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Plausible (eikotic) reasoning known from ancient Greek (late Academic) skeptical philosophy is shown to be a clear notion that can be analyzed by argumentation methods, and that is important for argumentation studies. It is shown how there is a continuous thread running from the Sophists to the skeptical philosopher Carneades, through remarks of Lo...
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Context 1
... structure of the argument used by the larger man to reach his conclusion on what to do can be represented in figure 2 as an argument map. The argument is represented by the node (the rounded figure), while the statements in the argument, the premises and conclusions, are represented as text boxes (leaves). ...
Context 2
... shown in figure 2, the ultimate conclusion is the proposition shown that the extreme left, the statement that the bigger man attacked the smaller man. This is the proposition that has to be proved by the prosecution. ...
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Citations
... Argumentative topoi from classical rhetoric provide us with an interesting angle for studying contemporary argumentative discourse. This is particularly true for the topos of eikos, which has been translated variously as an "eikotic argument" and "plausible reasoning" (Walton et al. 2014;Walton 2019), "(early Greek) probability argument" (Gagarin 1994;Kraus 2007), or "argument from likelihood" (Tindale 2010). The term eikos refers to what is likely from the viewpoint of social expectation (Kraus 2007, p. 5;Hoffman 2008, p. 7;Tindale 2010, p. 82). 2 Generally, eikos arguments appeal to customary behavior, to how people would act in particular circumstances, i.e., to "what a man might logically be supposed to do" (Kennedy 1963, p. 100). ...
... Analyses of both arguments have been presented by Walton (2019) and Walton et al. (2014). The main purpose of these authors is to show that these arguments are instances of plausible reasoning that can be analyzed and evaluated with the computational argumentation tool the Carneades Argumentation System (CAS). ...
... 5). These last three sections also contain a comparison of my own analyses with those of Walton et al. (2014) and Walton (2019). All of the reconstructions can be found in the appendices. ...
This article presents an analysis and evaluation of what I call the “I’m not stupid” argument. This argument has ancient roots, which lie in Aristotle’s famous description of the weak man’s and strong man’s arguments. An “I’m not stupid” argument is typically used in a context of accusation and defense, by a defendant who argues that they did not commit the act of which they have been accused. The analysis of this type of argument takes the shape of an argumentative pattern, which displays a full-fledged representation of its argumentation structure. It is based on a collection of ten contemporary instances of the “I’m not stupid” argument. Although ten instances constitute a small collection, the wide variation in the argumentative elements that they express explicitly or leave implicit made it possible to identify five new key premises in comparison with previous analyses of the weak man’s and strong man’s arguments (Walton, Tindale and Gordon 2014 in Argumentation 28:85–119, 2014; Walton 2019 in Argumentation 33:45–74, 2019). These new premises show that the crucial point of an evaluation of this argument is the arguer's supposedly rational character in making a gain-loss calculation. They also show that we need empirical data to strengthen our analyses of argument schemes and argumentation structures.
... Plausibility is one of the key quality attributes of the strategy to ensure that the process is reliable and implemented as intended to produce consistent outcomes. In plausible reasoning theory, plausible reasoning is driven by a premise and is based on common knowledge and perceptions [75]. Therefore, the strategy aspects should be encoded and described using a standard approach and unified modeling language that is plausible for all actors in higher education. ...
Higher education institutions (HEIs) in many developed and developing countries are facing big challenges in terms of quality in the face of growing global demand. Ensuring quality education is necessary to secure future prosperity and promote sustainable development. Hence; to ensure the success and sustainability of higher strategy; it is necessary for HEIs to improve the quality of strategy implementation processes and address the dynamic complexities of their attributes to identify areas for improvement. However; there are obvious issues associated with strategy implementation related to process modeling; automation; dynamic complexity; and cognitive limitations. This research is a step toward bridging the gap in adopting computational models in the higher education strategy implementation process to foster its automation and promote its sustainability. The aim of this research is to study the phenomenon of computational strategy implementation in the higher education domain using grounded theory to understand the criteria and quality attributes of the strategy implementation process and to generate a descriptive and explanatory model for strategy quality attributes (SQAs) of higher education; which entails the implementation of automated technology and computational models for more effective and sustainable strategy.
