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In this paper we investigate the extent to which formal argumentation models can handle ten basic characteristics of informal logic identified in the informal logic literature. By showing how almost all of these characteristics can be successfully modelled formally, we claim that good progress can be made toward the project of formalizing informal...
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... a serial argument, often called a chain argument, the conclusion of one argument also functions as a premise in a se- cond argument, and so forth, forming a chain of arguments. Typical Carneades argument maps display lots of chained argu- ments, as the example in figure 4 shows. This map includes an example of a con argument, indicat- ed by the minus sign in the node at the bottom left. ...
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... example the implicit premise 'Attributing painting P is in the domain of art' can be added to the top argument. Figure 4 can also be used to illustrate how an argument graph can be evaluated by the computational model. Statement and argument nodes are evaluated to be one of three values: in, out, or undecided. ...
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... and argument nodes are evaluated to be one of three values: in, out, or undecided. In figure 4, the five in nodes representing statements that the audience accepts, are shown filled with gray (green normally, but since we can't use color here, they are shown in gray). Statements that the audience rejects, out nodes, are filled with a red color, but none of these are shown in this example. ...
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... a proposition is in or out initially is determined by whether or not the audience accepts it. In figure 4, the audience has accepted all the five propositions shown in boxes with gray backgrounds. The only propositions the audience does not accept (at least so far) are the two shown with white backgrounds. ...
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Citations
... In the 2015 edition of the Carneades system, for instance, Walton and Gordon (2015) use the set of values out, undecided, in and the set of weights consisting of the real numbers of the interval [0, 1]. Tokarz (2005), by contrast, uses the set of values {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} and the scale of weights (nil, weak, moderate, strong, deductive) as defined by Thomas (1986). ...
... The initial evaluation function corresponds to premise acceptability, the weighing function to premise relevance, and a combination of both values and weights to premise sufficiency. The evaluation also complies with general conditions that any satisfactory formal theory of informal logic should meet (see Walton & Gordon, 2015). ...
Different approaches analyze the strength of a natural language argument in different ways. This paper contrasts the dialectical , structural , probabilistic (or Bayesian), computational , and empirical approaches by exemplarily applying them to a single argumentative text ( Epicureans on Squandering Life ; Aikin & Talisse, 2019). Rather than pitching these approaches against one another, our main goal is to show the room for fruitful interaction. Our focus is on a dialectical analysis of the squandering argument as an argumentative response that voids an interlocutor’s right to assertion. This analysis addresses the pragmatic dimensions of arguing and implies an argument structure that is consistent with empirical evidence of perceived argument strength. Results show that the squandering argument can be evaluated as a (non-fallacious) ad hominem argument, which however is not necessarily stronger than possible arguments attacking it.
... Si la presume, entonces la noción de 2 La definición de suficiencia la amplían conjuntamente en el prefacio a la edición de 2006 de Logical Self-Defense (1979), pero también cada uno por separado en otras publicaciones (por ejemplo, Ralph Johnson 2000 y Anthony Blair en una colección de ensayos publicado el 2012). 3 Impulsado por el trabajo pionero de Johnson y Blair, un grupo de investigadores de la lógica informal pero también de otras corrientes en el campo de los estudios de la argumentación, ha elaborado y aplicado estos conceptos en varias direcciones: por ejemplo, Trudy Govier (1985) y Douglas Walton (2015) en la lógica informal, y Francisca Snoeck Henkemans (1992) en la pragma-dialéctica. suficiencia pragma-dialéctica se corresponde con el concepto dialéctico de Johnson y Blair; de lo contrario, pareciera corresponderse con el retórico. ...
El propósito de este artículo es elaborar un concepto de suficiencia que tome en cuenta la naturaleza derrotable de buena parte de los argumentos que empleamos en nuestras discusiones cotidianas, y que a su vez sea útil para evaluarlos en la práctica. Con este fin se revisan definiciones propuestas por diversas teorías de la argumentación de orientación lógica, retórica y dialéctica, para luego proponer una definición que integra coherentemente elementos de las distintas aproximaciones. Esta definición es complementada con una especificación del significado de los términos clave que la componen, con lo cual se pretende dar respuesta a tres preguntas que han estado al centro del debate sobre la suficiencia: ¿qué tipo de impugnaciones puede formular la contraparte a la inferencia de una argumentación derrotable?; ¿qué deberíamos entender por “la contraparte” en una discusión dada?; y ¿qué significa hacerse cargo de esas impugnaciones de manera exitosa?
... also Walton 2005, p. 9). And in a respective paper, he and Gordon try to show that ten characteristics of informal logic can be captured by a "formalization" inherent in the programme of the computer representation and application of argument schemes, viz., the linked-convergent distinction, serial arguments, relevance, acceptability of premises, sufficiency of premises, etc. (Walton and Gordon 2015). ...
The article critically discusses Walton’s (and co-authors’) argument scheme approach to good argumentation. Four characteristics of Walton’s approach are presented: 1. Argument schemes provide normative requirements. 2. These schemata are enthymematic. 3. There are associated critical questions. 4. The method is inductive, abstracting schemata from groups of similar arguments. Four adequacy conditions are applied to these characteristics: AC1: effectiveness in achieving the epistemic goal of obtaining and communicating justified acceptable opinions; AC2: completeness in capturing the good argument types; AC3: efficiency in achieving the goals; AC4: justification of the argument schemes. The discussion reveals weaknesses in Walton’s account, including they are neither effective nor truly justified. A better alternative is an epistemological approach based on epistemological principles.
... A collection of argumentation schemes can not, by itself, formalize or axiomatize a logic, because argumentation schemes are expressed informally, in natural language, and are not sufficiently abstract, as they contain domain-specific terms and predicates. Although it is possible to formalize argumentation schemes (Walton and Gordon 2015), it is then the schemes which are being formalized, rather than being used as tools to formalize a logic. This is not the place to try to assess Doug's contributions to the study of argumentation schemes, to try to clarify exactly which parts of his work on argumentation schemes was original or can be attributed to prior work from other sources. ...
... But perhaps the most significant example was published in 2015 in Informal Logic, entitled paradoxically and hopefully provocatively Formalizing Informal Logic (Walton and Gordon 2015). The field of informal logic was founded in the 1950s at a time when formal logic was synonymous with first-order predicate logic. ...
Doug Walton, who died in January 2020, was a prolific author whose work in informal logic and argumentation had a profound influence on Artificial Intelligence, including Artificial Intelligence and Law. He was also very interested in interdisciplinary work, and a frequent and generous collaborator. In this paper seven leading researchers in AI and Law, all past programme chairs of the International Conference on AI and Law who have worked with him, describe his influence on their work.
... According to this coding tool, Table 1 shows an example of each. This coding is based on the idea that a main critical thinking skill manifested in argumentative discourse is the ability to look through the eyes of the other, namely to consider counter-arguments and respond to them adequately (Walton, 1989;Glassner & Schwarz, 2007). Therefore, units coded as "M-" and "O+", considering/supporting the other side, are considered of higher quality than units coded as "M+" and "O-", supporting "my side" (for the importance of avoiding the so-called "my side" bias, see also Baron, 1995;Wolfe & Britt, 2008). ...
Fifty adolescents distributed from 7th and 10th grades participated in a ten-session argumentation program, as part of which they produced dialogues and written texts on the topic of whether or not Portugal should receive more refugees. Applying the framework of social identity and intergroup threat theories, we found that the causes of flight and seeking asylum are the most important reasons, expressed by 80% of adolescent students, for welcoming refugees. While students' concern regarding the ascribed characteristics of refugees was of minor importance, both age groups reported a significant concern with the decline of the host group's socioeconomic conditions. Also, despite the fact that all students were exposed to information and facts that could inform their views, their discourse still contained argumentative reasoning fallacies such as hasty generalization and appeal to fear. Based on these findings, we recommend explicit work in education on engaging students in cultural literacy practices.
... En este trabajo, haré uso del principio de caridad con Hobbes (Walton, 2008) y trataré de interpretar su obra de forma tal que sea lo más adecuado para dar apoyo a su conclusión. En esta interpretación no dejaré a un lado un detalle que considero de una importancia capital para la plena comprensión de su obra política, y que si bien siempre se reconoce, no siempre se tiene en cuenta: Hobbes fue un maestro de la retórica, por tanto, una valoración exegética a partir de una lectura literal del texto errará necesariamente el blanco. ...
Este libro explora el problema de la construcción de una ciencia civil en la obra de Thomas Hobbes y el papel que juega en ella el Individualismo y la motivación política de los sujetos.
