Argumentation theory

Argumentation theory is the

Argumentation includes various forms of dialogue such as

Argumentation is a daily occurrence, such as in public debate, science, and law.^[5] For example in law, in courts by the judge, the parties and the prosecutor, in presenting and testing the validity of evidences. Also, argumentation scholars study the post hoc rationalizations by which organizational actors try to justify decisions they have made irrationally.

Argumentation is one of four

.

Key components of argumentation

Some key components of argumentation are:

• Understanding and identifying arguments, either explicit or implied, and the goals of the participants in the different types of dialogue.
• Identifying the premises from which conclusions are derived.
• Establishing the "
  burden of proof
  " – determining who made the initial claim and is thus responsible for providing evidence why his/her position merits acceptance.
• For the one carrying the "burden of proof", the advocate, to marshal evidence for his/her position in order to convince or force the opponent's acceptance. The method by which this is accomplished is producing valid, sound, and cogent arguments, devoid of weaknesses, and not easily attacked.
• In a debate, fulfillment of the burden of proof creates a burden of rejoinder. One must try to identify faulty reasoning in the opponent's argument, to attack the reasons/premises of the argument, to provide counterexamples if possible, to identify any fallacies, and to show why a valid conclusion cannot be derived from the reasons provided for his/her argument.

For example, consider the following exchange, illustrating the No true Scotsman fallacy:

Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

Reply: "But my friend Angus, who is a Scotsman, likes sugar with his porridge."

Rebuttal: "Well perhaps, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

In this dialogue, the proposer first offers a premise, the premise is challenged by the interlocutor, and so the proposer offers a modification of the premise, which is designed only to evade the challenge provided.

Internal structure of arguments

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Typically an argument has an internal structure, comprising the following:

1. a set of assumptions or premises,
2. a method of reasoning or deduction, and
3. a conclusion or point.

An argument has one or more premises and one conclusion.

Often classical logic is used as the method of reasoning so that the conclusion follows logically from the assumptions or support. One challenge is that if the set of assumptions is inconsistent then anything can follow logically from inconsistency. Therefore, it is common to insist that the set of assumptions be consistent. It is also good practice to require the set of assumptions to be the minimal set, with respect to set inclusion, necessary to infer the consequent. Such arguments are called MINCON arguments, short for minimal consistent. Such argumentation has been applied to the fields of law and medicine.

A non-classical approach to argumentation investigates abstract arguments, where 'argument' is considered a primitive term, so no internal structure of arguments is taken into account.^{[citation needed]}

Types of dialogue

In its most common form, argumentation involves an individual and an interlocutor or opponent engaged in dialogue, each contending differing positions and trying to persuade each other, but there are various types of dialogue:^[6]

• Persuasion dialogue aims to resolve conflicting points of view of different positions.
• Negotiation aims to resolve conflicts of interests by cooperation and dealmaking.
• Inquiry aims to resolve general ignorance by the growth of knowledge.
• Deliberation aims to resolve a need to take action by reaching a decision.
• Information seeking aims to reduce one party's ignorance by requesting information from another party that is in a position to know something.
• Eristic aims to resolve a situation of antagonism through verbal fighting.

Argumentation and the grounds of knowledge

Argumentation theory had its origins in

One of the original contributors to this trend was the philosopher Chaïm Perelman, who together with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca introduced the French term la nouvelle rhetorique in 1958 to describe an approach to argument which is not reduced to application of formal rules of inference. Perelman's view of argumentation is much closer to a juridical one, in which rules for presenting evidence and rebuttals play an important role.

Karl R. Wallace's seminal essay, "The Substance of Rhetoric: Good Reasons" in the Quarterly Journal of Speech (1963) 44, led many scholars to study "marketplace argumentation" – the ordinary arguments of ordinary people. The seminal essay on marketplace argumentation is Ray Lynn Anderson's and C. David Mortensen's "Logic and Marketplace Argumentation" Quarterly Journal of Speech 53 (1967): 143–150.^[8][9] This line of thinking led to a natural alliance with late developments in the sociology of knowledge.^[10] Some scholars drew connections with recent developments in philosophy, namely the pragmatism of John Dewey and Richard Rorty. Rorty has called this shift in emphasis "the linguistic turn".

In this new hybrid approach argumentation is used with or without

. These new theories are not non-logical or anti-logical. They find logical coherence in most communities of discourse. These theories are thus often labeled "sociological" in that they focus on the social grounds of knowledge.

