In the United States, the concept of the metropolitan statistical area has gained prominence. Metropolitan areas may themselves be part of larger megalopolises.
For urban centres outside metropolitan areas, that generate a similar
attraction at smaller scale for their region, the concept of the regiopolis and respectively regiopolitan area or regio was introduced by German professors in 2006. In the United States, the term micropolitan statistical area is used.
General definition
A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration
(the contiguous, built-up area) with zones not necessarily urban in
character, but closely bound to the center by employment or other
commerce. These outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt,
and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities.
For example, Islip, New York on Long Island is considered part of the New York metropolitan area.
In practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both
official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Sometimes they are
little different from an urban area, and in other cases they cover broad
regions that have little relation to a single urban settlement;
comparative statistics for metropolitan area should take this into
account. The term "Metropolitan" can also refer to a county-level municipal government
structure, with some shared services between a central city and its
suburbs, which may or may not include the entirety of a metropolitan
area. Population figures given for one metro area can vary by millions.
There has been no significant change in the basic concept of metropolitan areas since its adoption in 1950, although significant changes in geographic distributions have occurred since then, and more are expected.
Because of the fluidity of the term "metropolitan statistical area,"
the term used colloquially is more often "metro service area," "metro
area," or "MSA" taken to include not only a city, but also surrounding
suburban, exurban and sometimes rural areas, all which it is presumed to
influence. A polycentric metropolitan area contains multiple urban
agglomerations not connected by continuous development. In defining a
metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus
with which other areas have a high degree of integration.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics uses Greater Capital City Statistical Areas
(GCCSAs), which are geographical areas designed to represent the
functional extent of each of the eight State and Territory capital
cities. They were designed to reflect labour markets, using the 2011
Census "travel to work" data. Labour markets are sometimes used as proxy
measures of the functional extent of a city as it contains the majority
of the commuting population. GCCSAs replaced "Statistical Divisions"
used until 2011.
Other Metropolitan areas in Australia include cross border cities
or continuous built-up areas between two or more cities that are
connected by an extensive public transport network that allows for
commuting for work or services. The following are such conurbations:
Albury-Wodonga
Canberra-Queanbeyan
Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong
Perth Metropolitan Region-City of Mandurah-Pinjarra
In Brazil, "Metropolitan Regions", "Integrated Development Areas", and "Urban Agglomerations" are created by statute. Each state defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a metropolitan region is not for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)
uses them in reports. Their main purpose is to improve management of
public policies of common interest to all municipalities included
within. They do not have any political, electoral or jurisdictional
power whatsoever, so citizens do not elect representatives for them.
The IBGE defines also "Immediate Geographic Areas" (formerly termed microregions) which capture the region "surrounding urban centers for the supply of immediate needs of the population".
Intended for policy planning purposes, as of March 2021 census data is
not tabulated on the level of these Areas, but instead at the municipality or state level.
Canada
Statistics Canada defines a census metropolitan area
(CMA) as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities
situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the metropolitan area
must have a population of at least 100,000, at least half within the
urban core. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have
a high degree of integration with the core, as measured by commuter
flows derived from census data.
China
In Chinese, there used to be no clear distinction between "megalopolis" (城市群, lit. city cluster) and "metropolitan area" (都市圈) until National Development and Reform Commission issued Guidelines on the Cultivation and Development of Modern Metropolitan Areas (关于培育发展现代化都市圈的指导意见)
on Feb 19, 2019, in which a metropolitan area was defined as "an
urbanized spatial form in a megalopolis dominated by (a) supercity(-ies)
or megacity(-ies), or a large metropolis playing a leading part, and
within the basic range of 1-hour commute area."
European Union
The European Union's statistical agency, Eurostat, has created a concept named "larger urban zone"
(LUZ). The LUZ represents an attempt at a harmonised definition of the
metropolitan area, and the goal was to have an area from which a
significant share of the residents commute into the city, a concept
known as the "functional urban region".
France's national statistics institute, the INSEE, names an urban core and its surrounding area of commuter influence an aire urbaine (official translation: "urban area"). This statistical method applies to agglomerations of all sizes, but the INSEE sometimes uses the term aire métropolitaine (metropolitan area) to refer to France's largest aires urbaines.
In German definition, metropolitan areas are eleven most densely populated areas in the Federal Republic of Germany.
They comprise the major German cities and their surrounding catchment
areas and form the political, commercial and cultural centres of the
country.
For urban centres outside metropolitan areas, that generate a
similar attraction at smaller scale for their region, the concept of the
Regiopolis and respectively regiopolitan area or regio was introduced
by German professors in 2006.
In Indonesia, the government of Indonesia defines a metropolitan area as an urban agglomeration where its spatial planning
is prioritised due to its highly important influence on the country.
Currently, there are 10 metropolitan cities in Indonesia that have been
recognized by the government.
Italy
In 2001, Italy transformed 14 provinces of some of the country's largest cities into Metropolitan Cities. Therefore the territory of the Metropolitan City corresponds to that of a normal Italian province.
Those of the metropolitan areas are cities with a population of more than half of a million, which are not included in the greater metropolitan areas.
If the central cities are next to each other, the areas are integrated into one large area.
