Vol. presents a method for critically evaluating relevance in arguments based on case studies & a new relevance theory incorporating techniques of argumentation theory, logic & artificiaI intelligence. For scholars/students in argumentation & rhetoric.

Introduction; Aidos in Homer; From Hesiod to the Fifth Century; Aeschylus; Sophocles; Euripides; The Sophists, Plato, and Aristotle; References; Glossary; Index of Principal Passages; General Index.

Constructive mathematics – mathematics in which ‘there exists’ always means ‘we can construct’ – is enjoying a renaissance. Fifty years on from Bishop’s groundbreaking account of constructive analysis, constructive mathematics has spread out to touch almost all areas of mathematics and to have profound influence in theoretical computer science. This handbook gives the most complete overview of modern constructive mathematics, with contributions from leading specialists surveying the subject’s myriad aspects. Major themes include: constructive algebra and geometry, constructive analysis, constructive topology, (...) constructive logic and foundations of mathematics, and computational aspects of constructive mathematics. A series of introductory chapters provides graduate students and other newcomers to the subject with foundations for the surveys that follow. Edited by four of the most eminent experts in the field, this is an indispensable reference for constructive mathematicians and a fascinating vista of modern constructivism for the increasing number of researchers interested in constructive approaches. (shrink)

Behavioral paternalism raises deep concerns that do not arise in traditional welfare economics. These concerns stem from behavioral paternalism’s acceptance of the defining axioms of neoclassical rationality for normative purposes, despite having rejected them as positive descriptions of reality. We argue that behavioral paternalists have indeed accepted neoclassical rationality axioms as a welfare standard; that economists historically adopted these axioms not for their normative plausibility, but for their usefulness in formal and theoretical modeling; that broadly rational individuals might fail to (...) satisfy the axioms for various reasons, making them unpersuasive as normative criteria; and that even if their violation did constitute irrationality, that would not justify paternalists’ choosing among inconsistent preferences to define an individual’s “true” preferences. (shrink)

This paper presents a formalization of informal logic using the Carneades Argumentation System, a formal, computational model of argument that consists of a formal model of argument graphs and audiences. Conflicts between pro and con arguments are resolved using proof standards, such as preponderance of the evidence. CAS also formalizes argumentation schemes. Schemes can be used to check whether a given argument instantiates the types of argument deemed normatively appropriate for the type of dialogue.

SUMMARYThis paper discusses the scientific instruments made and used by the microscopist Antony van Leeuwenhoek. The immediate cause of our study was the discovery of an overlooked document from the Delft archive: an inventory of the possessions that were left in 1745 after the death of Leeuwenhoek's daughter Maria. This list sums up which tools and scientific instruments Leeuwenhoek possessed at the end of his life, including his famous microscopes. This information, combined with the results of earlier historical research, gives (...) us new insights about the way Leeuwenhoek began his lens grinding and how eventually he made his best lenses. It also teaches us more about Leeuwenhoek's work as a surveyor and a wine gauger.A further investigation of the 1747 sale of Leeuwenhoek's 531 single lens microscopes has not only led us to the identification of nearly all buyers, but also has provided us with some explanation about why only a dozen of this large number of microscopes has survived. (shrink)

In response to the growing recognition of informal logic as a discipline in its own right, this collection of essays from leading contributors in the field provides the formative knowledge and historical context required to understand the development of a so far little studied subject area.

Fragmented thinking, broken world -- Toward recovery of wholeness: the radical humanities and traditional wisdom -- Toward recovery of wholeness: another look at science -- Insight-imagination -- Living thinking, living world: toward an education of insight-imagination.

