Argumentation, R. Pavilionis's Meaning
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ISSN 1392-1126. PROBLEMOS 2015 88 ARGUMENTATION, R. PAVILIONIS’S MEANING CONTINUUM AND THE KITCHEN DEBATE* Elena Lisanyuk St. Petersburg State University Mendeleevskaya liniya 5 199034 St Petersburg, Russia E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. In this paper, I propose a logical-cognitive approach to argumentation and advocate an idea that argumentation presupposes that intelligent agents engaged in it are cognitively diverse. My approach to argumentation allows drawing distinctions between justification, conviction and persuasion as its different kinds. In justification agents seek to verify weak or strong coherency of an agent’s position in a dialogue. In conviction they argue to modify their partner’s position by means of demonstrating weak or strong cogency of their positions before a ‘rational judge’. My approach to argumentation employs a ‘light’ version of Dung’s abstract argumentative frameworks. It is based on Stich’s idea of agents’ cognitive diversity the epistemic aspect of which is argued to be close to Pavilionis’s conception of meaning continuum. To illustrate my contributions I use an example based on the Kitchen Debate (1959) between Khrushchev and Nixon. Keywords: abstract argumentation frameworks, cognitive diversity, Pavilionis’s meaning continuum, the Kitchen Debate Introduction1 tinuum, and the Kitchen Debate. One of the narratives depicts how the four issues are This paper has four focal issues and sug- combined together conceptually; the other gests two narratives in which these issues narrative is rhetorical and it tells how this may be shaped into a storyline. The focal paper is organized. The conceptual narrative issues are the formalized logical-cognitive expresses my key idea: verifying the coher- theory of argumentation which was pro- ency and the cogency of agent’s position posed in my other works (Lisanyuk 2013, in a dialogue is a core cognitive objective Lisanyuk 2014a)2 and is based on the idea of argumentation, where agents’ cognitive of agents’ cognitive diversity, Rolandas diversity provides a firm ground for these Pavilionis’s conception of meaning con- objectives to be successfully achieved. Re- garding agents’ knowledge and beliefs, the * The support from the Russian Foundation for Hu- idea of agents’ cognitive diversity amounts manities (project # 14-03-0650) is kindly appreciated. 1 I am grateful to D. Cohnitz, D. Tiskin and es- to two aspects: epistemic and epistemologi- pecially to my anonymous reviewers for their helpful cal. The two aspects taken together provide comments to the earlier versions of this paper. the necessary conditions for the agents 2 For a concise presentation see van Eemeren et al. 2014: 739–746. to achieve their cognitive objectives in a 95 dialogue. The epistemic aspect makes the The conceptual narrative evolves in the agents realize the need of argumentation of following way. As a conceptual foundation a definite kind in order to get to know what for the formalized logical-cognitive theory arguments are acceptable or admissible of argumentation, the cognitive approach for some or all agents in the dialogue. The to argumentation is based on a broadly epistemological aspect helps them to iden- understood idea of cognitive diversity of tify the reasons why these arguments are so agents launched by Stich and his followers evaluated in this dialogue. There is another (Weinberg et al. 2001). Pavilionis’s con- angle from which the epistemological as- ception, if taken not in the perspective of pect can serve as a necessary condition for its primary linguistic or semantic aspects, agents’ engagement into the argumentation but rather in the aspect of their pragmatic dialogues. It has to do with the ways agents, and logical implications, may be seen as whenever they agree on the procedures of an independent repercussion of the idea justifying or convincing in the dialogue in of cognitive diversity. According to the which they are participating, can benefit logical-cognitive theory of argumentation, from the disagreement between them with the key objective of argumentation dialogue respect to achieving their cognitive goals. amounts to the issue of whether an agent’s Example of the Kitchen Debate, apart from position is defensible against other agents’ being an illustration for the technical part of critical arguments to it. In the formalized the paper, demonstrates that rational agents theory of argumentation, the notion of are able to pursue their cognitive goals agent’s defended position is defined on the regardless of their emotional and psycho- basis of a “light” version of Dung’s abstract logical benevolence to each other given the argumentation framework (Dung 1995) epistemic diversity in their beliefs and the with respect to two kinds of argumentation, epistemological diversity of acquiring them, justification and conviction. In a justifica- to which such procedures belong. tion dialogue, agents seek to determine if The paper proposes two minor contri- the set of arguments expressing her position