Chapter 6
Strategic maneuvering in medical consultations
When doctors and patients argue their case, they are always
confronted with the “argumentative predicament” that all argumentative moves
they make need to be reasonable and effective at the same time. To reconcile
the simultaneous pursuit of maintaining reasonableness and aiming for
effectiveness, in medical consultations strategic maneuvering is required.
Strategic maneuvering has three aspects, which affect each other mutually:
selection from the topical potential of argumentative moves, adaptation to
audience demand, and exploitation of presentational devices. In a medical
consultation, strategic maneuvering takes place in all stages of the
argumentative process and each argumentative move has both a reasonableness
dimension and an effectiveness dimension. A series of argumentative moves is
said to combine into a fully-fledged argumentative strategy when the three
aspects of strategic maneuvering are coordinated within each argumenatiave
move, as well as across all consecutive argumentative moves that are part of
the series. When the doctor’s or the patient’s strategic maneuvering
derails, this results in fallacies, which may easily go unnoticed by the
other party because fallacious argumentative moves have a similar appearance
as sound argumentative moves.
Article outline
- 6.1Aiming for effectiveness while maintaining reasonableness
- 6.2Three aspects of strategic maneuvering in medical consultations
- 6.3Strategic maneuvering in the various stages of the argumentative
process
- 6.4Argumentative strategies in medical consultations
- 6.5Fallacies as derailments of strategic maneuvering
- Essentials
- Further readings
- Exercises