Surrounding Municipality (周辺市町村, lit. 'surrounding cities, towns and villages')
Those are municipalities with ratios of the number of people
commuting to the central city over 15 years old being 1.5% or more of
the permanent population of and close to the central cities.
If a municipality is surrounded by the surrounding municipalities, it will be a surrounding municipality.
Metropolitan areas are known as zonas metropolitanas in Mexico. The National Population Council (CONAPO) defines them as:
a set of two or more municipalities where a city with a
population of at least 100,000 is located, and whose urban area,
functions and activities exceed the limits of the municipality.
municipalities with a city of more than 500,000 inhabitants, or a
city of more than 200,000 inhabitants located in the northern and
southern border areas and in the coastal zone.
municipalities where state capitals are located, if they are not already included in a metropolitan zone.
As of 2018, there are 74 zonas metropolitanas in Mexico. 75.1 million people, 62.8% of the country population, live within a metropolitan area.
The Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in South Africa.
Its population was over 9.6 million as of the 2011 South Africa Census,
in contrast to its urban area, which consisted of approximately 7.9
million inhabitants as of 2011. Conversely, metropolitan municipalities
in South Africa are defined as commonly governed areas of a
metropolitan area. The largest such metropolitan municipal government
entity in South Africa is the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality,
which presided over nearly 5 million people as of 2016. However, the
Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area houses roughly ten times the
population of its core municipal city of Johannesburg, which contained 957,441 people as of the 2011 census.
Sweden defines a metropolitan area as a group of municipalities,
based on statistics of commuting between central municipalities and
surrounding municipalities and taking into account existing planning
cooperation in the country's three geographic regions. They were defined around 1965. In 2005, a number of further municipalities were added to the defined areas.
Turkey
The word metropolitan describes a major city in Turkey like Istanbul, a city that is dominant to others both financially and socially. There are 30 officially defined "state metropolitan areas" in Turkey, for governing purposes.
The Office of Management and Budget defines a Metropolitan Statistical Area as one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban area of at least 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of economic and social integration with the core as measured by commuting
ties. The OMB then defines a Combined Statistical Area as consisting of
various combinations of adjacent metropolitan and micropolitan
statistical areas with economic ties measured by commuting patterns. The
Office of Management and Budget further defines a core-based
statistical area (CBSA) to be a geographical area that consists of one
or more counties (or equivalents) anchored by an urban center of at
least 10,000 people plus adjacent counties that are socioeconomically
tied to the urban center by commuting.
Coral reefs form complex marine ecosystems with tremendous biodiversity
Marine ecosystems are the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems and exist in waters that have a high salt content. These systems contrast with freshwater ecosystems, which have a lower salt content. Marine waters cover more than 70% of the surface of the Earth and account for more than 97% of Earth's water supply and 90% of habitable space on Earth. Seawater has an average salinity of 35 parts per thousand of water. Actual salinity varies among different marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems can be divided into many zones depending upon water depth and shoreline features. The oceanic zone is the vast open part of the ocean where animals such as whales, sharks, and tuna live. The benthic zone consists of substrates below water where many invertebrates live. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tides. Other near-shore (neritic) zones can include mudflats, seagrass meadows, mangroves, rocky intertidal systems, salt marshes, coral reefs, lagoons. In the deep water, hydrothermal vents may occur where chemosyntheticsulfurbacteria form the base of the food web.
International attention to address the threats of coasts has been captured in Sustainable Development Goal 14 "Life Below Water" which sets goals for international policy focused on preserving coastal ecosystems and supporting more sustainable economic practices for coastal communities. Likewise, the United Nations has declared 2021-2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, but restoration of coastal ecosystems has received insufficient attention.
Coral reefs are one of the most well-known marine ecosystems in the world, with the largest being the Great Barrier Reef.
These reefs are composed of large coral colonies of a variety of
species living together. The corals from multiple symbiotic
relationships with the organisms around them.
Mangroves are trees or shrubs that grow in low-oxygen soil near coastlines in tropical or subtropical latitudes.
They are an extremely productive and complex ecosystem that connects
the land and sea. Mangroves consist of species that are not necessarily
related to each other and are often grouped for the characteristics
they share rather than genetic similarity.
Because of their proximity to the coast, they have all developed
adaptions such as salt excretion and root aeration to live in salty,
oxygen-depleted water.
Mangroves can often be recognized by their dense tangle of roots that
act to protect the coast by reducing erosion from storm surges,
currents, wave, and tides. The mangrove ecosystem is also an important source of food for many species as well as excellent at sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with global mangrove carbon storage is estimated at 34 million metric tons per year.
Seagrasses form dense underwater meadows
which are among the most productive ecosystems in the world. They
provide habitats and food for a diversity of marine life comparable to
coral reefs. This includes invertebrates like shrimp and crabs, cod and
flatfish, marine mammals and birds. They provide refuges for endangered
species such as seahorses, turtles, and dugongs. They function as
nursery habitats for shrimps, scallops and many commercial fish species.
Seagrass meadows provide coastal storm protection by the way their
leaves absorb energy from waves as they hit the coast. They keep coastal
waters healthy by absorbing bacteria and nutrients, and slow the speed
of climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide into the sediment of
the ocean floor.