... A reverse eikotic argument (Gagarin 1990) is one that pits one eikotic argument against another, apparently resulting in a deadlock where neither party can win, unless they move ahead with further pro-con argumentation. This paper extends the research in Tindale (2010, 69-82) on the use of plausible arguments by the Sophists and the research of Walton et al. (2014) on applying argumentation methods and models to classic ancient Greek examples of plausible reasoning. ...
... Plausible (eikotic) reasoning was not just confined to the ancient philosophers. Walton et al. (2014) showed that there has been a continuous thread of recognition of plausible reasoning running from ancient philosophy through Locke and Bentham that survived the rise of Pascalian probability in the Enlightenment. Walton et al. (2014, 114) set out eleven defining characteristics of plausible reasoning of this sort (paraphrased below). ...
... Plausible reasoning admits of degrees of strength. Walton et al. (2014) applied the Carneades Argumentation System to another classic case of plausible reasoning in the ancient world, the case of the rope and the snake. In this famous example of plausible reasoning, a man sees what looks like a coil of rope in a dark room, but thinking it might be a snake, jumps over it. ...
In this paper it is shown how plausible reasoning of the kind illustrated in the ancient Greek example of the weak and strong man can be analyzed and evaluated using a procedure in which the pro evidence is weighed against the con evidence using formal, computational argumentation tools. It is shown by means of this famous example how plausible reasoning is based on an audience’s recognition of situations of a type they are familiar with as normal and comprehensible in their shared common knowledge. The paper extends previous work on this example by using three new multiagent argumentation schemes closely related to the scheme for argument from negative consequences. © 2018 Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature
... A reverse eikotic argument (Gagarin, 1990) is one that pits one eikotic argument against another, apparently resulting in a deadlock where neither party can win, unless they move ahead with further pro-con argumentation. This paper extends the research in Tindale (2010, 69-82) on the use of plausible arguments by the Sophists and the research of Walton, Tindale and Gordon (2014) on applying argumentation methods and models to classic ancient Greek examples of plausible reasoning. ...
... Plausible (eikotic) reasoning was not just confined to the ancient philosophers. Walton, Tindale and Gordon (2014) showed that there has been a continuous thread of recognition of plausible reasoning running from ancient philosophy through Locke and Bentham that survived the rise of Pascalian probability in the Enlightenment. Walton, Tindale and Gordon (2014, 114) set out eleven defining characteristics of plausible reasoning of this sort (paraphrased below). ...
... Plausible reasoning admits of degrees of strength. Walton, Tindale and Gordon (2014) applied the Carneades Argumentation System to another classic case of plausible reasoning in the ancient world, the case of the rope and the snake. In this famous example of plausible reasoning, a man sees what looks like a coil of rope in a dark room, but thinking it might be a snake, jumps over it. ...
... II. PLAUSIBLE REASONING Plausible Reasoning (PR) represents the plasticity element [16] of human reasoning, which copes with incomplete data by leveraging the semantics of concepts. In contrast to deductive reasoning, which reasons over a complete set of statements to infer a true statement, PR explores a partial set of statements and leverages plausible patterns, based on semantic data associations, to fill in the gaps and infer a plausibly true statement; which represents the best-effort answer in light of what is known so far [10], [17]. Plausible reasoning is (a) nondemonstrative; i.e., capable of exploring new knowledge, (b) ampliative; i.e., generates knowledge beyond the captured knowledge, (c) non-monotonic; i.e., validity of the inferred knowledge depends on the available knowledge, and (d) subjective: i.e., depends on the individual perspective [18]. ...
