Argumentative Resistance

Abstract

Reasons-based models of argumentation leave one stage under-theorized: the pragmatic transition by which an available argumentative utterance becomes an operative reason for a particular addressee. The prima facie/pro tanto distinction registers that this transition is not automatic, yet places it outside logical theory proper. Terming this the “reason-activation problem,” this paper proposes argumentative resistance: an utterance with a sound argumentative orientation fails to acquire pro tanto status because its inferential effect in the addressee's cognitive and axiological environment falls short of the operative threshold, absent of any cancelling exception, rebuttal, or refutation. A three-layer model drawing on argumentation-in-language theory, relevance theory, and a reasons-based framework distinguishes potential, actual, and relative weight, locating the phenomenon in the gap between the first two. It is a pragmatic complement to, not a critique of, the logical theory of reasons.