El jueves, 26 de junio, a las 12h, en la Sala de Juntas de Filosofía, tuvo lugar otra sesión del seminario TeC-FiloLab. Nos acompañó Dima Mohammed, de la Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. A continuación tenéis el título de su charla, así como una breve nota sobre la trayectoria de Dima.
Title: «Persuasion and the multiple publics»
Summary: Persuasion has long been considered the defining aim of argumentation, particularly in political contexts. From Aristotle’s classical rhetoric to modern approaches in both rhetorical and dialectical traditions (e.g., Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969; van Eemeren 2010; Zarefsky 2008), changing a public’s mind is seen as central to the practice of arguing. But can we still hold on to persuasion as the essence of argumentation in today’s public sphere—one marked by fragmentation, polarization, and overlapping multiple publics? This talk critically examines the place of persuasion in public political argumentation, with special attention to contexts where, in view of the multiple publics, rational persuasion seems offpoint (Alraedy achieved, unattainable or just off-the-wall). I start by drawing on a critical review of literature on the goals of argument (Toulmin 1958; Johnson 2000; Bermejo-Luque 2011; Gilbert 1997; Walton & Krabbe 1995 among others) and exploring the view that persuasion is an intrinsic function of the act of arguing (Mohammed 2016). Following that, I address the idea—famously put forward by Doury (2011)—that arguments do not always seek to persuade. That leads to an important discussion about the place of disagreement in argumentation, and about the heterogeneous audiences typically associated with political arguments. I further explore the place of persuasion by examining a case study of protest signs—iconic moments of political argumentation in public space. Drawing from historical and contemporary protest movements, I pay special attention to the contribution of protest signs to goals associated with epistemic resistance (Medina 2023): to fight active ignorance; to create concerned publics, to mobilize to actively resist injustice as well as to transform the social imagination. Ultimately, I propose that a robust account of political argumentation must recognize persuasion as one function among many, embedded in a broader ecology of public reason-giving. Such an account better captures the multiplicity of goals and publics that define political discourse today.
Bio: Dima Mohammed is an argumentation scholar specialised in political argumentation, senior research fellow at the NOVA institute of philosophy, ArgLab Coordinator, and adjunct professor of communication at the NOVA School of Social Science and Humanities, Portugal. Dima’s research focuses on the complexities of public political arguments and the challenges these pose for understanding the strategic shape and the rationality of argumentative exchanges. With a focus on the discursive management of disagreement, her work covers a diversity of contexts: from Parliamentary debates (UK, EU and Portugal) and presidential speeches (USA), to social media and public discussions during the Arab Spring. Dima has lectured on political argumentation in several institutions in Portugal, Switzerland, Canada and Palestine. Dima is founding member of the European Conference on Argumentation (ECA) and serves in the boards of of key academic associations and journals such as the Association for Informal Logic & Critical Thinking (AILACT), Journal of Argumentation in Context, Argumentation and Advocacy, among others.