Seagrasses evolved from marine algae which colonized land and
became land plants, and then returned to the ocean about 100 million
years ago. However, today seagrass meadows are being damaged by human
activities such as pollution from land runoff, fishing boats that drag
dredges or trawls across the meadows uprooting the grass, and
overfishing which unbalances the ecosystem. Seagrass meadows are
currently being destroyed at a rate of about two football fields every
hour.
Kelp forests occur worldwide throughout temperate and polar coastal oceans. In 2007, kelp forests were also discovered in tropical waters near Ecuador.
Physically formed by brown macroalgae, kelp forests provide a unique habitat for marine organisms
and are a source for understanding many ecological processes. Over the
last century, they have been the focus of extensive research,
particularly in trophic
ecology, and continue to provoke important ideas that are relevant
beyond this unique ecosystem. For example, kelp forests can influence
coastal oceanographic patterns and provide many ecosystem services.
However, the influence of humans has often contributed to kelp forest degradation. Of particular concern are the effects of overfishing nearshore ecosystems, which can release herbivores from their normal population regulation and result in the overgrazing of kelp and other algae. This can rapidly result in transitions to barren landscapes where relatively few species persist. Already due to the combined effects of overfishing and climate change, kelp forests have all but disappeared in many especially vulnerable places, such as Tasmania's east coast and the coast of Northern California. The implementation of marine protected areas
is one management strategy useful for addressing such issues, since it
may limit the impacts of fishing and buffer the ecosystem from additive
effects of other environmental stressors.
Estuaries
occur where there is a noticeable change in salinity between saltwater
and freshwater sources. This is typically found where rivers meet the
ocean or sea. The wildlife found within estuaries is unique as the water
in these areas is brackish - a mix of freshwater flowing to the ocean
and salty seawater.
Other types of estuaries also exist and have similar characteristics as
traditional brackish estuaries. The Great Lakes are a prime example.
There, river water mixes with lake water and creates freshwater
estuaries. Estuaries are extremely productive ecosystems that many humans and animal species rely on for various activities.
This can be seen as, of the 32 largest cities in the world, 22 are
located on estuaries as they provide many environmental and economic
benefits such as crucial habitat for many species, and being economic
hubs for many coastal communities.
Estuaries also provide essential ecosystem services such as water
filtration, habitat protection, erosion control, gas regulation nutrient
cycling, and it even gives education, recreation and tourism
opportunities to people.
Lagoons
are areas that are separated from larger water by natural barriers such
as coral reefs or sandbars. There are two types of lagoons, coastal and
oceanic/atoll lagoons.
A coastal lagoon is, as the definition above, simply a body of water
that is separated from the ocean by a barrier. An atoll lagoon is a
circular coral reef or several coral islands that surround a lagoon.
Atoll lagoons are often much deeper than coastal lagoons.
Most lagoons are very shallow meaning that they are greatly affected by
changed in precipitation, evaporation and wind. This means that
salinity and temperature are widely varied in lagoons and that they can
have water that ranges from fresh to hypersaline.
Lagoons can be found in on coasts all over the world, on every
continent except Antarctica and is an extremely diverse habitat being
home to a wide array of species including birds, fish, crabs, plankton
and more.
Lagoons are also important to the economy as they provide a wide array
of ecosystem services in addition to being the home of so many different
species. Some of these services include fisheries, nutrient cycling,
flood protection, water filtration, and even human tradition.
Salt marshes are a transition from the ocean to the land, where fresh and saltwater mix.
The soil in these marshes is often made up of mud and a layer of
organic material called peat. Peat is characterized as waterlogged and
root-filled decomposing plant matter that often causes low oxygen levels
(hypoxia). These hypoxic conditions causes growth of the bacteria that
also gives salt marshes the sulfurous smell they are often known for.
Salt marshes exist around the world and are needed for healthy
ecosystems and a healthy economy. They are extremely productive
ecosystems and they provide essential services for more than 75 percent
of fishery species and protect shorelines from erosion and flooding.
Salt marshes can be generally divided into the high marsh, low marsh,
and the upland border. The low marsh is closer to the ocean, with it
being flooded at nearly every tide except low tide.
The high marsh is located between the low marsh and the upland border
and it usually only flooded when higher than usual tides are present.
The upland border is the freshwater edge of the marsh and is usually
located at elevations slightly higher than the high marsh. This region
is usually only flooded under extreme weather conditions and experiences
much less waterlogged conditions and salt stress than other areas of
the marsh.
Intertidal zones are the areas that are visible and exposed to air during low tide and covered up by saltwater during high tide.
There are four physical divisions of the intertidal zone with each one
having its distinct characteristics and wildlife. These divisions are
the Spray zone, High intertidal zone, Middle Intertidal zone, and Low
intertidal zone. The Spray zone is a damp area that is usually only
reached by the ocean and submerged only under high tides or storms. The
high intertidal zone is submerged at high tide but remains dry for long
periods between high tides.
Due to the large variance of conditions possible in this region, it is
inhabited by resilient wildlife that can withstand these changes such as
barnacles, marine snails, mussels and hermit crabs. Tides flow over the middle intertidal zone two times a day and this zone has a larger variety of wildlife.
