Reconnecting dialectic and rhetoric: fallacies as derailments of strategic manoeuvring in argumentative discourse

Insight into the strategic design of argumentative discourse can be gained by incorporating insight from rhetoric into a dialectical framework of analysis. Such insight can be of help in explaining the misleading character of the fallacies. After Hamblin revealed in Fallacies (1970) the inadequacy of the Logical Standard Treatment of the fallacies, one of the alternative treatments that were proposed was the pragma-dialectical approach in which the fallacies are viewed as violations of rules for critical discussion. Van Eemeren and Houtlosser take this approach a step further by viewing argumentative moves as forms of "strategic manoeuvring" aimed at realizing at the same time a dialectical and a rhetorical aim. They analyse the fallacies as derailments of legitimate ways of strategic manoeuvring in which - without any notification - aiming for rhetorical effectiveness ("persuasiveness") has gained the upper hand over maintaining dialectical standerads ("critical reasonableness").