Argument and Argumentation
Updated 2026-09-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Argument is a core concept of philosophy, and philosophers rely heavily on arguments to justify claims. The practice extends far beyond philosophy into scientific inquiry, legal procedure, education, and political institutions, which makes argumentation a field studied jointly by philosophy, linguistics, law, cognitive science, and computer science. The study distinguishes kinds of support between premises and conclusions and treats argumentation as a social practice through which beliefs are examined.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Unpack the structure: reduce a claim to premises and conclusion, then inspect the support. - Grade the support: separate deductive truth-preservation from degree-giving induction and match confidence to it. - Expose the reasons: hand your reasons to others so they can refute and correct them.
Anchor fast decisions
An argument's force comes from the support relation between premises and conclusion: deduction preserves truth necessarily, while induction and abduction offer support of varying degree. But argument is also a social practice: by giving reasons, a speaker lets others examine and challenge the basis, which makes argumentation a mechanism for collective error correction and for the formation of consensus.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/argument/verified
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