Rebecca Moore Howard
Writing 205-283, Spring 2000

Argument

Feminists like Susan Jarratt reject argumentation "as being inherently patriarchal in its aspiration to dominance" (36) and also exclude it from the classroom, where (in Jarratt's words), "Demanding that our female students listen openly and acceptingly to every response from a mixed class can lead to a discursive reenactment of the violence carried on daily in the maintenance of an inequitable society" (36-7).1

Argument involves our "interaction with others" (3), negotiating "fundamentally incompatible" viewpoints. Arguing: "the process of resolving differences of opinion through communication." Arguments: "the claims that people make when they are asserting their opinions and supporting their beliefs" (4).

There are two types of argument:

1. Argument1 (inquiry, discovery): of value to the individual. Objective = "effective decision making" (4). Conducting this sort of argument is a "problem-solving capability" (6).

2. Argument2 (negotiation, persuasion): of value to society. It is "interaction characterized by disagreement." This sort of argument should be conducted politely, respectfully, and constructively (5). Conducting this sort of argument is a "communication skill" (6). Objective = "social harmony" (4).

Ethics is essential in argument (10). Ethical arguers "do not misrepresent . . . facts, they do not conceal information", they don't lie, and they don't try to persuade people of things that aren't in those people's "best interests" (11).2

There are three kinds of argument. In the disputative form, characteristic of oral argument, the arguer takes a stand and defends it against opposition. In the evaluative form typical of formal written argument, the arguer weighs evidence and perhaps changes his or her mind. The interactive form, Bakhtinian and characteristic of peer dialogue journals (in which students exchange and respond to each other's journals), combines qualities of both the disputative and evaluative forms, serving the purposes of both social interaction and individual learning (139-41).3

1 Faigley, Lester. Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition. U Pittsburgh P, 1992.
2 Hollihan, Thomas A., and Kevin T. Baaske. Arguments and Arguing: The Products and Process of Human Decision Making. New York: St. Martin's, 1994.
3 Anson, Chris, and Richard Beach. "The Nature of Argument in Peer Dialogue Journals." Perspectives on Written Argument. Ed. Deborah P. Berrill. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 1996. 139-70.