Informal Logic X.3, Fall 1988 Dialogue, Distanciation, and Engagement: Toward a Logic of Televisual Communication LENORE LANGSDORF Southern Illinois University If we are to have a theory of informal logic that is based in an understanding of what argumentation is, we need to step back a bit from ongoing concern with techniques, procedures, and pedagogy in order to con- sider the phenomenon itself. That's to say that we need to ask: what is this peculiarly human activity called argumentation? How is it like and unlike our other activities (walking, talking, eating, reading)? Indeed, is there an "it" here at all? Are we deal- ing with just one sort of activity, or a number of similar, perhaps inter-related phenomena? Are there fundamental features or essential characteristics present in all of the behavior we identify as argumentive? Does the ability to engage in it develop naturally, or is it learned-and, can it be taught? In presenting these preliminary results of my own reflections on these questions, I adopt the characterization of informal logic suggested recently by Ralph Johnson and Anthony Blair: .. .informal logic is best understood as the normative study of argument. It is the area of logic which seeks to develop standards, criteria and procedures for the interpretation, evaluation and construction of arguments and argumentation used in natural language. I As Blair and Johnson go on to say, most study of argumentation "has not had a logi- cian's orientation" -which I take to mean, has not been concerned with normative aspects of argumentation. 2 The descriptive analysis I present here is intended as a basis for just that normative study. For I am con- cerned to identify the actual "standards, criteria, and procedures" which our reason- ing follows in "the interpretation, evalua- tion and construction" of natural language arguments and the argumentive activities in which those arguments occur. 3 And I find-contrary to much received wisdom and presupposition-that our actual' 'stan- dards, criteria, and procedures" are quite different as we reason within various com- municative media. 4 I begin from a basic definition of "argumentation" as a complex of verbal abilities serving a common goal: conviction as to the connection of parts within a whole. Verbal activity that occurs in discourse- in the oral form epitomized by everyday conversation-differs significantly from that which occurs in printed text. In both cases, however, argumentation (in contrast to nar- rative or description) proposes connections among constituent elements of a whole, and does so with the aim of convincing someone that those are the appropriate connections to be made among those elements. Our theorizing about informal logic as well as our efforts to improve argumentive skills through classroom instruction typically oc- cur in both oral and written media. To some degree we usually recognize that the goal of argumentation is conviction as to the ap- propriateness of connections. But our theoretical and pedagogical activities (again, typically) neglect two features. What I want to discuss here is just those usually neglected aspects of argumentation. The first neglected feature is this: the differences between argumentation in discourse and in print require us to reason 152 Lenore Langsdorf differently in those different media. I will focus on just one example of this diversity-relative presence and absence of egocentricity-as illustrative of those per- vasive differences. The second neglected feature is that argumentation's goal (con- viction as to appropriate connections) is shared by other activities that are minimally or not at all verbal. There are two which I would like us to reflect upon here: those non-verbal communicative activities I characterize as kinesthetic, and the minimally-verbal communication that oc- curs televisually. There are good reasons for not including the conviction-producing activities that occur televisu&Ily and kinesthetically within the general 'category of argumentation, and I am not concerned to argue for such an inclusion here. Rather, I want to propose that the cultural prevalence of televisual and kinesthetic ways of bringing about conviction strong- ly influences both our ability to interpret, construct and evaluate arguments, and our efforts to theorize and teach those activities. In other words: as arguers, theoreticians, and teachers, we are disadvantaged by our neglect of the effects of prevalent alternative modes of producing conviction upon our reasoning practices. Although this description of argumen- tation as activity that proposes connections with the aim of convincing someone of the appropriateness of those connections may seem to be an innocuous one, there are three implicit claims within it which deserve con- sideration. First: argumentation only occurs when there are parts to be joined so as to form a whole. This articulated form is shared by narration and description; but the goal of producing conviction-reasoned agreement-as to just how the parts are con- nected to form a whole is not shared by those other activities. Second: argumenta- tion only occurs in a social, dialogical situa- tion in which different possibilities for mak- ing connections are held (at least in theory) by argument partners. In other words, there must be a "someone" to be convinced, and a "someone" to do the convincing. There are times when one person takes both these roles, so as to present to him or herself a multiplicity of positions. This apparently monological presentation of multiple possibilities for connection is more common in print, or in that silent verbal activity call- ed thinking, than it is in oral discourse. For we tend to disapprove of people who talk audibly to themselves. The third implicit claim is a teleological one, for I've proposed that the purpose of argumentation is the pro- duction of conviction. Unlike persuasion or force, conviction involves reasoned agree- ment. This is why a theory of argumenta- tion must include an understanding of what reason is and how reasoning functions. Here we have three claims concerning the articulated (that is: composed of parts and wholes), social, and purposive character of argumentation. Stating those characteristics explicitly may enable us to notice the historicity of informal logic; even, perhaps, to appreciate the importance of that feature among the differences be- tween formal and informal logic. For the "standards, criteria and procedures" operative in informal logic change, and they do so in response to cultural, and especial- ly technological, transformations. As a result, arguers using diverse modes of com- munication prevalent at different stages in the life of an individual and of a culture re- quire diverse ways of reasoning if they are to construct and interpet arguments ap- propriatel y . We can now turn to consider- ing four such modes of communication, with the aim of recognizing differences and similarities in how reasoning occurs-and even, in what it means-in all four. A minimal definition may be helpful at this point: I understand reasoning as both the synthetic activity of connecting parts to form wholes, and the analytic activity of identi- fying parts within wholes. Both activities, once again, take place in a social and pur- posive context-although monological ver- bal activity and certain argumentive strategies may mute that social and pur- posive character. The four modes of communication to which we can now turn are kinesthesia, discourse, print, and television. In consider- ing each of these, my focus will be on how argumentive activity, or activity analogous to argumentation, occurs in each. In other words: we want to attend to how we reason so as to produce conviction in each of the media. There is an initial difficulty to ad- dress in regard to that focus: traditionally, we accept the verbal media (discourse and print) as the context for argumentive activi- ty. Thus the very inclusion of kinesthesia on a list of communicative media, much less of means for bringing about conviction, is problematic. Also, there may well be need to justify my inclusion of television as a means of communication distinct from discourse. Given these likely difficulties in regard to two of these four means of com- munication, I'll begin by considering reasoning in the two less problematic