The low intertidal zone is submerged nearly all the time except during
the lowest tides and life is more abundant here due to the protection
that the water gives.
Ocean surface
Sea spray containing marine microorganisms can be swept high into the atmosphere, where it becomes part of the aeroplankton and may travel the globe before falling back to earth.
Organisms that live freely at the surface, termed neuston, include keystone organisms like the golden seaweed Sargassum that makes up the Sargasso Sea, floating barnacles, marine snails, nudibranchs, and cnidarians.
Many ecologically and economically important fish species live as or
rely upon neuston. Species at the surface are not distributed uniformly;
the ocean's surface harbours unique neustonic communities and
ecoregions found at only certain latitudes and only in specific ocean
basins. But the surface is also on the front line of climate change and
pollution. Life on the ocean's surface connects worlds. From shallow
waters to the deep sea, the open ocean to rivers and lakes, numerous
terrestrial and marine species depend on the surface ecosystem and the
organisms found there.
The ocean's surface acts like a skin between the atmosphere above
and the water below, and harbours an ecosystem unique to this
environment. This sun-drenched habitat can be defined as roughly one
metre in depth, as nearly half of UV-B is attenuated within this first meter. Organisms here must contend with wave action and unique chemical and physical properties. The surface is utilised by a wide range of species, from various fish and cetaceans, to species that ride on ocean debris (termed rafters). Most prominently, the surface is home to a unique community of free-living organisms, termed neuston (from the Greek word, υεω, which means both to swim and to float. Floating organisms are also sometimes referred to as pleuston,
though neuston is more commonly used). Despite the diversity and
importance of the ocean's surface in connecting disparate habitats, and
the risks it faces, not a lot is known about neustonic life.
A stream of airborne microorganisms circles the planet above weather systems but below commercial air lanes. Some peripatetic microorganisms are swept up from terrestrial dust storms, but most originate from marine microorganisms in sea spray.
In 2018, scientists reported that hundreds of millions of viruses and
tens of millions of bacteria are deposited daily on every square meter
around the planet.
The deep sea contains up to 95% of the space occupied by living organisms.
Combined with the sea floor (or benthic zone), these two areas have yet
to be fully explored and have their organisms documented.
Reefs provide coastal protection through erosion control and shoreline stabilization, and modify the physical landscape by ecosystem engineering, thereby providing habitat for species by facilitative interactions with other habitats such as tidal flat benthic communities, seagrasses and marshes.
In addition to providing many benefits to the natural world, marine ecosystems also provide social, economic, and biological ecosystem services to humans. Pelagic marine systems regulate the global climate, contribute to the water cycle, maintain biodiversity, provide food and energy resources, and create opportunities for recreation and tourism.
Economically, marine systems support billions of dollars worth of
capture fisheries, aquaculture, offshore oil and gas, and trade and
shipping.
Ecosystem services fall into multiple categories, including
supporting services, provisioning services, regulating services, and
cultural services.
According to the IPCC
(2019), since 1950 "many marine species across various groups have
undergone shifts in geographical range and seasonal activities in
response to ocean warming, sea ice change and biogeochemical changes,
such as oxygen loss, to their habitats."
It has been estimated only 13% of the ocean area remains as wilderness, mostly in open ocean areas rather than along the coast.
Human exploitation and development
Coastal
marine ecosystems experience growing population pressures with nearly
40% of people in the world living within 100 km of the coast.
Humans often aggregate near coastal habitats to take advantage of
ecosystem services. For example, coastal capture fisheries from
mangroves and coral reef habitats are estimated to be worth a minimum of
$34 billion per year.
Yet, many of these habitats are either marginally protected or not
protected. Mangrove area has declined worldwide by more than one-third
since 1950, and 60% of the world's coral reefs are now immediately or directly threatened. Human development, aquaculture, and industrialization often lead to the
destruction, replacement, or degradation of coastal habitats.
Moving offshore, pelagic marine systems are directly threatened by overfishing. Global fisheries landings peaked in the late 1980s, but are now declining, despite increasing fishing effort. Fish biomass and average trophic level
of fisheries landing are decreasing, leading to declines in marine
biodiversity. In particular, local extinctions have led to declines in
large, long-lived, slow-growing species, and those that have narrow
geographic ranges.
Biodiversity declines can lead to associated declines in ecosystem
services. A long-term study reports the decline of 74–92% of catch per
unit effort of sharks in Australian coastline from the 1960s to 2010s.
Pollution
Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural and residentialwaste, particles, noise, excess carbon dioxide or invasive organisms enter the ocean and cause harmful effects there. The majority of this waste (80%) comes from land-based activity, although marine transportation significantly contributes as well. Since most inputs come from land, either via the rivers, sewage or the atmosphere, it means that continental shelves are more vulnerable to pollution. Air pollution is also a contributing factor by carrying off iron, carbonic acid, nitrogen, silicon, sulfur, pesticides or dust particles into the ocean. The pollution often comes from nonpoint sources such as agricultural runoff, wind-blown debris, and dust. These nonpoint sources are largely due to runoff that enters the ocean through rivers, but wind-blown debris and dust can also play a role, as these pollutants can settle into waterways and oceans. Pathways of pollution include direct discharge, land runoff, ship pollution, atmospheric pollution and, potentially, deep sea mining.
