Argumentation schemes are forms of reasoning that are fallible but correctable within a self-correcting framework. Their use provides a basis for taking rational action or for reasonably accepting a conclusion as a tentative hypothesis, but they are not deductively valid. We argue that teleological reasoning can provide the basis for justifying the use of argument schemes both in monological and dialogical reasoning. We consider how such a teleological justification, besides being inspired by the aim of directing a bounded cognizer to (...) true belief and correct choices, needs to take into account the attitudes of dialogue partners as well as normative models of dialogue and communicative activity types, in particular social and cultural settings. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates how argumentation schemes can be used in decision support systems that help clinicians in making treatment decisions. The work builds on the use of computational argumentation, a rigorous approach to reasoning with complex data that places strong emphasis on being able to justify and explain the decisions that are recommended. The main contribution of the paper is to present a novel set of specialised argumentation schemes that can be used in the context of a clinical decision support (...) system to assist in reasoning about what treatments to offer. These schemes provide a mechanism for capturing clinical reasoning in such a way that it can be handled by the formal reasoning mechanisms of formal argumentation. The paper describes how the integration between argumentation schemes and formal argumentation may be carried out, sketches how this is achieved by an implementation that we have created and illustrates the overall process on a small set of case studies. (shrink)

This work pretends to unveil the relationship between the psychosocial features grouped under the argument frame concept and the degree of discursive density that is reached by a sample of 243 older adults in the production of argumentative discourses. In order to specify the main psychosocial features of the sample’s subjects, the Hample test was employed. In order to evaluate argumentative density, all of the participants were asked for an essay about a controversial situation derived from the Dilemma of the (...) D.I.T. Questionnaire. The information crossover between both instruments allowed the establishment of a significant relationship between the way in which the older adults frame reality and the discursive products through which it is communicated. (shrink)

Abstract: The article presents and critically discusses Walton's (and Reed's and Macagno's) argument scheme approach to a theory of good argumentation. In particular, four characteristics of Walton's approach are presented: 1. It presents normative requirements for argumentation in the form of argument schemes, i.e. relatively concrete type descriptions. 2. These schemata are enthymematic, i.e. they omit some of the premises required by other approaches. 3. The actual argument schemes are usually supplemented by critical questions. 4. The method is inductive, bottom-up, (...) gaining the normative schemata by abstraction from empirically collected groups of similar arguments. These characteristics, among others, are then discussed on the basis of four adequacy conditions: 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 then reveals a number of weaknesses in Walton's argument schemes; among other things, they are neither effective (in the defined sense) nor truly justified. Contributing factors to these problems include the schema approach, i.e. not looking at the form of arguments, and the lack of epistemological foundations in the development of good types of arguments. However, the critical analyses reveal a better alternative: an epistemological approach based on epistemological principles. The article concludes with a detailed analysis of the scheme Practical Inference, which confirms the general criticism in detail. (shrink)

When people argue, they are vulnerable to unwanted and costly changes in their beliefs. This vulnerability motivates the position that belief involuntarism makes argument inherently adversarial, as well as the development of alternatives to adversarial argumentation such as “invitational rhetoric”. The emphasis on involuntary belief change in such accounts, in our perspective, neglects three dimensions of arguing: the diversity of arguer intentions, audience agency, and the benefits of belief change. The complex impact of arguments on both audiences and arguers involves (...) vulnerabilities related to various forces of argument, not just the intellectual force of premise-conclusion complexes. Shifting emphasis from adversariality to vulnerability, we propose a more holistic understanding of argument, in which vulnerability reveals various sources of strength and opportunity in addition to risk. (shrink)

This paper begins a working through of Blair’s (2001) theoretical agenda concerning argumentation schemes and their attendant critical questions, in which we propose a number of solutions to some outstanding theoretical issues. We consider the classification of schemes, their ultimate nature, their role in argument reconstruction, their foundation as normative categories of argument, and the evaluative role of critical questions.We demonstrate the role of schemes in argument reconstruction, and defend a normative account of their nature against specific criticisms due to (...) Pinto (2001). Concerning critical questions, we propose an account on which they are founded in the R.S.A. cogency standard, and develop an account of the relationship between critical questions and burden of proof. Our ultimate aim is to initiate a reconciliation between dialectical and informal logic approaches to the schemes. (shrink)

Sanford Goldberg’s account of epistemic coverage constitutes a special case of Douglas Walton’s view that epistemic closure arises from dialectical argument. Walton’s pragmatic version of epistemic closure depends on dialectical norms for closing an argument, and epistemic coverage operates at the limits of argument closure because it minimizes dialectical exchange. Such closure works together with a shared hypothetical consideration to justify dismissal of surprising claims.

I consider some uses of citations in academic writing and analyze them as instances of the “appeal to expert opinion” argumentative scheme to show that the critical questions commonly linked to this scheme are difficult to apply. I argue that, by considering citations as special communicative and argumentative situated acts, their use in real practice can be explained more adequately. Adaptation to the audience and to the social constraints is common and necessary in order to collaborate with others and to (...) advance in a discipline, but also to attain rhetorical goals that differ from strictly cognitive ones. (shrink)

We present a novel argumentation-based method for finding and analyzing communities in social media on the Web, where a community is regarded as a set of supported opinions that might be in conflict. Based on their stance, we identify argumentative coalitions to define them; then, we apply a similarity-based evaluation method over the set of arguments in the coalition to determine the level of cohesion inherent to each community, classifying them appropriately. Introducing conflict points and attacks between coalitions based on (...) argumentative (dis)similarities to model the interaction between communities leads to considering a meta-argumentation framework where the set of coalitions plays the role of the set of arguments and where the attack relation between the coalitions is assigned a particular strength which is inherited from the arguments belonging to the coalition. Various semantics are introduced to consider attacks’ strength to particularize the effect of the new perspective. Finally, we analyze a case study where all the elements of the formal construction of the formalism are exercised. (shrink)

This volume presents a selection of papers reflecting key theoretical issues in argumentation theory. Its six sections are devoted to specific themes, including the analysis and evaluation of argumentation, argument schemes and the contextual embedding of argumentation. The section on general perspectives on argumentation discusses the trends of empiricalization, contextualization and formalization, offers descriptions of the analytical and evaluative tools of informal logic, and highlights selected principles that argumentation theorists do and do not agree upon. In turn, the section on (...) linguistic approaches to argumentation focuses on the problem of distinguishing between explanation and argument, while also elaborating on the role of verbal indicators of argument schemes. All essays included in this volume point out notable recent developments in the study of argumentation. (shrink)

The Nature and Status of Critical Questions in Argumentation Schemes.

The contribution critically discusses Walton's argumentation scheme approach. On the one hand, its enormous richness and closeness to the empirical argumentation material is appreciated, but, on the other, fundamental conceptual weaknesses are revealed. Although the approach more recently has been declared to strive for “true beliefs and correct choices” it has not systematically developed the proposed schemes in a way that these goals are reached. Accordingly, many proposed schemes are fallacious from an epistemological standpoint.

The paper develops a classificatory system of basic argument types on the basis of the epis-temological approach to argumentation. This approach has provided strict rules for several kinds of argu-ments. These kinds may be brought into a system of basic irreducible types, which rely on different parts of epistemology: deductive logic, probability theory, utility theory. The system reduces a huge mass of differ-ent argument schemes to basic types and gives them an epistemological foundation.