UniCa - Università degli studi di Cagliari
Philosophy, Epistemology, Human Sciences Doctoral Course

Metaphor and argumentation

Doctoral Program in Philosophy, Epistemology, and Human Sciences

University of Cagliari, Department of Education, Psychology, and Philosophy

Course title: Metaphor and argumentation

Number of hours: 10

Teacher (e-mail and relevant subject area(s)): Francesca Ervas, ervas@unica.it, M-FIL/05

Short bio/bibliography: Francesca Ervas is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Language and Coordinator of the Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Sciences at the Department of Education, Psychology, and Philosophy at the University of Cagliari. She received her PhD in Philosophy and Theory of Human Sciences from Roma Tre University. She has been a Research Fellow in Philosophy of Language at Roma Tre University, a Visiting Post-Doc at the Department of Linguistics at University College London, a Post-Doc at the Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and the University of Cagliari. She has been a Visiting Professor at the Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NIAS) in Amsterdam. Her research interests include figurative language, experimental pragmatics, the theory of reasoning and argumentation, and translation theory..

Delivery method: in person and online

Meeting schedule:

  • May 21, 2026, 9:00 AM – 12:15 PM
  • May 25, 2026, 9:00 AM – 12:15 PM
  • May 28, 2026, 9:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Classroom and/or Link: classroom to be defined; link: General | Metaphor and Argumentation | Microsoft Teams

Language: English

Preliminary knowledge required: none

Brief course description: The course provides basic knowledge, in the theory of metaphor and argumentation, to understand how metaphor can play an argumentative and/or persuasive role in a variety of argumentative schemes. Specifically, the course aims to demonstrate how an experimental approach can reveal the effects of metaphors, distinguished by their conventionality and affective valence, in different types of argumentative fallacies (e.g., the quaternio terminorum, the fallacy ad populum, the fallacy ad misericordiam, the fallacy ad hominem, etc.). It will demonstrate how the persuasive effect of metaphor depends on reasoning conditions in specific discourse genres, such as those related to healthcare communication.

Internal structure of the seminar meetings: the course is divided into three meetings:

  1. The first meeting will lay out the theoretical foundations of the study of metaphor within various argumentative frameworks. (May 21, 2026)
  2. The second meeting will illustrate the main experimental results on the persuasive effect of metaphors in various types of argumentative fallacies. (May 25, 2026)
  3. The third meeting will present some studies on the effect of metaphorical framing in health communication. (May 28, 2026)

Bibliographic references::

  • Black, M. (1954). Metaphor. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 55, 273–294. doi: 10.1093/aristotelian/55.1.273
  • Carston, R. (1997). Enrichment and Loosening: Complementary Processes in Deriving the Proposition Expressed?. In: Rolf, E. (eds) Pragmatik. Linguistische Berichte. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-11116-0_7  
  • Carston, R. (2002). Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Carston, R. (2010). Metaphor: Ad hoc concepts, literal meaning and mental images. Proceedings of the Aristotelian society 110, 295-321.
  • Ervas, F. (2022). Feeling the extraordinary in ordinary language: familiarity and linguistic intimacy. Metodo, 10(1), 179-206. DOI:10.19079/metodo.10.1.179
  • Ervas, F., Gola, E., Ledda, A., & Sergioli, G. (2015). Lexical ambiguity in elementary inferences: an experimental study. Discipline filosofiche: XXV, 1, 2015, 149-172.
  • Ervas F, Ledda A, Ojha A, Pierro GA and Indurkhya B (2018) Creative Argumentation: When and Why People Commit the Metaphoric Fallacy. Front. Psychol. 9:1815. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01815
  • Ervas, F., Ledda, A., Pierro, A. (2016). “Does expertise favour the Detection of the Metaphoric Fallacy?,” in The Psychology of Argument, eds. L. Bonelli, S. Felletti, F. Paglieri (London: London College Publication), 223-243.
  • Ervas, F., Rossi, MG., Ojha, A. and Indurkhya, B. (2021). The Double Framing Effect of Emotive Metaphors in Argumentation. Frontiers in Psychology 12:628460. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.628460
  • Ervas, F., & Mosca, O. (2024). An experimental study on the evaluation of metaphorical ad hominem arguments. Informal Logic, 44(2), 249-277. https://doi.org/10.22329/il.v44i2.8439
  • Macagno, F., and Zavatta, B. (2014). Reconstructing metaphorical meaning. Argumentation 28, 453–488. DOI: 10.1007/s10503-014-9329-z
  • Oswald, S., & Rihs, A. (2014). Metaphor as argument: Rhetorical and epistemic advantages of extended metaphors. Argumentation, 28, 133-159. DOI 10.1007/s10503-013-9304-0
  • Schumann, J., Zufferey, S., & Oswald, S. (2021). The Linguistic Formulation of Fallacies Matters: The Case of Causal Connectives. Argumentation, 35, 361-388. Doi: 10.1007/s10503-020-09540-0
  • Van Eemeren, F. H., Garssen, B., Krabbe E.C.W, Snoeck Henkemans, A.F., Verheij, B., Wagemans J.H.M. (2014). Handbook of Argumentation Theory. Springer: New York-London.
  • Van Poppel, L. (2021). The Study of Metaphor in Argumentation Theory. Argumentation 35, 177-208. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-020-09523-1
  • Walton, D. N. (1980). Why Is the ‘ad Populum’ a Fallacy? Philosophy & Rhetoric, 13(4), 264-278.

Final evaluation: no

Other useful information: year 1, 2, 3, 10 hours total, no final evaluation. Paths: Philosophy and History of concepts; Logic and epistemology; Pedagogical and psychological sciences.