Argument and Decision

Lecture: Universal Audience

Below you are invited to view a video (transcript attached) in which Alfred Snider, Professor of Forensics at the University of Vermont, discusses the idea of “universal audience”.

http://argumentanddecision.blogspot.com/2009/10/lecture-chaim-perelman-universal.html

Transcript

The transcript for this lecture (produced and made available with Professor Snider’s kind permission) is below. All italics, quotation marks, and parenthetical notes have been added by Stella Bastone, the transcriber of this lecture.

(Introduction)

Hello! And here we are again, talking about argumentation, and because I’m out of town, this lecture is presented via electronic communication and I hope you don’t mind. And I hope that it fills you in on this fairly important topic that will be covered on the test. Once again, what we’re doing here toward the end of the semester is examining individual twentieth-century theorists and some of the ways in which they handle argumentation. Now, of course this is in no way a comprehensive examination of twentieth century argumentative theorists, but I’ve taken three that I thought were fairly important, and I want to talk about them.

Today we’re going to talk about one of the rhetorical concepts developed by Chaim Perelman, in his book The New Rhetoric. And it’s a fascinating book which intends to be a comprehensive survey of different kinds of arguments, but there’s one thing I pulled out of it, and that is the concept of the universal audience.

Before I start talking about the concept of the universal audience, I want to talk about a contradiction in a few traditions of approaching argumentation.

(The Neo-Aristotelian Approach: Truth, Conviction)

Of course there is the neo-Aristotelian view that there is truth, that we’re trying to determine truth, that argument is based on logic and it’s based on forms. We have the enthymeme, we have the syllogism, we have “28 Lines of Argument” in rhetoric, and supposedly, if the premises are true, and the form is valid, then we will have truth in the conclusion. Logic is a tool, and the focus, of course, is on yourself, and determining what’s true for yourself, but also, determining what is the truth beyond yourself. What is the truth external to you? What is the truth for “the gods,” as Aristotle might say. When you establish an argument, when you believe in it, then the result is conviction, and you have conviction. And the focus is really on the speaker. The speaker uses argument and logic to try to convince him- or herself, and of course “the gods” as well. If other people are not convinced by what is a sound and valid argument that creates conviction and a view of the truth for you, then that’s their problem; it’s not your obligation. So that is a neo-Aristotelian view of argumentation.

(Toulmin’s Approach: Gaining Acceptance)

A different view of argumentation is that given by Stephen Toulmin, whom we’ve talked about previously. And he’s not so much interested the truth, which Aristotle is, he’s interested in acceptance. He believes that argument is based on communication, which gains acceptance. And the rise of Nazism shows that the focus on “absolute truth” can be naïve. It’s amazing what people can be convinced is the truth. And to the extent they’re convinced that something is the truth, then it might as well be the truth. So argument, through communication, tries to gain acceptance. It’s not necessarily a revelation of the truth, but acceptance. Rhetoric is the tool that one uses to try to gain acceptance. It focuses on the audience in front of you, and the result is acceptance. You walk in, you have a topic, you use rhetoric, you try to shape the message so that it influences the audience, and then when the audience accepts it, you know you have succeeded. And Toulmin developed an argumentative scheme for audiences to use. It’s interesting that when you look at the Toulmin scheme, it’s very much about how the receiver of the argument relates to it, and understands it. There’s the primary triad of data, warrant and claim, and beyond that, we have backing, rebuttal and qualifier. And, of course, anyone listening to the argument, or observing it, will use the last three—backing, rebuttal and qualifier—to decide whether to accept the argument or not. And the role is all about acceptance, and the focus is on the audience, whereas neo-Aristotelianism said that the focus should be on the speaker, and the speaker determined the truth, and if other people like it, fine, but if they don’t, too bad for them. The Toulmin approach talks about acceptance, where the focus is on the audience, that the argument it uses, whatever we think will work on the audience, and when it does succeed and gains acceptance by the audience, then it has succeeded.

(The Conflict)

So in neo-Aristotelianism you’re after conviction. In Toulmin’s approach, you’re after acceptance.