The types of marine pollution can be grouped as pollution from marine debris, plastic pollution, including microplastics, ocean acidification, nutrient pollution, toxins and underwater noise. Plastic pollution in the ocean is a type of marine pollution by plastics, ranging in size from large original material such as bottles and bags, down to microplastics
formed from the fragmentation of plastic material. Marine debris is
mainly discarded human rubbish which floats on, or is suspended in the
ocean. Plastic pollution is harmful to marine life.
Two men argue at a political protest in New York City.
Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be reached from premises through logical reasoning. It includes the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion. It studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real world settings.
Argumentation includes deliberation and negotiation which are concerned with collaborative decision-making procedures. It also encompasses eristic dialog, the branch of social debate in which victory over an opponent is the primary goal, and didactic dialogue used for teaching.
This art and science is often the means by which people protect their
beliefs or self-interests—or choose to change them—in rational dialogue,
in common parlance, and during the process of arguing.
Argumentation is used in law, for example in trials, in preparing an argument to be presented to a court, and in testing the validity of certain kinds of evidence. Also, argumentation scholars study the post hocrationalizations by which organizational actors try to justify decisions they have made irrationally.
Understanding and identifying arguments, either explicit or implied, and the goals of the participants in the different types of dialogue.
Identifying the premises from which conclusions are derived.
Establishing the "burden of proof"
– determining who made the initial claim and is thus responsible for
providing evidence why his/her position merits acceptance.
For the one carrying the "burden of proof", the advocate, to marshal evidence
for his/her position in order to convince or force the opponent's
acceptance. The method by which this is accomplished is producing
valid, sound, and cogent arguments, devoid of weaknesses, and not easily attacked.
In a debate, fulfillment of the burden of proof creates a burden of
rejoinder. One must try to identify faulty reasoning in the opponent's
argument, to attack the reasons/premises of the argument, to provide
counterexamples if possible, to identify any fallacies, and to show why a valid conclusion cannot be derived from the reasons provided for his/her argument.
For example, consider the following exchange, illustrated by the No true Scotsman fallacy:
Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Reply: "But my friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge."
Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
In this dialogue, the proposer first offers a premise, the premise is
challenged by the interlocutor, and finally the proposer offers a
modification of the premise. This exchange could be part of a larger
discussion, for example a murder trial, in which the defendant is a
Scotsman, and it had been established earlier that the murderer was
eating sugared porridge when he or she committed the murder.
Internal structure of arguments
Typically an argument has an internal structure, comprising the following:
An argument has one or more premises and one conclusion.
Often classical logic is used as the method of reasoning so that
the conclusion follows logically from the assumptions or support. One
challenge is that if the set of assumptions is inconsistent then
anything can follow logically from inconsistency. Therefore, it is
common to insist that the set of assumptions be consistent. It is also
good practice to require the set of assumptions to be the minimal set,
with respect to set inclusion, necessary to infer the consequent. Such
arguments are called MINCON arguments, short for minimal consistent.
Such argumentation has been applied to the fields of law and medicine.
A non-classical approach to argumentation investigates abstract
arguments, where 'argument' is considered a primitive term, so no
internal structure of arguments is taken into account.
Types of dialogue
In
its most common form, argumentation involves an individual and an
interlocutor or opponent engaged in dialogue, each contending differing
positions and trying to persuade each other, but there are various types
of dialogue:
Persuasion dialogue aims to resolve conflicting points of view of different positions.
Negotiation aims to resolve conflicts of interests by cooperation and dealmaking.
Inquiry aims to resolve general ignorance by the growth of knowledge.
Deliberation aims to resolve a need to take action by reaching a decision.
Information seeking aims to reduce one party's ignorance by requesting information from another party that is in a position to know something.
Eristic aims to resolve a situation of antagonism through verbal fighting.
Argumentation and the grounds of knowledge
Argumentation theory had its origins in foundationalism, a theory of knowledge (epistemology) in the field of philosophy.
It sought to find the grounds for claims in the forms (logic) and
materials (factual laws) of a universal system of knowledge. The dialectical method was made famous by Plato and his use of Socrates critically questioning various characters and historical figures. But argument scholars gradually rejected Aristotle's systematic philosophy and the idealism in Plato and Kant.
They questioned and ultimately discarded the idea that argument
premises take their soundness from formal philosophical systems. The
field thus broadened.
One of the original contributors to this trend was the philosopher Chaim Perelman, who together with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca introduced the French term la nouvelle rhetorique
in 1958 to describe an approach to argument which is not reduced to
application of formal rules of inference. Perelman's view of
argumentation is much closer to a juridical one, in which rules for presenting evidence and rebuttals play an important role.
Karl R. Wallace's seminal essay, "The Substance of Rhetoric: Good Reasons" in the Quarterly Journal of Speech
(1963) 44, led many scholars to study "marketplace argumentation" – the
ordinary arguments of ordinary people. The seminal essay on marketplace
argumentation is Ray Lynn Anderson's and C. David Mortensen's "Logic
and Marketplace Argumentation" Quarterly Journal of Speech 53 (1967): 143–150. This line of thinking led to a natural alliance with late developments in the sociology of knowledge. Some scholars drew connections with recent developments in philosophy, namely the pragmatism of John Dewey and Richard Rorty. Rorty has called this shift in emphasis "the linguistic turn".
