Explanation
Argumentation connects contestable claims with reasons, assumptions, and warrants so that assent becomes not merely produced but justifiable. An argument is therefore not simply a collection of sentences: there must be a reconstructable passage from grounds to claim whose relevance, strength, and exceptions can be examined. Scientific writing, courts, and everyday conversation employ different standards of evidence. Argumentation is also rarely purely linear; objections, concessions, and revisions change its path. The concept makes reasoning publicly testable. It reveals not only the conclusion someone reaches but which considerations support the transition and at what point another route could begin, preserving disagreement as an opportunity for locating rather than merely repeating difference.
Movement of thought
1. A claim emerges as uncertain, disputed, or in need of justification. 2. Reasons and relevant starting assumptions are stated or made reconstructable. 3. A warrant connects them with the claim and determines the transition's scope. 4. Objections, counterexamples, and alternative explanations test its strength and limits. 5. The conclusion returns as a provisionally justified position whose path remains open to others.
Scientific use case
Argument mining and qualitative analysis can code claims, grounds, warrants, qualifications, and objections. Comparative studies can examine the standards of evidence employed by different disciplines or public arenas.
Example
“The measurement is more reliable because it was independently repeated with the same procedure.” The reason supports the claim only with a warrant about repetition reducing accidental effects.
Counterexample
Repeating a claim does not supply an additional reason. Emotional force or a prestigious source likewise fails as argument when it has no relevant connection to the question under dispute.
Distinction
Distinguish argumentation from explanation, proof, persuasion, and causal assertion. Explanations often presuppose the fact, formal proofs follow stricter rules, and persuasion can produce assent without sufficient reasons.
Effect on thought and perception
Argumentation transforms assent from a mere reaction into a testable path among assumptions, reasons, objections, and conclusions.
Resonance
A reason calls for an answer and each answer changes the configuration; insight arises through a sustainable reverberation between claim and test.
Etymology
Technical core term; individual etymological review pending
Provenance
Unresolved relation network → core-concept review → Metzler/HWRh cross-check → ATLAS 238
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Argumentation“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-CORE-238-032. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-238-032The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
In IV.xvii.19–22 Locke distinguishes gaining assent through authority, the lack of a better alternative, an opponent's own concessions, or proofs grounded in knowledge and probability. He attributes advancement of knowledge specifically to the last type. His ad hominem concerns consequences drawn from another person's premises rather than a simple personal insult. The passage records an epistemically evaluated typology, not a complete history of argumentation.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Obtaining assent and establishing a substantive justification are explicitly different in this historical model.
References for the historical section
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (first published with the date 1690), Books III–IV; Gutenberg transcription identified as based on the second edition · IV.xvii.19–22, four ways of obtaining another person’s assent
Selected original-English passages read; not collated against first-edition page images. Modern profile labels are explicitly distinguished from the terminology used by Locke. His account of ideas is a historical philosophical position, not a verified contemporary model of language or cognition.