Clearly this type of reasoning has an argumentation scheme. One premisedefines or describes a goal. The other premise describes a means of achieving thegoal. The conclusion directs the agent towards action to carry out the means.6But this type of reasoning is so common and distinctive, having manyvariants and subspecies of argumentation, that it is misleading to call it anargumentation scheme. Better to call it a type of reasoning that can be used inargumentation in different types of dialogue (as in Walton, What Reas., 1990).

A person who puts forward an argumentation anticipates criticism, and bychoosing a particular type of argumentation, using the one argumentationscheme rather than the other, he implies that he thinks he knows which routewill lead to the justification of his standpoint. At any rate, whether he reallythinks this or not, if he is to be taken seriously by the other party, he may beheld to be committed to deal with the critical questions which pertain to ajustification via the argumentation scheme that is inherent in his argumentation.In relying on a certain argumentation scheme, the arguer invokes a particular testing method in a dialectical procedure, in which certain criticalreactions are relevant, and others not. Each argumentation scheme calls, as itwere, for its own set of critical reactions. In conjunction with each other,these reactions constitute a well-rounded test for checking the soundness of anargumentation of the type concerned. (p. 98)This way of describing argumentation schemes suggests that they are normativelybinding, in the following sense. If the hearer accepts the premises of the speaker'sargument, and the argument is an instance of a genuine and appropriate argumentation scheme (for the type of dialogue they are engaged in), then the hearer mustor should (in some binding way) accept the conclusion. This does not appear to be"validity" in the same sense in which the word is familiarly used in deductive (orperhaps even inductive) logic. But it does appear to express a normative or broadlylogical sense of validity, bindingness, conditional acceptability, or whatever youwant to call it

Instead, we hope to show, theseargumentation schemes can best be revealed as normatively binding kinds ofreasoning when seen as moves, or speech acts in the setting of dialogue. In thispragmatic framework, two participants are reasoning together in a goal-directed,interactive, conventionalized framework called a dialogue. An argument is evaluated as good (correct, reasonable) to the extent that it contributes to the goal of thedialogue. An argument is evaluated as bad (incorrect, fallacious) to the extent thatit blocks the goals of the dialogue.