Argumentation and Advocacy 

About: Argumentation and Advocacy is an academic journal published by American Forensic Association. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Argument & Argumentation theory. It has an ISSN identifier of 0002-8533. Over the lifetime, 781 publications have been published receiving 10303 citations. The journal is also known as: JAFA.

Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy

Abstract: Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. By Bruno Latour. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004; pp. x + 307. $55.00 cloth; $24.95 paper. The academic study of environmental ethics, particularly of "deep ecology," has generated extensive scholarly discussion in recent years. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences Into Democracy, by French author Bruno Latour, brings a fascinating and bold new twist to contemporary discussions about the nature of "nature." Latour proposes a radical shift in current conceptions of "political ecology," arguing that mainstream environmental movements are doomed to fail so long as they envision political ecology as inextricably tied to the protection and management of nature through political methodologies and policies. Instead, political ecology should abandon socially constructed representations of nature as an uncontrollable monolith. The former perspective is dangerous, Latour argues, because it enables science to silence public deliberation about ecological issues and close off options to prevent pending environmental crises. The rhetoric of science, whose credibility emanates from the dual sources of indisputable expertise and dire warnings, paralyzes the polis. Unable to contest scientific fact, and faced with pending environmental cataclysm, public and political discussion centered on the inevitable question of "What next?" becomes stagnant and devoid of solutions. In the first chapter, Latour argues that "nature is the chief obstacle that has hampered the development of public discourse" (9). Nature, or at least the agreed-upon external reality that is often represented as nature, allows science to render the public sphere voiceless. Unqualified to objectively test and observe natural facts, the polis is relegated to the sidelines, and engages in endless quibbling about matters of value which are a rung lower on the hierarchy of social concerns. The hegemony of science and the god-like status of the scientist, who is the only legitimate liaison between the natural world and the public, render meaningful political discourse impotent. "[T]he Scientist can go back and forth from one world to the other no matter what: the passageway closed to all others is open to him alone" (11). Latour concludes this chapter by examining how Western societies, particularly the United States, use nature to order and organize political life. Uncontestable facts of nature, and rhetoric that represents nature as something to be controlled, protected, or managed, permeate everyday political discourse and decision-making to a degree not seen in other cultures. Having thrown off the yoke of nature, Latour sketches one precondition for a more communal and sustainable political ecology in chapter 2. Here, a critique of anthropocentrism is used to cast off false, socially constructed distinctions between human and nonhuman, including animals and inanimate objects like rocks and trees. Of particular interest to rhetorical scholars, Latour also criticizes at length the modernist belief that speech and the capacity for rational thought distinguish humans from nonhumans. Instead, he posits that political ecology must be recast as a collective of beings both human and nonhuman, both capable of speech and mute: "a slight displacement of our attention suffices to show that nonhumans, too, are implicated in a great number of speech impedimenta" (62-63). This rethinking of the public collective is necessary to prevent scientists from imposing the idea that they definitively represent and speak for nature (the mute objects that they seek so earnestly to protect). …

The Personal, Technical, and Public Spheres of Argument: A Speculative Inquiry into the Art of Public Deliberation

Abstract: Argument spheres are symbolic constructions that shape the expectations of interlocutors who engage in the activities of theoretical and practical reasoning. These communicative contexts offer a ra...

No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy

Abstract: No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy By Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007; pp xi + 419 $3000 cloth If you find iconic photography, visual culture, and liberal-democratic citizenship interesting enough to read this review beyond its first sentence, I have little doubt that you should read Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites' brilliant contribution to the growing body of literature engaging these topics The book is unquestionably valuable to academicians investigating rhetoric, media, criticism, visual and popular culture, and twentieth century US history The work also contributes substantially to the discussions of political and social theorists interested in citizenship, liberal-democratic culture, and/or the unstable line between public and private Given its significance to academics, the book is surprisingly accessible to laypersons Anyone working with a modest academic vocabulary should understand Hariman and Lucaites' primary arguments and will certainly be provoked by their narratives and analyses of the photographs In short, No Caption Needed appeals to a broad and interdisciplinary audience The work performs a close reading of nine iconic photographs and various artifacts that appropriate elements of them to show how they address the question "what is citizenship in a democracy?" Hariman and Lucaites position their critique at the contradictory intersection inherent in liberal-democratic polity, namely the simultaneous emphasis on individual identity and collective action which compete when liberty and obligations conflict In various ways, Hariman and Lucaites show how each of these iconic photographs engage the relationship of liberal and democratic ideals, arguing that these icons are powerful because they embody the conception of a human being as an "individuated aggregate" (88) Thus, the photographs all teach, perpetuate, and-through appropriation-negotiate what it means to be a citizen in a democratic state By tracing these lessons across time, Hariman and Lucaites argue that the dialectic between individual and collective in our contemporary democratic society has become imbalanced: "the icons of US public culture increasingly underwrite liberalism more than they do democracy" which threatens "democracy itself' (19) Hariman and Lucaites make a very strong case for these arguments, in part because their descriptions of the iconic photographs are extremely compelling Reading their descriptions I feel that I see the icon as they do--which is no small feat In general it is relatively easy to feel that we share with others a perspective on something written or spoken, because the cultural codes used to interpret such texts are so conventional and widespread that they obscure slight differences in comprehension But it is widely believed that a photograph can elicit so many responses that it becomes impossible to contain them all; that a picture is "worth a thousand words" expresses this sentiment perfectly To overcome this Hariman and Lucaites write eloquence bordering on poetry that provides readers a highly developed sense of their perspective Their ways of seeing in these icons an interaction of image, aesthetics, and emotion force us to look at the photographs again and again Even if we end up seeing these images differently, we cannot help but comprehend their view, and we cannot simply look away Importantly, Hariman and Lucaites' stance from the beginning of the book is that theirs is not the only valid or useful perspective This allows readers to retain or craft their own way of seeing while developing an understanding of how the authors vision the image Interpretation of the iconic photograph thus becomes a source of dialogue, a locus of interaction where different views can be brought together to develop a better sense of who we--that is, those for whom the image resonates as an icon of our liberal-democratic culture--are …

