Examining Argumentation in Context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering

Preface
Examining Argumentation in Context is dedicated to the memory of Peter
Houtlosser, who died of cancer on the 14th of February 2008. Peter was not only
a dear friend of the contributors to this volume and a great many others, but he
was also a prominent argumentation theorist who died before he could realize his
full scholarly potential. Peter and I were convinced that a satisfactory analysis and
evaluation of argumentative discourse is possible only if the argumentation concerned
is first situated in the communicative and interactional context in which
it occurs. Together we worked for ten years on the development of a theory of
strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse that would enrich the pragmadialectical
approach developed at the University of Amsterdam by including the
contextual dimension. The fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering presented in
this volume are brought together as a token of respect for Peter’s intellectual contributions
to the study of argumentation.
As part of a research program on strategic maneuvering in argumentative
discourse subsidized by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
(NWO, no. 360-80-030) Peter and I organized in Amsterdam four one-day conferences
for argumentation theorists interested in this topic. The first conference
took place in October 2006 and was devoted to a discussion of general perspectives
on strategic maneuvering. The second conference was held in May 2007 and
concentrated on qualitative and quantitative empirical research with regard to
strategic maneuvering. The third conference in October 2007 focusing on strategic
maneuvering in institutionalized contexts was the last conference in which
Peter could take part. The fourth conference in May 2008 was dedicated to presentational
devices used in strategic maneuvering.
The papers presented at these four conferences provide useful and sometimes
illuminating insights in the views of strategic maneuvering of more than
forty argumentation theorists studying argumentation in context who have paid
attention to the problems involved in the analysis and evaluation of strategic
maneuvering. For this volume I had to make a selection that is a good representation
of the rich variety of the four conferences and the ideas presented. This
means that this volume contains some essays in which general views with regard
to strategic maneuvering are presented as well as essays reporting on the results
of empirical study, essays that examine argumentation embedded in a particular
legal or political context, and essays highlighting the presentational aspect of
strategic maneuvering. More often than not the essays offer a combination of
these perspectives.