The strategic formulation of abductive arguments in everyday reasoning
Abstract
Everyday abductive arguments often exhibit a weak relation between the premise and the conclusion, i.e. when the inference conveys the arguer’s individual interpretation of reality. After all, what seems obvious to the arguer may look far-fetched to an opponent. In this paper some presentational devices are examined that contribute to an arguer’s rhetorical goal of presenting the argument in such a way that the conclusion is suggested to follow logically from the premise(s).
The strategic formulation of abductive arguments in everyday reasoning
Everyday abductive arguments often exhibit a weak relation between the premise and the conclusion, i.e. when the inference conveys the arguer’s individual interpretation of reality. After all, what seems obvious to the arguer may look far-fetched to an opponent. In this paper some presentational devices are examined that contribute to an arguer’s rhetorical goal of presenting the argument in such a way that the conclusion is suggested to follow logically from the premise(s).
