Volume 2018, Issue 220 - Double special issue: Multimodality in argumentation, Guest editors: Andrea Rocci and Chiara Pollaroli Peirce's rhetoric and methodeutic, Guest editors: Mats Bergman and Gabriele Gava

This article analyzes a statement by Blair that the conditions of interpretation of visual expression are indeterminate to a much greater degree than is the case with verbal expression. We argue that this proposition reveals a somewhat hidden paradigm about what argument theory is or should be. This currently dominant paradigm takes as its object a prototypical verbal discourse from which arguments can be “reconstructed” in a fairly straightforward way. In this article, we argue that accepting multimodal discourse as a means to convey argumentation implies the necessity of a serious amendment of this paradigm. The problem of modeling the protagonist’s commitments inevitably requires our having to deal more with indeterminate, “raw” discourse formats, not to be replaced by verbal reconstructions. It requires our incorporating multimodal semiotics as an integrated element of argumentation theory; and it requires our accepting that argumentative commitments are deliberately underspecified and negotiable.

What would the consequences be for the interpretation and analysis of arguments if we were to accept that communication, within which arguments are produced and interpreted, involves the intricate use of more than just the verbal mode? In this paper, I discuss the shortcomings of the conception of argument as a purely verbal phenomenon and of the mere juxtaposition of the visual argument to the verbal, as suggested in the discourses of the sceptics and the advocates and of “visual” argument, respectively. Instead I propose a multimodal perspective on the analysis of argumentative discourse, according to which there is no a priori division of labor between the verbal and the visual mode, and attention is paid both to the (verbal and visual) content and to the (verbal and visual) style. In this view, argument is neither verbal nor visual, since argument is not to be defined on the basis of the verbal, visual or other semiotic means by which it is realized in communication. As a case in point, I analyze an ad campaign for the promotion of the British newspaper The Guardian in the United States.

In semiotics and the study of pictorial communication, the conceptualization of visual rhetoric and argumentation has been dominated by two connected approaches: firstly, by providing an understanding of visual rhetoric through tropes and figures; and secondly, by interpreting pictures as texts that are read and decoded in the same way as words. Because these approaches provide an opportunity to understand pictures as a form of language, they contribute in explaining how pictures can be used to argue. At the same time, however, these approaches seem to under-communicate two central aspects of pictorial argumentation: its embedment in specific situations and the distinguishing phenomenological aesthetics of pictures. This paper argues that the study of visual argumentation must understand pictures both as language and as a material aesthetic event. The possibility and actuality of visual argumentation is partly explained by understanding argumentation as a cognitive and situational phenomenon, and partly by introducing the notion of symbolic condensation. It is suggested that reconstruction of visual argumentation should be supported by reception analysis.

This paper focuses on questions concerning the process of making meaning out of the filmic text by asking for the argumentative patterns that enable the recipient’s inference processes during his/her interpretation. Film analysis, and multimodal analysis in general, is no longer seen as simply decoding the semiotic resources, but asking for inferential processes of reasoning about the best and most plausible interpretation. For this, the paper presents an analytical approach based on recent advancements in contemporary discourse semantics and multimodal discourse analysis which outlines the discursive and rhetorical structure of filmic text and retraces the inference process of the recipient in detail. The aim is to show how multimodal film leads its spectators to acknowledge the argumentative reconstruction of its content by relating the diegetic world to its reality and proving its validity. An example analysis of the short film El Vendedor de Humo (2012) shows how it is possible to elucidate a film’s rhetorical structure and to outline the process of logically reasoning about semantic and pragmatic information in the text. The aim is thus to gain a detailed look at how premises and arguments for the interpretation are made available in multimodal context and how they are operated by the recipient.

The aim of this article is to contribute to the theoretical development of multimodal metonymy and the argumentative and rhetorical role that the trope can fulfil in multimodal advertising campaigns. A model for the analysis of multimodal tropes in page-based advertising messages is developed by drawing insights from different disciplines. This model involves the identification of the elementary and layout components of the message, the description of its multimodal structure (in terms of the visual structure and the contribution of the verbal component), the reconstruction of its meaning operation, and the reconstruction of its enthymematic structure. In particular, the meaning operation is reconstructed by the employment of Conceptual Integration Theory, which we have slightly revised in order to better account for metonymical mappings. The enthymematic structure is reconstructed following the Argumentum Model of Topics, a model of argument schemes that enables one to make explicit the contextual and the logical dimensions of arguments. Based on the tenets of the two frameworks, we claim that multimodal metonymy condenses and gives access to a complex chain of connections, which mirrors the argumentation the audience is invited to infer. This argumentation is based on causal schemes of reasoning. This claim results in the in-depth analysis of both a billboard belonging to an anti-AIDS campaign and a social campaign by Greenpeace against the use of environmental-damaging paper for toy packages by Mattel.

