Assist. Prof. Merve Aktar, a faculty member in the Department of Comparative Literature at Ibn Haldun University, participated as an invited speaker in the Ethics of Argumentation Speaker Series 2025, organized by the Argumentation Network of the Americas on September 5, 2025. She presented her work titled “The Saving Grace of Uncertainty: Reimagining (Un)Reasonable Responsibility in Argument.” In her presentation, she invited the audience to rethink the notion of the “autonomous and fully rational subject” that underpins argumentative practice, as well as the virtue of “reasonableness” that shapes this understanding.
Addressing current debates on the ethical dimensions of argumentation, Assist. Prof. Aktar underscored the central role of responsibility in the process of argumentative interactions, noting that traditional models continue to limit the concept to a self-possessed rational agent assumed to have full control over their actions, emotions, and motivations.
Offering an interdisciplinary perspective, Assist. Prof. Aktar’s talk opened new avenues for discussing the intersections of virtue argumentation theory and literary theory.
