Lecture Notes by Christopher Lay

Los Angeles Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, and Sociology

 

 

 

 

Mathew Van Cleave's 2016 Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

 

https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=457

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1 "Reconstructing and Analyzing Arguments"

§11 "Evaluative Language"

"[A]nother rhetorical technique that is commonly encountered in argumentation is the use of evaluative language to influence one’s audience to accept the conclusion one is arguing for."

 

"Evaluative language can be contrasted with descriptive language. Whereas descriptive language simply describes a state of affairs, without passing judgment (positive or negative) on that state of affairs, evaluative language is used to pass some sort of judgment, positive or negative, on something."

 

"Like assuring and discounting (section 1.10), using evaluative language to try to influence one’s audience is a rhetorical technique. As such, it is more concerned with non-rational persuasion than it is with giving reasons."

 

"Although some people might claim that there is no essential difference between giving reasons for accepting a conclusion and trying to persuade by any means, most philosophers, including the author of this text, think otherwise. If we define rhetoric as the art of persuasion, then although argumentation is a kind of rhetoric (since it is a way of persuading), not all rhetoric is argumentation. The essential difference, as already hinted at, is that argumentation attempts to persuade by giving reasons whereas rhetoric attempts to persuade by any means, including non-rational means."