Chapter 1. Argumentation theory as a discipline -- Chapter 2. Building a theory of argumentation -- Chapter 3. A model of a critical discussion -- Chapter 4. Critical discussion and the identification of fallacies -- Chapter 5. Descriptive studies of argumentative discourse -- Chapter 6. Analysis as resolution-oriented reconstruction -- Chapter 7. Strategic manoeuvring in argumentative discourse -- Chapter 8. Distinguishing between different kinds of argumentative practices -- Chapter 9. Prototypical argumentative patterns -- Chapter 10. Pragma-dialectics amidst other approaches to argumentation.
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The book offers a compact but comprehensive introductory overview of the crucial components of argumentation theory. In presenting this overview, argumentation is consistently approached from a pragma-dialectical perspective by viewing it pragmatically as a goal-directed communicative activity and dialectically as part of a regulated critical exchange aimed at resolving a difference of opinion. As a result, the book also systematically explains how the constitutive parts of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which are discussed in a number of separate publications, hang together. The following crucial topics are discussed: (1) argumentation theory as a discipline; (2) the meta-theoretical principles of pragma-dialectics; (3) the model of a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion; (4) fallacies as violations of a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse; (5) descriptive research of argumentative reality; (6) analysis as theoretically-motivated reconstruction; (7) strategic manoeuvring aimed at combining achieving effectiveness with maintaining reasonableness; (8) the conventionalization of argumentative practices; (9) prototypical argumentative patterns; (10) pragma-dialectics amidst other approaches. Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective is clearly written and makes argumentation theory understandable to all scholars and advanced students interested in argumentation research.