Theory and Practice of Public Debate

Objectives

At the end of the semester, students should be able to:

1. Evaluate the significance of the public debate from the standpoint of practical rationality or of decision-making processes.

2. Adopt a well-grounded stance on the problem of relativism and intercultural communication.

3. Recognize an argument and its structure.

4. Distinguish between correct and fallacious arguments.

5. Argue persuasively for a cause, revealing a mastery of the different argumentative schemes.

Program

PART I (THEORY)

1. History and functions of public opinion; obstacles to the free development of public opinion in contemporary societies.

2. Communication and rationality: Habermas’s theory of communicative action; communicative rationality as practical rationality; public debate as a means of justifying decisions.

3. The rhetorical dimension of public debate: the role of rhetorical persuasion in decision making under uncertainty.

4. The ethics of public discussion

5. Public debate and globalization: foundations and limits of intercultural communication.

6. Attitudes towards the conflict of perspectives: universalism, relativism and contextualism

PART II (PRACTICE)

1. Deductive arguments.

2. Argument types in everyday contexts.

3. Formal and informal fallacies.

4. Implicatures and pragmatic conversational maxims (Grice)

5. The production of the argumentative speech.

6. Critical thinking in action: identification, analysis and evaluation of arguments.

Teaching Methodologies

Expositive classes complemented by theorethical-practical classes that aim at the improvement of the argumentative skills of the students.

Bibliography

Buffon, B., La parole persuasive, Paris, PUF, 2002.

Copi, I e Burgess-Jackson, K., Informal Logic, Upper Saddle River, NJ., 1996.

Dauer, F., Critical Thinking, Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press, 1989.

Eemeren, F. et. al., Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory, L. Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1996.

Grice, P., Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, MA, Harvard Univ. Press, 1989.

Habermas, J., The Structural Transformation of The Public Sphere, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1989.

–––, The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols., Cambridge, Polity Press, 1984/1987.

–––, De l’éthique de la discussion, Paris, Cerf, 1992.

Herbst, S., et al, Public Opinion, Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 2004.

McKee, A., The Public Sphere: An Introduction, Cambridge, Cambridge U. P., 2004.

Perelman, C., Tratado da Argumentação, S. Paulo, Martins Fontes, 1996.

Thomson, A., Critical Reasoning, London, Routledge, 1996.

Walton, D., Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation, Cambridge, Cambridge U. P.1989.