... One such example is prominently featured in this paper. Walton, Tindale and Gordon (2014) showed that the Carneades Argumentation System (CAS) can be used to model some ancient examples of cumulative argumentation, but needed to be extended to model important features of the ancient snake and rope example of Carneades the philosopher (214/3-129/8 BC), as described in the writings of Sextus Empiricus (Sextus Empiricus, 1938). The new version of CAS described in the present paper, CAS2, was developed explicitly to provide the features required to more fully handle cumulative arguments of the kind illustrated by the snake and rope example. ...
We define a new type of argument structure specifically for modeling cumulative arguments and then show how this structure is general enough to simulate linked and convergent arguments. Argumentation schemes are associated with argument weighing functions in this language, where the weight of an argument can depend on the status (labeling) of its premises in an argument graph. Several key examples are used to illustrate the modeling of cumulative arguments, as well as linked and convergent arguments, with this approach. One hypothesis suggested by the analysis of these examples is that cumulative arguments can be treated in the same way as what is called argument accrual in artificial intelligence.
... One such example is prominently featured in this paper. Walton, Tindale and Gordon (2014) showed that the Carneades Argumentation System (CAS) can be used to model some ancient examples of cumulative argumentation, but needed to be extended to model important features of the ancient snake and rope example of Carneades the philosopher (214/3-129/8 BC), as described in the writings of Sextus Empiricus (Sextus Empiricus, 1938). The new version of CAS described in the present paper, CAS2, was developed explicitly to provide the features required to more fully handle cumulative arguments of the kind illustrated by the snake and rope example. ...
We define a new type of argument structure specifically for modeling cumulative arguments and then show how this structure is general enough to simulate linked and convergent arguments. Argumentation schemes are associated with argument weighing functions in this language, where the weight of an argument can depend on the status (labeling) of its premises in an argument graph. Several key examples are used to illustrate the modeling of cumulative arguments, as well as linked and convergent arguments, with this approach. One hypothesis suggested by the analysis of these examples is that cumulative arguments can be treated in the same way as what is called argument accrual in artificial intelligence.
... The hope is that this set of principles is comprehensive. Whether it is or not, this seems to be the first such set of principles even though plausible reasoning has been used for at least 2500 years (Walton, Tindale, & Gordon, 2014). However on page 114 of (Walton et al., 2014) there is a list of 11 characteristics of plausible reasoning, rather than characteristics of formal logics that do plausible reasoning. ...
... Whether it is or not, this seems to be the first such set of principles even though plausible reasoning has been used for at least 2500 years (Walton, Tindale, & Gordon, 2014). However on page 114 of (Walton et al., 2014) there is a list of 11 characteristics of plausible reasoning, rather than characteristics of formal logics that do plausible reasoning. ...
... Of the 11 characteristics of plausible reasoning given on page 114 of (Walton et al., 2014), characteristic 8 is 'stability'; which seems to mean (bottom of page 97 of (Walton et al., 2014)) that plausible statements are consistent. However, as we shall show, where consistency is concerned the number of plausible statements is important. ...
Plausible reasoning concerns situations whose inherent lack of precision is not quantified; that is, there are no degrees or levels of precision, and hence no use of numbers like probabilities. A hopefully comprehensive set of principles that clarifies what it means for a formal logic to do plausible reasoning is presented. A new propositional logic, called Propositional Plausible Logic (PPL), is defined and applied to some important examples. PPL is the only non-numeric non-monotonic logic we know of that satisfies all the principles and correctly reasons with all the examples. Some important results about PPL are proved.
... Plausible Reasoning (PR) is a weak inferencing approach, used when a deterministic answer to a question is unavailable. In contrast to classical logic, in which a statement is accepted as truth whenever it is a logical consequence of a complete set of true statements, plausible inference reasons over a partial set of true observations to infer a "likely" true statement [4]. In other words, to cope with missing knowledge, plausible reasoning is conducted on the available evidence and experiments; which are typically empirical, inexact, and uncertain. ...
