The Commitment Store
From “Argument as Reasoned Dialogue¨ in Informal Logic
[…], the most fundamental aspect of argument as persuasion dialogue is that each participant in the dialogue must have a set of commitments called a commitment-store. […] a commitment-store must be a definite set of propositions. It can be an empty set, unless the thesis of each participant must be counted as an initial, given commitment of that participant.
Essentially, a commitment-store refers to a set of propositions whose truth a dialogue participant is committed to (Walton 2008, 13). The commitment-store can change throughout the dialogue (Ibid):
From “Argument as Reasoned Dialogue¨ in Informal Logic
[…] as the game of dialogue proceeds, propositions are added to, or deleted from the commitment-sets of each of the players, according to the rules of the dialogue.
Regarding what the rules of the dialogue may be, see 20241030172002-Stages_of_Argumentative_Dialogue.
The commitment-store may also include propositions that are not explicit throughout the dialogue, but are presupposed or implied (Ibid):
From “Argument as Reasoned Dialogue¨ in Informal Logic
[…] it does not necessarily need to be visible to all or any players at all or any times.
A commitment-store for an interlocutor can also be called the position of that interlocutor (Ibid):
From “Argument as Reasoned Dialogue¨ in Informal Logic
[…] a commitment-set of a player we here call, collectively, the position of that participant in persuasion dialogue.
logic informal_logic set_theory persuasion_dialogue critical_discussion argumentation_theory interlocutors sets logical_pragmatics argumentation dialectics
bibliography
- “Argument as Reasoned Dialogue.” In Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach, 2nd ed., 2–37. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.