The New York Sophist

More Keynote Woes

The death of conferences really must be just around the corner. The time, expense, and concentrated levels of disappointment are reaching all-time highs, even for conferences that are considered the “good ones” like ISSA, RSA, and such.

One of the reasons is quality control. I saw a paper and presentation by a Chinese Ph.D. student that had more interesting depth and comparative work in it than the day 2 keynote, which seemed to want to cover the same subject – cultural differences in argumentation theory. Quality control is really something that conferences should take seriously as conference travel money evaporates. I’d estimate we are only a couple of years away from conference presentation not mattering for tenure as departments re-evaluate their tenure standards. And with the breadth and ease of digital publishing – such as YouTube and Substack, not to mention Vimeo and other professional video sites, why not just have a conference that way? You eliminate all the people who want to travel for free somewhere and give a lukewarm paper they thought about at the airport bar, and you only get those who are interested in the topic of your talk. But this might be a different post – I recognize a lot of the trouble with conferences are the same trouble that debate tourmaents have and it would be interesting to make a post about that.

Anyway, back to ISSA, which was now about a month ago, give or take, and I’ve been mulling over my feelings about the day 2 keynote. Spoiler alert: The day 2 keynote was so disappointing I skipped day 3.

I am a big fan of Christopher Tindale’s work. I assign his book Rhetorical Argumentation in pretty much every Argumentation course I’ve ever taught. I love his discussion of the Universal Audience in several places (including that book, but I’d argue it’s not his best treatment of the topic). So his keynote – it’s scattered, undergraduate introductory course vibes, and his dismissal of rhetoric wholesale – really can’t be summed up with the word “dissapointing.”

About halfway through the keynote, Tindale declared that “Nobody cares about rhetoric.” He certainly doesn’t – his lecture was the most disorganized and disjointed presentation I’ve seen, really tanking what could have been a transformative and educational topic. If anyone, he should care about rhetoric!

The talk was backward – structurally so – it should have started with the Chang Zu stuff about the “fish debate.” and then gone from there into his interesting recent work on the linguistic restrictions of the word that translates to “argument” in many languages. This really would have been “The Secret Lives of Arguments” or whatever the title specifically was. Instead, we started linearly, and at a level suitable for an undergraduate reading list on how argumentation has been thought about by various theorists. It was a review nobody in the room needed. What happened to the Universal Audience? Perhaps this was the easy mistake to make that when you are addressing a specific audience you are addressing the universal audience, but those specifics are only universal concerns to the vanguard. Still, why would Argument (1) and Argument (2) (O’Keefe) be something that we need to spend 5 or 6 minutes on?

The point of the lecture was a good one – that there are linguistic and cultural restrictions on the term “argument” in its various linguistic appearances that cannot be overcome with even the best philosophical tools. But then to strangely dismiss rhetoric wholesale, and then end with a powerful, potentially revolutionary question: Is Chang Zhu making an argument in a way that we, as an organization, or as scholars, could say something good/interesting/valuable about? – was really just upsetting to me. I wonder if I was the only one thinking that way.

Rhetoric’s value – which no other field can claim in my view – is to be able to help you take what is interesting, valuable, and mind-blowing to you and communicate that feeling, that state, that perspective to others – many others – who you don’t know very well or even at all and get them to appreciate or even take on your perspective or values. Dismissing it can have rhetorical value, or get a laugh, when you do it directly in a room full of philosophers – however dismissing it in how you articulate your argument, point, or reasons why you find something necessary, valuable, or meaningful is extremely dangerous. You’ve lost that chance to reach those people forever. Even if you do a good job later, that moment is gone.

Perhaps it’s time to retire the keynote, or only offer it to promising younger scholars. Everyone flocks to the well-known scholar panels anyway. If organizations like ISSA are really serious about reaching new, vibrant audiences – such as their really good initiative to have a conference in China as soon as possible, then perhaps innovating the keynote should be on the list too. Many conferences don’t even have them anymore. NCA just has the evening Arnold lecture, which isn’t so much a keynote as it is a showcase of the best scholars addressing pressing questions for the field. Maybe that is one thing NCA does right?

