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Article published In: Future Perspectives in Medical Argumentation
Edited by Sarah Bigi and Maria Grazia Rossi
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 14:3] 2025
► pp. 366–384

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Health controversies

A challenge for argumentation theory

ORCiD logo with link | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Published online: 4 December 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.25026.jac
Abstract
Health controversies are large, complex bodies of argumentative discourse. They involve committed oppositionality among people with heterogeneous interests and positions related to health, configurations of which may change over time, leaving traces in the form of argumentative texts that reflect not only pragmatic disagreements but also disagreements over epistemological questions. Understanding the complexity of health controversies requires significant investment of time and effort but also has significant disciplinary payoffs for argumentation. Because they are often sites for innovation in the practice of argumentation, health controversies hold promise for extending argumentation theory through discovery of novel phenomena. And because they are significant disagreement management challenges for society, health controversies invite the development within argumentation theory of an approach to intervention centered on valuing thorough exploration of disagreement.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Health controversies as objects of study
    • 2.1Committed oppositionality
    • 2.2Participants with heterogeneous interests and positions
    • 2.3Configurations that change over time
    • 2.4Traces left in the form of argumentative texts
    • 2.5Disagreement over both pragmatic and epistemological questions
    • 2.6Implications for research strategy
  • 3.An argumentation theory framework for the study of health controversies
    • 3.1Players
    • 3.2Positions
    • 3.3Places
    • 3.4Networks of players, positions, and places
  • 4.Toward an intervention strategy for argumentation as a field
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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