Methodik der Argumentationsanalyse

This book is an attempt to propose a method which will render possible a systematical analysis of argumentations and a critical investigation with regard to their self-claims of rationality. Here »argumentation« is understood as a specific form of linguistic communication (discourse) which serves the explicit creation of a rationally motivated agreement (consensus). This form of communication is necessary whenever coordination of action is required for the self-preservation of society that cannot otherwise be achieved (through monological claims of power or resources of sense implied by tradition). In this situation, reasons of validity alone are able to redeem claims of validity. The proposed method tries step by step to reconstruct this procedure of argumentative effort of understanding: the required basic terms will be introduced systematically and will be established in the theory of argumentation. Furthermore, selected methods developed in pertinent literature will be adopted. Based on the reconstructed problem-situation which - as a situative crisis about understanding - actually evokes the need for argumentative effort of understanding, particular micro- or macrostructural steps of analysis. In particular, this book addresses readers who are not (yet) infected by the »fatigue of reason« that becomes increasingly popular but who hope for a possible solution of urgent problems in reason come into practice in the argumentative process of communication. This book wants to encourage this hope.