Part 1

The torrential rain and wind was, in an understatement, “unusual for this time of year,” an explanation offered to me by a graduate student while I sat waiting for my pants to dry from the torrential storm outside. Thankfully I had listened to my partner and packed my rain jacket even though I thought I wouldn’t need it. The conference was slow to start because of the weather and many people who were supposed to come couldn’t make it on time – or ever – from their flights or trains.

The morning train from The Hague was a welcome respite from the “sideways rain” – as I often called it in the past because it brings up an immediate context for the kind of weather it is; we’ve all experienced it. The announcements from the train conductor needed no translation for me as I saw the faces of my fellow travelers switch from concern to grim acceptance. As a veteran of the NYC transit system I knew exactly what was being said. Arriving at the Leiden train station I was drenched in people this time, slowly milling, eating bananas, cheese on baguette, sipping coffee, and staring with great hope at the red text on the screens.

I’m moved to make this storm and soaking a large metaphor for the conference, but I’m really not sure how to do it. I feel the conference didn’t live up to the storm I had in my mind – interrupting, drenching, and de-centering your own authority and abilities to ‘get around’ – all good things that I believe academic work should do to us when we are listening to the work of our colleagues.

Maybe I’m just over conferences, but I found the 2023 ISSA to be extremely conservative. That’s the word that kept coming up in my mind as I listened to various presentations. Most of the papers were not bad in any sense, just cautious – the kind of academic work that is made to sort of confirm the theories we have or perhaps to confirm that the theories work the way we think they do.

The two keynotes I saw (I skipped out on day three to go to the ICC and check it out) were great examples of this. The first day, Isabella Fairclough presented a keynote that attempted a case-study of what happens when we engage in argument and assume we need a common starting place to do so. Her example was the gender identity ‘debate’ which I put in scare quotes because of the fact, ignored in the keynote, that many think this isn’t an appropriate subject for debate or argument at all. Fairclough seems to think that Karl Popper’s idea of critical rationalism – the idea that we advance in what we know without solid, incontrovertible proof for our beliefs, is something we have to accept in philosophy of argument. This assumption comes with a number of really good ideas – thoughts that we should always engage one another even if we face deep disagreement, we should strive to alter and change the articulation of our position as people push back on it, and that we don’t need to share assumptions before we can start arguing.

From there, the talk became somewhat epidictic in the praise of those who accept the “reality” of sex based gender (organizations like Sex Matters in the UK), and blame of those “militants” who refuse to have discourse with those who take such a position. It then became a critique of the new leftist movement who write popular press books about reason, rationality, and conversation and dismiss common assumptions about gender and politics that a lot of people hold. In her view, these new leftists are not leftists at all because they dismiss the working class as idiots – unable or unwilling to travel internationally seems like one of the claims of these books – and argues that critical rationalism has more in line with traditional leftist thought than any of the new “creative class” thinkers (my term for it in my notes, not hers).

It was a really strange keynote not just for its conservativism, but also for it’s idea of a correct way to argue. The absence of the rhetorical in the talk was really troubling. There was no other position to take in order to engage in critical rationalism other than to accept the ‘reality’ of biological sex. I didn’t think this was controversial for most trans-rights and trans-advocacy groups. And I also wonder why that is the reality that must ground the critical discussion. Why not the reality of violence against non conformists, something that has a much longer historically documented reality than “sex equals gender?” Why must the discussion be focused on that reality rather than some other one?

There was also some rhetorical mistakes made in the presentation of trans advocacy as violent or militant in the words of Fairclough. The evidence for this were signs calling for the murder or harm to those who do not support trans rights (mainly TERFS, if you are familiar with that acronym). She dismisses this as refusal to engage in proper critical rational discourse. However, rhetoric would teach us that these signs are an expression in the context of a protest to get attention and notice – like many other protests – and do not reflect a position or complete attitude at all. It might be rhetorically saavy when those in power, such as governments and scientific organizations are calling for your non-existence to call for theirs in order to shock or surprise audiences into seeing what it means to claim sex and gender equivalency. One groups facts and reality might not be acceptable to those it, either directly or indirectly, claims should not exist.

