Abstract

The Logocratic Method, and the Logocratic theory that underwrites it, provide a philosophical explanation of three purposes or goals that arguers have for their arguments: to make arguments that are internally strong, or that are dialectically strong, or that are rhetorically strong. This article presents the basic terms and methods of Logocratic analysis and then uses a case study to illustrate the Logocratic explanation of arguments. Highlights of this explanation are: the use of a virtue framework to explicate the three strengths and weaknesses of arguments that are of greatest interest to arguers in many contexts, the Logocratic explication of the structure of abduction generally and of legal abduction specifically, the concept of a system of arguments, and the concept of the dynamic interactive virtue of arguments—a property of systems of arguments in which the system of arguments as a whole is as virtuous as are the component arguments that comprise the system. This is especially important since, according to Logocratic theory, some arguments, such as abduction and analogical argument, are themselves comprised of different logical forms.