C228 Argumentation and Public Advocacy
Professor: John Lucaites
Associate Instructor: Chris Gilbert and Cortney Smith
"Violence is the last resort of the incompetent."
Salvo Hardin in Isaac Asimov's
The Foundation Trilogy
"... for every argument there is an equal and weighty counterargument."
Protagoras of Abdera
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C228 Argumentation and Public Advocacy is an intensive
introductory level course on the theory, practice, and criticism of public
advocacy - the use of propositions, evidence, reasons, and the general
rhetorical strategies of symbolic action to promote and advance one's public
or civic interests. The course operates with the assumption that
liberal-democratic polity relies on the ability of its citizens to be active
and critical producers and consumers of public arguments as part of a
reasoned process of collective decision-making. This is not to suggest that
public or political decision making in a liberal-democratic society is always
rational or reasonable - or even that reason and rationality are the only or
most productive ways to effect social and political change - but it is to
suggest that we would all be better off if we were to master the fundamental
skills of rhetoric and argumentation as a primary means to represent and
protect our own best interests as members of the polity. The course also
operates with the assumption that one can best learn the skills of public
advocacy through a rigorous combination of theory and practice. Accordingly,
the course will be divided between lectures designed to identify and
elaborate the theoretical precepts of public advocacy - the norms and
assumptions that tend to guide successful public argumentation - and
exercises (both formal and informal) designed to allow students to practice
the fundamental skills of public argumentation. |
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