One of the positive ways in which argumentation can improve political thinking is through providing definitions. We can establish definitions through argumentation, filtering out ideas that are irrelevant or unacceptable, and collecting features that offer a comprehensive understanding of a crucial concept. In this paper, we use argumentation to illuminate the concept of extremism. We proceed in this way: first, we discuss the relationship between argumentation and definitions. Second, we look at the current state of affairs by exploring contemporary definitions (...) of “extremism” and by identifying several problems in the definition literature. Third, we assume the burden of proof in providing a definition that avoids problems we have identified. Fourth, we discuss other closely-associated concepts and their definitions—terrorism, radicalism, and fundamentalism, explaining how these concepts are distinct from our definition of extremism. (shrink)

This article synthesizes the results of several interviews with argumentation scholars from across the American continents to address three questions regarding the connections in argumentation studies between North and South/Central America: “What motivated the study of argumentation in the Americas?” “What commonalities, if any, exist in argumentation studies across the Americas?” and “What should the future of argumentation studies in the Americas look like?” Using these interviews in combination with existing textual sources, the article also provides motivated suggestions for directions (...) for the future of the community in the field. (shrink)

This paper questions the use of the argumentative reconstruction technique as a criterion for identifying arguments. To perform this, I stress a type of argument that appeals to taste. I proceed as follows: first, I relate such a technique to the ways in which pragma-dialectics and informal logic have defined argumentation. Second, I present some borderline cases to reconstruction technique such as argumentation through directives, expressives and commissives speech acts, narrative argumentation, and visual argumentation. Third, I add to these cases (...) that of an argumentation that appeals to taste by analyzing a dialogue. Fourth, I conclude the article by offering reasons to study cases such as the one presented and by introducing some problems derived from the present study. (shrink)