The Methodological Approach to Argument Evaluation: Rules of Defining as Applied to Assessing Arguments
The Methodological Approach to Argument Evaluation: Rules of Defining as Applied to Assessing Arguments

Summary/Abstract: The main thesis underlying the methodological approach to argument evaluation holds that some arguments which employ knowledge-gaining procedures can be successfully evaluated by applying tools elaborated by the methodology of science, such as the rules for reasoning, classifying objects, defining, and questioning. The application of those rules to argument evaluation consists in comparing them with procedures employed in the case of argumentative practices performed either in scientific inquiry or in everyday life. In order to show how building the methodological approach to argument evaluation could be started, I examine two cases of evaluating arguments by means of several methodological rules of defining. The idea of applying the rules governing various knowledge-gaining procedures to evaluating arguments is present in philosophy of science and in argumentation theory, but so far it has not been systematically elaborated. The paper aims at justifying this idea as a promising research project.

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