Three objections to the epistemic theory of argument rebutted.

• Author: Aikin, Scott F.
• Position: Report

EPISTEMIC THEORIES OF ARGUMENT: AN OVERVIEW

The epistemic theory of argument is the view that arguments are to be evaluated in terms of their comprising epistemic reasons. This is to say, good arguments are those that are conducive of or pursuant of knowledge. Epistemic theories of argument vary according to how knowledge and epistemic reasons are delineated--from, for example, the veritistic and social in Goldman's analysis (1999, 2003) to the evidentialist and individual in Feldman's (1994, 2005). What makes these widespread forms of a family is the central role that the concepts of knowledge and epistemic justification play in the analysis of what constitutes good arguments. What follows in this section is a rough map of the dialectical terrain around epistemic theories of argument. My overall objective is to provide defenses for epistemic theories of argument as a family from objections arising from the rhetorical tradition.

The appeal of epistemic theories can be captured by the axiological and the constitutive norm arguments. The axiological argument is that since arguments are to be normatively evaluated, a theory of argument must provide criteria for those evaluations. Epistemic theories provide normative criteria for good arguments and may be deployed to explain why fallacies are fallacious: they fail in some way or other to provide epistemic support. The alternatives, as the argument goes, fail to provide such explanations. Rhetorical theories provide criteria for evaluation (that of eliciting assent), but then cannot address the problem of fallacies (they convince, but shouldn't). This, again, is a rough challenge for the rhetorical theories of argument, one that stretches all the way back to Socrates' concerns about rhetoric in the Gorgias (465 a-d). Pragrna-dialectical strategies evaluate arguments on their procedural correctness in rationally reducing conflict, but they leave open the question of why the procedures should be rational and what the nature of that rationality is. On the axiological argument, epistemic theories are the last standing (cf. Biro & Siegel, 1992, 1997; Feldman, 1999; Freeman, 2006).

The constitutive norm argument is that so long as arguments are supposed to achieve any change in view from audiences, as the competing theories hold, they must do so on (or on what passes for) good epistemic grounds. Listeners don't knowingly change their minds about things unless they think that adopting the new view puts them in a better cognitive position with regard to the truth of what is believed. Epistemic reasons provide that connection between belief and truth, so arguments, by their bearing on the truth of their conclusions, must be epistemically bounded (cf. Aikin 2006, 2008a; Cherwitz, 1977; Cherwitz & Darwin, 1995; Cherwitz & Hikins, 1986; Heysse, 1998; Scott, 1967, 1976; Stark, 2000; Zaner, 1968). This is to say that so long as one changes one's mind about a matter only under the conditions that one takes the new view as more likely true than its competitors, the reasons for this comparative judgment must bear on and be productive of knowledge of the truth of those theses. Those reasons are, by definition, epistemic reasons. As a consequence, epistemic theories are of a broader family with logical theories of argument--that one constitutive objective of arguments is arriving in a manner that confers the committed subject with a warrant for her conclusion. Epistemic theories assess the connection between premises and conclusions as argumentative products in a similar, but broader, fashion compared to logical theories. But these theories, again, broadly take arguments as the primary object of evaluation, and are posited on the assessment of the connection between reasons proposed or presumed and the conclusion according to general rules of good reasoning.

There has been a measure of resistance to epistemic theories. A number of lines of argument have come out, and here I will respond to three I take as connected and widespread. I will term them the contestability, practicability, and dignity objections. What connects these objections, as I take them, is that they proffer a critique of epistemic goals and criteria from a rhetorical perspective, from that of the process elements of argumentation. In what follows, I will present these three arguments (section II), briefly defend the epistemic theory (section III), and survey the case for what I will call epistemic argumentative eclecticism that arises from the defenses.