modes-discourse and print-and then go on to the two more problematic media. Most people, most of the time, engage in argumentive activity within discourse. This mode of communication is universal for all humans over the age of two or so who have fairly complete use of their faculties; more specifically, for those who can hear and speak. Dialogue in this medium requires engagement with a par- ticular discourse partner, since oral dialogue cannot occur without the actual presence of the participants in the same time and space. In other words: in oral argumentation, the connections of parts into wholes which are at issue are proposed in dialogue with a discourse partner. The proposals constitute positions which intertwine within the space (or at least, time) we both occupy. That pro- viso reminds us that technologically- enhanced discourse, such as occurs in telephone conversation, can dispense with the shared spatiality that's necessary for non-technological, naturally-occuring discourse. Argumentation is considerably facilitated by the co-presence of discourse Televisual Communication 153 partners. For I need supply only the infor- mation required to support connections that I propose, while presuming that alternative proposals will be supported by the discourse partner who proposes them. Furthermore, naturally-occurring (that is, non- technologically enhanced) dialogue provides powerful behavioral reminders that alter- native proposals have their genesis in a literally different vision of the world. Cross- culturally and throughout history, as best we know, discourse partners typically face one another-rather than, for instance, stand next to each other on the same plane. Thus, quite literally, the alternative position comes from seeing the same world in a different way (in a different perspective). 5 Typical- Iy, we're aware of that sameness and dif- ference only in an immediate, un-noticed, less than conscious, non-thematized way. 6 There's another side to how we typically reason in discourse that's especially impor- tant to a normative study of argumentation. The ready availability of support from the discourse partner for alternative positions means that we do not need to develop "stan- dards, criteria and procedures" for presen- ting both (or all) of the possible alternatives. Insofar as I presume that my discourse part- ner is as capable of presenting the alter- native proposal(s) as I am, I can proceed rather egocentrically. That is, I can direct my energies to developing my own pro- posals both in themselves and in opposition to those proposed by my discourse partner. Now this presumption of equality can be in- nocent: we do in fact engage in conversa- tions with our intellectual, political, and social equals. It may well be that we seek out just those discourse partners because they allow for a certain comfortable laziness in exercising reason. (We can depend on those others to do their own work.) But this presumption need not be innocent: we can engage in conversations with partners who are clearly deficient or constrained intellec- tually, politically, and socially, under the pretense of equality. 7 I don't mean to dis- count the possibility-some might even 154 Lenore Langsdorf claim, likelihood-of unequal presentation of proposals as I emphasize that discourse encourages a comfortably egocentric pat- tern of reasoning. In turning now to considering reason- ing in the print medium, we can notice that written argumentation requires some very different assumptions and conventions. Typically, when we argue in writing we do so in isolation from the readers we would convince. Insofar as we don't even know who those readers are and will be, we can- not simply proceed under the assumption I noted in connection with oral argumentation-namely, that they will be capable of formulating and communicating alternatives. Instead, we need to anticipate a variety of alternative positions as we write, so as to take effective account of them in the course of the written text. That need is a structural requirement for arguing ef- fectively in print. Because of it, the writ- ten word discourages egocentric reasoning. One of the peculiarities of academic life is the extent to which it's pervaded by print communication. We academics are a bookish people who tend to rely on texts rather than conversations for information. We also produce texts, often in isolation from and to the exclusion of discourse. These range from printed versions of con- versations, such as notes and memos, to scholarly texts that have only minimal similarity to patterns of constructing and in- terpreting arguments that prevail in discourse. Given this pervasiveness of print, together with the necessity to engage in oral communication both inside and beyond the classroom, we are apt to move rather easi- ly from reasoning in conversation to reason- ing in print. Insofar as we're at all aware of differences, we tend to minimize them by attributing them to different conventions of expression in everyday and academic contexts. I find, however, that there are logical as well as sociological differences. That is, there are different "standards, criteria and procedures for the interpreta- tion, evaluation and construction of arguments and argumentation" in discourse and in print. We can now look more closely at the lack of egocentricity in written argumen- tation. Reading and writing, in contrast to hearing and speaking, typically occur at a distance from one another. In other words: written texts are distanciated from their readers. Indeed, we rarely use the print medium when the dialogue partner is pre- sent and can be engaged in conversation. (To do so often implies the presence or ex- pectation of inequality, interference or even deceit in the communication process.) Cor- relatively, using print to propose connec- tions implies that the writer intends to con- vince any possible reader, rather than simp- ly those dialogue partners who are present in the same time and/or space. Doing that effectively requires extensive departure from an egocentric standpoint: I (as the writer) must attempt to anticipate alternative proposals made by any other individual (as the reader). Likewise, I (as the reader) con- sider proposals in the printed text without attending to their source. In other words, arguing in the medium of print requires distanciating the proposals from any ego in- volvement. This procedure is so ingrained in reasoning in a printed textual context as to be a standard for that sort of reasoning; we proscribe its violation under the rubric ofthe "ad hominem" and "argument from authority" fallacies. This difference between reasoning in the context of engagement in discourse in con- trast to reasoning in the context of distan- ciated printed text enables us to understand certain difficulties that arise in classroom work on those fallacies. Typically, our students-and members of other cultures that retain a preference for orality rather than print-fail to identify these categories of fallacies in a way appropriate to our ex- pectations. They may not recognize arguments from authority; or, they may over-ascribe that fallacy to any argument that cites any authority. I would like to sug- gest that this tendency should not be blam- 1 ed on deficient intelligence or attention. For observation of our students' usual environment-their everyday life outside the classroom-reveals that printed text, familiar though it is to most teachers, is an alien mode of communication for most students. To a considerable extent, their culture is an oral one in which communica- tion occurs through conversation, the nar- ratives of popular music, and the distinc- tive form of orality used in televisual communication. It's hardly surprising, then, that students' reasoning typically and habitual- ly displays the procedures and standards of orality-including a consideration of the arguer's person that appears, to a teacher who adheres to the standards of print, to be an instance of the fallacy of "argument from authority. " Likewise, rejection of the person as a basis for rejection of his or her argument is far more defensible in the culture of orality than it is in the culture of print. For those of us who habitually par- ticipate in print culture rely upon distan- ciated texts, rather than upon persons who display some level of engagement with the issues, when we seek authoritative evidence for a proposal. Thus we are apt to identify as "ad hominem" arguments that might be quite acceptable to persons whose actual standards for reasoning include evaluation of the proposers of positions as part of evaluating the arguments that propose those positions. 