Abstract

Geoff Goddu's 2010 paper "Is 'Argument' subject to the process/product ambiguity?" and Paul Simard-Smith and Andrei Moldovan's 2011 paper “Arguments as abstract objects” have revived the dialogue about what might be called the "metaphysics of argument". Both papers are important. Both also seem to me to be open to significant objections. In this paper I will lay out some of these objections and give, in rough outline, the kernel of an alternative approach.