“Environmental Argumentation” (SI: Journal of Argumentation in Context, John Benjamins, 2019)

“Environmental Argumentation”, special issue of the Journal of Argumentation in Context 8:1 (2019), edited by ArgLab researchers Marcin Lewiński and Mehmet Ali Üzelgün has just been published.

The authors in this special issue investigate a rather peculiar and challenging context of environmental argumentation. This context is first characterised by four key features: 1) epistemic complexity and uncertainty; 2) value-based argumentation; 3) high stakes and many levels; 4) plurality of positions, players, and places. These features are then studied in more detail in individual contributions. The papers in the issue point to the multifarious, or: polylogical, character of environmental argumentation, where the scope of analysis needs to extend well beyond two parties orderly discussing pros and cons of a single proposal. They focus on the value-based practical (policy) rather than value-free theoretical (epistemic) arguments as main vehicles of environmental discourse. They also reveal the constraints for argumentation in extant institutional settings where many decisions are taken (global negotiations, national parliaments, local councils), and point to the possibly fallacious aspects of such current argumentation. Finally, they reveal the role of media, old (TV) and new (Internet), for the circulation of arguments over environment.