This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined (...) in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined (...) in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

This paper studies the modelling of legal reasoning about evidence within general theories of defeasible reasoning and argumentation. In particular, Wigmore's method for charting evidence and its use by modern legal evidence scholars is studied in order to give a formal underpinning in terms of logics for defeasible argumentation. Two notions turn out to be crucial, viz. argumentation schemes and empirical generalisations.

This paper explains how to use a new software tool for argument diagramming available free on the Internet, showing especially how it can be used in the classroom to enhance critical thinking in philosophy. The user loads a text file containing an argument into a box on the computer interface, and then creates an argument diagram by dragging lines from one node to another. A key feature is the support for argumentation schemes, common patterns of defeasible reasoning historically know as (...) topics . Several examples are presented, as well as the results of an experiment in using the system with students in a university classroom. (shrink)

The aim of this investigation is to explore the role of argumentation schemes in enthymeme reconstruction. This aim is pursued by studying selected cases of incomplete arguments in natural language discourse to see what the requirements are for filling in the unstated premises and conclusions in some systematic and useful way. Some of these cases are best handled using deductive tools, while others respond best to an analysis based on defeasible argumentations schemes. The approach is also shown to work reasonably (...) well for weak arguments, a class of arguments that has always been difficult to analyze without the principle of charity producing a straw man. (shrink)

Mediation is an alternative dispute resolution process that is becoming more and more popular particularly in English-speaking countries. In contrast to traditional litigation it has not benefited from technological advances and little research has been carried out to make this increasingly widespread practice more efficient. The study of argumentation in dispute mediation hitherto has largely been concerned with theoretical insights. The development of argumentation theories linked to computational applications opens promising new horizons since computational tools could support mediators, making sessions (...) quicker and more efficient. For this, we need tools for close analysis of mediation discourse in order to explore the argumentative activity in depth, and ultimately get an accurate image of how dialogues unfold in this particular context. This paper therefore aims at laying the foundations of a theory of close analysis for discourse in dispute mediation. Theories provided by the literature serve as a basis for argumentative analyses of transcripts of mediation sessions in order to deliver a clear image of the argumentative structure. Analyses of the argumentative strategies in mediation discourse will allow for the development of a dialogue protocol that can be used to develop operational models which can be embodied in software to help make the mediation process easier and more effective. (shrink)

The Argument Web is maturing as both a platform built upon a synthesis of many contemporary theories of argumentation in philosophy and also as an ecosystem in which various applications and application components are contributed by different research groups around the world. It already hosts the largest publicly accessible corpora of argumentation and has the largest number of interoperable and cross compatible tools for the analysis, navigation and evaluation of arguments across a broad range of domains, languages and activity types. (...) Such interoperability is key in allowing innovative combinations of tool and data reuse that can further catalyse the development of the field of computational argumentation. The aim of this paper is to summarise the key foundations, the recent advances and the goals of the Argument Web, with a particular focus on demonstrating the relevance to, and roots in, philosophical argumentation theory. (shrink)

In this paper we look at the manual analysis of arguments and how this compares to the current state of automatic argument analysis. These considerations are used to develop a new approach combining a machine learning algorithm to extract propositions from text, with a topic model to determine argument structure. The results of this method are compared to a manual analysis.

We develop conceptions of arguments and of argument types that will, by serving as the basis for developing a natural classification of arguments, benefit work in artificial intelligence. Focusing only on arguments construed as the semantic entities that are the outcome of processes of reasoning, we outline and clarify our view that an argument is a proposition that represents a fact as both conveying some other fact and as doing so wholly. Further, we outline our view that, with respect to (...) arguments that are propositions, (roughly) two arguments are of the same type if and only if they represent the same relation of conveyance and do so in the same way. We then argue for our conceptions of arguments and argument types, and compare them to alternative positions. We also illustrate the need for, and some of the strengths of, our approach to classifying arguments through an examination of aspects of two prominent and recent attempts to classify arguments using argumentation schemes, namely those of M. Kienpointner and D. Walton. Finally, we clarify how our conception of arguments and of argument types can assist in developing an exhaustive classification of arguments. (shrink)

How should we evaluate an argument in which two witnesses independently testify to some claim? In fact what would happen is that the testimony of the second witness would be taken to corroborate that of the first to some extent, thereby boosting up the plausibility of the first argument from testimony. But does that commit the fallacy of double counting, because the second testimony is already taken as independent evidence supporting the claim? Perhaps the corroboration effect should be considered illogical, (...) since each premise should be seen as representing a separate reason in a convergent argument for accepting the claim as plausible. In this paper, we tackle the problem using argumentation schemes and argument diagramming. We examine a number of examples, and come up with two hypotheses that offer methods of analyzing and evaluating this kind of evidence. (shrink)

