Arguing as trying to show that a target-claim is correct

Abstract

In Giving Reasons, Bermejo-Luque rightly claims that a normative model of the speech act of argumentation is more defensible if it rests on an internal aim that is constitutive of the act of arguing than if it rests, as she claims existing normative models do, on an aim that one need not pursue when one argues. She rightly identifies arguing with trying to justify something. But it is not so clear that she has correctly identified the internal aim of arguing as showing that a target-claim is correct on the basis that a reason offered in its support is correct. First, if arguing is as she claims an attempt to justify, it is best construed as an attempt to justify the action or emotion expressed in its conclusion. Second, it is doubtful that qualified reasons and conclusions can always be reasonably reconstructed as unqualified claims, and even more doubtful that non-constative reasons and conclusions can always be reasonably reconstructed as indirect claims. Third, she needs to explain and justify her introduction of the concepts of showing and correctness in her analysis of the act of arguing.