Abstract
In this brief commentary of Kamila Debowska-Kozlowska’s insightful analysis of persuasive outcomes (Processing topics from the Beneficial Cognitive Model in partially and over-successful persuasion dialogues. Argumentation, 2014), I articulate some suggestions for future development of her ideas. My main claim is that, while instances of partially and over-successful persuasion are indeed worthy of further theoretical inquiry, the topical analysis proposed by Debowska-Kozlowska may benefit from integration with other approaches.
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Notes
Incidentally, I believe Debowska-Kozlowska’s model could also allow for these flexibility requirements by spelling them out in terms of certain constraints on the proponent’s BCM, thus dealing effectively with instances like (3) and (4). But the key point is that also traditional success/failure accounts of persuasion seem able to do the same.
Here I am not implying that Debowska-Kozlowska necessarily intends to criticize the pragma-dialectical model or Walton’s account, by proposing her BCM theory as an alternative to them. On the contrary, Debowska-Kozlowska seems to offer an extension of the pragma-dialectical model by developing an account of cognitive mechanisms underlying the modification of the proponent’s original standpoint. However, what we stand to gain from such an extension still needs to be spelled out in greater details. A way of doing that would be to show how her topical model and the aforementioned “derivative account” are complementary rather than competitive: the latter focuses on dialectical mechanisms, whereas the former concentrates on cognitive mechanisms of partially and over-successful persuasion dialogues.
This is not intended as a knock-out objection: in reply, Debowska-Kozlowska could argue that topics function as contents from which standpoints can be constructed, rather than as premises in reasoning that underlies the generation of modified standpoints. This would indeed be a tenable position—but also one that would require greater articulation than what is currently provided on this point.
In previous work on this topic (Budzynska and Debowska 2010), topical relevance and gradualistic reasoning have been used to characterize partial and over-success. While this approach avoids explicit mention of extra-dialogical goals, they loom large in the background: the very idea that something is beneficial (either partially or beyond one’s original aim) makes implicit reference to the agent’s goals or interests.
References
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Paglieri, F. Nothing Persuades Like Success: Reflections on Partially and Over-Successful Persuasion. A Reply to Debowska-Kozlowska. Argumentation 28, 341–348 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-014-9317-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-014-9317-3