Practical Reasoning and Practical Argumentation: A Stakeholder Commitment Approach

Abstract

This paper examines the conceptual and terminological overlap between theories and models of practical deliberation developed within the fields of Practical Reasoning (PR) and Practical Argumentation (PA). It carefully delineates the volitional, epistemic, normative, and social commitments invoked and explicates various rationales for attributing the label ‘practical’ to instances of reasoning and argumentation. Based on these analyses, the paper develops a new approach to practical deliberation called the Stakeholder Commitment Approach (SCA). By distinguishing between ‘problem holder’ and ‘problem solver’, and specifying the distributions of attributable commitments among the stakeholders, the SCA introduces an extension and refinement of the grounds for assigning the label ‘practical’ that brings PR and PA closer together.