The present paper deals with the production of a multimodal news item from an ethnographic perspective, aiming at fully understanding the role played by news values, i.e. shared criteria for news selection, in newsroom argumentation. The news item we consider is the picture news from Corriere del Ticino , the main Italian-language newspaper in Switzerland. As the Italian name fototesto says, this news item combines a verbal and a photographical component, presenting the journalists with particular challenges in its selection. To shed light on this production process, we take as a case study a picture news on eco-friendly heat distribution and the editorial conference leading to its choice, which took place on January 24, 2013. We analyze the interaction from the viewpoint of argumentation theory, combining Pragma-Dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst) and the Argumentum Model of Topics (Rigotti and Greco Morasso 2009, 2010, under review), and unravel the reasons behind choices in content and form taken collaboratively by the journalists.

Argumentation is essentially dialogical, hence based on verbal disputation. Nonetheless, other semiotic resources than language may play a substantial role in argumentative circumstances. In this article, different argumentative functions played by photographs are explored, based on an unusual corpus for the field. People working in Mozambican Community Multimedia Centers (CMCs) were interviewed, in order to reconstruct the social meaning they confer to such places. To facilitate the exchange of meanings between interviewees and interviewers, who had different cultural and experiential backgrounds, interviewees were requested to take pictures of something they liked, something they didn’t like, and something they perceived as particularly representative of their CMC. Pictures were then presented and commented by participants during their interview. By means of analytical reconstructions, the major argumentative roles played by photographs in the interviews were identified, as well as their semiotic function in respect to interviewees’ words. Argumentative analysis also broadened and enriched the method of photo-driven interviews, and added a further interpretative access to analysis of social representations.

This paper examines the collaborative use of visual argument maps in the context of argument production in organizations. Argument maps are highly multimodal, as their use involves the combination of diagrams, text elements, as well as spoken statements. In this theoretical piece, we apply a Collaborative Dimensions framework to argument maps that can be used to better design, understand, evaluate, and use argument maps in collaborative settings for decision making purposes. Specifically, our conceptual framework – derived from interdisciplinary perspectives – takes into consideration how the visual dimensions of argument maps have a bearing on the social interactions of people involved in a complex argumentation process. We posit that cognitive dimensions of argument maps need to be enriched with additional communicative and collaborative dimensions in order to foster a more widespread adoption of argument mapping in organizational decision making. In our socio-visual approach to argument mapping, we thus distinguish the following seven dimensions: Visual Insight, Outcome Clarity, Directed Focus, Perceived Finishedness, Visual Appeal, Content Modifiability, and Collaboration Support. We illustrate the use of the framework as an evaluation tool and analyze three different approaches to argument mapping with the help of the seven dimensions. In this way, the framework can be used to improve collaborative argument mapping. Our contribution thus lies in proposing an interdisciplinary and theoretically grounded set of factors to augment the quality of argument maps, both from a process and a results perspective. In this manner we hope to contribute to the theory of argumentation through the rich notion of “collaborative dimensions,” as well as further the practice of collaborative argument production through a more reflective and systematic use of interactive argument visualization.

This paper is a reading of Peirce’s manuscript “Ideas, stray or stolen, about scientific writing.” The latter text has been considered to be a key for understanding the relationship between speculative rhetoric and methodeutic. While I agree that it includes essential reflections on the third branch of Peirce’s logic, I will argue that the classification of rhetoric studies that it contains cannot be used to clarify the way in which methodeutic and speculative rhetoric are related to one another. I will first introduce the classification as it is presented by Peirce in “Ideas, stray or stolen, about scientific writing” and list some problems that immediately arise when we identify methodeutic with the rhetoric of science. Then, I will elucidate Peirce’s distinction between the universal art of rhetoric, speculative rhetoric, and ordinary rhetoric. I will argue that the classification of rhetoric studies in “Ideas, stray or stolen, about scientific writing” should be seen as a classification of the ways in which we can obtain different ordinary rhetorics specifying the contents of speculative rhetoric for different contexts of sign use. To finish, I will propose a different approach to support the claim that methodeutic is a subdivision of speculative rhetoric.