Approaches to argumentation in communication and informal logic

In general, the label "argumentation" is used by communication scholars such as (to name only a few) Wayne E. Brockriede, Douglas Ehninger,

developed a criterion for validness (Geltung, Gültigkeit) as freedom of objections.

American Forensics Association

and conferences sponsored by the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA).

Some scholars (such as Ralph H. Johnson) construe the term "argument" narrowly, as exclusively written discourse or even discourse in which all premises are explicit. Others (such as Michael Gilbert) construe the term "argument" broadly, to include spoken and even nonverbal discourse, for instance the degree to which a war memorial or propaganda poster can be said to argue or "make arguments". The philosopher Stephen Toulmin has said that an argument is a claim on our attention and belief, a view that would seem to authorize treating, say, propaganda posters as arguments. The dispute between broad and narrow theorists is of long standing and is unlikely to be settled. The views of the majority of argumentation theorists and analysts fall somewhere between these two extremes.

Kinds of argumentation

Conversational argumentation

The study of naturally occurring conversation arose from the field of sociolinguistics. It is usually called conversation analysis (CA). Inspired by ethnomethodology, it was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by the sociologist Harvey Sacks and, among others, his close associates Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. Sacks died early in his career, but his work was championed by others in his field, and CA has now become an established force in sociology, anthropology, linguistics, speech-communication and psychology.^[11] It is particularly influential in interactional sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and discursive psychology, as well as being a coherent discipline in its own right. Recently CA techniques of sequential analysis have been employed by phoneticians to explore the fine phonetic details of speech.

Empirical studies and theoretical formulations by Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs, and several generations of their students, have described argumentation as a form of managing conversational disagreement within communication contexts and systems that naturally prefer agreement.

Mathematical argumentation

The basis of mathematical truth has been the subject of long debate.

. Be that as it may, an argument in mathematics, as in any other discipline, can be considered valid only if it can be shown that it cannot have true premises and a false conclusion.

Scientific argumentation

Perhaps the most radical statement of the social grounds of scientific knowledge appears in Alan G.Gross's The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). Gross holds that science is rhetorical "without remainder",^[13] meaning that scientific knowledge itself cannot be seen as an idealized ground of knowledge. Scientific knowledge is produced rhetorically, meaning that it has special epistemic authority only insofar as its communal methods of verification are trustworthy. This thinking represents an almost complete rejection of the foundationalism on which argumentation was first based.

Interpretive argumentation

Interpretive argumentation is a dialogical process in which participants explore and/or resolve interpretations often of a text of any medium containing significant ambiguity in meaning.

Interpretive argumentation is pertinent to

.

Legal argumentation

By lawyers

Legal arguments are spoken presentations to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer, or parties when representing themselves of the legal reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also advance the argument of each party in the legal dispute. A closing argument, or summation, is the concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important arguments for the trier of fact, often the jury, in a court case. A closing argument occurs after the presentation of evidence.

By judges

A judicial opinion or legal opinion is in certain jurisdictions a written explanation by a judge or group of judges that accompanies an order or ruling in a case, laying out the rationale (justification) and legal principles for the ruling.^[14] It cites the decision reached to resolve the dispute. A judicial opinion usually includes the reasons behind the decision.^[14] Where there are three or more judges, it may take the form of a majority opinion, minority opinion or a concurring opinion.^[15]

Political argumentation

Political arguments are used by academics, media pundits, candidates for political office and government officials. Political arguments are also used by citizens in ordinary interactions to comment about and understand political events.^[16] The rationality of the public is a major question in this line of research. Political scientist Samuel L. Popkin coined the expression "low information voters" to describe most voters who know very little about politics or the world in general.

In practice, a "

have come about in recent years to help counter the effects of such campaign tactics.

Psychological aspects

Psychology has long studied the non-logical aspects of argumentation. For example, studies have shown that simple repetition of an idea is often a more effective method of argumentation than appeals to reason. Propaganda often utilizes repetition.^[17] "Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels. Nazi rhetoric has been studied extensively as, inter alia, a repetition campaign.

Empirical studies of communicator credibility and attractiveness, sometimes labeled charisma, have also been tied closely to empirically-occurring arguments. Such studies bring argumentation within the ambit of persuasion theory and practice.

