Controversy and Confrontation Controversies (CVS) Controversies includes studies in the theory of controversy or any of its salient aspects, studies of the history of controversy forms and their evolution, case-studies of particular historical or current controversies in any field or period, edited collections of documents of a given controversy or a family of related controversies, and other controversy-focused books. The series will also act as a forum for ‘agenda-setting’ debates, where prominent discussants of current controversial issues will take part. Since controversy involves necessarily dialogue, manuscripts focusing exclusively on one position will not be considered. Editor Marcelo Dascal Tel Aviv University Advisory Board Harry Collins Kuno Lorenz University of Cardiff University of Saarbrücken Frans H. van Eemeren Everett Mendelssohn University of Amsterdam Harvard University Gerd Fritz Quintín Racionero University of Giessen UNED, Madrid Fernando Gil † Yaron Senderowicz Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Tel Aviv University Sociales, Paris Stephen Toulmin Thomas Gloning University of Southern California University of Marburg Ruth Wodak Alan G. Gross University of Vienna University of Minnesota Geoffrey Lloyd Cambridge University Volume 6 Controversy and Confrontation. Relating controversy analysis with argumentation theory Edited by Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen Controversy and Confrontation Relating controversy analysis with argumentation theory Edited by Frans H. van Eemeren Bart Garssen University of Amsterdam John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of 8 American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Controversy and confrontation : relating controversy analysis with argumentation theory / edited by Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen. p. cm. (Controversies, issn 1574-1583 ; v. 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Persuasion (Rhetoric) 2. Debates and debatiing. 3. Pragmatics. 4. Logic. 5. Reasoning. I. Eemeren, F. H. van. II. Garssen, Bart. P301.5.P47C655 2008 808.53--dc22 2008035990 isbn 978 90 272 1886 5 (Hb; alk. paper) © 2008 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa Table of contents Preface vii List of contributors ix Controversy and confrontation in argumentative discourse 1 Frans H. van Eemeren & Bart Garssen Dichotomies and types of debate 27 Marcelo Dascal Charles Darwin versus George Mivart: The role of polemics 51 in science Anna Carolina Regner Scientific demarcation and metascience: The national academy 77 of sciences on greenhouse warming and evolution Thomas M. Lessl Reforming the Jews, rejecting marginalization: The 1799 German 93 debate on Jewish emancipation in its controversy context Mirela Saim Communication principles for controversies: A historical perspective 109 Gerd Fritz On the role of pragmatics, rhetoric and dialectic in scientific controversies 125 Ademar Ferreira A “dialectic ladder” of refutation and dissuasion 135 Cristina Marras & Enrico Euli Responding to objections 149 Ralph H. Johnson Pragmatic inconsistency and credibility 163 Jan Albert van Laar vi Controversy and Confrontation Reasonableness in confrontation: Empirical evidence 181 concerning the assessment of ad hominem fallacies Frans van Eemeren, Bart Garssen & Bert Meuffels Managing disagreement in multiparty deliberation 197 Mark Aakhus & Alena L. Vasilyeva Predicaments of politicization in the debate over 215 abstinence-only sex education Sally Jackson Rhetoric of science, pragma-dialectics, and science studies 231 Gábor Kutrovátz Scientific controversies and the pragma-dialectical model: Analysing a case study from the 1670s, the published part of the Newton-Lucas correspondence 249 Gábor A. Zemplén Index 275 Preface Controversy and Confrontation is a collection of papers on argumentative discourse that centre round the notions of controversy and confrontation. Each paper illu- minates certain theoretical or empirical aspects of argumentation in controversy or confrontation in argumentation. When taken together, the papers provide a closer insight into the relationship between controversy and confrontation that deepens our understanding of the functioning of argumentative discourse in man- aging differences of opinion. In our introductory chapter, ‘Controversy and Con- frontation in Argumentative Discourse,’ we make use of theoretical concepts from both the study of controversy and the study of argumentation to explain what this relationship involves. Basically, the contributors to this volume stem from two backgrounds, which partially overlap (and should, in our view, overlap even more): the International Association for the Study of Controversies (IASC) and the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA). On the one hand, Marcelo Dascal, Cristina Marras, Enrico Euli, Anna Carolina Regner, Ademar Ferreira and Thomas M. Lessl are involved in studying historical