Argumentation

the newer disciplines of argumentation and informal reasoning.

As an introduction to the special issue on Perspectives on Strategic Maneuvering, this article provides a synthetic recapitulation of the various steps that were taken in developing the pragma-dialectical theory of strategic maneuvering. First, the concept of strategic maneuvering is described as a means to reconcile the simultaneous pursuit of dialectical and rhetorical aims. Second, strategic maneuvering is related to the various kinds of argumentative activity types in which it takes place. Third, the concept of dialectical profiles is discussed and the parameters that are pertinent to distinguishing between different types of strategic maneuvering. Fourth, the fallacies are viewed as derailment of strategic maneuvering. Fifth, as a case in point, strategic maneuvering with inconsistency is examined.

According to pragma-dialectical methodology, a party in an argumentative discussion can be assumed to manoeuvre strategically between dialectical and rhetorical objectives. One confrontational form of strategic manoeuvring occurs when a critic charges an arguer with advancing a standpoint that has socially harmful consequences. In special situations this form of manoeuvring can be dialectically sound, for example when the standpoint is advanced in a way that damages the dialectical process. The boundary between fallacious and dialectically sound applications of this form of manoeuvring is examined by looking for the manoeuvring’s soundness conditions.

During the last decade we have been working, together with colleagues interested in this endeavor, on an extension of the ''standard'' pragmadialectical theory of argumentation developed by van Eemeren and Grootendorst by integrating insights from classical and modern rhetoric.This integration of rhetorical insight in a dialectical theoretical framework was motivated by our wish to improve the quality of a pragma-dialectical analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse.The integration was brought about with the help of the introduction of the notion of ''strategic maneuvering,'' which designates the balancing act of reconciling the simultaneous pursuit of dialectical and rhetorical objectives that arguers have to perform in the conduct of argumentative discourse.Even if they are in the first place out to fulfill their dialectical obligations in the explicit or implicit exchange, they may still be expected to be aiming at realizing the rhetorical aspirations that go with entering an argument; and if they are in the first place led by their rhetorical aspirations, they still cannot ignore the dialectical obligations that they have to meet when entering an argument.These considerations concerning the ''double'' concern that arguers may be assumed to have are at the heart of our efforts to develop an extended pragma-dialectical theory.They are also the starting point for this special issue of the journal Argumentation in which authors from various theoretical backgrounds -which may be quite different from our pragma-dialectical position -offer, from their specific vantage points, their ''Perspectives on Strategic Maneuvering.''The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, NWO, granted us a substantial subsidy to further develop our ideas concerning strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse, in particular by examining the strategic function of maneuvering that consists in pointing out an inconsistency in the other partyÕs position and formulating the soundness conditions applying to that way of maneuvering (research program no. 360-80-030).Apart from involving four excellent PhD students and a post-doctoral researcher in the project, this subsidy allowed us also, just as we intended, to organize a series of small-scale and clearly focused conferences dedicated to specific aspects of strategic maneuvering.At these conferences scholars of argumentation interested in any of these specific aspects could discuss their views with other interested parties and contribute in this way to the progress of our project, not in the last place by criticizing some of our points of departure and offering constructive alternatives.The first