Formal philosophy of argumentation: the logic-cognitive theory of Elena Lisanuyk

In the article, the author discusses Elena Lisanyuk's logic-cognitive theory of argumentation (LCT) and tries to show that it belongs to the sphere of "formal philosophy", whose ideology is formed by a combination of a 'logicistic' tendency towards total formalisation with a critical mindset aimed at the analysis of linguistic material. The argumentative interaction in LCT has the form of a dispute, which falls into three kinds: rationale, persuasion and practical argumentation. The formal apparatus of LCT is based on Phan Dung's logical theory of argument structures and echoes Henry Prakken's formal systems of argumentation. Rationale, persuasion and practical argumentation are modeled by formal means of LCT, where an argumentation system with specific properties is constructed for each type of dispute. Formal results concerning the possibility for non-trivial conflict-free sets of arguments to expand up to stable and encompassing extensions of their own make it possible, within the framework of the minimal system, to strictly express the properties of the weak and strong consistency of the position in the dispute-rationale. For the formal representation of the dispute-persuasion in LCT, a standard system is constructed, assuming the no longer "trustworthy" but "skeptical" semantics of the description of positions. The "internal" criterion of consistency is replaced here with the "external" criterion of persuasiveness, so that the opponent recognises only an argument that is safe from all attacks. The position is convincing if all its arguments are protected from all attacks of arguments of other positions. The weak point of LCT is the naivety of the terminological apparatus of the theory of argumentation: special meanings of word-terms are interwoven, first, with their ordinary meaning and, second, with their non-terminological use in the language of science. Their systematic differentiation for the whole theory requires the deepening of either cognitive (empirically oriented) or logical (theoretically oriented) components, but not the two of them together. In general, Lisanyuk's logical-cognitive theory of argumentation creates a good basis for the analysis of a wide range of communication phenomena, and is immaculate in relation to logical methodology, since it consistently differentiates the logical core and external data.

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