Three objections

The contestability objection runs that, given the variety of views and debates in epistemology, there will be a variety of competing accounts of the epistemic norms bearing on arguments. If we are to evaluate an argument by the appropriate epistemic norms, we must determine the norms first. Epistemologists have been working full-bore on that for quite a while, and it looks like no one view is winning out. As a consequence, when we evaluate an argument, we are likely to introduce a contestable criterion for judgment, and in so doing, we risk gerrymandering the axiology for one side of the case or another. First-order natural theological arguments like the design argument inexorably drive the discussion to second-order arguments about the epistemic principles driving them--how acceptable are presuppositions about God's likely designs, how strong are analogies between designed machines and solar systems, is faith a legitimate source of data for these arguments, who has the burden of proof in natural theology? These second-order discussions hardly shed any more light than generate greater heat, and this is a consequence of the contestedness of the epistemic principles behind the first-order theological discussions. One might go further and, on the analogy with the cynical induction, take the current state of dialectical play in epistemology generally to be evidence that we don't know what epistemic principles are true (Kaplan, 2000, p. 283; Neilson, 2007, p. 142; Rorty, 1967, pp. 1-2, Rorty, 1991, p. 23; Rosenbaum, 2002, p.69). Consequently, we have no criteria for argument evaluation. Hoffman captures the difficulty of the situation with regard to our argumentative criteria as follows:

It might be possible that the evaluation standards I am using in my particular situation happen to be "universal" standards, but how do I know that? And how could it be possible for anyone to justify the claim that his or her standards are in fact "the" universal standards? (2005, p. 248)

In similar fashion, Tindale rejects any non-relativist account of truth and reasonability in argument, and notes:

People from different perspectives can dispute the reasonableness of their judgments. The rhetorical perspective on argumentation facilitates this. As long as any position is assumed to hold the truth ... the exercise of reasonable disputation is undermined. (1999, p. 98)

As a consequence, Tindale reasons, criteria beyond those recognized by the audience are useless. In its place he proposes that the rhetorical notion of audience-acceptability is all there is to epistemic assessment:

[W]e must evaluate the acceptability of a premise according to whether it would be accepted without further support by the audience that is to consider it, the immediate or intended audience. Let us call this an epistemic condition for audience acceptability. (1991, p. 243)

In a similar rhetorical vein, Levi argues that the search for criteria, even independent of their contestability, yields a structural problem for logical theories generally:

That there must be criteria for argument correctness is logic's article of faith, and explains why it does not see that the assumption that something must make an argument correct is unwarranted. If criteria were needed, then why not criteria for the criteria? A vicious regress seems inevitable.... The real problem is with the assumption that criteria are needed. (1975, p. 266-7)

The obvious self-defeat of this commitment should not be lost on us here, as Levi is criticizing a theory of argument for having as an article of faith that there must be criteria for good argument. Surely if he's right, then there are no grounds to criticize the theory that there are grounds. However, the point here is not to bring the charge a self-defeat problem for rhetorical theories, but to provide a defense of their competitors in the epistemic theory (cf. Aikin 2008b, in press; Rowland, 1995, for pressing this line of self-defeat reasoning). What is crucial from Levi's argument is that given the structural problem for determining criteria, we have grounds for presuming that there are not any.

The contestability objection, then, comes in two strengths. Weakly, the view is that given the contestability of epistemic principles, we have no justification for introducing them to evaluate arguments. Strongly, the view is that there are no such principles or standards beyond those that arguers hold (cf. Ede, 1981, p. 125; Harpine, 2004, p. 335; Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969, p. 66).

The practicability objection follows hard on the heels of the contestability objection. A desideratum of a theory is not only that it get what we are theorizing about right, but in proceeding, it should provide good advice as to how to manage ourselves in relation to it. Brummett notes rightly that theories of argument and rhetoric must "apply or die" (1990, p. 71). Theories of argumentation, then, should have practical payoff, but epistemological theories are in a bad place to provide those goods. If the contestability argument goes through, epistemic theorists aren't in any position at all to provide any criteria for arguments, so they have no advice beyond empty slogans like: construct arguments that provide good epistemic reasons.

This said, the practicability objection need not depend on the contestability objection. Huss (2005) presents the following version of the...