Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning (SUNY Se (SUNY series in Logic and Language) - Softcover

Walton, Douglas N.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 079142586X ISBN 13: 9780791425862

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1995

Synopsis

Develops a logical analysis of dialogue in which two or more parties attempt to advance their own interests. It includes a classification of the major types of dialogues and a discussion of several important informal fallacies.

This book develops a logical analysis of dialogue in which two or more parties attempt to advance their own interests. It includes a classification of the major types of dialogues and a discussion of several important informal fallacies. The authors define the concept of commitment in a way that makes it useful in evaluating arguments. In traditional logic, a proposition is either true or false, and that is the end of it. In this new framework, an arguer can be held to his or her commitments in some cases, but in other cases, he or she can retract them without violating any rule of the dialogue. Commitment in Dialogue studies the conditions under which commitments should be held or may be retracted within an argument.

An extensive case study of a discussion in medical ethics is used to bring together two traditions or schools of thought that had not been integrated previously--the rigorous Lorenzen school of formal logic, and the more permissive Hamblin-style dialogue. It introduces these methods of evaluation and offers guidelines for analyzing the text of discourse.

The book could be used in both intermediate and advanced courses in informal logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, but it is accessible to the reader with no background in these fields as well. Each chapter is summarized, and additional problems to be solved are presented.

About this title

About the Author

Douglas Walton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg. He is the author of many works on informal logic and argumentation, including Appeal to Pity: Argumentum ad Misericordiam, also published by SUNY Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 079142586X
• ISBN 13: 9780791425862
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 236