Abstract
How can argumentation skills be improved by engaging students in argumentative practices where they are helped to assume a healthy critical attitude, and provide reasons for their positions? What are the synergies of learning to argue and arguing to learn (see chapter “Argumentation and Learning,” B. Schwarz)? This paper originates from these questions, and relies on the experience of teaching argumentation at university level, in the framework of the Swiss Virtual Campus project Argumentum (http://www.argumentum.ch). After presenting the aim and structure of Argumentum, this study focuses on a specific experience of argument production and analysis, occurred in the pedagogical scenario of argumentation classes at master level, at the University of Lugano. Students were asked to assume a specific position within a debate inspired by a famous historical controversy. Two different tools for constructing and analyzing arguments (see chapter “Argumentation as an object of interest and as a social and cultural resource,” E. Rigotti and S. Greco Morasso) were introduced within this didactical experience, allowing a progressively more comprehensive approach to argumentative interventions, including the production of an argumentative intervention, and the analysis and evaluation of arguments. The online course Argumentum provided the technical platform for this exercise of argumentation. Finally, the paper elaborates on the lessons learned by this experience.
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Notes
- 1.
1 The team which has developed the project Argumentum is composed by: Eddo Rigotti (project leader, University of Lugano); Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont (project partner I, University of Neuchâtel); Franz Schultheis (project partner II, formerly University of Geneva – currently University of St. Gallen); Sara Greco Morasso (project coordinator, University of Lugano); Nathalie Müller Mirza (formerly University of Neuchâtel – currently University of Lausanne); Jean-François Perret, Sheila Padiglia (University of Neuchâtel); Fabrice Clément (formerly University of Lausanne – currently University of Geneva); Stefano Tardini (executive director of the eLab, Lugano); Christian Milani and Patrizia Schettino (implementation and graphics, eLab). Many other co-authors and translators have participated to the project, who are too numerous to be mentioned here; I will only mention the substantial contributions by Martin Eppler (University of Lugano), Frans van Eemeren, Agnès van Rees and Eveline Feteris (University of Amsterdam), Douglas Walton (University of Windsor-CA), and Tania Zittoun (University of Neuchâtel).
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2 Initially, the courses were supported by the WebCT Vista platform. More recently, during the maintenance phase of the project, courses have been migrated to the platform Moodle, which allows a swifter management of the project contents, in particular concerning course updates.
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3 Hernán Cortés describes the astonishment of the Spanish conquerors faced with the Indians’ practice of making human sacrifices in his first relation (Primera Relación o Carta de Veracruz, 1519) sent to the Emperor Charles V. After having reported the ritual associated to this practice, which some of his men had reported, Cortés also relates their opinion according to which it is the most crude and dreadful thing that they have ever seen (“Esto habemos visto algunos de nosotros, y los que lo han visto dicen que es la más cruda y más espantosa cosa de ver que jamás han visto”).
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4 Many interventions contributed to such a debate. It is worth mentioning that, in 1537, Pope Paul III promulgated the Bull “Veritas ipsa”, also known as “Sublimis Deus”, in which he clearly condemned the slavery of the Indians, and declared that they were human beings “capable of faith”, whose freedom had to be respected by the Catholics (“…predictos Indos et omnes alias gentes ad notitiam christianorum in posterum deventuras, licet extra fidem christianam existant, sua libertate ac rerum suarum dominio huiusmodi uti et potiri et gaudere libere et licite posse, nec in servitutem redigi debere, ac quidquid secus fieri contigerit irritum et inane, ipsosque Indos et alias gentes verbi Dei praedicatione et exemplo bonae vitae ad dictam fidem Christi invitandos fore, auctoritate Apostolica per praesentes litteras decernimus et declaramus, non obstantibus praemissis caeterisque contrariis quibuscumque”).
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5 These texts, originally provided by the Neuchâtel group, and recently translated from French into Italian within the Argumentum project (Rigotti et al. 2006b), are a collection of historical documents representing the different positions at stake in the controversy (Bourdin et al. 2001). The Indians’ representative, of course, did not in reality participate in the debate in Valladolid, but the collected texts try to briefly resume the reasons of the Indians’ practices and celebrations. The Spanish positions in favour of and against the Indians only partially reflect De Las Casas’ and Sepulveda’s positions; students are given freedom of constructing their own argumentative discourses for defending these positions.
