Justice and Argument: Toward Development of a Dialogical Argumentation Theory

Abstract

Based on an examination of Josina Makau and Debian Marty's Cooperative Argumentation, and James Crosswhite's The Rhetoric of Reason, this essay identifies concepts and premises central to a dialogical argumentation theory and argues that that theory may be further developed by concepts and principles from Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy's contextual theory, a theory based on Martin Buber's philosophical anthropology. The paper begins by identifying central concepts and premises of the emerging dialogical argumentation theory, develops the resultant model of dialogical argumentation in light of concepts from contextual theory, and concludes with a discussion of the implications of the relational-ethical view of argument for argumentation and rhetorical studies.

Key words:

• dialogue
• monologue
• dialogical argumentation theory
• contextual theory
• Martin Buber