... This can be a difficult task exactly because of the all-encompassing nature of informal logic, which widely covers human reasoning, and its emphasis on the practical aspects of this resulting from the emersion of informal reasoning in real-life settings. There are several works aiming to capture informal logic in a precise formal setting such as that found in the article "Formalizing informal logic" (Walton and Gordon 2015) where informal logic is placed in the formal argumentation framework setting of the Carneades argumentation system (Gordon and Walton 2006). This paper is concerned with the question in the other direction: how can formal logic be captured within the framework of informal logic and argumentation? ...
This paper presents a way in which formal logic can be understood and reformulated in terms of ar-gumentation that can help us unify formal and informal reasoning. Classical deductive reasoning will be expressed entirely in terms of notions and concepts from argumentation so that formal logical entailment is equivalently captured via the arguments t h a t wi n between those supporting concluding formulae and arguments supporting contradictory formulae. This allows us to go beyond Classical Logic and smoothly connect it with human reasoning , thus providing a uniform argu-mentation-based view of both informal and formal logic. Résumé: Cet article montre comment la logique formelle peut être comprise et reformulée en termes d'argumenta-tion de manière à nous aider à unifier le raisonnement formel et non formel. Le raisonnement déductif classique sera entièrement exprimé en termes de notions et de concepts issus de l'argumen-tation, de sorte que l'implication lo-gique formelle soit saisie de manière équivalente via les arguments gagnants entre ceux qui soutiennent les formules de conclusion et ceux qui soutiennent des formules contradictoires. Cela nous permet d'aller au-delà de la lo-gique classique et de la relier facile-ment au raisonnement humain, fournis-sant ainsi une vision uniforme, basée sur une argumentation, de la logique non formelle et formelle.
... find that "[c]onductive arguments […] certainly do seem to be defeasible, and if defeasibility implies inconclusiveness, in Adler's sense of the term, then Blair is certainly right to reject Adler's rejection of conductive arguments." Selinger and Koszowy (2016, 233) specify a "list of requirements collected by Walton and Gordon [2015] that informal logic has to meet." A central item is to "recognize the degrees of acceptability of an argument's premises and conclusion" (ibid.), ...
When Carl Wellman (1971) introduced the reasoning-type conduction, he endorsed a dialectical view on natural language argumentation. Contemporary scholarship, by contrast, treats conductive argument predominantly on a product view. Not only did Wellman’s reasons for a dialectical view thus fall into disregard; a product-treatment of conduction also flouts the standard semantics of ‘argument’. Attempting to resolve these difficulties, our paper traces Wellman’s preference for a dialectical view to the role of defeasible warrants. These act as stand-ins for (parts of) value hierarchies that arguers of normal suasory inclination find acceptable. We also improve on extant ways of diagramming conduction and distinguish two of its structural variants.
... For the purpose of analyzing the argumentation in the weak and strong man example, we will need two familiar argumentation schemes and three new ones. The first one is already known in the argumentation literature (Verheij 1999;Walton 2002;Walton et al. 2008;Walton and Gordon 2015). It is called defeasible modus ponens, and can be introduced by comparing it with deductive modus ponens, a basic form of argument in deductive logic. ...
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
... In this sense, the representation (or "demonstration") of the speaker's commitments can be conceived as a conclusion of an implicit interpretive argument, grounded on textual, contextual, and conversational evidence. The speaker is held responsible for the contents directly resulting from his strong communicative intention, namely the ones relevant to the conversation, supported through a pattern of reasoning the implicit conclusion that constitutes the goal of such a discourse or part of discourse (Lascarides, Copestake, & Briscoe, 1996;van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004;Walton, 1989Walton, , 2003Walton, , 2004. In case of weak or non-strong commitments, resulting from pragmatic processes that are not overtly connected with his strong communicative intention (namely not clearly relevant in the specific context), the quotation can be extremely dangerous and fallacious, unless adequately backed by reasons fulfilling a burden of quotation. ...
This paper builds a nine-step method for determining whether a straw man fallacy has been committed in a given case or not, by starting with some relatively easy textbook cases and moving to more realistic and harder cases. The paper shows how the type of argument associated with the fallacy can be proved to be a fallacy in a normative argumentation model, and then moves on to the practical task of building a hands-on method for applying the model to real examples of argumentation. Insights from linguistic pragmatics are used to distinguish the different pragmatic processes involved in reconstructing what is said and what is meant by an utterance, and to differentiate strong and weak commitments. In particular, the process of interpretation is analyzed in terms of an abductive pattern of reasoning, based on co-textual and contextual information, and assessable through the instruments of argumentation theory.
