In:Multimodal Argumentation and Rhetoric in Media Genres
Edited by Assimakis Tseronis and Charles Forceville
[Argumentation in Context 14] 2017
► pp. 111–136
Chapter 4Arguing with illustrations
A visual archaeological debate about the proper place of Australopithecus africanus
Published online: 20 December 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.14.05dov
https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.14.05dov
Abstract
In the absence of explicit and obvious assessment criteria for visual arguments, every such argument depends upon unique (and sometimes, reinvented) desiderata to do this work. This chapter considers the applications of, and modifications to, argumentation schemes – specifically, argument from analogy and argument from appearance – as a way of giving explicit criteria for visual argument assessment. The centerpiece of this account is a case study on an early debate in archaeology regarding the proper placement of Australopithecus africanus in the lineage of human ancestors. Participants in (and later analysts of) the debate appealed to competing illustrations and reconstructions of A. africanus in support of the rival hypotheses. Both argument from analogy and argument from appearance are relevant to the assessment of the debate. However, neither argumentation scheme is a perfect fit. Rather, a contrastivist account of comparison augments these schemes, which allows for a better analysis and evaluation of the actual argumentation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Why argumentation schemes?
- 3.Was Dart’s man-ape, an ape?
- 4.Analyzing Elliot Smith’s argument
- 5.Schemes and images: What is the form of an argument that appeals to images?
- 6.Objections and replies
- 7.Concluding remarks
Notes References List of primary sources
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