A strong case can be made that Peirce’s formal rhetoric is primarily a theory of inquiry. Peirce’s convergence theory of truth requires a community of inquiry enduring indefinitely over time. Such a community, then, must promote “solidarity” in Peirce’s terms, a consistent practice of cooperation among inquirers over generations. One of the tasks of his formal rhetoric, then, is to analyze the conditions for solidarity. Using Peirce’s framework of a belief-desire model for practical action, solidarity can be promoted if there are commonly desired ends and a consensus of beliefs about the best means to attain those ends in inquiry. Peirce recognizes, however, that the community of inquiry is constituted with different types of inquirers who have different purposes for inquiry. He divides them among the “pure” theoretical scientists, applied scientists and practical inquirers – the general public – who are interested in the practical applications that can bring betterment to their lives. It is argued here that Peirce’s apparent inconsistencies concerning the role and purpose of science can be attributed to cautions addressed to each of these different audiences. The remainder of the paper explores the problematics of solidarity in a community of inquirers who have different ends for inquiry, and how Peirce attempts to address the puzzles and paradoxes that result.

By 1903 Peirce had defined logic broadly as a “Philosophy of Representation,” an over-arching, organically organized cenoscopic science formed of speculative grammar, critic, and speculative rhetoric. Corresponding respectively to the three trichotomies of the sign that he had established at this time, the three branches of the grand logic concerned definitions of the sign, inquiry into the relation between sign and object and, finally, inquiry into the relation between sign and interpretant. In this latter case he hesitated between the labels “speculative rhetoric” and “methodeutic.” Also noticeable at this time is a hesitation concerning the scope of such an inquiry: the “logical study of the theory of inquiry” as opposed to “the doctrine of the general conditions of the reference of Symbols and other Signs to the Interpretants which they aim to determine,” a conception of logic reminiscent of the traditional art of persuasion. This polarity seems to have been confirmed in the 1904 paper “Ideas, Stray or Stolen about Scientific Writing” with its reference to the efficient written communication of the scientist’s results. It shows Peirce not so much adapting his speculative rhetoric to the traditional notion as explaining how the “abstract” cenoscopic science might help to organize the empirical idioscopic rhetorical sciences by determining three modes of specialization each with its specific divisions. However, in a letter to Lady Welby in October of that same year he introduced an initial hexadic sign-system which, following the earlier triadic classification, was composed of three supplementary relational criteria involving the sign respectively with its immediate object, its immediate interpretant, and its dynamic interpretant, all based on the more complex hexadic conception of semiosis announced in a letter to lady Welby dated December 23, 1908. It is noteworthy that the way the sign is classified with respect to the three interpretants in the 1904 letter corresponds closely to aspects of the modes of specialization described in the earlier paper. In 1906 he expressed his preference for the term “methodeutic” and its essentially methodological scope: as late as 1911, for example, he continued to define the third branch of logic as showing “how to conduct an inquiry.” Moreover, both methodeutic and the former over-arching philosophy of representation seem to have figured less prominently in his later theoretical preoccupations. Peirce may have been too involved in developing his Graphs and the hexadic and, ultimately, decadic systems of semiotic classification to define fully a “method of methods.” He might, too, have rejected the label “rhetoric” as being too close to the traditional art of persuasion whose three modes of specialization he had described in 1904. Alternatively, it is possible that his evolving understanding of the three interpretants absorbed any lingering rhetorical complexion his theory of scientific methodology may have had, and rendered it redundant in this more complex and comprehensive conception of semiosis. It is this latter possibility that the paper seeks to examine.

Although C. S. Peirce frequently notes the importance of the branch of logic he designates “rhetoric” or “methodeutic,” he only rarely specifies what this subdivision is meant to involve. This article reassesses the role of methodeutic in Peirce’s classification of the sciences, as well as the methodical significance of this classificatory endeavor itself. The article argues that the classification of sciences is best comprehended as a distinctive phase of methodeutic investigation, which examines actual manifestations of inquiry as well as abstract principles in crafting a normatively guiding conception of the scientific venture. It is further argued that the strict hierarchy on which Peirce bases his classification needs to be tempered to allow for a more flexible ordering, in which so-called “dynamical relationships” between inquiries are considered alongside the top-down perspective of “rational precedence.”