At Pech Merle in 1952, André Breton provoked a controversial incident by damaging a Palaeolithic wall painting that he suspected to be a fake. This episode provides an insight into the contested status of prehistoric sites in post-war France and the theoretical and ideological implications of their cultural mobilization. Such sites allowed for a disavowal of wartime trauma and supported the reaffirmation of French national identity and its civilizing mission by locating the birthplace of human culture on French soil. Yet (...) their extreme age also threw into relief the relative fragility of the recently invented nation-state. Breton's vandalism cast doubt on the models of cultural progress and pre-eminence that sought to instrumentalize prehistoric art but failed to appreciate the subversiveness of its ‘deep’ history. Ironically, however, Breton's scepticism ultimately enhanced the subversive dimension of archaeology by allowing it to demonstrate the authenticity and age of cave art. (shrink)

Design and analysis of algorithms can be a difficult subject for students due to its sometimes-abstract nature and its use of a wide variety of mathematical tools. Here the author, an experienced and successful textbook writer, makes the subject as straightforward as possible in an up-to-date textbook incorporating various new developments appropriate for an introductory course. This text presents the main techniques of algorithm design, namely, divide-and-conquer algorithms, greedy algorithms, dynamic programming algorithms, and backtracking. Graph algorithms are studied in detail, (...) and a careful treatment of the theory of NP-completeness is presented. In addition, the text includes useful introductory material on mathematical background including order notation, algorithm analysis and reductions, and basic data structures. This will serve as a useful review and reference for students who have covered this material in a previous course. Features The first three chapters provide a mathematical review, basic algorithm analysis, and data structures. Detailed pseudocode descriptions of the algorithms along with illustrative algorithms are included. Proofs of correctness of algorithms are included when appropriate. The book presents a suitable amount of mathematical rigor. After reading and understanding the material in this book, students will be able to apply the basic design principles to various real-world problems that they may encounter in their future professional careers. (shrink)

The multiplicity of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) encoded by vertebrate genomes is partly attributable to whole genome duplication events that occurred early in chordate evolution. By surveying the literature for the largest family of DUBs (the ubiquitin-specific proteases), extensive functional redundancy for duplicated genes has been confirmed as opposed to singletons. Dramatically conflicting results have been reported for loss of function studies conducted through RNA interference as opposed to inactivating mutations, but the contradictory findings can be reconciled by a recently proposed (...) compensatory mechanism involving nonsense-mediated RNA degradation. Duplicated genes are often inactivated to become pseudogenes, and it is proposed that such is the fate of the USP15 gene of zebrafish, a commonly used model system. As it is reviewed here, these observations have implications not only for the interpretation of model system phenotypes but also for therapeutic interventions designed to target DUBs. (shrink)

In the 1950s–60s biochemists searched intensively for a series of high-energy molecules in the cell. Although we now believe that these molecules do not exist, biochemists claimed to have isolated or identified them on at least sixteen occasions. The episode parallels the familiar eighteenth-century case of phlogiston, in illustrating how error is not simply the loss of facts but, instead, must be actively constructed. In addition, the debates surrounding each case demonstrate how revolutionary-scale disagreement is sometimes resolved by differentiating or (...) partitioning empirical domains, rather than by replacement of one theory by another. (shrink)

In this paper we show that an essential aspect of solving the problem of uncritical acceptance of expert opinions that is at the root of the ad verecundiam fallacy is the need to disentangle argument from expert opinion from another kind of appeal to authority. Formal and computational argumentation systems enable us to analyze the fault in which an error has occurred by virtue of a failure to meet one or more of the requirements of the argumentation scheme from argument (...) from expert opinion. We present a method for enhancing this capability by showing how arguments from expert opinion are related to, but different from, arguments from deontic authority. (shrink)

PrefaceList of AbbreviationsChapter One: The Mathematical Career of the Monster of MalmesburyChapter Two: The Reform of Mathematics and of the UniversitiesIdeological Origins of the DisputeChapter Three: De Corpore and the Mathematics of MaterialismChapter Four: Disputed FoundationsHobbes vs. Wallis on the Philosophy of MathematicsChapter Five: The "Modern Analytics" and the Nature of DemonstrationChapter Six: The Demise of Hobbesian GeometryChapter Seven: The Religion, Rhetoric, and Politics of Mr. Hobbes and Dr. WallisChapter Eight: Persistence in ErrorWhy Was Hobbes So Resolutely Wrong?Appendix: Selections from (...) Hobbes's Mathematical WritingsReferencesIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Introduction -- Context -- Overview of themes -- Reading the text -- Reception and influence.