8 The differences we've been considering also appear when we contrast these verbal media (discourse and print) to television. Televisual communication does, of course, utilize verbality. But it does so in a way that's quite different from non- technologically-enhanced discourse. Also, it uses verbal communication in pervasive connection with, and often as only ancillary to, visual communication. For that reason, televisual verbality and visuality are quite different from their non-technologically- enhanced counterparts. I noted earlier that most argumentation, in most people's ex- Televisual Communication 155 perience, occurs in discourse. I'd now add to that the observation that most efforts at improving argumentation-e.g. classroom teaching of informal logic-focus on print, and presume the standards of reasoning in print even when discourse is used. For many people and most of our students, however, most of the communication that carries out the purpose of argumentation- producing conviction as to how parts con- nect to form wholes-does not occur in written communication. Rather, kinesthesia (a nonverbal means of communication) and television (a partially verbal medium) are the most familiar argumentive contexts. And just as those of us who are habituated to print culture typically fail to notice dif- ferent standards for reasoning in discourse, we also neglect alternative standards for reasoning in kinesthetic and televisual media. We can now turn to a brief considera- tion of reasoning in kinesthetic and televisual communication. My focus here is limited to several aspects of difference from and similarity to features of verbality that typically are preferred or presumed in practicing and teaching argumentation. We can focus on these features in terms of my earlier identification of the articulated (that is: composed of parts and wholes), social, and purposive character of argumentation. Although space constraints limit us to a sug- gestive and sketchy analysis, I hope that even this brief endeavor supports my pro- posal that we need to understand the nature of reasoning in diverse media as part of developing a theory of informal logic. Television and kinesthesia involve ar- ticulated products that can be analyzed or criticized in terms of parts and appropriate connections. Thus, with due attention to the values and dangers of analogical descrip- tion, we can speak analogously of televisual and kinesthetic premises and conclusions. Also, we can investigate the degree to which standards for constructing, interpreting, and evaluating the connections proposed in televisual and kinesthetic communication 156 Lenore Langsdorf are and ought to be borrowed from their verbal analogues. There are substantial dif- ferences between these two modes of nonverbal and partially verbal communica- tion. The most significant, for our interests here, involve the analytic and synthetic ac- tivities operative in each: how do we ac- tually compose parts into wholes in these two media? What standards do we actually use in identifying their parts, as part of in- terpreting and evaluating entire actions or scenes? In order to identify the similarities and differences involved here, we will now consider the articulated, social, and pur- posive character of kinesthesia separately from that of television. Let's turn first to kinesthesia. 9 Earlier I identified premises and conclusions as the parts which comprise whole arguments. Analogously, the' 'premises" of kinesthetic reasoning are the body's muscular movements and tensions. These combine to form the actions and affective states which are the" conclusions" of kinesthetic reason- ing. Appropriate connections are those which accomplish intended actions, or bring about desired attitudes. Unlike verbal ar- ticulation, not all of these connections are learned, which is to say that some of them seem to occur spontaneously and without culturally-determined ways of expression. Furthermore, many of them are carried out without conscious attention. The multitude of kinesthetic movements that compose ac- tions such as throwing a ball or picking up a jug of water, and the almost un- thematizable complexes that bring about states of levity or anxiety, are examples of the articulated character of kinesthesia. In kinesthetic as in verbal activity, we typically are as familiar with the synthetic activity that constructs actions and affective states as we are with the analytic activity that interprets and evaluates them. That isn't to say that we're equally skilled in construc- tion, interpretation, and evaluation. But I do find that our ability to appreciate an ac- tion or affective state-which is to say, in- terpret and evaluate either-is quite directly correlated with our ability to produce that action or affective state-which is to say, construct either of them. Someone who hasn't participated in football, for instance, is unlikely to appreciate the efforts involv- ed in making a particular play. Someone who hasn't lived through a period of depres- sion is unlikely to empathize strongly with a friend who's immersed in that state. to In both these areas, I find, understanding re- quires that we comprehend elements and their connections. That "comprehension," I suggest, is less a matter of intuition, psychic power, or hunch than it is a matter of hypothesis (as to the connection of parts within a whole) and confirmation. We have a reasoning process here that's analogous to the reasoning that we're more accustom- ed to identifying in verbal activity. However, kinesthetic activity is quite deficient in the social, dialogical character that characterizes verbal activity . We might want to stretch our analogy to speak in a highly metaphorical way of dialogue be- tween actors and the nonhuman environ- ment, or between different parts of the body. Still more of a stretch would be need- ed to speak of dialogue between past and present situations as operative in compos- ing affective states such as empathy. Rather than stretching the analogy, however, it seems to me more instructive to consider why it is that kinesthesia lacks social character and is marked by a high level of egocentricity. Let's consider, as an example, the ac- tivity of descending a flight of stairs. It is rather difficult to tell how it is that we do that, although we can reflectively recognize that connections are made and conclusions are drawn. Miscalculations, such as mis- judging the height of the last step, may sen- sitize us to the fact that calculation (reason- ing) is going on at all. Teaching the activi- ty can also encourage us to notice the com- plex nature of the nonverbal reasoning that's involved. Elements are composed into wholes in kinesthetic activity as well as in mental cognition. But usually we carry out kinesthetic activities with little or no awareness of the analytic and synthetic pro- cesses, and so translating them into a ver- bal account is quite difficult and results in a rather fragmentary sketch. Thus the more usual way of teaching embodied skills such as climbing stairs or weaving baskets or hit- ting a golf ball is through kinesthetic demonstration, rather than verbal account. If someone wants to learn these sorts of ac- tivities, the usual method is through a "hands-on" apprenticeship, rather than through a course of' 'book learning." This pedagogical differentiation carries with it some deeply rooted cultural associations concerning reasoning, cognition, and ver- bality.11 Another difference between kinesthetic and verbal reasoning arises because I can use the words of another's proposals in much the same way-with the same meaning-as does my discourse partner. I can read a printed text and take from its words and syntax the meaning offered there by virtue of the author's intention to com- municate that meaning. 