导致深度分歧的显性文化知识.pdf

Studies in Logic,Vol.16,No.3(2023):119136PII:16743202(2023)03011918Cultural Manifest Knowledge Contributingto Deep Disagreement*Zhixi ChenJiangeng NingBAbstract.Current research on causes of deep disagreement with respect to cultural constituents sees a tension between the collectivist indistinguishability and the highly individualistidiosyncrasy of cultural knowledge.The tension in its settlement calls for a new way,whichtakes both epistemic statuses of culture into consideration.This paper answers this call and attempts to build a new way by drawing insights from postGricean Relevance Theory.It arguesthat,in looking for the cultural factors that contribute to deep disagreement,we should neithermerely look to the cultural knowledge indistinguishably held by the speech participants,nor restrict our attention to the idiosyncratic knowledge of each individual.Rather,we ought to takestock of cultural manifest knowledge,in the statuses of cultural manifestness,which designatesthe cultural competence of individual participants.1IntroductionSince its proposal in 1985 by Robert Fogelin,the concept of deep disagreementhas gathered tremendous attention in informal logic and argumentation studies.AsDavidAdamsremarked,“Fogelinsanalysisofwhysomedisputes(referringtodeepdisagreement)are not amenable to reasoned resolution is richly suggestive of questions for further philosophical work”.(1,p.66)Indeed,it has brought about newinspirationsandsparkedheateddisputesamongscholars(3,5,9,25,35).Centeringon the problem of deep disagreement,there can be distinguished two general lines ofresearch or two“families of theories”as Lavorerio terms it(22,p.417).The firstfocuses on whether deep disagreement could be Rationally Resolved,and the secondconcerns what are the Causes of Deep Disagreement(CsDD for short hereafter).Thestudy in this paper falls within the purlieu of the second line of research whereas thefirst line will have to be referred to when necessary.Received 20220925Zhixi Chen1Center for Linguistics and Applied LinguisticsGuangdong University of Foreign SJiangeng NingB1Center for Linguistics and Applied LinguisticsGuangdong University of Foreign Studies2Department of Foreign Language,Yuncheng U*The research in this paper is supported by the Major Program of the National Social SciencesFoundation of China entitled“Research on the localization of Chinesetranslated logic terminologiesand the construction of Chinese logic discourse system”(Grant No.21&ZD065).120Studies in Logic,Vol.16,No.3(2023)Initially,Fogelin attributed CsDD to framework propositions which are,in hisopinion,the underlying principles,beliefs and preferences.(10)However,thesecauses tend to be tentative and are therefore very general,thus needing to be fleshedoutindetail.Threeapproaches,at least,to CsDDcouldbe distinguishedandthey are:epistemic,linguistic and cultural.Michael Lynch and Duncan Pritchard approachedCsDD,based on framework proposition,from an epistemic perspective and represented the framework proposition respectively as fundamental epistemic principlesand hinge commitments.(21,28)Dana Philip(25)and Matthew Shields(29)resort to linguistic factors in exploring CsDD.Prominently,Manfred Kraus(19,20)make attempts to pin down,from a cultural perspective,particular constituents thatcontribute to CsDD in an inspiring way.Compared to other approaches,the cultural approach has strengths as it providesa more broadened perspective on the study of deep disagreement(and also argumentation).Whereas at the same time,it has to deal with the collectivistindividualisttension that has been observed in cultural anthropology as well as in communicationstudies.(6,31)The tension in its settlement calls for a new way which takes bothcollectivist and individualist epistemic statuses of culture into consideration.Thispaper answers this call and attempts to build a new way by drawing insights frompostGricean Relevance Theory.Our study is structured as follows.Well first give a brief introduction to theconcept of deep disagreement and its characteristics in Section 2,and then discussthe studies that attempt to probe into the CsDD in Section 3.On the basis of thediscussion,it will proceed to pointing out the tension of current studies with an aimto enlighten what the epistemic status of the local culture is to a particular individualmemberin deep disagreements.In Section 4,we will propose the concept of“culturalmanifestness”on the basis of Sperber and Wilsons Relevance Theory.In Section 5,we close the study by showing its findings and shortage.2What is Deep Disagreement?The concept of deep disagreement literally originated from Robert Fogelins“The logic of deep disagreement”,a paper published in 1985 in the Journal of Informal Logic.However,in the paper,Fogelin attributed the idea of deep disagreementto Wittgenstein,saying“My thesis,or rather Wettgensteins thesis,is that deep disagreements cannot be resolved through the use of argument,for they undercut theconditions essential to arguing”(10,p.5).From this quote,we may at least knowthat the phenomenon of deep disagreement has been noticed by Wittgenstein.The study of deep disagreement came in the backdrop of a time when the burgeoning informal logic as a new approach to logic,gradually found its way in logic.In the late 60s and early 70s,echoing the social upheavals and protests against theZhixi Chen,Jiangeng Ning/Cultural Manifest Knowledge Contributing to Deep Disagreement121War in Vietnam in North America was the outcry in academia for focusing on reallife studies,and in the area of logic on the everyday arguments taken from newspapers,the mass media,advertisements,books and political campaigns.This is whathas been dubbed as the Informal Logic Movement(12),which contrasts the traditional formal logic and represents an important departure from the standard way oflooking at arguments(that is,the formal logic).It is in such a field,namely informallogic,that deep disagreement sees its roots.2.1DefinitionSince deep disagreement arose out of informal logic,it concerns reallife argumentsratherthanmerelytraditionalformallogicspremisepremiseconclusion(PPC)propositionalsets.ThoughFogelindidnot,directlyandclearly,providethedefinitionof what deep disagreement is,he referred to it on several different occasions.Takenfrom relevant discussions by Fogelin(10),deep disagreement could be defined as:an argumentative phenomenon in which both parties are able to produce reasoned arguments to the effect that both parties are not to be convinced,thus anenduring disagreement.One important thing worthy of notice is that in Fogelinsopinion,deep disagreement could not be rationally resolved and instead hinted at anonrational resolution.On the basis of Fogelins discussion,David Adams came forward with a transparent definition of deep disagreement:one that persists(or would persist)even ifthe parties were fully rational,completely informed of the relevant facts,and possessed of sufficient time and ability to deliberate fully.(1,p.69)Compared withFogelins definition,Adams specifies,in a more explicit way,the conditions thatconstitute deep disagreement,and thus tells us more about the characteristics of deepdisagreement.2.2CharacteristicsOnthebasisofabovediscussion,threeapparentcharacteristicsofdeepdisagreement could be distinguished,and they are argumentatively rational,procedurallyappropriate and temporally persistent.These characteristics could be explainedby reference to the current theories of argumentation.First of all,the arguments produced by both participants in a deep disagreementare rational in themselves.This may mean,on a meansend approach(30),thatthe premises provides strong supports to the conclusion.In other words,there isvalidity between the premises and the conclusion as evaluated against standards ofthe traditional logics and that of a formal deductive logic,which takes on universalfeature.Whereas,on a broader approach in which argumentation is placed in its context of use and the contextual factors that impinge on argumentation are taken into122Studies in Logic,Vol.16,No.3(2023)consideration,“being rational”is relative to the context.1For example,GeneralizedArgumentation theory takes argumentation as a sociocultural activity regulated bysocial norms and different social communities have different logics.Thus,differentsociocultural groups have different rational standards.(16)For informal logicianslike Ralph Johnson2and David Hitchcock,the criteria for being rational and good arguments bear close relation to the purpose of arguments as Johnson remarked“a goodargumentisonethatachievesitspurpose(s)”,andappraisedwithregardtoRelevance,Sufficiency and Acceptability,the RSA criteria3.(15,p.190)Secondly,participants involved in a deep disagreement resort to procedurallyappropriate methods in making their arguments.This characteristic could be mademore explicit by referring to the rules of critical discussion in van Eemerens pragmadialecticmodelofargumentation(therearealtogether10rules,or10commandments,in the critical discussion model4).To take two of the rules in the model for example.Rule one(the freedom rule)says:“discussants may not prevent each other from advancingstandpointsorfromcallingstandpointsintoquestion”(34,p.190),meaningthat the protagonist have the freedom to advance a standpoint and also that the antagonist have the freedom to make a challenge to the protagonist standpoint Rule four(the relevance rule)dictates:“standpoint may not be defended by nonargumentationor argumentation that is not relevant to the standpoint”(34,p.192),meaning thatthe successful defense of a standpoint rests in raising argumentation that is relevantto the standpoint.In a deep disagreement,procedural appropriacy,in the same spirit,rules out any attempt by the antagonist to prevent the protagonist from advancingstandpoints or any attempt by the protagonist to prevent the antagonist from makinga challenge to the standpoint he or she advanced(in relation to freedom