Some psychologists such as William J. McGuire believe that the syllogism is the basic unit of human reasoning. They have produced a large body of empirical work around McGuire's famous title "A Syllogistic Analysis of Cognitive Relationships". A central line of this way of thinking is that logic is contaminated by psychological variables such as "wishful thinking", in which subjects confound the likelihood of predictions with the desirability of the predictions. People hear what they want to hear and see what they expect to see. If planners want something to happen they see it as likely to happen. If they hope something will not happen, they see it as unlikely to happen. Thus smokers think that they personally will avoid cancer, promiscuous people practice unsafe sex, and teenagers drive recklessly.

Theories

Argument fields

Stephen E. Toulmin's contributions

The most influential theorist has been

Toulmin model of argument

. What follows below is a sketch of his ideas.

Alternative to absolutism and relativism

Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that

, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.

To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called "field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.

In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments. In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.

In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, and lauds John Dewey, Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty for abandoning that tradition.

Toulmin model of argument

Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments (also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists' theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.

Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:

Claim (Conclusion)

A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis.^[23] For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).

Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data)

A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).

Warrant

A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda", to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).

Backing

Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".

Rebuttal (Reservation)

Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy for another country".

Qualifier

Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include "probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)

The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.

Part of a series on
Rhetoric
History Ancient Greece Asianism Atticism Attic orators Calliope Sophists Ancient India Ancient Rome The age of Cicero Second Sophistic Middle Ages Byzantine rhetoric Trivium Renaissance Studia humanitatis Modern period
Concepts Captatio benevolentiae Chironomia Decorum Delectare Docere Device Eloquence Eloquentia perfecta Eunoia Enthymeme Facilitas Fallacy Informal Figure of speech Scheme Trope Five canons Inventio Dispositio Elocutio Memoria Pronuntiatio Hypsos Imitatio Kairos Method of loci Modes Operations Persuasion Ethos Pathos Logos Situation Style Grand Sotto voce Topos
Genres Apologetics Debate Declamation Controversia Deliberative Demagogy Dialectic Socratic method Dissoi logoi Elocution Epideictic Encomium Panegyric Eulogy Farewell speech Forensic Funeral oration Homiletics‎ Sermon Invitational Lecture Public Lightning talk Maiden speech Oratory Polemic Diatribe Eristic Philippic Progymnasmata Suasoria Propaganda Spin Resignation speech Stump speech War-mongering
Criticism Cluster Dramatic Pentadic Frame Genre Ideological Metaphoric Mimesis Narrative Neo-Aristotelian
Rhetoricians Aristotle Aspasia Augustine Bakhtin Booth Brueggemann Burke Cicero de Man Demosthenes Derrida Erasmus Gorgias Hobbes Isocrates Lucian Lysias McLuhan Ong Perelman Pizan Plato Protagoras Quintilian Ramus Richards Smith Tacitus Toulmin Vico Weaver
Works Gorgias (380 BC) Phaedrus (c. 370 BC) Rhetoric (c. 350 BC) Rhetoric to Alexander (c. 350 BC) De Sophisticis Elenchis (c. 350 BC) Topics (c. 350 BC) De Inventione (84 BC) Rhetorica ad Herennium (80 BC) De Oratore (55 BC) A Dialogue Concerning Oratorical Partitions (c. 50 BC) De Optimo Genere Oratorum (46 BC) Orator (46 BC) On the Sublime (c. 50) Institutio Oratoria (95) Panegyrici Latini (100–400) Dialogus de oratoribus (102) De doctrina Christiana (426) De vulgari eloquentia (1305) Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (1521) Language as Symbolic Action (1966) A General Rhetoric (1970)
Subfields Argumentation Cognitive Contrastive Constitutive Digital Feminist Native American New Health and medicine Pedagogy Procedural Science Technology Therapy Visual Composition
Related Ars dictaminis Communication studies Composition studies Doxa Glossary of rhetorical terms Glossophobia List of feminist rhetoricians List of speeches Oral skills Orator Pistis Public rhetoric Rhetoric of social intervention model Rhetrickery Rogerian argument Seduction Speechwriting Talking point TED Terministic screen Toulmin model Wooden iron
v t e

When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate.^[24] Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.

One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation.

for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)

Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, goal structuring notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety cases,^[26] and argument maps and associated software.^[27]

Evolution of knowledge

In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an

.

In contrast to Kuhn's

. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.

From the

' point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.

Pragma-dialectics

Scholars at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands have pioneered a rigorous modern version of dialectic under the name pragma-dialectics. The intuitive idea is to formulate clear-cut rules that, if followed, will yield reasonable discussion and sound conclusions. Frans H. van Eemeren, the late Rob Grootendorst, and many of their students and co-authors have produced a large body of work expounding this idea.