So the conflict is, what do I do, when I walk into a situation, and I’m trying to influence someone? Do I base the arguments that I use on what I know to be true, do I design my arguments based on my own truth? Or, do I base my arguments on what my audience will accept? I have an idea of what they’ll accept, I have an idea of what they approve of, and, supposedly, I know how to manipulate rhetorically the ideas to get them to acceptance. This is a common dilemma of rhetoric. Should I say things I don’t necessarily believe in, in order to get people to believe what I want, in order to get the conviction or the acceptance of the audience—should I use arguments that aren’t true? Or should I just say, listen, here’s what’s true, you can accept it or not. Should I adapt to the audience? Should I cater to them? Should I leave important truths out to try to influence them? Or should I just go straightforward with the truth or what I think to be the truth?

(Resolution: The Universal Audience)

Some resolution of this comes from Chaim Perelman, a Belgian who has written a book called The New Rhetoric. And he says, what do you do, you know, when you have a situation where you have to confront this kind of situation? And he believes that one way to do this is to speak to what he calls the “universal audience.” And if you speak to the universal audience, you can resolve, perhaps, both of these questions: should I go for the truth, or should I go for acceptance?

What is the universal audience? Well, the universal audience is a construct in the mind of the speaker. And it’s a combination of the actual audience—whoever’s there you’re talking with, whoever is listening—and, in addition, all rational beings able to hear and judge the arguments. All rational beings. So let me give you one example, okay. I come into the class, and I’m trying to persuade you of something to the use of arguments. My argument should be framed, in talking to the class, so as to persuade you, the students, right? You are the actual audience. But there’s also others that I should try to persuade: my colleagues that I’m visiting overseas, my mentors in the USA, Professors Parson and Ziegelmueller—I wouldn’t want to embarrass them with my making bad arguments—and also the ghost of Aristotle, and Cicero, and students who are not here, and the entire universe of rational beings. I should speak to a universal audience which contains the actual audience—those who are really listening, as well as all other rational beings. And to me, it sort of helps to think about Professors Parson and Ziegelmueller, to think about my colleagues overseas, to think about students I’ve had years in the past. And so, when I speak to the universal audience, I’m trying to convince the actual audience, as well as everyone else who I think is important. The entire universe of rational beings. And, as we would say, I’m trying to persuade the mere mortals in front of me, and I’m also trying to persuade “the gods,” using my arguments.

Well, what are the guidelines for using this idea of a universal audience? How do we go about strategizing for this? It’s kind of hard. It’s like, “well I don’t have strategy then, I’m just talking to everyone.” No, that’s not true. You are setting a very high goal, and charting for yourself a very difficult task of what you’re trying to do when you talk to a universal audience. So here’s three guidelines you should keep in mind:

1. First, do not use arguments for the actual audience which the universal audience would reject. Sometimes you know that there are some arguments that the actual audience might approve of. Say I’m talking with students, and I know that there are specific interests they have, specific things that they like, specific ways of thinking: I should not use arguments for them that the universal audience would reject. Should I, in trying to persuade an audience of students, use arguments that Professors Parson and Ziegelmueller would think were a poor argumentative choice on my part? Should I use arguments that will work on these students from today, and ignore arguments or ignore people from the past, from another time of history, say my former students from five years ago, from ten years ago? No, I would not use arguments for the actual audience which the universal audience would reject. So, a lot of specific things I can do to argue for this audience, I’m going to throw out, because the universal audience would not accept them.

2. Second, do not use arguments which the universal audience would allow and the actual audience would reject. Now, once again, I’m in the same situation. I’m walking in, and I’m trying to convince some students with some arguments. But I would not want to make some arguments that they would reject, arguments that they would refuse to accept as absolutely true. Even though Professors Ziegelmueller and Parson would like them, even though my colleagues overseas might like them, even though my students from previous years might like them, if it’s not going to work with the actual audience, don’t use it.