We show how faceted search using a combination of traditional classification systems and mixed-membership topic models can go beyond keyword search to inform resource discovery, hypothesis formulation, and argument extraction for interdisciplinary research. Our test domain is the history and philosophy of scientific work on animal mind and cognition. The methods can be generalized to other research areas and ultimately support a system for semi-automatic identification of argument structures. We provide a case study for the application of the methods to (...) the problem of identifying and extracting arguments about anthropomorphism during a critical period in the development of comparative psychology. We show how a combination of classification systems and mixed-membership models trained over large digital libraries can inform resource discovery in this domain. Through a novel approach of “drill-down” topic modeling—simultaneously reducing both the size of the corpus and the unit of analysis—we are able to reduce a large collection of fulltext volumes to a much smaller set of pages within six focal volumes containing arguments of interest to historians and philosophers of comparative psychology. The volumes identified in this way did not appear among the first ten results of the keyword search in the HathiTrust digital library and the pages bear the kind of “close reading” needed to generate original interpretations that is the heart of scholarly work in the humanities. Zooming back out, we provide a way to place the books onto a map of science originally constructed from very different data and for different purposes. The multilevel approach advances understanding of the intellectual and societal contexts in which writings are interpreted. (shrink)

The Toulmin diagram layout is very familiar and widely used, particularly in the teaching of critical thinking skills. The conventional box-and-arrow diagram is equally familiar and widespread. Translation between the two throws up a number of interesting challenges. Some of these challenges represent slightly different ways of looking at old and deep theoretical questions. Others are diagrammatic versions of questions that have already been addressed in artificial intelligence models of argument. But there are further questions that are posed as a (...) specific result of examining the diagram inter-translation problem. These three classes of problems are discussed. To the first class are addressed solutions based on engineering pragmatism; to the second class, are addressed solutions drawn from the appropriate literature; and to the third class, fuller exploration is offered justifying the approaches taken in developing solutions that offer both pragmatic utility and theoretical interest. Finally, these solutions are explored briefly in the context of the Araucaria system, showing the ways in which analysts can tackle arguments either using one diagrammatic style or another, or even a combination of the two. (shrink)

This paper uses the language of formal dialectics to explore how argumentation schemes and their critical questions can be characterized as an extension to traditional dialectical systems. The aim is to construct a dialectical system in which the set of locutions is extended to include scheme-based moves the set of structural rules describes the roles that critical questioning can play; and the set of commitment rules distinguishes between exceptions and assumptions.

The concept of argumentation in AI is based almost exclusively on the use of formal, abstract representations. Despite their appealing computational properties, these abstractions become increasingly divorced from their real world counterparts, and, crucially, lose the ability to express the rich gamut of natural argument forms required for creating effective text. In this paper, the demands that socially situated argumentation places on knowledge representation are explored, and the various problems with existing formalisations are discussed. Insights from argumentation theory and social (...) psychology are then adduced as key contributions to a notion of social context which is both computationally tractable and suitably expressive for handling the complexities of argumentation found in natural language. (shrink)

Hamblin's Action-State Semantics provides a sound philosophical foundation for understanding the character of the imperative. Taking this as our inspiration, in this paper we present a logic of action, which we call ST, that captures the clear ontological distinction between being responsible for the achievement of a state of affairs and being responsible for the performance of an action. We argue that a relativised modal logic of type RT founded upon a ternary relation over possible worlds integrated with a basic (...) tense logic captures intuitions of the Hamblinian model of imperatives. The logic implements a direct mapping of each of Hamblin's key concepts: strategies, partial strategies and wholehearted satisfaction. (shrink)

The Toulmin diagram layout is very familiar and widely used, particularly in the teaching of critical thinking skills. The conventional box-and-arrow diagram is equally familiar and widespread. Translation between the two throws up a number of interesting challenges. Some of these challenges represent slightly different ways of looking at old and deep theoretical questions. Others are diagrammatic versions of questions that have already been addressed in artificial intelligence models of argument. But there are further questions that are posed as a (...) specific result of examining the diagram inter-translation problem. These three classes of problems are discussed. To the first class are addressed solutions based on engineering pragmatism; to the second class are addressed solutions drawn from the appropriate literature; and to the third class, fuller exploration is offered justifying the approaches taken in developing solutions that offer both pragmatic utility and theoretical interest. Finally, these solutions are explored briefly in the context of the Araucaria system, showing the ways in which analysts can tackle arguments either using one diagrammatic style or another, or even a combination of the two. (shrink)