In this new hybrid approach argumentation is used with or without empirical
evidence to establish convincing conclusions about issues which are
moral, scientific, epistemic, or of a nature in which science alone
cannot answer. Out of pragmatism and many intellectual developments in
the humanities and social sciences, "non-philosophical" argumentation
theories grew which located the formal and material grounds of arguments
in particular intellectual fields. These theories include informal logic, social epistemology, ethnomethodology, speech acts, the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of science, and social psychology.
These new theories are not non-logical or anti-logical. They find
logical coherence in most communities of discourse. These theories are
thus often labeled "sociological" in that they focus on the social
grounds of knowledge.
Approaches to argumentation in communication and informal logic
Trudy Govier, Douglas N. Walton, Michael Gilbert, Harvey Seigal, Michael Scriven, and John Woods
(to name only a few) are other prominent authors in this tradition.
Over the past thirty years, however, scholars from several disciplines
have co-mingled at international conferences such as that hosted by the University of Amsterdam
(the Netherlands) and the International Society for the Study of
Argumentation (ISSA). Other international conferences are the biannual
conference held at Alta, Utah sponsored by the (US) National Communication Association and American Forensics Association and conferences sponsored by the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA).
Some scholars (such as Ralph H. Johnson) construe the term
"argument" narrowly, as exclusively written discourse or even discourse
in which all premises are explicit. Others (such as Michael Gilbert)
construe the term "argument" broadly, to include spoken and even
nonverbal discourse, for instance the degree to which a war memorial or
propaganda poster can be said to argue or "make arguments". The
philosopher Stephen Toulmin
has said that an argument is a claim on our attention and belief, a
view that would seem to authorize treating, say, propaganda posters as
arguments. The dispute between broad and narrow theorists is of long
standing and is unlikely to be settled. The views of the majority of
argumentation theorists and analysts fall somewhere between these two
extremes.
The study of naturally occurring conversation arose from the field of sociolinguistics. It is usually called conversation analysis (CA). Inspired by ethnomethodology, it was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by the sociologist Harvey Sacks and, among others, his close associates Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson.
Sacks died early in his career, but his work was championed by others
in his field, and CA has now become an established force in sociology,
anthropology, linguistics, speech-communication and psychology. It is particularly influential in interactional sociolinguistics,
discourse analysis and discursive psychology, as well as being a
coherent discipline in its own right. Recently CA techniques of
sequential analysis have been employed by phoneticians to explore the
fine phonetic details of speech.
Empirical studies and theoretical formulations by Sally Jackson
and Scott Jacobs, and several generations of their students, have
described argumentation as a form of managing conversational
disagreement within communication contexts and systems that naturally
prefer agreement.
The basis of mathematical truth has been the subject of long debate. Frege in particular sought to demonstrate (see Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, 1884, and Begriffsschrift, 1879) that arithmetical truths can be derived from purely logical axioms and therefore are, in the end, logical truths. The project was developed by Russell and Whitehead in their Principia Mathematica. If an argument can be cast in the form of sentences in symbolic logic, then it can be tested by the application of accepted proof procedures. This has been carried out for arithmetic using Peano axioms.
Be that as it may, an argument in mathematics, as in any other
discipline, can be considered valid only if it can be shown that it
cannot have true premises and a false conclusion.
Perhaps the most radical statement of the social grounds of scientific knowledge appears in Alan G.Gross's The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). Gross holds that science is rhetorical "without remainder",
meaning that scientific knowledge itself cannot be seen as an idealized
ground of knowledge. Scientific knowledge is produced rhetorically,
meaning that it has special epistemic authority only insofar as its
communal methods of verification are trustworthy. This thinking
represents an almost complete rejection of the foundationalism on which argumentation was first based.
Interpretive argumentation is a dialogical process in which participants explore and/or resolve interpretations often of a text of any medium containing significant ambiguity in meaning.
Legal arguments are spoken presentations to a judge or appellate
court by a lawyer, or parties when representing themselves of the legal
reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level
accompanies written briefs, which also advance the argument of each
party in the legal dispute. A closing argument, or summation, is the
concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important
arguments for the trier of fact, often the jury, in a court case. A closing argument occurs after the presentation of evidence.
Legal opinion is in certain jurisdictions a written explanation by a
judge or group of judges that accompanies an order or ruling in a case,
laying out the rationale (justification) and legal principles for the ruling.
Judicial opinion is a form of legal opinion written by a judge or
a judicial panel in the course of resolving a legal dispute, providing
the decision
reached to resolve the dispute. A bench opinion may be handed down,
with the judge or panel of judges indicating their decision and a rough
explanation of the reasoning underlying it. Justices voting for a
majority decision may have drastically different reasons
for their votes, and may not agree on the same set of reasons. A
majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation
of the reasoning behind the court's decision. A dissenting opinion may
disagree with the majority opinion for any number of reasons: a
different interpretation of the case law, use of different principles,
or a different interpretation of the facts. They are written at the same
time as the majority opinion, and are often used to dispute the
reasoning behind the majority opinion.
