Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A dialogical theory of presumption

  • Published:
Artificial Intelligence and Law Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The notions of burden of proof and presumption are central to law, but as noted in McCormick on Evidence, they are also the slipperiest of any of the family of legal terms employed in legal reasoning. However, recent studies of burden of proof and presumption (Prakken et al. 2005; Prakken and Sartor 2006). Gordon et al. (2007) offer formal models that can render them into precise tools useful for legal reasoning. In this paper, the various theories and formal models are comparatively evaluated with the aim of working out a more comprehensive theory that can integrate the components of the argumentation structure on which they are based. It is shown that the notion of presumption has both a logical component and a dialectical component, and the new theory of presumption developed in the paper, called the dialogical theory, combines these two components.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Verheij (1999, p. 115) (2000, p. 5) called this second form of inference modus non excipiens, arguing that it needs to be applied in cases where a general rule admits exceptions.

  2. I would like to thank an anonymous referee for making this point, and for pointing out as well that different jurisdictions can treat the same rule as constitutive or probative. As this referee pointed out, the rule that a posted letter (see the next example) implies receipt of information is constitutive in German contract law, even though it may well be probative in American law.

  3. Using the terms plaintiff and defendant can sometimes cause the reader to lose track when the burden of production is shifting back and forth from one side to another repeatedly over several moves in a dialog. For this reason we have invented the artificial terms “presumer” and “presumee” to name each side.

  4. Although presumptions of the most common sort are generally defeasible, exceptions need to be made for conclusive presumptions in law. Courts have presumed that if a child is under seven years of age, she could not have committed a felony (Strong 1992, p. 451). We leave open the issue of whether so-called conclusive presumptions of this sort require an extension or modification of the theory.

  5. The version in (Reed and Walton 2003) uses a variable S for the subject domain of the proposition.

References

  • Allen RJ, Callen CR (2003) Teaching ‘bloody instructions’: civil presumptions and the lessons of isomorphism. Quinnipiac Law Rev 21:933–960

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashford HA, Risinger D (1969) Presumptions, assumptions and due process in criminal cases: a theoretical overview. Yale Law J 79:165–208. doi:10.2307/795102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown DG (1955) The nature of inference. Philos Rev 64:351–369. doi:10.2307/2182206

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gordon TF (2008) Hybrid Reasoning with Argumentation Schemes. In: CMNA 08: Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument, Patras, Greece

  • Gordon TF, Prakken H, Walton D (2007) The carneades model of argument and burden of proof. Artif Intell 171:875–896. doi:10.1016/j.artint.2007.04.010

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Grice PH (1975) Logic and conversation. In: Davidson D, Harman G (eds) The logic of grammar. Dickenson, Encino (California), pp 64–75

    Google Scholar 

  • Krabbe ECW (2003) Metadialogues. In: van Eemeren FH, Blair JA, Willard CA, Snoek Henkemans AF (eds) Anyone who has a view: theoretical contributions to the study of argumentation. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 83–90

    Google Scholar 

  • Krabbe ECW (2007) On how to get beyond the opening stage. Argumentation 21:233–242. doi:10.1007/s10503-007-9052-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morman D (2005) The wild and wooly world of inference and presumptions—when silence is deafening. FLA Bar J 79:38–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Park RC, Leonard DP, Goldberg SH (1998) Evidence law. West Group, St Paul

    Google Scholar 

  • Prakken H, Sartor G (2006) Presumptions and burdens of proof. In: van Engers TM (ed) Legal knowledge and information systems: JURIX 2006: the nineteenth annual conference. IOS Press, Amsterdam, pp 21–30

  • Prakken H, Sartor G (2007) Formalising arguments about the burden of persuasion. In: Proceedings of the eleventh international conference on artificial intelligence and law. ACM Press, New York, pp 97–106

  • Prakken H, Reed C, Walton D (2005) Dialogues about the burden of proof. In: Proceedings of the tenth international conference on artificial intelligence and law. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, pp 115–124

  • Reed C, Walton D (2003) Argumentation schemes in argument-as-process and argument-as-product. In: Blair JA, Farr D, Hansen HV, Johnson RH, Tindale CW (eds) Proceedings of the conference celebrating informal logic @25, CD-Rom. Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation, Windsor

  • Rescher N (2006) Presumption and the practices of tentative cognition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Strong JW (1992) McCormick on Evidence, 4th edn. West Publishing Co., St Paul (Charles Tilford McCormick 1889–1963)

  • Ullman-Margalit Edna (1983) On presumption. J Philos 80:143–163

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • van Eemeren FH, Houtlosser P (2002) Strategic maneuvering with the burden of proof. In: van Eemeren FH (ed) Advances in pragma-dialectics. SicSat, Amsterdam, pp 13–28

  • Verheij B (1999) Logic, context and valid inference. In: van den Herik HJ, Moens M-F, Bing J, van Buggenhout B, Zeleznikow J, Grütters CAFM (eds) Legal knowledge based systems. JURIX 1999: The Twelfth Conference, Nijmegen, Gerard Noodt Instituut, pp 109–121

  • Walton D (1996) Arguments from ignorance. Penn State Press, University Park

    Google Scholar 

  • Walton D (2002) Are some Modus Ponens arguments deductively invalid? Informal Logic 22:19–46

    Google Scholar 

  • Walton D (2007) Metadialogues for resolving burden of proof disputes. Argumentation 21:291–316

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whinery LH (2001) Presumptions and their effect. Oklahoma Law Rev 54:553–571

    Google Scholar 

  • Wigmore JH (1940) A treatise on the Anglo-American system of evidence in trials at common law, vol 1, 3rd edn. Little, Brown and Company, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams G (1977) The evidential burden: some common misapprehensions. New Law J 17:156–158

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams AR (2003) Burdens and standards in civil litigation. Sydney Law Rev 25:165–188

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research on Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada, N9B 3P4

    Douglas Walton

Authors
  1. Douglas Walton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Douglas Walton.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Walton, D. A dialogical theory of presumption. Artif Intell Law 16, 209–243 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-008-9063-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-008-9063-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation