Is Every Definition Persuasive?

Informal Logic 42 (1):25-47 (2022)
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Abstract

“Is every definition persuasive?” If essentialist views on definition are rejected and a pragmatic account adopted, where defining is a speech act which fixes the meaning of a term, then a problem arises: if meanings are not fixed by the essence of being itself, is not every definition persuasive? To address the problem, we refer to Douglas Walton’s impressive intellectual heritage—specifically on the argumentative potential of definition. In finding some non-persuasive definitions, we show not every definition is persuasive. The persuasiveness lies not in syntactic or semantic properties, but the context. We present this pragmatic account and provide rules for analysing and evaluating persuasive definition—a promising direction for further research.

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Author Profiles

Jakub Pruś
Jesuit University Ignatianum In Cracow
Andrew Aberdein
Florida Institute of Technology

Citations of this work

Presuppositional fallacies.Fabrizio Macagno - forthcoming - Argumentation:1-32.

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References found in this work

The Principles of Psychology.William James - 1890 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 11 (3):506-507.
The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.Chaïm Perelman & Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca - 1969 - Notre Dame, IN, USA: Notre Dame University Press. Edited by Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca.
The new rhetoric: a treatise on argumentation.Chaïm Perelman - 1969 - Notre Dame, [Ind.]: University of Notre Dame Press. Edited by Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca.

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