The Assessment of Argumentation from Expert Opinion Jean H. M. Wagemans

Abstract In this contribution, I will develop a comprehensive tool for the
reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation from expert opinion. This is done by
analyzing and then combining two dialectical accounts of this type of argumentation.
Walton’s account of the ‘appeal to expert opinion’ provides a number of
useful, but fairly unsystematic suggestions for critical questions pertaining to
argumentation from expert opinion. The pragma-dialectical account of ‘argumentation
from authority’ offers a clear and systematic, but fairly general framework for
the reconstruction and evaluation of this type of argumentation. The tool is
developed by incorporating Walton’s critical questions into a pragma-dialectical
framework.
Keywords Argumentation from expert opinion  Argument scheme 
Critical questions  Walton  Pragma-dialectics