Empathy is a necessity in our multicultural world. Modern democratic societies are home to communities with the most diverse religious, political, and moral convictions, and these convictions often directly, even perilously, contradict one another. Educational theorists differ on how empathy can be taught in the face of these contradictions. Does proper pedagogical action entail an attempt to teach students to understand the other, to see their world through the eyes of the other? Or is such an attempt doomed to fail, (...) a vain and presumptuous striving to surpass the epistemologically preordained limits of subjectivity? While theorists who promote mutual understanding traditionally look to some form of dialogue to establish their empathic pedagogies, those who doubt the possibility of mutual understanding formulate critical, often monological pedagogies in which students are encouraged to “talk back” to their others about their idiosyncratic perspectives. Theorists have thus had choose: dialogue or relativism? Using the robust educational philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Douglas Yacek demonstrates that this is a most unsatisfactory choice, one that ignores the pedagogical complexity needed to teach students genuine empathy. He argues that Nietzsche's educational writings yield a tripartite empathic pedagogy founded on self-knowledge, foreign language learning, and experimentalism. Upon these three pedagogical pillars, Yacek problematizes Megan Laverty's recent attempt to formulate an empathic pedagogy as dialogical philosophical inquiry. Although Nietzsche would endorse much of Laverty's pedagogy, Yacek concludes that Nietzsche's pedagogy requires engagement with perspectives across the democratic curriculum and, indeed, beyond. (shrink)

This paper presents a formalization of informal logic using the Carneades Argumentation System, a formal, computational model of argument that consists of a formal model of argument graphs and audiences. Conflicts between pro and con arguments are resolved using proof standards, such as preponderance of the evidence. Carneades also formalizes argumentation schemes. Schemes can be used to check whether a given argument instantiates the types of argument deemed normatively appropriate for the type of dialogue.

Uniform sequential continuity, a property classically equivalent to sequential continuity on compact sets, is shown, constructively, to be a consequence of strong continuity on a metric space. It is then shown that in the case of a separable metric space, uniform sequential continuity implies strong continuity if and only if one adopts a certain boundedness principle that, although valid in the classical, recursive and intuitionistic setting, is independent of Heyting arithmetic.

This paper shows how the critical questions matching an argumentation scheme can be mod-eled in the Carneades argumentation system as three kinds of premises. Ordinary premises hold only if they are supported by sufficient arguments. Assumptions hold, by default, until they have been questioned. With exceptions the negation holds, by default, until the exception has been supported by sufficient arguments. By “sufficient arguments”, we mean arguments sufficient to satisfy the applicable proof standard.

In some recent cases in Anglo-American law juries ruled contrary to an expert's testimony even though that testimony was never challenged, contradicted or questioned in the trial. These cases are shown to raise some theoretical questions about formal dialogue systems in computational dialectical systems for legal argumentation of the kind recently surveyed by Bench-Capon (1997) and Hage (2000) in this journal. In such systems, there is a burden of proof, meaning that if the respondent questions an argument, the proponent is (...) obliged to offer some support for it give it up. But what should happen in a formal system of dialogue if the proponent puts forward an argument and the respondent fails to critically question it, and simply moves on to another issue? Is this some kind of fault that should have implications? Should it be taken to imply that, by default, the respondent has conceded the argument? What, if anything, should be the outcome of such a failure to question in a formal dialogue system of argumentation? These questions are considered by examining some legal cases of expert opinion testimony in relation rules for formal dialectical argumentation systems. (shrink)