Now let’s just review those two guidelines: The first one is, do not use arguments for the actual audience that the universal audience would reject. I can’t cater to this specific audience and give them some bad arguments that others would not approve of. But the second rule is, do not use arguments which the universal audience would accept, and the actual (audience) reject. Just because I have this imaginary group of advisors and important creatures, and former students, and gods and goddesses, or whatever, and I think that my arguments would please them, hey, I’m not going to get anywhere if I use arguments that would please them and they would like (but) that my actual audience—the group of students that I’m coming to convince—would reject. And so, I can’t just speak over the heads of the actual audience. If we think about this room, the room you’re in, and it’s a room in which an argument is taking place, and in front of you is the actual audience, but the universal audience is around the edge. They’re looking down from “heaven,” or “argumentative paradise,” or “the Elysian fields of true logic,” or whatever—but in any case, we have this actual audience and this construct of the universal audience around us. Don’t ignore the universal audience and just look at whoever showed up—“oh, I know, they’re Yankee fans, so they’ll like this argument… blah”—you can’t do that. On the other hand, don’t enter the situation and look over the heads of the actual audience and talk to the “gods” and “goddesses.” It’s not going to work. If you say things that the actual audience would not accept, you may convince your artificial construct (the universal audience), but you will not convince the real people in front of you.

3. The third guideline is that, to be valid, your argument must gain the adherence of both. It must gain the adherence of both actual audience in front of you and the universal audience that you’ve imagined. If you can find arguments and present them rhetorically in such a way that they appeal to both the real people in front of you and to the imaginary construct of those rational beings you think are important, then you’ve probably done a pretty good job. Maybe your choice of arguments and tactics and strategies are highly limited because of this approach, but if you can meet those tests, the arguments that you can use should be satisfactory. And this approach of the universal audience noted by Perelman tends to merge these two traditions. I must make an argument that will be acceptable before the “gods” and “goddesses” but also would make sense to the average men and women that I’m talking to here on planet Earth.

Here are some implications of this particular theoretical approach:

1. The first is about degrees of adherence. We need to understand that total conviction is unrealistic. If I’m showing you some arguments and trying to convince you of something, you know, I may get you to accept it, on a low level, but I probably am not going to get your total conviction; you’re not willing to go to your death to defend this argument, or you wouldn’t stake your life on the truth of this argument, or whatever. So this “total conviction” is kind of unrealistic. Often, we face a situation where there are competing ideas, and we have to act on the best idea—we’re not certain what the best idea is, but we have an idea of what the best idea is, and therefore we should choose that one. I’m sure you’ve been in a situation where you’re deciding, should I leave school, should I join the military, should I go into business, should I get married, should I… and you stack up all of the arguments for all your options, and then you pick one. You’re not absolutely sure that the one you choose is the best. It looks like the best, but it may not be. There is some sense of probability. And so what you’ve done is, you’ve decided, okay, I’m going to go with a given choice, or I’m going to give my adherence to this given choice. You’re convinced that it’s true, and it’s not just some cheap rhetorical trick. If you’re using the universal audience standard, it should try to meet all of those. So, Aristotle is looking for conviction: what’s the truth? Toulmin is looking for acceptance: what are the bombos who are listening to you going to accept? But what Perelman says is that we want to get some degree of adherence, we want people to accept what is the best argument and adhere to it, even though they’re not absolutely sure. And if you use the universal audience standard, you may be able to gain adherence in a situation where we’re not sure what the right answer is. If there may be more than one right answer, Aristotle is striking out. He can’t help us determine the truth. And Stephen Toulmin is just providing a sellout; if all you want to do is sell used cars, whatever works, whatever they’ll accept, that’s fine. But if we have a responsibility to try to find what are the best answers based on the best arguments, we would take Perelman’s approach and try to gain adherence from our audience in a situation of multiple choices.

2. The other implication I want to talk about is rhetorical truth. Well, if rhetorical truth exists, it’s probably never final. I mean, in Toulmin, we don’t really know if we’ve got the truth, the audience is buying it, it’s not necessarily the truth but it’s working, everybody in the audience is saying “sieg heil,” and painting swastikas, so obviously, we’re gaining their acceptance. But for Perelman, some degree of the audience is always also a part of the universal audience. Perelman is saying that it’s not just that group of people who’s front of you that you’re trying to convince to do something; you also have an obligation to try to frame arguments so that they would be acceptable by other rational beings as well. If I’m talking to a group of people who have a very specialized interest, I shouldn’t just play up that specialized interest, because my universal audience would see that I was just trying to get acceptance. I was not trying to show them what I thought was the right path. So with the use of the universal audience, we may approach the rhetorical truth, but, you know, we can’t necessarily be sure that it’s final. We may come up with some more arguments that pass the universal audience test later in a different kind of situation.