controversies, both from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. In a similar vein, Mirela Saim concentrates on a historical controversy concerning Jewish emancipation; Gerd Fritz provides a historical perspective on controversies by analyzing communication principles. On the other hand, Ralph Johnson, Jan Albert van Laar, Frans H. van Eemeren, Bart Garssen and Bert Meuffels address in their contributions in the first place theoretical or empirical aspects of argumentative confrontation. Mark Aakhus and Alena L. Vasilyeva too concentrate primarily on argumentative confrontation: they examine argumentative discourse from the perspective of conversation analysis. Sally Jackson analyzes argumentative confrontation in a recent debate between scientists and politicians. Among the contributors who make an attempt to bridge the study of historical controversy and the study of argumentation by utilizing conceptual instruments of the latter to serve the former are Gábor Kutrovátz and Gábor A. Zemplén. In Controversy and Confrontation the contributing authors analyze a number of important historical and modern argumentative exchanges. In some cases, such an analysis is their main aim; in other cases, the analysis is instrumental in explaining their approach. Among the cases that are discussed are the Newton – Lucas debate, the debate between Darwin and Mivart on evolution in the late 19th century, the philosophical confrontation on historicism between Strauss and Stern, the debate viii Controversy and Confrontation on Jewish emancipation between David Friedländer, Wilhelm Abraham Teller and Friedrich Schleiermacher that took place in Germany in 1799, the controversy on “action research” in the social sciences, Plato’s Euthydemus dialogue, the technical controversy about the notion of “decoupling,” Putnam’s discussion of “inflated dis- tinctions,” the American National Academy of sciences’ position on greenhouse warming and evolution, but also a debate about abstinence-only sex education and a discussion of leaders of a small community with representatives of a land devel- opment firm about a plan for housing development. Enough variety, we hope, to appeal to the interested reader. Next to the anonymous reviewers, who scrutinized upon our request each paper very carefully and made a great number of constructive comments, we would like to thank Renske Wierda and Halvor Berggrav for their technical assistance. Frans H. van Eemeren & Bart Garssen, Editors List of contributors Mark Aakhus Mark Aakhus (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He investigates the emergence and management of conflicts that arise as people attempt to make deci- sions, solve problems, and learn. This research examines the practices and technologies people implement to regulate and shape their communication and the consequences for how people interact and reason with each other when facing complex situations. He is co-editor, along with James Katz, of Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance (2002). Marcelo Dascal Marcelo Dascal is Professor of Philosophy and former Dean of Humanities at Tel Aviv University. His main research areas are the philosophy of language, pragmatics, the philosophy of mind, the history of modern philosophy, particularly Leibniz, and the study of controversies. His recent authored and edited books include Negotiation and Power in Dialogic Interaction (2001), Interpretation and Understanding (2003), The Gust of the Wind: Humanities in a New-Old World (2004) (in Hebrew), Controversies and Subjectivity (2005), G.W. Leibniz. The Art of Controversies (2006), Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist? (2008), Leibniz the Polemicist: The Practice of Reason (to appear). He is the editor of the journal Pragmatics & Cognition and of the book series Ma? Da! (in Hebrew) and Controversies, and co-editor of the book series Human Cognitive Processes. Dascal is the current president of the International Association for the Study of Controversies (IASC). He has received many awards, including the Humboldt Prize and the ISSA Argumentation Award. Frans H. van Eemeren Frans H. van Eemeren is Professor of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric and director of the Research Master’s programme Rhetoric, Argumen- tation theory and Philosophy (RAP) and the research program Argumentation and Discourse at the University of Amsterdam. Together with Rob Grootendorst, he devel- oped the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which he extended with Peter Houtlosser. He is editor-in-chief of the interdisciplinary journal Argumentation and the Library of Argumentation, chairman of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA) and Distinguished Scholar of the American National Commu- nication Association. Among his key publications are: (with Grootendorst) Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions (1984), Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies