Argument Structure Research Articles

Using learning analytics to explore peer learning patterns in asynchronous gamified environments

This study explored the dynamics of students' knowledge co-construction in an asynchronous gamified environment in higher education, focusing on peer discussions in college business courses. Utilizing epistemic network analysis, sequence pattern mining, and automated coding, we analyzed the interactions of 1,319 business students. Our findings revealed that externalization and epistemic activity were prevalent, demonstrating a strong link between problem-solving and conceptual understanding. Three primary discussion types were observed: argumentative, epistemic, and social, each with unique patterns of engagement and idea integration. Effective knowledge co-construction patterns included open-ended questions with an epistemic focus, debates serving as intense knowledge co-construction arenas, and social interactions fostering a supportive and collaborative learning environment. The introduction of gamification elements led to increased student engagement and participation. Our findings emphasize the significance of structured analysis, collaboration, and argumentation in promoting effective knowledge co-construction in peer learning settings. This study offers insights into the temporal interplay of discourse dimensions and their potential for collaborative learning, enhancing our understanding of how learning analytics can be employed to discover ways in which students co-construct knowledge in asynchronous gamified environments.

A formalization of Descartes’ causal argument for existence of God

In this paper I attempt a formalization of Descartes’ causal argument for the existence of God presented in the Third Meditation. By taking into account the philosophical setting of Descartes’ Meditations, I argue that the best logical theory to carry out the formalization is quantified modal logic where free logic is used for the first-order axioms. This fact is related to Descartes’ distinction between formal and objective reality which — to my mind — suggests both the adoption of modality (e.g. true in formal vs true in objective reality) and the possibility of using empty names (i.e. names which lack reference in “formal reality”). After presenting the formal system and the reconstruction of Descartes’ proof, I will discuss some issues related to the philosophical import of the formalization, such as the understanding of rigid designation and lack of reference. I will argue that the formalization of Descartes’ argument has an intrinsic philosophical value for it sheds light on the structure of argument, its implicit difficulties, and the use of logic itself to understand the philosophical tradition.

Dissipative Structure Analysis and Ecological Disorganization: A Critique Drawn from Ecological Marxist and Treadmill-of-Production Approaches

Among environmental sociologists, ecological Marxists argue that there is an association between capitalism and ecological destruction/disorganization. This argument suggests that capitalism and nature are in contradiction with one another, so that the expansion of capitalism necessarily results in the destruction of nature. Green criminologists expand on this point and argue that ecological disorganization generates legal and illegal green crimes and injustice. This capitalism–nature association suggests that solving the current ecological crisis would require replacing capitalism. In contrast, the dissipative structure analysis (DSA) argues that capitalist nations pass through phases of development and that as advanced capitalist nations age, the level of ecological destruction they cause becomes attenuated. If true, this outcome suggests that capitalism might solve the problem of ecological destruction by aging. This article reviews these two theoretical arguments, exposes the limitation of the dissipative structure argument, and suggests that future research is required to completely address dissipative structure assumptions. A major limitation of the dissipative structure analysis is its failure to account for the effect of developing capitalist nations on the expansion of ecological disorganization. Trend charts are employed to illustrate the limitations of the DSA hypothesis concerning reduced ecological disorganization.

The Legislator’s Speech in Book IV of Plato's Laws: Between Poetry and Rhetoric

This paper aims to analyse the speech of the lawgiver in Book 4 of Plato’s Laws, the only one directly addressed to the citizens of the Cretan colony to outline their behaviour rules. This speech is examined not only for its ethical content but also for its argumentative structure. In particular, references to archaic gnomic poetry, which give the discourse great solemnity, are reviewed. In addition, the lawgiver’s mastery of rhetorical tools aimed at persuading citizens is emphasized. The lawgiver’s use of persuasion, further applied in all the preambles prefixed to the laws, seems to be an implementation of rhetoric as psychagogy outlined in the Phaedrus.

The arguments of John Duns Scotus in defence of Mary’s Immaculate Conception

This article aims to specify the theoretical approaches through which the conspicuous Scottish Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus (c.1265/66–1308) became the leader of the defenders of the belief in the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception. The article is structured in two parts. The first relates summarily the authors and works that have dealt with Duns Scotus’s doctrine on Mary’s Immaculate Conception to a greater or lesser extent. The second part (much more critical) develops Duns Scotus’s arguments to defend the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. In this sense, the author of the article exposes step by step the argumentative structure of the Scottish theologian, based on the traditional model of medieval Scholasticism, namely: first, he exposes and refutes the arguments and objections of the deniers of Mary’s Immaculate Conception; then he subtly explains his personal arguments with which he supports his fervent defence of the thesis of the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

Systemic Means of Persuasion and Argument Evaluation

The paper discusses the role of systemic means of persuasion in argument evaluation. The core class of systemic means of persuasion is regress stoppers, whose fundamental function is to halt the infinite regress of justification by making claims, premises, or overall position expressed in a persuasive message more acceptable to a recipient. The paper explores how systemic means of persuasion contribute to the structure of arguments in the Toulmin model and serve as cues for heuristic processing of persuasive messages. It also presents the results of the stylometric analysis and statistical data on the usage of systemic means of persuasion in three corpora which suggest that systemic means of persuasion constitute strategies independent of the strategy based on explicit argumentation marked by inference indicators.

A graph propagation model with rich event structures for joint event relation extraction

The task of event relation extraction (ERE) aims to organize multiple events and their relations as a directed graph. However, existing ERE methods exhibit two limitations: (1) Events in a document are typically expressed with merely a trigger word or phrase neglecting the rich semantic structure of event arguments and roles. (2) Various event relations such as coreference, temporal, causal, and subevent relations are correlated with each other, while little work has explored the benefits of extracting all relations in a joint manner. In this work, we investigate an event-relation graph propagation network and a novel document-level semantically-enriched event representation for joint ERE. First, we address the lack of event argument annotations by extracting cross-sentence implicit arguments based on the AMR graph. Then triggers and argument roles are aggregated with a structure-aware encoder. Second, based on the rich event information, event relation interactions are incorporated with a subgraph propagation and aggregation mechanism. During training, we further develop a novel triadic contrastive loss to capture high-order event pair relationships. We conduct experiments based on the public MAVEN-ERE benchmark and the results show that our model achieves 60.7%, 37.4%, 32.9% F1-scores on temporal, causal and subevent relations, and 86.1% MUC-score on coreferences, outperforming the current joint models by a large margin. Further in-depth analysis shows the effectiveness of our model in capturing event-event dependencies in document context. The proposed model can be used for event graph construction and storyline understanding.

Inductive and Intuitive in Proving the Identity Element of A Group: A Structure of Argumentation

<p>This research applies the Toulmin Argumentation Model in identifying the argumentation structure and proving the identity property of a group with an inductive and intuitive approach. This research is qualitative descriptive research, and the instrument is one problem of proving the identity property of a group. Data were collected from a cohort of 30 students who enrolled in the Introduction to Ring Theory course. All participants selected one Subject based on complete and correct answers for further analysis. The results showed that the Subject used his intuition to take one element, which would then be proven as the identity element of a group. Then, the Subject used an Inductive Warrant to prove it. The Subject only takes one element that fulfils the identity property. However, the Subject states that the conclusion applies in general, which makes the argument invalid because valid arguments are based on deductive. At the same time, students at the college level should use a deductive approach to proof. By using the Toulmin Argumentation Model, the subject's ability to formulate and construct arguments in a proof can be seen as structured and clear. This model allows a systematic explanation and strengthens confidence in the validity of the evidence. This research is expected to enrich the understanding of argumentation structure in inductive proofs of group identity properties and show the potential use of the Toulmin Argumentation Model in identifying more in-depth mathematical argumentation.</p><p> </p><p>Penelitian ini menerapkan Model Argumentasi Toulmin dalam mengidentifikasi struktur argumentasi pada pembuktian sifat identitas suatu grup dengan pendekatan induktif dan intuitif. Penelitian ini termasuk penelitian dekriptif kualitatif, dan instrumen berupa satu soal pembuktian sifat identitas suatu grup. Data diperoleh dari 30 mahasiswa yang menempuh mata kuliah Pengantar Teori Gelanggang. Dari seluruh partisipan, satu subjek dipilih berdasarkan jawaban lengkap dan benar untuk dianalisis lebih lanjut. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa subjek menggunakan intuisinya dalam mengambil satu elemen yang kemudian akan dibuktikan sebagai elemen identitas suatu Grup. Kemudian Subjek menggunakan Warrant Induktif dalam membuktikannya. Subjek hanya mengambil satu elemen yang memenuhi sifat identitas, namun subjek menyatakan bahwa kesimpulan tersebut berlaku secara umum, yang menjadikan argumenya tidak valid. Karena argumen yang valid didasari pada deduktif. Padahal mahasiswa di tingkat perguruan tinggi seharusnya menggunakan pendekatan deduktif dalam pembuktian. Dengan menggunakan Model Argumentasi Toulmin, kemampuan Subjek dalam merumuskan mengonstruksi argumen dalam pembuktian dapat terlihat terstruktur dan jelas. Model ini memungkinkan penjelasan yang sistematis dan memperkuat kepercayaan terhadap validitas pembuktian. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan kekuatan metode induktif dan intuitif dalam pembuktian matematika, menunjukkan bagaimana pendekatan ini dapat menghasilkan pemahaman yang lebih komprehensif tentang pembuktian matematika. Penelitian ini diharapkan dapat memperkaya pemahaman mengenai struktur argumentasi dalam pembuktian induktif sifat identitas grup dan menunjukkan potensi penggunaan Model Argumentasi Toulmin dalam mengidentifikasi argumentasi matematika yang lebih mendalam.</p>

La lección pedagógica del ejemplo de Sodoma en el Pedagogo III 44.1 de Clemente de Alejandría: La comparación entre Síbaris y Sodoma

This article aims to analyze the reception of the term Sodom in the Paed. II 43.5-44.4, by the prominent Christian teacher and apologist. The methodology initially follows an immanent reading of the passage; subsequently, a historical-critical approach is undertaken to situate the implicit moral assumptions of the time in the interpretation of the Alexandrian theologian. The result is an argumentative structure based on the opposition between simplicity-tryphé (luxury) and a comparative framework between Sodom and Sybaris.

Governing Consumer Information in the Digital Age: Lessons from a Controversy Between a Food Rating App and Processed Meat Manufacturers

Abstract This article examines the legal response to a controversy on dietary information in the context of commercial court and appellate court rulings. Against a backdrop of health and environmental crises, the construction of information on such risks has become a sensitive issue for market actors, as a result of which courts are asked to arbitrate conflicts. This is particularly important at a time when informational mediations carried out by new actors increasingly take the form of digital ratings and augmented information. The dispute involving the firm Yuca and the French agro-industrial processed meat sector is a case in point. This paper analyses the structural arguments put forward in this legal dispute at the first instance and appeal stages. In the light of law and socio-economics, it untangles questions pertaining to the link between denigration and freedom of expression and the definition of the role of scientific research and consensus in the decisions. This leads us to shed light on the contents of the changing missions of two central types of actors: the mediators who monitor and regulate market practices and the judges that arbitrate these mediations and settle controversies.

The cortical representation of transitivity: Insights from tractography-based inhibitory nTMS

Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (nTMS) is commonly used to causally identify cortical regions involved in language processing. Combining tractography with nTMS has been shown to increase induced error rates by targeting stimulation of cortical terminations of white matter fibers. According to functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data, bilateral cortical areas connected by the arcuate fasciculus (AF) have been implicated in the processing of transitive compared to unergative verbs. To test this connection between transitivity and bilateral perisylvian regions, we administered a tractography-based inhibitory nTMS protocol during action naming of finite transitive (The man reads) and unergative (The man sails) verbs. After tracking the left and right AF, we stimulated the cortical terminations of the tract in frontal, parietal and temporal regions in 20 neurologically healthy native speakers of German. Results revealed that nTMS induced more errors during transitive compared to unergative verb naming when stimulating the left (vs right) AF terminations. This effect was specific to the left temporal terminations of the AF, whereas no differences between the two verb types were identified when stimulating inferior parietal and frontal AF terminations. Induced errors for transitive verbs over left temporal terminations mostly manifested as access errors (i.e., hesitations). Given the inhibitory nature of our nTMS protocol, these results suggest that temporal regions of the left hemisphere play a crucial role in argument structure processing. Our findings align with previous data on the role of left posterior temporal regions in language processing and by providing further evidence from a language production experiment using tractography-based inhibitory nTMS.

Anaphora and Depictives Do Not Rule Out Small Clause Approaches to Argument Structure: A Reply to Bruening 2018

Abstract Bruening (2018) uses the facts of anaphora and depictive modification to justify non-small-clause analyses of resultative constructions, caused-motion constructions, verb-particle constructions, and double object constructions: these constructions behave differently from canonical small clause constructions in terms of anaphora and depictive modification. In this reply, we argue against treating these tests as reliable diagnostics of small clauses. For one thing, we show that small clauses may have two different kinds of interpretations: they can be either semantically complete or incomplete. For another, Bruening’s (2018) arguments rely on some particular assumptions about anaphora and depictive modification which, we argue, are not without problems. If we adopt another set of reasonable assumptions, those facts of anaphora and depictive modification can be accounted for via the two kinds of interpretations for small clauses and thus do not argue in favor of non-small-clause analyses of the relevant constructions.

Embodied semantic parameters for the lexical representation of spatial relational categories

Abstract This paper proposes an explanatory model for the lexical representation of the native speakers’ lexical knowledge of English prepositions. Lexical knowledge of prepositions as relational predicates includes argument structure (trajector-landmark) as in Cognitive Grammar, situation types (position vs state) as in Functional Grammar, lexical hierarchies (spatial subdomains) based on semantic primitives, as in Natural Semantic Metalanguage, and embodied perceptual parameters configured in four dimensions, namely, geometry, topology, force-dynamics and function (from Cognitive Linguistics). This model is illustrated here by expounding three lexical templates compatible with constructional templates in the Lexical Constructional Model, representing the semantic decomposition of English prepositions at, on and in.

The role of scenarios in paradoxes

This paper fills a gap in the existing metaphilosophical research on paradoxes by focusing on the role of scenarios. Typical philosophical paradoxes contain a scenario description whose contribution to paradoxes remains unexplored. I argue that scenarios are examples or instantiations of the abstract schema of paradoxes. As such, scenarios contribute to paradoxes on two levels. First, they make the argument more concrete, thus enhancing the dialectical force of paradoxes and facilitating their understanding, especially for non-experts. This function is external to the paradox itself, but has important practical implications for the use of paradoxes and their effect on philosophical debates, and it contributes to explaining why philosophical paradoxes are usually introduced by a scenario. Second, and more crucially, scenarios are essential to the epistemic dimension of paradoxes. By definition, paradoxes have two necessary components: the argumentative structure and the plausibility/implausibility of the premises/conclusion. By providing examples of the abstract schema, scenarios contribute to making the premises plausible. In particular, scenarios are the source of plausibility and justification for those premises that contain an empirically grounded assertion of existence. Examples of such paradoxes are the Sorites paradox, the Lottery paradox, and the Grue paradox. Contrary to the dialectical role, the epistemic function of scenarios is indispensable, as it connects paradoxes to the real world and underscores their significance in specific debates.

Investigating lower secondary school students’ geometric argumentation structure using Toulmin model

Geometric argumentation has an important role in solving mathematical problems in geometric material, so students must have this ability. Each student has different thoughts, including when stating arguments. Each student's arguments will vary and be at different levels. This study aims to determine the levels of lower secondary school students' geometric argumentation. This research was conducted in a lower secondary school involving 20 ninth-grade students. Students participating in this study were asked to work on geometry problems related to proof. Through the proofs carried out, the argumentation structure owned by students is visible. The structures of argumentation given by the students were then analysed using Toulmin's model of argumentation. The components of the Toulmin model used consist of claim, data, warrant, and backing. The results of the analysis of the proof prepared by the students stated that some of the students have been able to reach a high level of geometric argumentation and can compile a series of proofs. But not a few of them also have difficulty compiling the proof, have difficulty providing the components of the Toulmin model, and make some mistakes. Errors made by students include symbol writing errors, calculation errors, and others.

Constructing Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Argumentative Structure of Early-Stage Business Pitch Problem Statements at an International Business Accelerator

Constructing Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Argumentative Structure of Early-Stage Business Pitch Problem Statements at an International Business Accelerator

The Ethical Embeddedness of the Economic Inequality Debate

AbstractHow do scholars formulate arguments about economic inequality? What is the role of empirical analysis? In what ways, if any, is the debate informed by ethical considerations? In this paper, we address these questions by evaluating one of the main arguments in Thomas Piketty’s 2014 book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, along with its endorsements and rebuttals. Applying Stephen Toulmin’s model of arguments to Piketty unearths a complex argument structure that must be understood for an evaluation to be possible. Of particular importance are the warrants that Piketty used to justify his conclusions from the empirical material. Our analysis revealed that the most influential rebuttals were targeted not at Piketty’s empirical inferences but the way he used these inferences to justify his claims. We also found value judgments to be an essential part of the justification process, making Piketty’s claims ultimately embedded in ethical considerations. We conclude that value judgments are intrinsic to scholarly arguments not only in economic inequality debates but also more broadly.

THÌ and LÀ Constructions in Vietnamese: A Study on Argument Structures

This study aims to shed light on the argument structure of the Vietnamese particles THÌ and LÀ, which function as markers of focused constituents and topic-comment structures, respectively. The research objectives are to identify the syntactic and semantic properties of constructions involving THÌ and LÀ, and to analyze their argument structures within the theoretical frameworks of construction grammar. Specifically, the constructional approach (Goldberg 1995, 2006) and radical construction grammar (Croft 2001) will be employed. The methodology involves collecting a corpus of naturally occurring data from various written sources. The data will undergo qualitative analysis to identify argument structure patterns associated with THÌ and LÀ constructions, as well as quantitative analysis of frequency and distribution. The expected findings will provide insights into the argument structures of these Vietnamese constructions, elucidating how focused constituents and topic-comment structures are marked. The study will evaluate the applicability of the chosen theoretical frameworks in accounting for the observed patterns. The findings have potential applications in natural language processing tasks requiring accurate recognition and interpretation of focused constituents and topic-comment structures, such as information extraction, machine translation, and language generation. Furthermore, the study may inform language teaching and acquisition by shedding light on the usage patterns of THÌ and LÀ in Vietnamese. The analysis is expected to contribute to a deeper understanding of argument structures in Vietnamese and potentially motivate extensions or modifications to the theoretical frameworks.

Partitioning graphs with linear minimum degree

AbstractWe prove that there exists an absolute constant such that, for any positive integer , every graph with minimum degree at least admits a vertex‐partition , where both and have minimum degree at least , and every vertex in has at least neighbors in . This confirms a question posted by Kühn and Osthus (J. Comb. Theory Ser. B. 88 (2003), 29–43.) and is tight up to a constant factor. Our proof combines probabilistic methods with structural arguments based on Ore's theorem on ‐factors of bipartite graphs.

Argument structure and semantic role analysis of English speech act verb order

This study is qualitative descriptive research that examines the English speech act verb “order” in English. The purpose of this study is to analyse the argument structure and its role in semantics. The type of data used in this study is secondary data sourced from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The research instrument utilized in this study is a human instrument supported by hardware such as a computer, along with software such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, as well as note-taking tools like pen and paper. Data for this study was collected using the corpus linguistics method and observation methods with note-taking techniques. The data were analysed by using the macro role theory by van Vallin & Lapolla (1997). The study results indicate that the verb "order" can have two arguments, the actor argument and the undergoer argument, and each argument can have its semantic role. The actor argument can entail the semantic role of the agent, while the undergoer argument can entail the semantic role of the theme.