3. The next thing I want to say for an implication for this is that, when you enter an argumentative situation, you, as a speaker, must risk your own convictions. You must risk your own convictions. There is no purpose in entering an arguing situation unless you’re willing to risk what you believe. If I believe that US troops should immediately leave Afghanistan, that’s my belief, and I want to try to convince some people of that, I must make a vow: Look, if they have some good arguments, I may need to change my position. I may need to change my ideas, because if they make good arguments, I need to respond to that. I need to hear them, and use them. It’s useless to enter an argumentative situation and you know you’re never going to change your mind. And I’m sure you’ve felt the same about entering argumentative situations where you know the other person is not going to change their mind. What are you doing besides exchanging hot air? You’re not getting anywhere. In the true argumentative situation, you need to put your own convictions at risk.

You must never be one of these two characters. You must never be a fanatic. A fanatic is someone who says, “I know the ultimate truth; my mind can’t be changed; there is one truth, and I know about it.” This is the person who will not learn, cannot be influenced, and is really inappropriately located in a social situation where you have to deal with other people, where you have to deal with disagreements and different perspectives. You must never be the fanatic. On the other hand, you must never be the total skeptic: “we never have enough proof; nothing is true; we don’t really know anything.” Well, that’s very nice to say and very easy to say, but there are some things we probably do know. We may not be a fanatic about them, but we’ve decided not that it’s necessarily the truth, and not that it’s whatever will sell, but we’ve accepted the idea of adherence, that there are several possible answers, that this is the one I believe is the right one based on these arguments, and you can follow that. The absolute skeptic can decide nothing, can determine no policy, except inaction. And, actually, if nothing is true, then everything is allowed. As some people have said, as William S. Burroughs has said, if nothing is true, everything is allowed. Well, we hope that everything will not be allowed, because we have a feeling that some things are at least worthy of our adherence. And so, when you go into an argument situation, you have this idea of adherence; you have made a decision and a choice, but it might change because you are not a fanatic even though you have enough ideas to demonstrate that you are not a total skeptic. Perelman really tries to bridge this gap. And rhetorical man sees his search for the truth as a process, a journey, not a destination. The truth or adherence that Perelman talks about is not an absolute quantity, is not a final destination, is not a goal; it is a constant process of determining which arguments will work before the people I am speaking to, as well as for the universal audience. And you set a very high standard for yourself in terms of trying to please both those audiences. The universal audience concept balances the responsibilities to those in front of you—your actual audience—and to the greater family of knowledge. And when you use the universal audience approach, you are doing that. It’s a tough one, but it keeps you from being more than just a sleazy used car salesperson, and it also keeps you from being a doctrinaire, dogmatic and closed-minded thinker.

I think each of us has to make our own decision about this. And we may want to decide in a specific situation or as a pattern, or whatever, situationally, whatever it takes, any standard—is that what we’re going to do? Or are we going to think about what the eternal sources think? What would the argumentation experts of the past say? What would the gods and the goddesses say? And if both are judging—the real audience, and these gods and goddesses of argumentation—well, you need to do something that’s going to please both. When you gain the adherence of both of them, then you have been a success. You have been a success without compromising your personal integrity, without getting consent-at-any-cost, but without neglecting the real people who are talking to you and ignoring them as you talk over their heads to the gods and goddesses of argument. The universal audience creates a standard by which we can respect all: both the real people we deal with, and those that we would most aspire to meet up to their standards. And when you can do both, you’ve accomplished quite a feat. It’s not easy, and it’s not always practical, but it is the kind of standard which resolves this tension between “who am I trying to please, the universal sense of logic, or the people who come to me to buy a used car?” You have to make your own decision, and I think the universal audience is the kind of standard that you could use in coming to that consensus.

Well, thanks a lot for listening. There’s a lot of thought here in this. Although it’s only thirty minutes long, it nevertheless has a lot of content. I urge you to think about it because you never know—someone may ask you a question on a test about this and related ideas.