In a recent interview, Karen Maex, rector magnificus of the University of Amsterdam, talks about the value of the art of argumentation. She emphasizes that science is more than facts: “It’s important not only to understand the facts, which of course are there, but also the reasoning behind it and how you come to new facts and to new knowledge.”
Maex mentions the IIS Honours Module From Fact-Checking to Argument-Checking and highlights the importance of argument-checking: “I think we need that for our society, we need that for our future, with the big challenges in all places, the different views in communities and also sometimes very rough debates which are not based on scientific information […] I think this is extremely valuable, the art of argumentation.”
The IIS Honours Module she refers to has been developed by Jean Wagemans, coordinator of the research group Language and Cognition in Argumentation (LANCAR) at the ACLC, and by Federica Russo, researcher at the ILLC and research affiliate at LANCAR. The course draws on insights from their research project on Argument-Checking, which aims to contribute to the improvement of people’s rhetorical literacy and critical thinking skills by developing procedures for assessing and producing arguments that are embedded in an ethical framework for argumentation.
Watch the short video in which Karen Maex talks with Jessica Piotrowski about argument-checking and the value of the art of argumentation:
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