ARGUMENTATION SCHEMES AND COMMUNITIES OF ARGUMENTATIONAL PRACTICE

Abstract. Is it possible to distinguish communities of arguers by tracking the argumentation schemes they employ? There are many ways of relating schemes to communities, but not all are productive. Attention must be paid not only to the admissibility of schemes within a community of argumentational practice, but also to their comparative frequency. Two examples are discussed: in-formal mathematics, a convenient source of well-documented argumentational practice, and anthropological evidence of nonstandard reasoning. 1. What is a Community of Argumentational Practice? My use of the phrase ‘community of argumentational practice ’ consciously echoes the discussion of communities of practice initiated by Jean Lave and EtienneWenger (1991), which has become influential in the theory of knowledge management. While I shall not attempt to follow their methodology in any detail, their char-acterization of a community of practice provides a convenient starting point. Such communities are defined by three components: domain, community, and practice. The domain comprises the subject matter of interest to the community, the com-munity is the people employing the practice, and the practice represents a shared body of relevant techniques: The term practice... denotes a set of socially defined ways of do-ing things in a specific domain: a set of common approaches and shared standards that create a basis for action, communication, problem solving, performance and accountability. These communal resources include a variety of knowledge types: cases and stories