The three bases for the enthymeme: A dialogical theory (Q946575)

An enthymeme is an argument with at least one statement (premises, lemma, or conclusion) left implicit. The identification of what is implicit remains a problem. In this paper, recent developments in argumentation technology -- argumentation schemes, argument visualisation tools, formal dialogue systems in the sense of Hamblin -- are drawn upon to develop a theory of enthymemes, employing three bases: (1) the commitment stores of the participants (the appeal to implicit commitments is contrary to the tradition of Hamblin); (2) (possibly presumptive) argument schemes; (3) a context-relative set of common knowledge propositions. The theory is illustrated by applying it to three examples.