{"id":5149,"date":"2017-03-13T12:19:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T17:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5149"},"modified":"2017-03-13T12:19:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T17:19:11","slug":"norms-of-assertion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5149","title":{"rendered":"Norms of Assertion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst have a section titled 10 Commandments of Reasonable Discussion<\/strong> to close their masterwork, A Systematic Theory of Argumentation.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/em>The second and ninth are of import.<\/p>\n

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2. Discussants who advance a standpoint may not\u00c2\u00a0 refuse to defend his standpoint when requested to do so. (p. 191)<\/p>\n

9. Inconclusive defenses of standpoints may not lead to maintaining those standpoints…. (p.195)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s a truism that if you assert that p and you’re asked to give reasons, you should.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 Moreover, it seems clear that if you don’t have any reasons to hold p true, then you should (if you asserted it) retract your assertion.<\/em> That’s responsible cognitive management, responsible assertion.\u00c2\u00a0 No evading the burden of proof if you assert, and if you can’t fulfill the requirements of the burden, stop asserting.<\/p>\n

How epistemically demanding this norm must be is a matter of some debate.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a few of the contenders:<\/p>\n

C-Norm:<\/strong> S may assert that p only if S is certain<\/strong> that p.<\/p>\n

K-Norm:<\/strong> S may assert that p only if S knows<\/strong> that p.<\/p>\n

RBK-Norm:<\/strong> S may assert that p only if S reasonably (but possibly fallibly) believes that S knows<\/strong> that p.<\/p>\n

J-Norm:<\/strong> S may assert that p only if S has epistemically justifying reasons<\/strong> for believing that p.<\/p>\n

W-Norm:<\/strong> S may assert that p only if S has warrant<\/strong> for holding that p (but S does not have to believe it)<\/p>\n

T-Norm:<\/strong> S may assert that p only if p is true.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The literature on norms of assertion are all over the place on which of these norms obtains, but with the exception of the T-norm, it’s not hard to see how these norms explain why Rules 2 and 9 above obtain.\u00c2\u00a0 (Those who hold the T-norm maintain that the obligation to defend is pragmatically derivable<\/em> from the T-norm.)\u00c2\u00a0 In short, the point is to see that those who assert, by way of asserting, shoulder a burden to argue as a consequence. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Donald Trump’s tweet, assuming it’s an assertion, requires some backing.\u00c2\u00a0 And given the seriousness of the accusation, the urgency of his shouldering the burden of proof is pretty significant.<\/p>\n

John McCain’s appearance on CNN’s State of the Union<\/em><\/a> was an instance of someone invoking the rule.\u00c2\u00a0 His challenge is:<\/p>\n

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The President has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve<\/strong> . . . .\u00c2\u00a0 I have no reason to believe that the charge is true, but I also believe that the President of the United States could clear this up in a minute.\u00c2\u00a0 All he has to do is pick up the phone, call the director of the CIA, director of national intelligence and say, ‘OK, what happened?’<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The problem is that the current President is used to asserting confidently to a roomful of his yes-men or to a group of supporters and never getting pushback.\u00c2\u00a0 He can say:\u00c2\u00a0 believe me, I’ve got information…<\/em> and they do.\u00c2\u00a0 But now that he’s President, his assertions have wider audience and plenty of folks want the backing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst have a section titled 10 Commandments of Reasonable Discussion to close their masterwork, A Systematic Theory of Argumentation.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The second and ninth are of import. 2. Discussants who advance a standpoint may not\u00c2\u00a0 refuse to defend his standpoint when requested to do so. (p. 191) 9. Inconclusive defenses of … Continue reading Norms of Assertion<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2140,2045,139,2141],"class_list":["post-5149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-assertion","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-john-mccain","tag-wiretapping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5152,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149\/revisions\/5152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}