logic is serendipitous, rather than intrinsic to how argumentative communication works. I call it the serendipity thesis. Aware of the possible gap between complex argumentation activities and simple dyadic models, argumentation theory has resorted to various maneuvers of the dyadic reduction to preserve the dyadic nature of argumentation: for instance, by treating a complex exchange among multiple parties as if it were a series of dyadic encounters.

       In this lecture, I present an alternative to such reductions, namely, the polylogue framework. Poly-logue is discourse (logos) among many (poly). Accordingly, argumentative polylogues involve various players arguing over many positions across multiple places. I demonstrate some important examples of such multi-party discussions. Finally, I show how the contrastivist concept of argument (presented in Lecture 1) provides an adequate model for approaching the complexity of real-life argumentation without compromising the normative functions of argumentation theory.