rule).Moreover,procedural appropriacy prohibits protagonists raising irrelevant arguments indefense of a standpoint(in relation to the relevance rule).Thirdly,deep disagreements tend to be temporally persistent since participantsin a deep disagreement could not persuade each other into accepting their standpointsand could not reach a consensus,in light of the fact that they have both produced ar1Van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst attributed such an idea of relative reasonableness to ChaimPerelman and Stephen Toulmin,and pointed out,after discussing their similarities and differences,“thenorm of reasonableness is potentially relativistic to a high degree:Potentially,there are as many kindsof reasonableness as there are judges”(34,p.130).2Johnson also sees argumentation as“an extremely powerful and valuable cultural practice”(15p.11),which means different cultures have different measures with regard to rationality.3RSA stands for the argument evaluation standards of Relevance,Sufficiency and Acceptabilityproposed by Ralph Johnson and Anthony Blair,initiators of informal logic in their coauthored bookLogical Selfdefense.4The 10 rules are:the freedom rule,the burden of proof rule,the standpoint rule,the relevance rule,the unexpressed premise rule,the starting point rule,the argument scheme rule,the validity rule,theclosure rule and the usage rule.(33)Zhixi Chen,Jiangeng Ning/Cultural Manifest Knowledge Contributing to Deep Disagreement123guments that are rational in their own right(being argumentatively rational)and observed the procedures that are deemed as appropriate in argumentation.In discussingthe resolution of deep disagreement,some scholars,for example David Zarefsky,regarded temporal suspension as a manageable strategy.(35)It is interesting to notethat an anthropological point of view with regard to argumentation was proposed byChristopherTindale(32),whosawargumentationfromadevelopmentalperspectiveand adopted an interesting attitude towards the resolution of disagreement,thinkingthat disagreement,like an open dialogue,is not restrained by time and agreement isalways temporary.2.3The theoretical significance of deep disagreementDeep disagreement thus defined and characterized is of great use to help recognize different types of argument(disagreement).With reference to the definition andcharacteristics of deep disagreement,at least two other types of argument could bedistinguished.The first type that we are able to recognize is normal/ordinary argument.AsAndrew Lugg pointed out,the main distinction between ordinary argument and deepdisagreement lies in“whether or not the participants share sufficiently broad background of commitments to engage in genuine argument.”(23,p.47)In particular,these shared commitments include rational standards and appropriate procedures forresolving a disagreement.When sufficient background commitments are lacking,there arises deep disagreement(we are soon to elaborate in the next section).However,whenparticipantssharethesameconceptiononwhatcountsasrationaland what are the appropriate procedures for resolving disagreements,this kind ofargument is the normal/ordinary argument.It may result from either the epistemicdisparities between participants or misunderstandings of certain linguistic symbols.For instance,two people are arguing on which team won the last European Cup.Insuch scenarios,resorting to football record book,the shared commitment as to whatprocedures are appropriate,will easily tell who won the game.Therefore,normal/ordinary argument could be resolved by either providing sound evidence for claimsor disambiguating terms that have been used.The second type is that of the polemic argument.Kraus defined the polemicargument as“an argument that shows no noticeable attempt at resolving the basicdissent by rational means,but consists in nothing but repeated contradiction and gainsaying”(20,p.92).It is apparent that this type of argument is not aimed at resolvingthe disagreement.In contrast to deep disagreement,a polemic argument is differentin that it is dispelled as irrational and as a display of uncooperativeness while deepdisagreement involves rational arguments on both sides in the hope of convincingeach other.Participants in a polemic argument disregard the procedural appropriacies and provide arguments that are nonrational.In other words,the participants124Studies in Logic,Vol.16,No.3(2023)argue merely for the sake of arguing,and they dont show severity and sincerity inproviding reasons for their standpoints.3Causes of Deep Disagreement(CsDD)In the light of above elaboration on the definition and characteristics of deepdisagreement,the question of concern now is what leads to deep disagreement?Orin other words,what are the sources of deep disagreement?3.1Common ground and framework propositionsTo start with,Fogelin argued for the common ground,shared knowledge in argumentative exchanges,the lack of which may lead to deep disagreement.Fogelinused framework propos