Lively political and public debates on war and morality have been a feature of the post-Cold War world. The Price of Peace argues that a re-examination of the just war tradition is therefore required. The authors suggest that despite fluctuations and transformations in international politics, the just war tradition continues to be relevant. However they argue that it needs to be reworked to respond to the new challenges to international security represented by the end of the Cold War and the (...) impact of terrorism. With an interdisciplinary and transatlantic approach, this volume provides a dialogue between theological, political, military and public actors. By articulating what a reconstituted just war tradition might mean in practice, it also aims to assist policy-makers and citizens in dealing with the ethical dilemmas of war. (shrink)

To build an argument--and particularly an argument presented as a monologue--a writer must assemble and marshal a battery of supports for a claim. Some of those supports will be arranged in convergent structures, some as linked; some will be expressed, some will be left implicit; sometimes a support will need further support of its own--and sometimes, not. This paper explores the factors which lead a writer to make particular choices, the interactions between those factors, and the constraints on a w (...) riter's freedom in exercising her power, drawing on recent findings in computational modelling of the generation process. (shrink)

Mosher and Bond (this issue) suggest experimental designs that are not appropriate for the research purposes they criticize. In defending their own research, they make contradictory statements about the realism of their guided imagery procedure for simulating rape. They present data that we believe provide evidence for the possibility that wrongful harm occurred in their previous research. We assert our right to study the ethics of research and object to specious charges of having threatened sexual freedom and being associated with (...) ideologues of the right and left. (shrink)

The emphasis in most process-oriented models of argumentation is placed heavily upon analysis of dialogue. The current work puts forward an account which examines the argumentation involved in persuasive monologue, drawing upon commitment-based theories of dialogue. The various differences between monologue and dialogue are discussed, with particular reference to the possibility of designing a monologue game in which commitments are dynamically incurred and updated as the monologue is created. Finally, the computational advantages of adopting such an approach are explored in (...) the context of an existing architecture for the generation of natural language arguments. (shrink)

The parietal cortex is divided into two major functional regions: the anterior parietal cortex that includes primary somatosensory cortex, and the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) that includes the rest of the parietal lobe. The PPC contains multiple representations of space. In Dijkerman & de Haan's (D&dH's) model, higher spatial representations are separate from PPC functions. This model should be developed further so that the functions of the somatosensory system are integrated with specific functions within the PPC and higher spatial representations. (...) Through this further specification of the model, one can make better predictions regarding functional interactions between somatosensory and visual systems. (shrink)

Over the past decade or so, a new interdisciplinary field has emerged in the ground between, on the one hand, computer science – and artificial intelligence in particular – and, on the other, the area of philosophy concentrating on the language and structure of argument. There are now hundreds of researchers worldwide who would consider themselves a part of this nascent community. Various terms have been proposed for the area, including "Computational Dialectics," "Argumentation Technology," and "Argument-based Computing," but the term (...) that has stuck is simply Argument & Computation. It encompasses several specific strands of research, such as: . the use of theories of argument, and dialectic in particular, in the design and implementation of protocols for multi-agent action and communication; . the application of theories of argument and rhetoric in natural language processing and affective computing; . the use of argument-based structures for autonomous reasoning in artificial intelligence, and in particular, for defeasible reasoning; . computer-supported collaborative argumentation – the implementation of software tools for enabling online argument in domains such as education and e-government. These strands come together to form the core of a research field that covers parts of artificial intelligence (AI), philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science, but, increasingly, is building an identity of its own. (shrink)

In some cases of disagreement, particularly in ethics and law, it is impossible to provide any conclusive demonstration. The role of argument in such cases is to persuade rather than to prove. Drawing on ideas ofPerelrnan, we argue that persuasion in such cases relies on a recognition that the strength of such arguments will vary according to their audience, and depends on the comparative weight that the audiences gives to the social values that it advances. To model this, we introduce (...) the notion of Value-based Argumentation Frameworks (VAFs), an extension of Argumentation Frameworks as originally introduced by Dung. We then describe a dialogue game based on VAFs, designed to model persuasive argumentation, which we illustrate with a widely discussed ethical problem. (shrink)

Hamblin's Action-State Semantics provides a sound philosophical foundation for understanding the character of the imperative. Taking this as our inspiration, in this paper we present a logic of action, which we call ST, that captures the clear ontological distinction between being responsible for the achievement of a state of affairs and being responsible for the performance of an action. We argue that a relativised modal logic of type RT founded upon a ternary relation over possible worlds integrated with a basic (...) tense logic captures intuitions of the Hamblinian model of imperatives. The logic implements a direct mapping of each of Hamblin's key concepts: strategies, partial strategies and wholehearted satisfaction. (shrink)