... Based on findings from argumentation studies on the crossroads of philosophy, reasoning, and logic, Tindale [7] and Walton et al. [4] introduce eleven fundamental characteristics of plausible reasoning. Summarizing these characteristics, plausible reasoning can be recognized as a method which is [8][9][10][11]: ...
Background: Capturing complete medical knowledge is challenging-often due to incomplete patient Electronic Health Records (EHR), but also because of valuable, tacit medical knowledge hidden away in physicians’ experiences. To extend the coverage of incomplete medical knowledge-based systems beyond their deductive
closure, and thus enhance their decision-support capabilities, we argue that innovative, multi-strategy reasoning approaches should be applied. In particular, plausible reasoning mechanisms apply patterns from human thought processes, such as generalization, similarity and interpolation, based on attributional, hierarchical, and relational knowledge. Plausible reasoning mechanisms include inductive reasoning, which generalizes the commonalities among the data to induce new rules, and analogical reasoning, which is guided by data similarities to infer new facts. By further leveraging rich, biomedical Semantic Web ontologies to represent medical knowledge, both known and tentative, we increase the accuracy and expressivity of plausible reasoning, and cope with issues such as data heterogeneity, inconsistency and interoperability. In this paper, we present a Semantic Web-based, multi-strategy reasoning approach, which integrates deductive and plausible reasoning and exploits Semantic Web technology to solve complex clinical decision support queries.
Results: We evaluated our system using a real-world medical dataset of patients with hepatitis, from which we randomly removed different percentages of data (5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%) to reflect scenarios with increasing amounts of incomplete medical knowledge. To increase the reliability of the results, we generated 5 independent datasets for each percentage of missing values, which resulted in 20 experimental datasets (in addition to the original dataset). The results show that plausibly inferred knowledge extends the coverage of the knowledge base by, on average, 2%, 7%, 12%, and 16% for datasets with, respectively, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% of missing values. This expansion in the KB coverage allowed solving complex disease diagnostic queries that were previously unresolvable, without losing the correctness of the answers. However,
compared to deductive reasoning, data-intensive plausible reasoning mechanisms yield a significant performance overhead.
Conclusions: We observed that plausible reasoning approaches, by generating tentative inferences and leveraging domain knowledge of experts, allow us to extend the coverage of medical knowledge bases, resulting in improved clinical decision support. Second, by leveraging OWL ontological knowledge, we are able to increase the expressivity and accuracy of plausible reasoning methods. Third, our approach is
applicable to clinical decision support systems for a range of chronic diseases.
... The model has been illustrated using a practical reasoning example about which car to buy, where the weighing function computes a weighted sum of the proven properties of the proposed options, in the style of multi-criteria decision analysis. This model can handle cumulative arguments [19] and argument accrual [13] without causing an exponential blow-up in the number of arguments. While the model does not map structured arguments to abstract arguments, it is inspired by the fix-point semantics of abstract argumentation frameworks and uses comparable methods to handle and resolve cycles in argument graphs. ...
Dung intended his abstract argument frameworks to be used for model-ing a particular form of human argumentation, where arguments attack each other and are evaluated following the principle summarized by " The one who has the last word laughs best. " However this form does not fit a wide class of arguments, which is arguably more prototypical and common in human argumentation, namely arguments where pros and cons are balanced to choose among alternative options. Here we present a formal model of structured argument which generalizes Dung abstract argumentation frameworks to also handle balancing. Unlike most other models of structured argument, this model does not map structured arguments to abstract arguments. Rather it generalizes abstract argumentation frameworks, allowing them to be simulated using structured arguments. The model can handle cumulative arguments (" accrual ") without causing an exponential blowup in the number of arguments and has been fully implemented in Version 4 of the Carneades Argumenta-tion System.
