Reading guide for Wed 2/16: van Eemeren & Grootendorst,
in Hansen & Pinto, Fallacies, pp 130-145, 223-228

 

Like Hamblin, van Eemeren and Grootendorst discuss fallacies in relation to rules for dialogues; but their rules are of a quite different sort and the relation of fallacies to them is somewhat different.

The first of these papers summarizes their approach. The key parts for our purposes are the list of rules (pp. 135f) and the discussion of possible violations (pp. 138-142). Notice especially the sort of dialogue they have in mind; the opening sections of the paper will be of some help here but you should also ask yourself what sort of dialogue these rules be appropriate for. Notice also the sort of classification of fallacies that is implicit in the characterization of them as violations of specific rules--do you find this classification an enlightening one?

The second paper concerns ad hominem in particular. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst assume subcategories of this that are drawn from the standard treatment of fallacies (see, for example, Hamblin, p. 42). So you shouldn't expect this to be quite the same fallacy as the one we discussed in Whately; and you should expect ad hominem as they discuss it to be rather different from what Locke understood by the term. Nonetheless, what they say is worth comparing with Whately and Locke. In particular, do their rules allow for the sorts of arguments that Locke or Whately would regard as legitimate arguments ad hominem? And if they do not, should they?