Can It Be Ok to Break the Maxim of Manner in Argumentation?
Katharina Stevens, “Can It Be Ok to Break the Maxim of Manner in Argumentation?,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 81, no. 4 (2025): 1273–96, https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2025_81_4_1273.
Katharina Stevens, “Can It Be Ok to Break the Maxim of Manner in Argumentation?,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 81, no. 4 (2025): 1273–96, https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2025_81_4_1273.
| Item Type | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Author | Katharina Stevens |
| Abstract | Sometimes, instead of giving people a straightforward argument about what we think they should do regarding their personal lives, we instead tell stories about ourselves. We select these stories so that they are analogous to whatever it is that we want to address in the other person’s life, and so that they make the reasons we want to offer accessible to them. But we make it unclear whether we are intending to argue – or whether we just want to show that we can relate. In this paper, I show that according to received views in argumentation theory, such intentionally ambiguous enthymematic narrative arguments are straightforwardly bad arguments: They violate the Gricean maxim of manner and as such carry serious epistemic and moral risk. But I argue that once we account for all the applicable moral reasons, the picture becomes much more complicated. And it turns out that at least sometimes, arguments that violate the Gricean maxim of manner can be good arguments. |
| Date | 2025 |
| Library Catalog | 401; 401.43; 401.45; 160; 401.41 |
| License | © 2026 by Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural |
| Volume | 81 |
| Publisher | Axioma - Publicações da Faculdade de Filosofia |
| Section | Philosophy of Language: New Frontiers in Meaning and Use |
| Pages | 1273-1296 |
| Publication | Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
| DOI | 10.17990/RPF/2025_81_4_1273 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Journal Abbr | RPF |
| ISSN | 0870-5283 ; 2183-461X |
| Date Added | 1/31/2026, 7:42:10 PM |
| Modified | 1/31/2026, 9:22:39 PM |
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