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6 Aristotle, in the first book of his Rhetoric, identifies three main genres of argumentative texts. The first two genres foresee the application of argumentation in two specific contexts: the deliberative assembly (ecclesia) and the court; the third genre, termed the epideictic discourse, concerns the appraisal or blame of a person and of his actions and behaviours. The typical context of application of this third genre was the celebration of a city festivity.
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For a more detailed description of the classical model, see Mortara Garavelli (1997: 55 ff.).
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The narratio shares the form of indirect argumentativity that is proper of news reporting in journalism. The selection of facts, indeed, is argumentative in itself, because it presupposes the relevance of the selected facts.
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9 It is interesting to compare the results of the discussion with the results of the same phase of this exercise which was proposed also in the summer semester 2007. In 2007, many more issues emerged, whereas the discussion on the legitimacy of the first issue was not raised by the Indians, who accepted it.
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10 The process can be done in a single session, but it can be also saved and continued in different sessions. In the end, users can decide to print their work in PDF format, and submit it to the teachers using the online platform.
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11 The system of topics has been conceived of, since antiquity, as a tool for generating all relevant arguments in support of a given standpoint and for analysing and evaluating their reciprocal strength in terms of logical validity and persuasiveness (see Rigotti 2007). The model of topics proposed within Argumentum “inherits” the studies stemming from the ancient rhetorical tradition, but it aims at proposing a more consistent and coherent framework, integrated with the recent developments of Argumentation theory and pragmatics; moreover, it considers the modern argumentative practices and the social context in which the argument construction is embedded (Rigotti 2007).
- 12.
12 The author of this argument, Sara Montanari, wrote her text in Italian. Here, I quote the original passage: “…La nostra civiltà infatti si è evoluta nei secoli: abbiamo costruito strade, città, acquedotti, barche, luoghi in cui praticare il nostro culto… Se gli uomini si differenziano dalle bestie per via della ragione, come possono tali opere dei nostri intelletti non essere considerate prova della nostra umanità?”.
- 13.
13 In the AMT, maxims are defined as implications establishing a connection between the truth value of a hooking point and a standpoint of the form p→q, which generate inferential processes; each inferential process defines, within the locus, the form of a subclass of arguments (see Rigotti and Greco Morasso chapter “Argumentation as an Object of Interest and as a Social and Cultural Resource,”). All the maxims of the same locus share the same hooking point to the standpoint.
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14 According to the AMT, argumentative discourses are always constructed on the basis of loci, which can be classified according to their hooking point, i.e., to the particular aspect of the standpoint they refer to. For a complete account on possible hooking points giving rise to the system of loci, see Rigotti 2007).
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15 Cortés (1520), when describing the city of Temixtitán (also known as Tenochtitlán), highlights some of the traits that had touched the Spanish observers. He comments that this city is as big as Seville and Cordoba; many flourishing markets are present in the streets and squares, and every day several thousands of people buy and sell all kinds of wares. The city also foresees temples and places where the Indians’ cult can be practices, and which are guarded by religious figures. The architecture of many building is also impressive; Cortés describes in detail the biggest house of the city, which is such a big and decorated building that no human words can describe it (“No hay lengua humana que sepa explicar la grandeza e particularidades de ella”).
- 16.
16 This kind of synergic representation has been proposed in Rigotti and Greco (2006).
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17 It is important, however, to shed light on an aspect of the representation that may be misleading: in conformity with the syllogistic structure, minor premises are associated to the maxim or to the endoxon respectively (i.e. to major premises) by means of a logical conjunction. This means that they do not derive from the major premise, although the representation might suggest this interpretation. On the opposite, the conclusion is derived from the logical conjunction of major and minor premise.
- 18.
18 For a brief description of the model of a critical discussion, see also Rigotti and Greco Morasso, chapter “Argumentation as an Object of Interest and as a Social and Cultural Resource,” of this volume.
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Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Joëlle Stoudmann for the revision of English in this chapter.
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Greco Morasso, S. (2009). The Argumentum experience. In: Muller Mirza, N., Perret-Clermont, AN. (eds) Argumentation and Education. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-98125-3_9
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