Argumentation, Communication, Rhetoric I - Studium Generale Exercise MAMSc

Description

Communication uses numerous media and takes place on various levels: arbitrary and unconscious, verbal and nonverbal, spoken and written language, gestural, mimetic, pictorial, analog and digital, etc. It has evolutionary roots and universal cognitive basic conditions but takes on cultural and historical forms that lead to communicative boundaries. – In scientific communication, one communicative form plays an outstanding role: argumentation. It is a dialogical, rational procedure by which others are to be convinced of the correctness of a statement or position through further supporting statements. All participants are bound to or guarantee the rationality of this procedure. However, rationality is not reducible to the application of logical rules. Questions of historicity, style, and diversity also arise here. Moreover, a large part of everyday communication aims more at effect and persuasion than at rational justification and conviction. The relatively young disciplines of informal logic and new rhetoric (which is by no means merely a doctrine of "rhetorical ornament") provide fine-grained tools to describe and analyze these forms of communication in science and other fields. – The exercise provides an overview of the various definitions, forms, and systems of communication from linguistic, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives and addresses the concept and claim of rational and persuasive communication based on theories and models from argumentation theory, informal logic, and new rhetoric. It thus makes an important contribution to the methodological reflection on the foundations of communication and science and guides through concrete exercises to optimize the key competence of argumentation.