Political arguments are used by academics, media pundits, candidates
for political office and government officials. Political arguments are
also used by citizens in ordinary interactions to comment about and
understand political events. The rationality of the public is a major question in this line of research. Political scientist Samuel L. Popkin coined the expression "low information voters" to describe most voters who know very little about politics or the world in general.
In practice, a "low information voter" may not be aware of legislation that their representative has sponsored in Congress. A low-information voter may base their ballot box
decision on a media sound-bite, or a flier received in the mail. It is
possible for a media sound-bite or campaign flier to present a
political position for the incumbent
candidate that completely contradicts the legislative action taken in
the Capitol on behalf of the constituents. It may only take a small
percentage of the overall voting group who base their decision on the
inaccurate information, a voter block of 10 to 12%, to swing an overall
election result. When this happens, the constituency at large may have
been duped or fooled. Nevertheless, the election result is legal and
confirmed. Savvy Political consultants will take advantage of low-information voters and sway their votes with disinformation and fake news because it can be easier and sufficiently effective. Fact checkers have come about in recent years to help counter the effects of such campaign tactics.
Psychological aspects
Psychology has long studied the non-logical aspects of argumentation. For example, studies have shown that simple repetition of an idea is often a more effective method of argumentation than appeals to reason. Propaganda often utilizes repetition. "Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels. Nazi rhetoric has been studied extensively as, inter alia, a repetition campaign.
Empirical studies of communicator credibility and attractiveness, sometimes labeled charisma,
have also been tied closely to empirically-occurring arguments. Such
studies bring argumentation within the ambit of persuasion theory and
practice.
Some psychologists such as William J. McGuire believe that the syllogism
is the basic unit of human reasoning. They have produced a large body
of empirical work around McGuire's famous title "A Syllogistic Analysis
of Cognitive Relationships". A central line of this way of thinking is
that logic is contaminated by psychological variables such as "wishful
thinking", in which subjects confound the likelihood of predictions with
the desirability of the predictions. People hear what they want to hear
and see what they expect to see. If planners want something to happen
they see it as likely to happen. If they hope something will not happen,
they see it as unlikely to happen. Thus smokers think that they
personally will avoid cancer, promiscuous people practice unsafe sex,
and teenagers drive recklessly.
Theories
Argument fields
Stephen Toulmin and Charles Arthur Willard have championed the idea of argument fields, the former drawing upon Ludwig Wittgenstein's notion of language games,
(Sprachspiel) the latter drawing from communication and argumentation
theory, sociology, political science, and social epistemology. For
Toulmin, the term "field" designates discourses within which arguments
and factual claims are grounded. For Willard, the term "field" is interchangeable with "community", "audience", or "readership".
Along similar lines, G. Thomas Goodnight has studied "spheres" of
argument and sparked a large literature created by younger scholars
responding to or using his ideas. The general tenor of these field theories is that the premises of arguments take their meaning from social communities.
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutism (represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato's idealized formal logic,
which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that
moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral
principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin contends that
many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real
situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To develop his contention, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields. In The Uses of Argument
(1958), Toulmin claims that some aspects of arguments vary from field
to field, and are hence called "field-dependent", while other aspects of
argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called
"field-invariant". The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its
unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism
assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that
anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they
have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments.
In other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the
importance of the "field-dependent" aspect of arguments, and neglects or
is unaware of the "field-invariant" elements. In order to provide
solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts
throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist
nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
Toulmin
argumentation can be diagrammed as a conclusion established, more or
less, on the basis of a fact supported by a warrant (with backing), and a
possible rebuttal.
Arguing that absolutism lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments
(also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists'
theoretical arguments, Toulmin's practical argument is intended to focus
on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the
inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical
arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a
claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then
provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an
activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more
a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act
achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to
provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure
it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim (Conclusion)
A conclusion whose merit must be established. In argumentative essays, it may be called the thesis.
For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a
British citizen, the claim would be "I am a British citizen" (1).
Ground (Fact, Evidence, Data)
A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example,
the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting
data "I was born in Bermuda" (2).
Warrant
A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In
order to move from the ground established in 2, "I was born in Bermuda",
to the claim in 1, "I am a British citizen", the person must supply a
warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement "A man born
in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen" (3).
Backing
Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the
warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not
convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the
listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will
supply the legal provisions: "I trained as a barrister in London, specialising in citizenship, so I know that a man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen".
Rebuttal (Reservation)
Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be
applied to the claim. It is exemplified as follows: "A man born in
Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed
Britain and has become a spy for another country".
Qualifier
Words or phrases expressing the speaker's degree of force or
certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include
"probably", "possible", "impossible", "certainly", "presumably", "as far
as the evidence goes", and "necessarily". The claim "I am definitely a
British citizen" has a greater degree of force than the claim "I am a
British citizen, presumably". (See also: Defeasible reasoning.)
