Abstract
In this paper we draw on the munāẓara tradition to intervene in the debate on whether argument assessment should be agent- or act-based. We introduce and deploy the notion of sequencing – the ordering of the antagonist’s critical moves – to make explicit an ambiguity between the agent and the act of arguing. We show that sequencing is a component of argumentation that inextricably involves the procedure as well as the agent and, therefore, its assessment cannot be adequately undertaken if either agent- or act-based norms are ignored or demoted. We present our intervention through a challenge that virtue argumentation needs to address for it to be considered an alternative to existing theories of argument assessment (Section 2). We then briefly introduce munāẓara and focus on its notion of sequencing to explicate the interdependence between the agent and the procedure (Section 3). Next, we address the challenge by offering an account of the virtuous arguer as a virtuous sequencer (Section 4). In conclusion, we reflect on the implications of sequencing on virtue argumentation and the norms of argumentation.
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Notes
With the publication of Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s La nouvelle Rhétorique, the year 1958 marks the “Renaissance” of modern argumentation theories (Rigotti and Greco 2019, 131).
Virtue epistemologists are divided into reliabilists and responsibilists. Reliabilists claim that knowledge is the outcome of reliable processes exemplified, for example, in sight, hearing, and memory. Responsibilists claim that knowledge is not derived from innate skills but the outcome of excellences developed over time and that are subjected to human will and accountability (Turri et al. 1999); that is, virtue requires the agent to desire a specific act and be responsible for it. Although some proponents of virtue argumentation made use of this division (Gascón 2018), others call for a rapprochement and their consolidation (Aberdein 2010, 167).
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Samarqandī’s Ādāb al-Baḥth wa-l-munāẓara (end of the 13th c.) is considered the founding text in that tradition. In this work, Samarqandī builds on the procedures and norms of jadal, an argumentation theory in which the content of arguments are primarily divinely transmitted report (naqlī), to develop munāẓara as a field-independent argumentation model for the study of rational issues (aqlī) (Pehlivan and Ceylan 2015; see also Belhaj 2015). Munāẓara spread quickly and almost completely replaced jadal, even in debates about divinely transmitted reports (Pehlivan and Ceylan 2015).
We thank José Ángel Gascón for raising this point in his expert opinion for the “ADAB: Developing Argumentative Virtues in a Divided World” project.
Lumer (1988) mentions sequencing but is rather dismissive of the regulation of a “definite sequencing of moves” (p. 461). Another exception is Krabbe and van Laar’s four parameters for cataloging and analyzing critical reactions in argumentation (Krabbe and van Laar 2011; van Laar and Krabbe 2013; van Laar 2014).
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Oruç, R., Sadek, K. & Küçükural, Ö. The Virtuous Arguer as a Virtuous Sequencer. Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-023-10394-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-023-10394-0