12 Kinesthesia does not offer that generalized accessibility. Rather, the reasoning processes that occur in kinesthetic activity remain bound to the person who performs them. The level of engagement is so much more complete than in discourse, that I cannot distanciate myself from my own body so as to analyze and communicate its actions and affective states verbally. In contrast, proposals formulated in verbal reasoning (especially print, but also, discourse) are autonomous. With care and effort, they can be interpreted and evaluated by anyone with knowledge of the linguistic conventions in which they are formulated. It's in regard to the purpose of argumen- tation (producing conviction as to the ap- propriateness of proposed connections among parts) that kinesthetic activity displays greatest similarity to verbal activi- ty. But academic culture, especially as reflected in our classroom practice, minimizes and even denigrates any convic- Televisual Communication 157 tion that's achieved kinesthetically. This seems to me a result of at least three events in Western intellectual history. The first is Descartes' association of cognition with mind, rather than body. Although everyday language retains a sense of embodied knowledge-consider "I just know it in my gut, " and similar expressions-academic language reflects this Cartesian thesis. 13 The second event is a scientistic preference for "objective" knowledge, understood as that which is attainable by anyone who can utilize the appropriate equipment (from language to test tubes). Although some philosophers of science have argued that this preference is misguided, it continues to in- form a conception of reasoning and know- ing that excludes kinesthetically gained knowledge. 14 The third event is a likely association, at a less than conscious level, between kinesthesia and immaturity (on the one hand) and written text, progress, and ad- vancement (on the other hand). That is: we are born with kinesthetic capacities and achieve proficiency in discourse within the following few years. Proficiency in inter- preting, evaluating, and constructing writ- ten texts, however, comes more slowly to all of us and not at all to the great majority of human beings. For both kinesthetic and oral cultures are universally present in human experience, while the culture of print is a relative latecomer in the history of both individuals and humanity in general. The "newer is better" tendency that pervades technological cultures such as ours is ex- pressed in casual references to oral cultures as "backward" or "primitive," compared to cultures that have developed writing. Correlatively, the very notion of a kinesthetic culture is scarcely comprehend- ed as a human culture. IS Given this culturally-reinforced fondness for the "new, improved product" (whether that be detergent, candidate for political office, or means of intellectual activity) it's hardly surprising that we tend to ascribe superiority to written argument. Also, we tend to ig- 158 Lenore Langsdorf nore the rootedness of the new product- available to comparatively few and requir- ing a financial investment-in the old, which is available free of charge to all. But our tendency to prefer the new isn't unbounded. For television is the newest medium to dominate the field of modes of achieving conviction, and television is almost universally disparaged. We can now turn to a consideration of this medium in terms of the articulated, social, and pur- posive character that we've been attending to in kinesthesia, discourse, and print. That three-part analysis may contribute something to understanding the radical novelty of televisual communication, as a first step toward reconsidering that disparagement. Also, it may help us to over- come the conception of television as a "passive'" medium that produces a "mindless" audience. For once we recognize that reasoning functions in televisual engagement we can begin to ap- preciate televisual reasoning as correlative to verbal and kinesthetic reasoning. We may then come to understand why it is particular- ly effective in carrying out the purpose of argumentation. And that understanding may then allow us to respond more effectively to the challenge television presents to the values of earlier modes of communication. Televisual text shares the articulated character of discourse, print, and kinesthesia. 16 The parts which are amlogous to premises and conclusions are images which project meaning visually. The syntax of their presentation and their ver- bal accompaniment serve to propose par- ticular connections with the aim of convin- cing audiences of the appropriateness of those proposals. Yet even a superficial com- parison of television's manner of arrang- ing parts and wholes with the comparable strategies in the other media we've been considering reveals considerable difference. The most significant, for our interest here, is the ease with which televisual text presents itself as equivalent to kinesthetic experience. 17 We cannot mistake an oral or printed account of an event for the event itself. But the televisual portrayal presents itself as if it were a visual presentation seen through my own eyes. My eyes, however, are an integral aspect of my kinesthetic ac- tivity. Therefore their functioning is con- strained by the limits of what's kinesthetically possible. For instance, I can only see from within (so to speak) my own kinesthetic organism. (This limitation is a major factor in the egocentricity of kinesthesia.) Also, most adults realize that interpretation and evaluation of the products of our own kinesthetic activity is informed by our own histories. What appears on the television screen, however, can at one moment present itself as "from within me," and in the next moments, as "from within others." The limitations of kinesthesia may encourage a move to discourse in order to ask others how events appear to them and what con- nections they would propose. But televisual presentation purports to present both my view and others' views, and so provides lit- tle incentive to engage in dialogue. I say "purports" because nobody's view is presented, really. Instead, we have a presen- tation which can only be produced technologically and which originates in an obscure joint authorship of camera person, script writer, producer, and sponsor. In other words: the origins or sources oftelevi- sion's articulated elements and their con- nections are not accessible, and are not what they present themselves as being. Televi- sion shares that first characteristic with print and still photography. But neither of those other media presents its products as if they were the products of my own kinesthetic ac- tivity .18 That presentation, together with a carefully nurtured classification as "just entertainment," disables our critical faculties. The social character of televisual ex- perience is like printed text in that it is in fact distanciated from me. Parts and wholes are proposed by an obscure joint authorship to a potentially vast audience. (Insofar as visual rather than verbal language predominates, the presumed audience is far greater and broader than the audience for any verbal text.) Yet this distanciation dif- fers from that of printed text in that the televisual text presents itself as one in which I am engaged, in somewhat the same way as I am in discourse. I am, in effect, a mute dialogue partner: at best, I can propose alternatives "in my head," rather than as verbal propositions or enacted performances that would contribute to an interactive dialogue. Nor can I imaginatively place myself in the position of the author of those proposals which are presented to me, for they are only producible technologically. These limitations do not disable my understanding of the text's message, so much as they limit my ability to analyze the "standards, criteria, and procedures" us- ed in the construction of argument- analogues within the text. 19 For unless we study the production process which delivers televisual images to us, we have little ac- cess to the synthetic activity by which parts are composed into wholes in televisual texts. I would argue that this lack of access to the means of production, together with its semi- kinesthetic character, means that we are severely limited in analyzing televisual text. The purposive nature that we have iden- tified in discourse, printed text, and kinesthesia evidently is present also in televisual communication. Indeed, I would maintain that the commercial nature of the medium as it saturates our contemporary culture means that all televisual text aims to convince us of the appropriateness of pro- posed connections among elements. 