Commitment, Types of Dialogue, and Fallacies

Abstract

This paper, based on research in a forthcoming monograph, Commitment in Dialogue, undertaken jointly with Erik Krabbe, explains several informal fallacies as shifts from one type of dialogue to another. The normative framework is that of a dialogue where two parties reason together, incurring and retracting commitments to various propositions as the dialogue continues. The fallacies studied include the ad hominem, the slippery slope, and many questions.