I think the talk would have been better if it hadn’t been after the truth, something that in argumentation I feel we should be moving away from. Instead, argumentation studies should be looking at how to help others engage in argumentation. This keynote almost did that, but like many academics, there’s little interest in teaching people how to be better, do better, or offer alternatives on how to strive toward some different practices. Instead, we call upon a big theory to show that one side is “doing it wrong.” I wonder if it could be more instructive to take the UK government debate over this, or the Sex Matters discourse and use it to show the value of a critical rationalist approach. But that would mean we have choices in how to speak that we can move between – adaptation – something that philosophy is still hard-pressed to accept.

This talk was not only politically conservative (lots of talk about the problems with the woke university were there beneath the surface) but academically as well. Popper has this idea – here’s how it works – here’s a contemporary situation – here’s how Popper’s theory applies. There really wasn’t anything new here, or anything that really sparked or inspired the audience to rethink their position on argumentation in the world.

By the afternoon the storm had cleared and things were quite nice in Leiden. The keynote was something everyone wanted to chat about here and there, wondering what it was about. Was it a defense of TERFS? What was going on there? I think the rhetorical framing of the talk was missing – it was an investigation into how to argue “the right way” according to critical rationalism. It would have been a lot more insightful with more than one example – not just gender politics – but something else to help show the influence and perhaps resonance of Popper today. But that’s me as a rhetorician thinking and talking. Perhaps this kind of talk is normal and appropriate for philosophy where the rules of how to make valid arguments – even after all this time – are still front and center no matter the context, situation, or stakes of those involved in the argumentation.

In the next post I’ll talk about the other keynote and some of the other papers I heard.

Amsterdam Argumentation Conference, again

Summer is off to a great start as this over-served, beach tiki bar patron can tell you. This is supposedly a piña colada, but in actuality it is 6 shots of rum with some banana-flavored ice. We stan an innovative bartender.

It’s once again my birthday week and for the first time in a while (2018) I’m going to attend what we colloquially call the Dutch Argumentation Conference. The official name is ISSA – International Society for the Study of Argumentation.

I’m presenting a paper there co-authored with a friend and colleague (although I should really just be the adjacent author; he did most of the heavy lifting) and I hope to see some inspiring and educational papers. But I’m afraid it won’t be the return of the impressed, it might be the return of the depressed, or perhaps just repressed, as it seems at this point in my career we are looping back around to the same concerns that were at the first one of these conferences I attended years ago.

I hope this is not the case. I think that this conference errs on the side of argumentation study that is looking to perfect the idea of good argumentation by perfecting the description of argumentation as it occurs. What I mean by this is most of the research is aimed at a kind of criticism of argument that reveals the superiority of the ideal model of argument. Although this produces some thoughtful and very nuanced writing about arguments that don’t appear too intricate at first glance, it doesn’t address how to argue, or how to survive if you find yourself in a discourse that refuses any label except argument.

This approach we might say was initialized by Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca however they were also very interested in improvement of practices (rule of justice and dissociation are obvious moments here). But I can see how criticism of argument can be seen as the practice of good argumentation overall.

What I like to think about is how to teach people to argue given the surroundings, not idealize argument and try to reach it. Something much more attentive to resources of the moment rather than hope for better tools or supplies. I hope to hear some papers like this while at the conference.

If the GoPro works (big if) I’ll post some links here as I make videos.

The ambiguous nature of debate and argumentation was on full display at the Doha ICDD. People used the terms debate and argument as if they were synonyms. The connection is unclear but also crystal clear for most of us. You’d think scholars would be more careful.

The primary reason they are not careful is the sloppiness of American rhetoricians in slurring “argumentation&debate” as if it were one word (spacing intentional). We’ve had every opportunity to distinguish the terms with thoughtful writing. We just haven’t. We are happy to leave debate to the basement of the communication building on Tuesday nights, some sort of game for intelligent undergraduates to play.

American rhetorical scholars could powerfully contribute to global research on this issue by disambiguating “argument” from “debate.” The reason why is that the U.S. has had an incredibly long history in the formalization of debate as an educational practice at all levels. The practice of debating in schools with the rhetorical tradition of criticism, theory, and the like is fertile ground for praxis. But instead, we get an equivocal fallacy.

