Argumentation, Logic and Discourse

A fallacious argument that compels assent through threat, coercion, or reference to adverse consequences.

An erroneous attribution in which something is treated as belonging to an inappropriate logical category.

A relation in which an event, state, or factor is understood as causing another.

A shared sense of what is plausible, appropriate, or judgeable within a community.

A conclusion drawn from preceding premises or considerations and often the closing part of an argument.

The testing of a validity claim through its assumptions and consequences, becoming a refutation when a contradiction is exposed.

Opinions accepted generally or by reputable judges and used as plausible starting points for rhetorical and dialectical inference.

An argument whose premise or conclusion remains unstated because an audience is expected to supply it.

The organisation of information through a perspective that foregrounds some interpretations and suppresses others.

A mode of inference that derives a more general rule or expectation from individual observations.

A reason-giving account intended to show a claim, decision, or action to be warranted or defensible.

Alternation between a strong, difficult-to-defend thesis and a weaker, easier-to-defend version.

A problematic transition from descriptions of what is to evaluations or claims about what ought to be.

A statement or pattern that appears plausible and contradictory or counter-intuitive at once.

A paradoxical chain of reasoning in which many seemingly insignificant individual steps lead to an implausible result.

A procedure for determining the decisive issue in dispute through questions of fact, definition, quality, and jurisdiction.

Reconstruction of an opposing position in its strongest and most plausible form.

A distorted or simplified representation of a position, which is then more easily attacked.

A response that replaces an opponent’s position with a weaker or distorted version.

Reusable directions of inquiry and patterns of argument used to discover, arrange, and apply material to a particular case.

An a fortiori argument extends an accepted judgement to a case in which its relevant supporting reason is held to apply more strongly.

Inference to a plausible explanatory hypothesis from an observed or surprising fact.

A response directed at a person or their circumstances instead of the relevant claim or evidence.

A structural correspondence through which known relations guide reasoning about others.

An appeal to popularity uses the prevalence or acceptance of a view as support for its alleged truth, rightness or quality.

An argument a contrario infers that a consequence does not apply outside the class of cases to which a rule expressly assigns it.

An argument from ignorance takes the absence of disproof or confirmation as support for declaring a claim true or false.

The linking of claims and reasons in pursuit of justified assent.

Recognised power of validity or decision held by a person, institution, tradition, or source.

A subsequent or progressive specification of a statement or concept.

The language of a colonial power elevated above other languages in administration, education and public life.

An inference that holds under normal assumptions but can be retracted by additional information.

The stipulation or explanation of a term’s meaning and scope.

A decision situation in which two alternatives each have problematic consequences.

A shared representational world of people, events and assumptions constructed by a text or conversation.

The logical or linguistic connection of alternatives by an or-relation.

The misleading use of one expression across different meanings within an argument or interaction.

Eristic names disputation or its art; in the critical use foregrounded here, it concerns arguing for victory or the apparent defeat of an opponent rather than adequate examination of the issue.

The degree to which a claim is supported by proof or compelling grounds.

The misleading presentation of a situation as if there were only two possibilities.

Linguistic resources used to express abstract, cross-disciplinary and institutionally expected knowledge.

Language shaped by National Socialist ideology that categorised people, concealed violence and normalised domination.

A figurative term for language perceived as damaged, ideologically burdened or tentatively renewed after historical catastrophe.

Political shaping of the use, status and acquisition of languages in institutions and public life.

A legal claim to use and transmit a language in education, administration, courts or public life.

Valid form of inference: If P, then Q; not Q; therefore, not P.

A language formally designated for governmental, legal or administrative communication.

A fallacious inference that is treated as valid without any conscious intent to deceive.