20 Au- dience members who resist those proposals-even minimally, by maintaining (for example) that their values are uninfluenced by the solutions to interper- sonal difficulties proposed by soap operas and that their behavior as consumers in the marketplace is uninfluenced by commercials-are saying that they com- prehend the proposed connections but re- main unconvinced. 21 And it is precisely in Televisual Communication 159 comprehending the proposals of televisual communication that we demonstrate com- petence in reasoning according to that medium's "standards, criteria, and pro- cedures for the interpretation, evaluation and construction," of argument-analogs. Understanding the nature and implications of that competence is the point of my argu- ment here: this comparison of three features which are present in the four media is the first step toward establishing that reason is exercised (and exercised differently, as suited to the peculiarities of each medium) in all four means of communication. Thus endeavoring to improve abilities to reason in the medium of print-that is, the sort of endeavor that's at issue in informal logic classrooms-need not and should not start from a presumption that a new skill is be- ing taught. More generally, I've argued here that argumentation, although it is a specialized human activity which we typically treat as dependent upon verbality, has its basis in kinesthetic reasoning-which is an activi- ty in which all human beings are engaged. Those origins are obscured by assumptions which I traced to events in our intellectual history. But they are recoverable, in an in- vestigation such as this. 22 Both the difficulty and the exigency of recovering those origins rests on the current predominance of televisual engagement. For television's similiarity to kinesthesia enables it to carry out the purpose of argumentation in ways that cannot be duplicated by the other media we've considered. We as a culture have become accustomed to reasoning in televisual communication. Yet we remain curiously unaware of the need for strategies of visual literacy which would enable us to think critically about televisual text. in a manner analogous to informal logic's critical stance toward oral and written texts. Furthermore: if we are to retain our ability to reason kinesthetically and verbally, we need to understand the differences among these diverse modes of reasoning as the first step toward strengthening our ahilities for 160 Lenore Langsdorf reasoning in those currently less- predominant media. Ultimately, that same understanding is needed as the basis for developing a theory of argumentation which can stimulate ways of developing our abilities for interpreting, constructing, and evaluating conviction-producing texts and textual analogues in any medium. 23 Notes I "The Current State of Informal Logic," Informal Logic 9 (1987), p. 148. Blair and Johnson note that this is "a more specific characterization than we have been prepared to state heretofore," although they "hesitate to call" it "a definition." One implication of the descriptive investigation I do here is that this characterization should be expand- ed to include the normative study of ac- tivities which are analogous to argumen- tation by virtue of a common purpose of achieving conviction as to the ap- propriateness of proposed connections among parts and wholes. More general- ly: I propose that "informal logic" should encompass the normative study of all reasoning activities, rather than re- main within formal logic's verbal boun- dary and/or argumentation theory's limitation to discourse that convinces or persuades. 2 Ibid., p. 149. 3 "Actual" does not mean "acceptable to a (formal or informal) logic teacher." Perhaps the most general way to state the thesis I'm exploring here is to say: (a) we become accustomed, and perhaps even habituated, to prevalent ways of proposing that particular connections among parts are appropriate; (b) the prevalent ways in contemporary society (beyond the classroom, and especially in televisual engagement) are quite different that those of verbal argumentation; (c) typically, argumentation theorists and teachers are not concerned with forging links between the actual and the ideal. That is, we tend to prescribe under the belief that replacement is the only feasi- ble relationship between how people do argue and how they should argue, in order to produce good arguments. Underlying my reference to this descriptive investigation of actual" stan- dards, criteria, and procedures" as a basis for normative study is an alternative belief, namely: norms are grounded in practice, and any attempt to advocate new norms is both ethically and pedagogically more plausible if it recognizes and uses that connection. In other words: prescription should be grounded in description that's been sub- jected to critical reflection. 4 There are several distinctions implicit in this remark. I take "reasoning" to be an activity that overlaps, but is not co- extensive with, "argumentation." Reasoning seeks to uncover the intrin- sic ordering of parts within the whole of our experience, as well as within portions of that whole. This activity does not re- quire verbality; young children do it without verbal language, and we con- tinue to do it with little or no verbal ac- companiment in both kinesthetic and televisual experience. Argumentation proposes particular connections among parts with the goal of achieving agreement as to the pro- posed connections of parts into wholes being an appropriate one. It's important to stress that those proposals can be made in a way that aims at conviction-or, at persuasion. For "appropriate" can mean "presenting something of the intrinsic order manifested in our experience. " In that case, truth claims are involved: we are engaged in philosophical argument that seeks conviction (reasoned agree- ment) rather than persuasion. Alter- natively, "appropriate" can refer to a persuasive context in which something less or other than truth-e.g. expediency-is at issue. Persuasion can be, but isn't always, achieved through argument. All too often, physical and psychological force is the means for per- suading someone of the appropriateness of proposed connections. Correlatively, conviction can be, but isn't always, achieved through argument. Although it cannot be gained through physical or psychological force, nonverbal reason- ing can be the means for achieving conviction. The sort of argumentation I examine here is philosophical, concerned with proposals in which "appropriate" means "true." Furthermore I am concerned here with dialogical argumentation, in which the positions proposed by both discourse partners are subject to revision in the interest of establishing appropriate connections. There are other modes: e.g. legal argumentation seems to me monological in that both prosecution and defense present only their own interpreta- tion of the affairs at issue, without any intention of considering alternative interpretations. 5 Here as elsewhere in this discussion, I speak of what's "typically" the case without any suggestion that the feature at issue is constant, necessary, or desirable. For instance, in this case, it certainly is the case that discourse part- ners often sit in a circle or next to one another, and may even face away from one another-say, when two people are holding a conversation while fishing from opposite sides of a bridge, or while painting different walls in a room. Elementary empirical research does con- firm, however, that face-to-face is the most commonly assumed position for conversation. Furthermore, I don't mean to imply that this literal placement is crucial to recognizing the figuratively different perspectives that two discourse partners have on their common world. It does Televisual Communication 161 provide and often-reinforced behavioral reminder that there is a correlation be- tween the conceptual and physical senses of "position." 