The first three elements, claim, ground, and warrant, are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, qualifier, backing, and rebuttal, may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was
based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the
rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did
not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of
rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to
rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Their Decision by Debate (1963) streamlined Toulmin's terminology and broadly introduced his model to the field of debate. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
One criticism of the Toulmin model is that it does not fully consider the use of questions in argumentation.
The Toulmin model assumes that an argument starts with a fact or claim
and ends with a conclusion, but ignores an argument's underlying
questions. In the example "Harry was born in Bermuda, so Harry must be a
British subject", the question "Is Harry a British subject?" is
ignored, which also neglects to analyze why particular questions are
asked and others are not. (See Issue mapping for an example of an argument-mapping method that emphasizes questions.)
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. In this book, Toulmin attacks Thomas Kuhn's account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(1962). Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process
(as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually
exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist
elements in Kuhn's thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms
provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn made the relativists'
error of overemphasizing the "field variant" while ignoring the "field
invariant" or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn's revolutionary model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin's model of biological evolution.
Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of
innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of
conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and
perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the
professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently
from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a
process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a "forum of
competitions". The soundest concepts will survive the forum of
competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists'
point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of
contexts. From the relativists' perspective, one concept is neither
better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context.
From Toulmin's perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of
comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve
explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Scholars at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands have pioneered a rigorous modern version of dialectic under the name pragma-dialectics. The intuitive idea is to formulate clear-cut rules that, if followed, will yield reasonable discussion and sound conclusions. Frans H. van Eemeren, the late Rob Grootendorst, and many of their students and co-authors have produced a large body of work expounding this idea.
The dialectical conception of reasonableness is given by ten
rules for critical discussion, all being instrumental for achieving a
resolution of the difference of opinion (from Van Eemeren, Grootendorst,
& Snoeck Henkemans, 2002, p. 182-183). The theory postulates this
as an ideal model, and not something one expects to find as an empirical
fact. The model can however serve as an important heuristic
and critical tool for testing how reality approximates this ideal and
point to where discourse goes wrong, that is, when the rules are
violated. Any such violation will constitute a fallacy.
Albeit not primarily focused on fallacies, pragma-dialectics provides a
systematic approach to deal with them in a coherent way.
Van Eemeren and Grootendorst identified four stages of
argumentative dialogue. These stages can be regarded as an argument
protocol. In a somewhat loose interpretation, the stages are as follows:
Confrontation stage: Presentation of the difference of opinion, such as a debate question or a political disagreement.
Opening stage: Agreement on material and procedural starting points,
the mutually acceptable common ground of facts and beliefs, and the
rules to be followed during the discussion (such as, how evidence is to
be presented, and determination of closing conditions).
Argumentation stage: Presentation of reasons for and against the
standpoint(s) at issue, through application of logical and common-sense
principles according to the agreed-upon rules
Concluding stage: Determining whether the standpoint has withstood
reasonable criticism, and accepting it is justified. This occurs when
the termination conditions are met (Among these could be, for example, a
time limitation or the determination of an arbiter.)
Van Eemeren and Grootendorst provide a detailed list of rules that must be applied at each stage of the protocol.
Moreover, in the account of argumentation given by these authors, there
are specified roles of protagonist and antagonist in the protocol which
are determined by the conditions which set up the need for argument.
Walton's logical argumentation method
Douglas N. Walton
developed a distinctive philosophical theory of logical argumentation
built around a set of practical methods to help a user identify, analyze
and evaluate arguments in everyday conversational discourse and in more
structured areas such as debate, law and scientific fields. There are four main components: argumentation schemes, dialogue structures, argument mapping
tools, and formal argumentation systems. The method uses the notion of
commitment in dialogue as the fundamental tool for the analysis and
evaluation of argumentation rather than the notion of belief.
Commitments are statements that the agent has expressed or formulated,
and has pledged to carry out, or has publicly asserted. According to the
commitment model, agents interact with each other in a dialogue in
which each takes its turn to contribute speech acts. The dialogue
framework uses critical questioning as a way of testing plausible
explanations and finding weak points in an argument that raise doubt
concerning the acceptability of the argument.
Walton's logical argumentation model took a view of proof and justification different from analytic philosophy's dominant epistemology, which was based on a justified true belief framework.
In the logical argumentation approach, knowledge is seen as form of
belief commitment firmly fixed by an argumentation procedure that tests
the evidence on both sides, and uses standards of proof to determine
whether a proposition qualifies as knowledge. In this evidence-based
approach, knowledge must be seen as defeasible.
Efforts have been made within the field of artificial intelligence to perform and analyze the act of argumentation with computers. Argumentation has been used to provide a proof-theoretic semantics for non-monotonic logic,
starting with the influential work of Dung (1995). Computational
argumentation systems have found particular application in domains where
formal logic and classical decision theory are unable to capture the richness of reasoning, domains such as law and medicine. In Elements of Argumentation,
Philippe Besnard and Anthony Hunter show how classical logic-based
techniques can be used to capture key elements of practical
argumentation.
Within computer science, the ArgMAS workshop series (Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems), the CMNA workshop series, and now the COMMA Conference, are regular annual events attracting participants from every continent. The journal Argument & Computation
is dedicated to exploring the intersection between argumentation and
computer science. ArgMining is a workshop series dedicated specifically
to the related argument mining task.
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