April 10-22，Dr. Bart Garssen, worldly-renowned specialist in argumentation studies and collaborative PhD supervisor in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric in the University of Amsterdam, gave three lectures in Z210 to faculties and students of the School of Foreign Languages, Jiangsu University. His lecture was attended by more than 30 teachers, scholars and postgraduates on and off the campus. Professor Frans van Eemeren, honorary director of Jiangsu University Center for the Argumentation Studies, and Associate Professor Wu Peng, director of Jiangsu University Center for Argumentation Studies jointly chaired and commented on Dr. Garssen’s lecture.
In his lectures, by citing various interesting examples Dr. Garssen first illustrated the possible fallacies that might occur in daily life and the definitions of and research approaches to these fallacies offered or adopted by different scholars. Then Dr. Garssen focused on introducing the concept of fallacy in pragma-dialectics and the maxims for critical discussion intended to fix a fallacy. Last but not least, Dr. Garssen elaborated on the experimental approach to fallacy and his research conclusion. In particular, Dr. Garssen detailed in his lecture the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research and that between theoretical and empirical research in humanities as well as social sciences. Dr. Garssen’s humorous and witty lectures enabled his audience to fully comprehend the theoretical sources and significance of pragma-dialectics, in the meanwhile arousing their profound interest in pragma-dialectical fallacies and the empirical studies on them.
After giving lectures, Dr. Garssen held two efficient workshops for all researchers of Jiangsu University Center for the Argumentation Studies, in which he took pains to help the researchers out with their puzzlement of all kinds over fallacy and the empirical studies on it, listened to a report of the Center on their research projects and related problems, and offered some constructive suggestions to them on their studies.
Bart Garssen is a kernel member and important contributor of the Amsterdam School in argumentation theory, editor of Journal of Argumentation in Context (Benjamins) (indexed by SSCI and A&HCI) and book review editor of Argumentation (Springer) and secretary general (Dutch) of the ILIAS. He has published dozens of periodical papers and more than 10 monographs and books on his own or in collaboration with others. He is an internationally prestigious scholar in argumentation, politics, communicating, logic etc.
(School of Foreign Languages)
Chinese
English