Two authorities in argumentation theory present a view of argumentation as a means of resolving differences of opinion by testing the acceptability of the disputed positions. Their model of a "critical discussion" serves as a theoretical tool for analyzing, evaluating and producing argumentative discourse. This major contribution to the study of argumentation will be of particular value to professionals and graduate students in speech communication, informal logic, rhetoric, critical thinking, linguistics, and philosophy.

This volume gives a theoretical account of the problem of analyzing and evaluating argumentative discourse. After placing argumentation in a communicative perspective, and then discussing the fallacies that occur when certain rules of communication are violated, the authors offer an alternative to both the linguistically-inspired descriptive and logically-inspired normative approaches to argumentation.
The authors characterize argumentation as a complex speech act in a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion. The various stages of a critical discussion are...