6 Many epistemological traditions are reluctant to accept this sort of informa- tion as a species of knowledge. My analysis here uses a phenomenological method in which three modes of know- ing are accepted: (1) this non-thematic and pre-reflective access to the environ- ment; (2) the more commonly accepted notion of cognition that's straightfor- wardly directed toward the environment; and (3) a reflective consideration which attends to the encounter of knower (sub- ject) and known (object). In phenomenological terminology these refer (respectively) to intuition, inten- tionality, and analysis within the reduction. 7 Jurgen Habermas theorizes the discourse among equals which I have in mind here under the title of the "ideal speech situa- tion." See, e.g., Knowledge and Human Interests, J.J. Shapiro, trans. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971). 8 An entire ethos of "objective" in con- trast to "subjective" knowledge is im- plied in this standard for reason. The issue here is not one of relative prevalence of "ad hominum" arguments in discourse. (But see below for comment on that issue.) Rather, the point is that verbal argumentation, especially in oral cultures that are relatively uninfluenced by the standards of written argumenta- tion, typically accepts reference to the person as appropriate (although not con- clusive) evidence. Bookish academics are reluctant to grant that reference any evidential status, unless it is (in effect) a shorthand way ofreferring to "objec- tive" qualifications (properly affirmable by degrees and licensing) rather than to . 'subjective" qualifications such as in- tegrity, known habits, or family affiliation. 162 Lenore Langsdorf This issue of the appropriateness of reliance upon the person may be perti- nent to recent identification of some ways of reasoning that are preferred in our culture as ways that incorporate and im- pose "male" in contrast to "female" values. Women's vocational life tradi- tionally involved (and to a lesser degree typically still involves) a higher degree of involvement with people than typically is the case for traditionally "male" oc- cupations. Therefore it may well be that women typically retain more of the stand- ards and procedures appropriate to discourse (and more generally, to an oral culture) even when functi9ning in a printed text culture. Although I would argue that the ac- tual standards of orality include broader acceptance of appeal to persons than those of print culture, it also may well be that relative lack of conditions for reflection on arguments, in the midst of ongoing oral argumentation, encourages greater toleration of appeals that would be cited as "ad hominum" if and when reflection does occur. 9 ' 'Kinesthesia" refers to the muscular and sensorimotor tensions and movements that are intrinsic to sensory experience. Kinesthesia has its own vocabulary (those muscular tensions and movements), syn- tax (ways of connecting those tensions and movements so as to produce actions, sensations, and feelings), and grammar (the study of types of actions, sensations, and feelings, their inflections, and how they function within different sorts of performances) . In developing this understanding of kinesthesia as analogous to verbality, I am indebted to Merleau-Ponty's and Zaner's phenomenological analyses of kinesthesis and embodiment. See, e.g. (for Merleau-Ponty) Phenomenology of Perception, C. Smith, trans. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962). Also see (for Zaner) The Problem of Embodiment: Some Contributions to a Phenomenology of the Body, 2nd. ed. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971) and The Context of Self· A Phenomenological In- quiry Using Medicine as a Clue (Athens: University of Ohio Press, 1981). 10 In phenomenological terminology, the kinesthetic activity I'm thematizing here occurs only in "lived experience," which produces information that's quite different from information which is gain- ed in comparatively indirect ways such as reading about events or mere observation-that is, observation with minimal (and ideally, no) participation. Kinesthetic experience is "lived through" rather than received by a sub- ject who is separate from the objects that are experienced. The non-distanciability of this sort of conviction about ap- propriate connections, I would argue, is a function of the non-differentiation of subject and object that's characteristic of kinesthetic activity. Verbal activity uses cultural structures (e.g. alphabetic language) that are intrinsically separate from the subject; kinesthetic activity does not. Thus I propose that entering verbal culture means leaving the extreme egocentricity that marks kinesthesia. Kinesthesia does extend beyond the level to which I attend here, at which my own kinesthetic function convinces me of the appropriateness of certain connec- tions. Although it would go considerably beyond the concerns of this paper to discuss that extension, I do want to men- tion that I find a variant form of egocen- tricity in kinesthetic activity that interacts with another human being. For the sort of' 'knowing" produced in what I'd call interactive kinesthesia is a fusing of ego with alter ego, rather than a taking leave of ego in the course of considering pro- posals from a discourse partner's or printed texts's position. 11 Separation of the cognitive and the physical (of reasoning and acting; mind and body) in our educational practice as well as in political life, the workplace, the church, and the home, suggests that we are an increasingly Cartesian culture even as our philosophers denounce Cartesianism and deconstruct' 'the sub- ject" upon which that theory "stands." There are two aspects of this every- day Cartesianism that deserve mention, although exploring them would take us too far afield from the focus of this paper. First: I suspect that the Platonic preference for stasis-for stable objects of knowledge, in contrast to the fleeting foci of opinion-is reflected in reluctance to grant the title of "reasoning" to kinesthetic activities which exhibit func- tions very much like those of verbal reasoning. Secondly: Both the Cartesian and Platonic tendencies are opposed by the expressions we use to speak of cognitive activities in everyday language: we take a position, defend our claims, and stand by our convictions; we claim that a discourse partner doesn't have a leg to stand on; we keep an idea at arm's length, and may not even be willing to touch it with a ten-foot pole; we uncover truth, and often need to root out falsehoods in the course of doing so; we try to avoid straying far afield from the focus of our investigations. The list of illustrative expressions could continue for quite a while; the point is that we talk about our supposedly disembodied, abstract thinking in kinesthetic terminology. 12 These are controversial claims, which depend upon my holding a text theory that is rejected by many contemporary theorists. Here, as in my characteriza- tion of discourse as engaged dialogue and printed text as distanciated dialogue, I am indebted to the work of Paul Ricoeur. See, e.g., his Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian Universi- ty Press, 1976) or Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. ed. and tr. 1.B. Televisual Communication 163 Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). A similar posi- tion is held by E.D. Hirsch; see his Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967) and The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1976). An opposing view, which holds that meaning is con- strued variously by readers rather than presented in the text, is held by a number of contemporary theorists who are generally characterized as deconstruc- tionists. See, e.g., Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class: The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 13 When Cartestianism is considered in this context, Descartes' valorizing of "clear and distinct ideas" appears to be a remodeling of human beings' con- ceptual products (ideas) so as to resem- ble items in the "extended" world (things). But the results of kinesthetic ac- tivity are not distinct from the body (sub- ject) in which they are formed. Thus the Cartesian conception of self as well as the Cartesian ideal of objective knowledge find no support in the basic level of reasoning that I've identified here. However both those notions do ac- cord well with reasoning in the medium of print. Walter Ong's remarks in Ramus: Method. and the Decay of Dialogue (Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1958) as to the effect of the spread of