The dialectical conception of reasonableness is given by ten rules for critical discussion, all being instrumental for achieving a resolution of the difference of opinion (from Van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 182–183). The theory postulates this as an ideal model, and not something one expects to find as an empirical fact. The model can however serve as an important heuristic and critical tool for testing how reality approximates this ideal and point to where discourse goes wrong, that is, when the rules are violated. Any such violation will constitute a fallacy. Albeit not primarily focused on fallacies, pragma-dialectics provides a systematic approach to deal with them in a coherent way.

Van Eemeren and Grootendorst identified four stages of argumentative dialogue. These stages can be regarded as an argument protocol. In a somewhat loose interpretation, the stages are as follows:^{[citation needed]}

• Confrontation stage: Presentation of the difference of opinion, such as a debate question or a political disagreement.
• Opening stage: Agreement on material and procedural starting points, the mutually acceptable common ground of facts and beliefs, and the rules to be followed during the discussion (such as, how evidence is to be presented, and determination of closing conditions).
• Argumentation stage: Presentation of reasons for and against the standpoint(s) at issue, through application of logical and common-sense principles according to the agreed-upon rules
• Concluding stage: Determining whether the standpoint has withstood reasonable criticism, and accepting it is justified. This occurs when the termination conditions are met (Among these could be, for example, a time limitation or the determination of an arbiter.)

Van Eemeren and Grootendorst provide a detailed list of rules that must be applied at each stage of the protocol.^{[citation needed]} Moreover, in the account of argumentation given by these authors, there are specified roles of protagonist and antagonist in the protocol which are determined by the conditions which set up the need for argument.

Walton's logical argumentation method

Douglas N. Walton developed a distinctive philosophical theory of logical argumentation built around a set of practical methods to help a user identify, analyze and evaluate arguments in everyday conversational discourse and in more structured areas such as debate, law and scientific fields.^[28] There are four main components: argumentation schemes,^[29] dialogue structures, argument mapping tools, and formal argumentation systems. The method uses the notion of commitment in dialogue as the fundamental tool for the analysis and evaluation of argumentation rather than the notion of belief.^[6] Commitments are statements that the agent has expressed or formulated, and has pledged to carry out, or has publicly asserted. According to the commitment model, agents interact with each other in a dialogue in which each takes its turn to contribute speech acts. The dialogue framework uses critical questioning as a way of testing plausible explanations and finding weak points in an argument that raise doubt concerning the acceptability of the argument.

Walton's logical argumentation model took a view of proof and justification different from

.

Artificial intelligence

Efforts have been made within the field of artificial intelligence to perform and analyze argumentation with computers. Argumentation has been used to provide a proof-theoretic semantics for non-monotonic logic, starting with the influential work of Dung (1995). Computational argumentation systems have found particular application in domains where formal logic and classical decision theory are unable to capture the richness of reasoning, domains such as law and medicine. In Elements of Argumentation, Philippe Besnard and Anthony Hunter show how classical logic-based techniques can be used to capture key elements of practical argumentation.^[33]

Within computer science, the ArgMAS workshop series (Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems), the CMNA workshop series,^[34] and the COMMA Conference,^[35] are regular annual events attracting participants from every continent. The journal Argument & Computation^[36] is dedicated to exploring the intersection between argumentation and computer science. ArgMining is a workshop series dedicated specifically to the related argument mining task.^[37]

