Design Thinking in Argumentation Theory and Practice

Argumentation 29 (3):243-263 (2015)
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Abstract

This essay proposes a design perspective on argumentation, intended as complementary to empirical and critical scholarship. In any substantive domain, design can provide insights that differ from those provided by scientific or humanistic perspectives. For argumentation, the key advantage of a design perspective is the recognition that humanity’s natural capacity for reason and reasonableness can be extended through inventions that improve on unaided human intellect. Historically, these inventions have fallen into three broad classes: logical systems, scientific methods, and disputation frameworks. Behind each such invention is a specifiable “design hypothesis”: an idea about how to decrease error or how to increase the quality of outcomes from reasoning. As problems in contemporary argumentation practice become more complex, design thinking rises in relevance and importance. A design research agenda in argumentation would focus on theorizing design innovations and on evaluating design hypotheses.

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Sarah Jackson
Deakin University

References found in this work

Knowledge in a social world.Alvin I. Goldman - 1999 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Why Deliberative Democracy?Amy Gutmann & Dennis F. Thompson - 2004 - Princeton University Press.
The Development of Logic.William Kneale & Martha Kneale - 1962 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. Edited by Martha Kneale.
The Development of Logic.William Kneale & Martha Kneale - 1962 - Studia Logica 15:308-310.

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