butions to the discussion of Pavilionis’s in the dialogue can be defended either from legacy. The incorporation of Pavilionis’s the inside (weakly coherent), or from the conception of meaning continuum into the outside (strongly coherent). In a conviction context of the cognitive diversity explic- dialogue, weak and strong cogency of the itly supports the idea expressed by Dagys agent’s position argument set are at stake, (2014) that matching this conception to for these notions represent the extension the analytic tradition in philosophy is not to which the agents’ positions are (weakly that obvious as it may be prompted by or strongly) convictive and are capable of the clearly analytical discourse in which being admitted by other agents. The no- Pavilionis develops it. Another impact of tions of coherency and cogency are based the incorporation suggests a perspective on the credulous and the sceptical modes in which a reply to the second question of defeasible semantics respectively. An (of ‘the lack of discussion of the epistemic example of conviction dialogue based on aspects of meaning’) of Gilaitis (2014: 37) the Kitchen debate (1959) between Richard may be found. Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev illustrates 96 how sharp confrontation of the opponents paign against John Kennedy (Nixon 1990). in argumentation dialogue employs both the However, the debate about the values also idea of cognitive diversity and the notions left an impression that Nixon had been hop- of coherency and cogency of an agent’s ing to win it by means of a contest includ- position. ing military weapons competition as well, The paper is designed as follows. I start something that might have been read as a with a brief story of Kitchen debate and message of unsafety and thus could have present an example of dialogue based on been one of the reasons of Nixon’s defeat it. In section 2 I give a concise overview of to Kennedy, who, in contrast, looked as a my tripartite distinction of kinds of argu- “soft touch” (Safire 2009). mentation. Section 3 suggests an outline of In the Soviet Union, the impact of the the idea of agents’ cognitive diversity and Kitchen Debate was also diverse. On the transfers its epistemic aspect to Pavilionis’s one hand, the very fact of live debate be- conception of meaning continuum, which tween the leaders of the two confronting is then discussed in Section 4. In Section countries was one of the repercussions of 5 the example of conviction dialogue is “Khrushchev thaw” during which the ideo- analyzed on the basis of my formalized logical atmosphere became less suffocative. logical-cognitive theory of argumentation. Since the discussion touched many issues of family household, it helped to pave the 1. The Kitchen Debate: way to several significant developments in How It Happened. the Soviet economy indicating a consumer turn, such as mass production of television In 1959 the then US Vice-President Nixon sets, house refrigerators, washing machines, opened the American National Exhibition etc. It also boosted the mass construction in Moscow as a part of his official visit of the low-cost apartment housing called to the USSR. At one of the exhibition’s “khrushchevki’”, which had been launched showpieces – a fully equipped modern about a decade before it. On the other hand, kitchen – the famous Kitchen Debate in 1961-2 the world saw the sudden erec- between him and the then Soviet leader tion of the Berlin Wall and the deployment Khrushchev has started. The debate among of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, the events the two has continued in a television studio which some experts tend to interpret as an and later its record was broadcast both in the implication of Khrushchev’s wrong evalua- USA and in the USSR. In the home coun- tion of both Nixon’s readiness for a missile tries of the discussants, the assessments of shirtfront clearly articulated in the Kitchen the political impact of the Kitchen Debate Debate and Kennedy’s adherence to the idea were controversial. of diplomatic negotiations. Khrushchev’s Some experts pointed that the US spec- subsequent decisions directed towards the tators had been presented with Nixon’s discharge in the Cuban missile crisis were strong willingness to advocate capitalist regarded by many in the Soviet political values against the communist ones, the idea elite as surrender to the US initiative, which that very likely would have earned him yet eventually led to his removal from the office more votes in his 1960 presidential cam- (Fursenko and Naftali 1998). 97 Anyhow, before the Cuban missile cri- collaborate in a dialogue with other agents sis, the Kitchen Debate, in which neither for the sake of making her own cognitive of the discussants succeeded in convincing objective feasible regardless of her personal the other, nor did they show up themselves emotional or psychological evaluation of as seeking for some strategic compromise, the dialogue partners, provided that each of highlighted the possibility of a nuclear con- the partners realizes two key issues, neces- frontation between the USSR and the USA.