Data from the collaborative structured online argumentation platform

See also

References

Further reading

• J. Robert Cox and Charles Arthur Willard, eds. (1982). Advances in Argumentation Theory and Research.
• Dung, Phan Minh (1995). "On the acceptability of arguments and its fundamental role in nonmonotonic reasoning, logic programming and n-person games". Artificial Intelligence. 77 (2): 321–357.
  doi:10.1016/0004-3702(94)00041-X
  .
• Bondarenko, A., Dung, P. M., Kowalski, R., and Toni, F. (1997). "An abstract, argumentation-theoretic approach to default reasoning", Artificial Intelligence 93(1–2), 63–101.
• Dung, P. M., Kowalski, R., and Toni, F. (2006). "Dialectic proof procedures for assumption-based, admissible argumentation." Artificial Intelligence. 170(2), 114–159.
• Frans van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, Sally Jackson, and Scott Jacobs (1993). Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse
• Frans van Eemeren & Rob Grootendorst (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach.
• Frans van Eemeren, Bart Garssen, Erik C. W. Krabbe, A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans, Bart Verheij, & Jean H. M. Wagemans (2014). Handbook of Argumentation Theory (Revised edition). New York: Springer.
• Richard H. Gaskins (1993). Burdens of Proof in Modern Discourse. Yale University Press.
• Michael A. Gilbert (1997). Coalescent Argumentation.
• Trudy Govier (1987). Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation. Dordrecht, Holland; Providence, RI: Foris Publications.
• Trudy Govier (2014). A Practical Study of Argument, 7th ed. Australia; Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. (First edition published 1985.)
• Dale Hample. (1979). "Predicting belief and belief change using a cognitive theory of argument and evidence." Communication Monographs. 46, 142–146.
• Dale Hample. (1978). "Are attitudes arguable?" Journal of Value Inquiry. 12, 311–312.
• Dale Hample. (1978). "Predicting immediate belief change and adherence to argument claims." Communication Monographs, 45, 219–228.
• Dale Hample & Judy Hample. (1978). "Evidence credibility." Debate Issues. 12, 4–5.
• Dale Hample. (1977). "Testing a model of value argument and evidence." Communication Monographs. 14, 106–120.
• Dale Hample. (1977). "The Toulmin model and the syllogism." Journal of the American Forensic Association. 14, 1–9.
• Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs, "Structure of Conversational Argument: Pragmatic Bases for the Enthymeme." The Quarterly Journal of Speech. LXVI, 251–265.
• Ralph H. Johnson. Manifest Rationality: A Pragmatic Theory of Argument. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000.
• Ralph H. Johnson. (1996). The Rise of Informal Logic. Newport News, VA: Vale Press
• Ralph H. Johnson. (1999). The Relation Between Formal and Informal Logic. Argumentation, 13(3) 265–74.
• Ralph H. Johnson. & Blair, J. Anthony. (2006). Logical Self-Defense.First published, McGraw Hill Ryerson, Toronto, ON, 1997, 1983, 1993. Reprinted, New York: Idebate Press.
• Ralph H. Johnson. & Blair, J. Anthony. (1987). The current state of informal logic. Informal Logic 9, 147–51.
• Ralph H. Johnson. & Blair, J. Anthony. (1996). Informal logic and critical thinking. In F. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, & F. Snoeck Henkemans (Eds.), Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory. (pp. 383–86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
• Ralph H. Johnson, Ralph. H. & Blair, J. Anthony. (2000). "Informal logic: An overview." Informal Logic. 20(2): 93–99.
• Ralph H. Johnson, Ralph. H. & Blair, J. Anthony. (2002). Informal logic and the reconfiguration of logic. In D. Gabbay, R. H. Johnson, H.-J. Ohlbach and J. Woods (Eds.). Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference: The Turn Towards the Practical. (pp. 339–396). Elsevier: North Holland.
• Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1970). The New Rhetoric, Notre Dame.
• Stephen Toulmin (1958). The Uses of Argument.
• Stephen Toulmin (1964). The Place of Reason in Ethics.
• Douglas N. Walton (1990). Practical Reasoning: Goal-Driven, Knowledge-Based, Action-Guiding Argumentation. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Douglas N. Walton (1992). The Place of Emotion in Argument. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Douglas N. Walton (1996). Argument Structure: A Pragmatic Theory. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Douglas N. Walton (2006). Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Douglas N. Walton (2013). Methods of Argumentation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Douglas N. Walton (2016). Argument Evaluation and Evidence. Cham: Springer
• Joseph W. Wenzel (1990). Three perspectives on argumentation. In R Trapp and J Scheutz, (Eds.), Perspectives on argumentation: Essays in honour of Wayne Brockreide (9–26). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
• John Woods. (1980). What Is informal logic? In J.A. Blair & R. H. Johnson (Eds.), Informal Logic: The First International Symposium .(pp. 57–68). Point Reyes, CA: Edgepress.
• John Woods. (2000). How Philosophical Is Informal Logic? Informal Logic. 20(2): 139–167. 2000
• Charles Arthur Willard (1982). Argumentation and the Social Grounds of Knowledge. University of Alabama Press.
• Charles Arthur Willard (1989). A Theory of Argumentation. University of Alabama Press.
• Charles Arthur Willard (1996). Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy. University of Chicago Press.
• ISBN 978-3-8260-3820-4

Flagship journals

• Argumentation
• Argumentation in Context
• Informal Logic
• Argumentation and Advocacy (formerly Journal of the American Forensic Association)
• Social Epistemology
• Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology
• Journal of Argument and Computation