print culture on conceptions of knowledge in the century preceding Descartes' work is suggestive: "Printing from movable type was a kind of disease which Western society was catching ... [itl involved a subtle reorientation of at- titudes toward communication and toward what was to be communicated, knowledge itself." (p. 310). His characterization of the new attitude reflects my analysis of the importance of distanciation in print reasoning: The revision of the notion of analysis ... is accomplished with the help of certain 164 Lenore Langsdorf spatial models for thought processes ... An epistemol-ogy based on the notion of truth as 'content' begins to appear. Out ofthe twin notions of content and analysis is bred the vast idea-, system-, and method-literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This literature consists of treatises on prac- tically all conceivable forms of knowledge ... conceived as box-like units laid hold of by the mind in such a way that they are fully and adequately treated by being 'opened' in an analysis. (p. 315) Descartes' Discourse on Method (1637) exemplifies the importation of the struc- tural model of print into an understand- ing of how reasoning functions. That is to say that Descartes vnthinkingly transferred features appropriate to reasoning in print, into his prescriptions for cognition as such. The result was a model for correct method that dominated Western think- ing for two centuries and is still embed- ded in what I call our everyday normative assumptions; i.e. the procedures for thinking that are generally aspired to as representing "good reasoning." Unfor- tunately, by dismissing the ways of reasoning appropriate to kinesthesia, discourse, and television, these assump- tions require teachers and students to replace the endemic, valuable basis for good reasoning in favor of valorizing what is only one way of reasoning, suited to particular purposes but without any in- trinsic claim to universal superiority. 14 Michael Polanyi's investigations of "tacit knowing" may be the most exten- sive proposal of alternative conceptions. See, e.g., Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958). 15 If Eric Havelock's analysis is correct, the phylogenetic change was occurring in Socrates' time, See, e.g., The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy From Antiquity to the Pre- sent (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). Also, see the work of Walter Ong; e.g. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen, 1982), Marshall McLuhan, e.g. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Mak- ing of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), and Harold Innes, e.g. Empire and Com- munications (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972). 16 In speaking of "television," "televisual text," etc., I refer to the contemporary commercial medium with which (resear- chers estimate) the average North American is engaged for about 47 hours per week. This is an admittedly over- simplified category, which ignores dif- ferences between genres (e.g. game shows, dramas, newscasts, sports events) in the interest of focusing upon how au- diences or viewers use reason to inter- pret and evaluate televisual text that's analogous to verbality and kinesthesia; i.e. that presents messages in a manner that's articulated, social, and purposive, and with the aim of conviction as to the appropriateness of proposed connections. It may be helpful to emphasize that I am not criticizing the content of com- mercial television here. Rather, I'm arguing that its syntax, grammar, and vocabulary constitute a form quite dif- ferent from that of verbality and closely allied to kinesthesia. Insofar as reason- ing is vital to reading with comprehen- sion-to understanding, rather than mere word ;ecognition-we "rcad" television. But the difference in form requires us to use different strategies than for reading written text; to employ different actual standards for the' 'interpretation, evalua- tion and construction" of argumentation in this different, non-natural, language. Research into the form of television, in contrast to the programming which is its content, is a relatively little-known area of investigation. I take Marshall McLuhan's work as seminal; see, e.g., his Understanding Media: The Exten- sions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964) and The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962). Among contemporary researchers, I am most indebted to the work of Gavriel Salomon. See, e.g., his "Television is 'Easy' and Print is 'Tough': The Dif- ferential Investment of Mental Effort in Learning as a Function of Perceptions and Attributions," Journal of Educa- tional Psychology 76: 647-658 (1984); Communication and Education: Social and Psychological Interactions (Bever- ly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981); and Interaction of Media, Cognition and Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981) . The work of Aletha C. Huston and John C. Wright (with various colleagues) is also instrumental for this analysis. See, e. g., "Children's Understanding of the Forms of Television," in Viewing Children Through Television ed. H. Kel- ly and H. Gardner (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981) and "Com- municating More than Content: Formal Features of Children's Television Pro- grams," Journal of Communication 31: 32-48 (1981). For a collection of papers that sug- gest the scope of this research see Children and the Formal Features of Television ed. M. Meyer (Munchen: K.G. Saur, 1983). Two of the earliest extensive analyses that concentrate on television's form are Reading Television by John Fiske and John Hartley (Lon- don: Methuen, 1978) and Raymond Williams' Television: Technology and Cultural Form (New York: Schocken Books, 1975). Fiske and Hartley sum- marize several di fferences that 1'd characterize as syntactical in this way: The written word ... works through and so promotes consistency. narrative development from cause to effect. universality and abstraction. clarity. and a single tone of voice. Television. on the other hand. is ephemeral. episodic. Televisual Communication 165 specific. concrete and dramatic in mode. Its meanings are arrived at by contrasts and by the juxtaposition of seemingly contradictory signs and its' logic' is oral and visual. (p. 15) Williams focuses more on what I would characterize as the grammatical level. He notes: "Many people have said that television is essentially a combination and development of earlier forms ... " He goes on to propose, however, that the "adaption of received forms to the new technology has led in a number of cases to significant changes and to some real qualitative differences." (p. 44) Although Williams recognizes that "absolute innovation" is quite rare, he discusses these "significant innovations within forms" and "possibly new forms": (a) a "new kind of drama- documentary" that "relies on what is taken as an intrinsic element of televi- sion: its capacity to enter a situation and show what is actually happening in it" (p. 72); (b) educational television that focuses on "what can best be called educational practice ... directly related to some of the most encouraging methods within formal education itself, trying to experience a process rather than being taught 'about' it" (p. 74); (c) "innovations in styles of discus- sion" that "amount, in effect, to new forms" (p. 75); (d) a mode which combines and ex- tends elements of the essay, the journal and the film documentary" (p. 75); (e) sequences built on "fast-moving disconnection" which he analyzes as "not only responding to a highly mobile society but of responding in some depth" through "a kind of eager openness. a sympathetic curiosity. which is perhaps a truer social use of some of the intrin- sic properties of television than any of the more fixed and confirming social forms." (p. 76). 166 Lenore Langsdorf 17 For a more detailed discussion of the features of these two media, see my "The Emperor Has Only Clothes: Toward a Hermeneutic of the Televisual Text," in Video Icons and Values, ed. Alan Olson (forthcoming) and "Reason- ing Across the Media: Verbal, Visual, and Televisual Literacies, " forthcoming as a Resource Publication from Mont- clair (NJ) State College. 