In this contribution, I will develop a comprehensive tool for the reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation from expert opinion. This is done by analyzing and then combining two dialectical accounts of this type of argumentation. Walton’s account of the ‘appeal to expert opinion’ provides a number of useful, but fairly unsystematic suggestions for critical questions pertaining to argumentation from expert opinion. The pragma-dialectical account of ‘argumentation from authority’ offers a clear and systematic, but fairly general framework for the reconstruction and (...) evaluation of this type of argumentation. The tool is developed by incorporating Walton’s critical questions into a pragma-dialectical framework. (shrink)

In this paper, we formulate a procedure for assessing reasoning as it is expressed in natural arguments. The procedure is a specification of one of the three aspects of argumentation assessment distinguished in the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation that makes use of the argument categorisation framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments. The theoretical framework and practical application of both the CAPNA and the PTA are described, as well as the evaluation procedure that combines the two. The procedure (...) is illustrated through an evaluation of the reasoning of two example arguments from a recently published text. (shrink)

The practice of justifying scientific explanations generates argumentative patterns in which several types of arguments may play a role. This paper is aimed at identifying these patterns on the basis of an exploration of the institutional conventions regarding the nature, the shape and the quality of scientific explanations as reflected in the writings of influential philosophers of science. First, a basic pattern for justifying scientific explanations is described. Then, two types of extensions of this pattern are presented. These extensions are (...) derived from philosophical accounts of requirements for the quality of explanations and the choice of the best explanation from a number of candidate explanations respectively. The description of the second extension will make clear how pragmatic argumentation plays a role in argumentative patterns within the scientific domain. (shrink)

In this paper, we use a pseudo-algorithmic procedure for assessing an AI-generated text. We apply the Comprehensive Assessment Procedure for Natural Argumentation (CAPNA) in evaluating the arguments produced by an Artificial Intelligence text generator, GPT-3, in an opinion piece written for the Guardian newspaper. The CAPNA examines instances of argumentation in three aspects: their Process, Reasoning and Expression. Initial Analysis is conducted using the Argument Type Identification Procedure (ATIP) to establish, firstly, that an argument is present and, secondly, its specific (...) type in terms of the argument classification framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments (PTA). Procedural Questions are then used to test the acceptability of the argument in each of the three aspects. The analysis shows that while the arguments put forward by the AI text generator are varied in terms of their type and follow familiar patterns of human reasoning, they contain obvious weaknesses. From this we can conclude that the automated generation of persuasive, well-reasoned argumentation is a far more difficult task than the generation of meaningful language, and that if AI systems producing arguments are to be persuasive, they require a method of checking the plausibility of their own output. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to indicate the systematic place of arguments based on the concept of analogy within the theoretical framework of the Periodic Table of Arguments, a new method for describing and classifying arguments that integrates traditional dialectical accounts of arguments and fallacies and rhetorical accounts of the means of persuasion (logos, ethos, pathos) into a comprehensive framework. The paper begins with an inventory of existing approaches to arguments based on analogy, similarity and adjacent concepts. Then, the (...) theoretical framework of the table will be expounded and several concrete examples of arguments based on these concepts will be analyzed in terms of the framework. Finally, the results of these analyses will be summarized and it will be indicated how they can be refined in further research related to the Periodic Table of Arguments. (shrink)

This paper examines the conceptual and terminological overlap between theories and models of practical deliberation developed within the fields of Practical Reasoning (PR) and Practical Argumentation (PA). It carefully delineates the volitional, epistemic, normative, and social commitments invoked and explicates various rationales for attributing the label ‘practical’ to instances of reasoning and argumentation. Based on these analyses, the paper develops a new approach to practical deliberation called the Stakeholder Commitment Approach (SCA). By distinguishing between ‘problem holder’ and ‘problem solver’, and (...) specifying the distributions of attributable commitments among the stakeholders, the SCA introduces an extension and refinement of the grounds for assigning the label ‘practical’ that brings PR and PA closer together. (shrink)

Recent scholarship in the field of argumentation theory has shown an increasing interest in rethinking the relation between dialectic and rhetoric. In the debate concerning this issue, some scholars take the position of ‘isolationists’. They think that fundamental differences exist between the two disciplines and that it is impossible to translate insights developed within the one discipline in terms of the other. Other scholars can be characterized as ‘combinationalists’. They take the position that insights from dialectic and rhetoric can be (...) combined for the purpose of analyzing or evaluating argumentative discourse. Finally, there are ‘integrationalists’, who are of the opinion that the differences between dialectic and rhetoric can be overcome by reconceptualizing the two disciplines and integrating them into an encompassing theory of argumentation. According to these scholars, dialectic and rhetoric study one and the same phenomenon—argumentation understood as the ju .. (shrink)