Toward a Theory of Visual Argument.

Abstract: These special, two issues are motivated by the conviction that argumentation theorists do not pay enough attention to the visual components of argument and persuasion. A better understanding of these components is especially important if we want to understand the role of advertising, film, television, video, multi-media, and the World Wide Web in our lives. A decision to take the visual seriously has important implications for every strand of argumentation theory, for they all emphasize a verbal paradigm which sees arguments as collections of words. Most scholars who study argumentation theory are, therefore, preoccupied with methods of analyzing arguments which emphasize verbal elements and show little or no recognition of other possibilities, or even the relationship between words and other symbolic forms. Students of argumentation emerge without the tools needed for proficiency in assessing visual modes of reasoning and persuasion. We hope that these essays will help spur the development of a more adequate theory of argument which makes room for the visual. Though we are committed to the development of a theory of visual argument, we have chosen to begin with an article in which David Fleming details his skepticism. Visual images ("pictures") cannot, he claims, be arguments. We have begun with his paper because we want to recognize that many theorists explicitly or implicitly reject this possibility (Fleming has provided a useful bibliography), and because an answer to their objections must be the basis of a convincing account of visual argument. The rest of our issue therefore answers these objections. J. Anthony Blair attempts to meet them in a defense of the possibility and the nature of visual arguments. Cameron Shelley and Gretchen Barbatsis (appearing in the fall issue) examine cases which illuminate different kinds of visual argument, and propose conceptual distinctions necessary for dealing with different kinds of visual materials. The review essay by Lenore Langsdorf discusses an important book on images and persuasion and reflects more generally on the questions raised by contemporary attempts to understand visual persuasion. In the present introduction we would like to add some comments on those concerns that strike us as most important when one considers the development of a theory of visual argument. The first issue which must be addressed is a prevalent prejudice that visual images are in some intrinsic way arbitrary, vague and ambiguous. This presumption encourages the view that visual images are less precise than words, and especially the written word. We think that this prejudice is a dogma that has outlived its usefulness, and that the first step toward a theory of visual argument must be a better appreciation of both the possibility of visual meaning and the limits of verbal meaning. Visual images can, of course, be vague and ambiguous. But this alone does not distinguish them from words and sentences, which can also be vague and ambiguous. The inherent indeterminacy of language is one of the principal problems that confront us when we try to understand natural language argument. This is why historians endlessly debate the interpretation of historical documents, law courts struggle continuously with the implications of written and spoken claims, and personal animosities revolve around who said what and what was meant. The point that visual images are frequently vague and indeterminate cannot, in view of the demonstrable indeterminacy of verbal expressions, show that images are intrinsically less precise than spoken or written words (especially as we often clarify the latter with visual cues-as we may make the tone and meaning of a statement clear with a smile or a wink). We can best illustrate the possibility of verbal meaning with some simple examples. We will begin with the following anti-smoking poster, which was produced by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now the U. …

The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Arguments

Abstract: The chapter investigates the extension of argument into the realm of visual expression. Although images can be influential in affecting attitudes and beliefs it does not follow that such images are arguments. So we should at the outset investigate whether there can be visual arguments. To do so, we need to know what a visual argument would look like if we encountered one. How, if at all, are visual and verbal arguments related? An account of a concept of visual argument serves to establish the possibility that they exist. If they are possible in a non-metaphorical way, are there any visual arguments? Examples show that they do exist: in paintings and sculpture, in print advertisements, in TV commercials and in political cartoons. But visual arguments are not distinct in essence from verbal arguments. The argument is always a propositional entity, merely expressed differently in the two cases. And the effectiveness in much visual persuasion is not due to any arguments conveyed.