Here are some of the scholarly understandings of argumentation that come to mind offhand. Let me know if you can think of others in the comments:

• Argumentation is quasi-logical, that is, it takes a form similar to logical proof without the strictness of validity. (Perelman & Olbrects-Tyteca).

• Argumentation is field dependent, meaning good arguments are not simply good arguments but are only good in the contexts of the audience they are deployed. (Toulmin)

• Argumentation has three forms: Process, product, and procedure, not exclusive of one another but possibilities of argument’s appearance in the world. (Wenzel)

• Most importantly, arguments can be interpersonal, public, or conducted over long periods of time, longer than many human lives (Arguments about Hamlet, for example).

How would debate differ? Some of the things here might be the idea that debate is time-bound, where it happens at a fixed point in space time and has an ending (usually when the last person speaks, or the judge gives a critique of the debate). The topic is fixed and cannot move, and the speakers are often representing positions that are not theirs. A “good argument” in debate is one that is difficult to respond to, not one that is “true” as we would find in argumentation. Also, there is no place or opportunity for people to change positions or “agree” with the other side upon hearing a good argument.

Here are some of the understandings of debate in the extant scholarship. Keep in mind that when I say “scholarship” what I really mean are “textbooks” in the United States (and elsewhere) because debate is primarily seen as a school activity. Nevertheless, here’s what I came up with. What am I missing:

• Debate is a tool for problem solving (Ehninger & Brockriede)

• Debate is a political pedagogy (Branham)

• An essential educational part of a democratically oriented political system (Lemay, Minow, Kraus, et. Al. – the presidential debate writers)

• The pre-eminent skill to learn to become a critical thinker, leader, and successful person (choose a debate program website, I picked the NYC UDL).

Aside from these there are these confusing understandings of debate that we can glean from popular usage and the media:

• An argument that has become much more formalized and intense

• A conversation or disagreement that has gone “off the rails”

• A site where people are unmovable in their opinions and just yell at one another

• A long running disagreement that exists and will continue to exist, one must choose a side

• Intensive personal disagreements that have no clear resolution

• Arguments are “trivial” Debates are “important”

I think that list could go on forever.

Theorizing what debate is – apart from argumentation, apart from rhetorical studies, apart from dialogue – is what I want to focus on for a bit in these posts. There isn’t a lot out there on this so I will be trying to work through some unmapped terrain. I think that if I can get a little space opened up it would be fantastic. Most American rhetoric profs say “argumentation and debate” so quickly as if it were one word. These two things deserve different approaches and different understandings. Argumentation does not always inform or improve debate; and debate might not inform argumentation theory.

Debate on its own as a scholarly site of inquiry would bring together people who equivocate the teaching of debate with the teaching of critical thinking/political awareness and those who study political debates such as party-leader debates (the U.S. Commission on Presidential Debates model). This would be an incredibly fruitful and valuable direction for scholarship.

Not sure where to start but you are in the right place, stay tuned.

I just returned about two days ago from delivering a paper at the First Annual International Conference on Debate and Dialogue hosted by Qatar Debate. It was an amazing conference with a lot to think about. Mostly I think this is because the conference forced everyone to complete papers before attending, something that would improve any communication conference I have ever attended.

Here’s the full video of my talk as a part of the conference. This panel was a full house, dealing with educational perspectives and debating. Most of the audience were Arabic teachers, many different subjects, but were very positive in their response to my talk.

I have a lot of thoughts about the conference that I tried to vlog, but my GoPro failed in the most spectacular way – it looked like everything was recording and it confirmed each video in the usual way. Then when I went to look at the SD card, it was empty. I’ve never seen such a failure from a camera of any kind before, and it really makes me think I should not rely on the GoPro for vlogging anymore. Of course it failed when I was in this brand new place on the other side of the world, meeting people that I wouldn’t typically be able to meet at a conference in the US or the EU.

More to come about the ICDD in some more reflective posts this week and next. I have a lot of responses, all positive!