18 Cinema also presents images with this "as if" character. But several features of cinematic experience distinguish it from televisual experience. Perhaps the most important is its public nature, in contrast to the intimacy of televisuality. We must leave home, travel to the theater, deprive ourselves of free move- ment and conversation as well as of familiar surroundings and known com- panions. Awareness of the produced nature of cinematic presentation is thus behaviorally enforced. Also, the cinematic image is larger-than-life, while the televisual image is perceived of as on the same scale as the kinesthetically- produced image. Along with these characteristics of the images produced by these media, there is a crucial difference in amount of exposure-which is likely to influence degree of habituation. My thesis here is that actual standards of reasoning are in- fluenced by modes of communication. It's at least a plausible assumption that more participation-especially when the time spent in engagement in one medium vastly outweights time involved in others-means more influence. The generally cited statistic of 47 hours of televisual engagement per week as the average for North Americans suggests that no other single communication medium exercises the influence of television. 19 These remarks on lack of access to the author do not stem from a hermeneutic such as Schleiermacher's "psychological! divinatory" procedure, which requires access to the author's psyche if the mean- ing of the text is to be understood. Rather, what's needed here is access to the historical and technologal context supporting the message which is aimed at conviction. Thus, it's Schleier- macher's ' 'grammatical' , procedure that's frustrated by television's non- human (technologically produced) authorship. For a discussion of these dif- ferences, see James Duke's introduction to F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics: The Handwritten Manuscripts, ed. H. Kimmerle, J. Duke and J. Forstman, trans. (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 197~. ' The hermeneutical problems here are quite comparable to those of interpeting verbal texts and evaluating their claims. But there is this significant difference: we are very aware, when engaged in discourse or written text, that the con- text of the proposals we're considering is different from our own. There may be substantial overlap, as in conversation between two friends. There may be in- significant overlap, as in reading an an- cient text. But (in the language of infor- mal logic) we expect "missing premises" by virtue of the difference bet- ween what we know and assume, and what the author of the text knows and assumes. Insofar as television purports to be simply a "channel" through which "reality" presents itself, it diminishes that expectation. Thus the conditions for a "critical reading" of televisual text are damaged by the formal features of the medium. An anonymous referee of this paper astutely notes that my argument here "seems intended to establish that televisual communication is simultan- eously more vivid and less accessible than oral discourse or prose." Some ex- amples (as the referee suggests) may help to substantiate "how this might place more severe limits on our analysis of television than on our analysis of words": (a) home life is presented as a series of readily-resolved crises or self- supported pleasures, without interference from recalcitrant sociohistorical struc- tures beyond the walls of the "family room" or mundane needs (houseclean- ing, routine bathroom functions, bill pay- ing) that interfere with dramatic flow in actual reality. Time constraints, the dif- ficulty of keeping audience attention focused on a small image in the midst of a busy and/or cluttered environment, and sponsors' sensitivities are just a few of the factors that dictate omission of the mundane from what's purported to be everyday life. To what degree, 1 then wonder, does this portrayal of purported everyday life influence actual perception of the everyday? (b) conversation is presented in dramatic shows (and especially, in soap operas) without routine background in- terference such as traffic noise, lighting differences due to time of day, insignifi- cant variation from standard grammar and pronunciation, and sensory distrac- tions occasioned by the human body (neck cramps, itching, odors). "Talk- shows" present an even less plausible version of conversation: "hosts" rare- ly move from their positions behind low desks which are themselves set before stylized backgrounds of Los Angeles or New York City; they introduce "guests" with a standardized "now join me in welcoming ... "; guests are almost always show business personalities who discuss banal details at great length and/or their latest productions-but almost never mention economic, political, military, or religious issues of the sort that do come up (albeit in a fleeting and perhaps super- ficial way) in real social gatherings. Alongs with these grammatical struc- tures, there are a multitude of "produc- tion variables" which function as syn- tactical features that insinuate meaning visually: camera angles signify com- parative importance (I cannot actually Televisual Communication 167 alter my natural viewing of a person in keeping with their importance); fadeouts replace step-by-step transitions to other times and places (I must perform those transitions kinesthetically or verbally in actual experience); split -screens allow the simultaneous and equal presence of several persons in widely-separated loca- tions who cannot see one another (although they sometimes "converse" as though they do) and cannot see us (although they often seem to be address- ing themselves to us). Space limitations preclude extensive considerations of these and many more factors having to do with the pace and density of imagery-all of which con- tribute to television's peculiar ability to present meaningful episodes that are both "more vivid and less accessible" than those of other media. My general ques- tion is not whether these are "good" or "bad," but: to what degree must we employ different standards in reasoning so as to understand and assess the pro- posals offered in televisual engagement, and to what degree does habituation to the reasoning that's appropriate for that experience influence reasoning in other media? 20 At this point 1 can only mention, in a speculative footnote, the many parallels between certain contemporary themes in text theory and the nature of television. Specifically, 1 have in mind the fragmen- tary, authorless, and pervasively per- suasive character that deconstructionist criticism ascribes to all text, and indeed to all human interaction. These characteristics are highly appropriate to the televisual engagement that marks contemporary culture. But 1 would argue that they are not pervasive in other forms of communication. 21 This is not to say that viewers who main- tain non-acceptance of a proposed con- nection, are indeed unconvinced. Their behaviour-e.g. in choosing a mate, or 168 Lenore Langsdorf in buying a particular brand of jeans- may well suggest the opposite. Some rather subtle interviewing techniques are needed to determine the accuracy of viewers' claims in regard to influence. 22 The more general phenomenological pro- ject of which this forms a part is the phenomenology of the lifeworld, with particular emphasis on the Husserlian theme of grounding conceptual structures (such as logic) in lifeworld activities. For a more extensive treatment, see my Media and the Evolution of Rationality: An Essay in the Praxiology of Com- munication (in preparation). 23 Several colleagues have contributed to this investigation through discussion of the topic. I would like to thank Mark Battersby, Erazim Kohak, Richard Paul, and Mark Weinstein. Also, I would ex- press my appreciation to an anonymous referee for this journal, whose detailed and perceptive comments on the earlier version of this paper were especially valuable. That earlier version was read at the Third International Symposium on Informal Logic (TISIL) at the Universi- ty of Windsor in June, 1988. I thank the symposium conveners, Ralph Johnson and Tony Blair, and the session audience for the thoughtful discussion. Prof. Lenore Langsdorf, Department of Speech Communication, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901 0