European Conference on Argumentation (ECA), 9-12 June 2015, Lisbon, Portugal

1st European Conference on Argumentation: Argumentation and Reasoned Action
9-12 June 2015, Lisbon, Portugal

Available Now: Proceedings instructions.

Argumentation and Reasoned Action

The primary idea behind this first edition of the conference is that argumentation and reasoning are the main vehicles for our decisions and actions. They accompany, indeed constitute, a variety of significant social practices: from individual practical reasoning, small group decisions, deliberations of official bodies in various institutional contexts, to large-scale political and social deliberations. Argumentation is understood here as a mode of action – and not just any action, but a reasoned action, comprised of consideration of reasons (whether they are good or bad). Traditionally, argumentation has been assigned many distinct functions: epistemic, moral, conversational, etc. The aim of the conference is to explore how these functions are interrelated with the practical need for deciding on a course of action. Simply put, our chief concern is with the role argumentation and reasoning play when the question of “what to do?” is addressed.

All kinds of approaches to argumentation and reasoning are welcome: the (informal) logical, (pragma-)dialectical, rhetorical, but also contributions that examine argumentation from the perspective of practical reasoning in moral philosophy and philosophy of action; deliberation in political theory; public policy analysis; legal decisions in philosophy of law; cognitive study of reasoning and decisions; models of decision-making in computer science; organisational, small-group, and interpersonal communication; or discourse analytic methods examining the linguistic tokens of argumentative practices.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

JOHN R. SEARLE
Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, USA

ISABELA FAIRCLOUGH & NORMAN FAIRCLOUGH
Discourse Analysis, University of Central Lancashire & University of Lancaster, UK

SIMON PARSONS
Computer Science, University of Liverpool, UK

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TOPICS

The conference will be focused on, but not limited to, the following topics:

Practical reasoning and argumentation
Fallacious arguments and bad decisions
Argumentation and decision-making in institutional (education, health, business) and interpersonal contexts
Argumentation and deliberation in the public sphere
Public policy debates and public controversies
Argumentation in digital media
Visual arguments as modes of action
Models of argumentative dialogues
Argumentation in multi-agent systems
Legal arguments and legal decisions
Cognitive mechanisms behind argumentative practices

Submissions from students and young scholars are encouraged. To this end, ECA has
established the Frans van Eemeren Prize for Outstanding Student Paper.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

The Programme Committee invites the following types of original submissions: (i) Individual long papers, (ii) Individual regular papers and (iii) Thematic panels/symposia.