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Chapter 16

Chapter 16 of the textbook is about argumentation in the political sphere. The authors of the textbook start off by pushing on the readers the omnipresence of political argumentation. Dating back to the first stories ever told in the epic of Gilgamesh. The authors point out that groups exist in many forms: families, communities, organizations, states, and nations are all pointed out. They also point out how in all these situations political decisions must be made. And in all of these decisions are open to political argumentation. Political claims are almost always policy claims. A policy claim of course is one where the claimant wishes to make a change or incite action. This makes sense, in politics a decision about action must almost always be made.  The textbook discusses how Aristotle defined five basic categories of political argument: finance, war and peace, national defense, imports and exports, and the framing of laws.
I think that looking at the current political environment through this lens is very interesting. Aristotle’s five basic categories are very applicable to our world, just as the textbook says. Most political arguments that you hear on a normal basis have some roots in these basic categories. Whether it be taxes and what not being in the finance category, or military policy relating to the war and peace category. I think that looking at our current political world and the arguments made in it through such an old system, one that can still be true after such a long time, is very interesting. 

Comments

  1. Nate AndersonDecember 5, 2018 at 8:13 AM

    I also found it interesting to note that the basic categories of political argument that exist today were known even in ancient Greece. To me, this proves that with critical thinking we can also find universal truths in contemporary argumentation.

    One thing that is left out of these categories that seems applicable to modern political argumentation is the judgment of character. Much of what we see relating to politics involves political figures directly attempting to undermine the character of other political figures, often not relating directly to policy or these five categories. Even though this is a component of political argumentation and behavior, it does not appear as one of the five categories. I think for the purposes of modern rhetoric and argumentation it would be important for people to additionally consider this dimension of argument, as it seems to take up quite a bit of space in any political conversation.

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