Reflective Argumentation

When conflicts and disagreements cannot be resolved because there is no common ground, it might be better to replace the fight for ‘the truth’ by an exchange of arguments whose primary purpose is not to ‘win’ but to stimulate reflection, creativity, and perspective shifts. This is what I call “reflective argumentation” by contrast to three better known approaches to argument which Christoph Lumer distinguished recently according to their “standard function”1: (a) rhetorical argumentation focuses on persuasion;2 (b) consensus theories of argumentation on reaching consensus, i.e., shared beliefs, in an argumentative discourse3; and (c) epistemological theories of argumentation, finally, define the “standard output” of arguments as knowledge or justified belief.4 The primary purpose of reflective argumentation, by contrast, is to develop arguments as a means to clarify one’s own thinking—either individually or in groups—and to stimulate change of this thinking, that is learning. “Argument” is often used in the confrontational sense of the term. This usage, however, distracts from a more productive function of arguments: the function to support understanding, reflection, and cognitive change. When we understand an argument, we understand the reasoning behind someone’s position. Since there are mostly various ways to argue for a position, we can see in someone’s arguments how this person