Form Of Argument Research Articles

A Network of Argumentation Schemes and Critical Questions

In this paper, we devise a network that consists of argumentation schemes and critical questions that participants in debates can use to easily construct arguments that attack or support former arguments. As a prototype, we build a potential network of argumentation schemes and critical questions with a practical reasoning scheme at its center. The usefulness of a NASCQ in constructing and reconstructing complex arguments and in formal argumentation is also explored along with argumentation more broadly.

Dialectics, post-dialectics, and the democratic argument of Lysias XII

The theory of post-dialectics maintains that dialectical perspectives cannot account for the persuasive force of arguments which transgress dialectical norms. One particularly consequential form of post-dialectical argument, called “fascistic argument” by Paliewicz and McHendry, seeks to dominate its discursive space rather than to test claims and give reasons within the terms of that discourse. In this essay I affirm that pragma-dialectics can perceive and explain post-dialectical persuasive forces while retaining a fundamental commitment to dialectical norms. I support this claim with an analysis of the argumentative features of Lysias XII Against Eratosthenes, an instance of forensic oratory from fifth-century BCE Athens. The rhetorical analysis of Lysias XII identifies manifestations of each of Paliewicz and McHendry’s five elements of fascistic argument and describes these manifestations of fascistic argument using the pragma-dialectical terminology of strategic maneuvering. The argument practices of Lysias XII diverge from the theory of fascistic argument by negating disinterested choice instead of choice per se, so they are identified with the distinct but related concept of democratic argument. I further affirm that explaining post-dialectical forces from a dialectical perspective can be enabled by enhancing the generative partnership of rhetoric and dialectics in argumentation studies.

Strategic investment with positive externalities

We study strategic investment in continuous time with positive externalities of changing magnitude. Our model particularly allows for two correlated risk factors. Constructing subgame-perfect equilibria with pure and mixed strategies, we observe the novel effect that it is important for the firms to anticipate preemption. In fact, the presence of a second risk factor implies also an additional strategic risk. We quantify the associated extra waiting cost and show that it is ex ante uncertain whether investment will happen when there is a first- or a second-mover advantage. Our formal arguments involve several methodological contributions. In addition, we provide detailed specifications of our basic model to address various applications.

Al-Muḥaqqiq al-Iṣfahānī’s Ontological Argument and Spinoza’s Ontological Arguments for the Existence of God

Al-Muḥaqqiq al-Iṣfahānī (1878-1942) and Spinoza (1632-1677), two prominent intellectuals of the Islamic and Western worlds respectively, have proposed different versions of the ontological argument for the existence of God. I present five versions of al-Muḥaqqiq al-Iṣfahānī’s argument in three general dimensions: first, the concept of the necessary being (wājib al-wujūd) as a mental concept; second, the concept of the necessary being as a representation of something external; and finally, the reality of the necessary being or what externally exists by its essence. Only one of these versions is compatible with al-Muḥaqqiq al-Iṣfahānī’s words. On the other hand, Spinoza has presented six arguments in which he has deployed the concept of God in three ways: the concept of God as a concept, the concept of God as a representation of something external, and the mental existence of this concept. In this paper, I compare the accurate construal of al-Muḥaqqiq al-Iṣfahānī’s argument with Spinoza’s six arguments, whereby I make a case for a strong similarity between the grounds and forms of the ontological argument as formulated by these two intellectuals.

The Quantified Argument Calculus and Natural Logic

The formalisation of natural language arguments in a formal language close to it in syntax has been a central aim of Moss's Natural Logic. I examine how the Quantified Argument Calculus (Quarc) can handle the inferences Moss has considered. I show that they can be incorporated in existing versions of Quarc or in straightforward extensions of it, all within sound and complete systems. Moreover, Quarc is closer in some respects to natural language than are Moss's systems---for instance, it does not use negative nouns. The process also sheds light on formal properties and presuppositions of some inferences it formalises. Directions for future work are outlined.

Formalization of Arguments

The purpose of this introduction is to give a rough overview of the discussion of the formalization of arguments, focusing on deductive arguments. The discussion is structured around four important junctions: i) the notion of support, which captures the relation between the conclusion and premises of an argument, ii) the choice of a formal language into which the argument is translated in order to make it amenable to evaluation via formal methods, iii) the question of quality criteria for such formalizations, and finally iv) the choice of the underlying logic. This introductory discussion is supplemented by a brief description of the genesis of the special issue, acknowledgements, and summaries of each article.

Modular orders on defaults in formal argumentation

Abstract Default logic and formal argumentation are paradigmatic methods in the study of nonmonotonic inference. Defeasible information often comes in different strengths stemming from different degrees of reliability in epistemic applications or from varying strengths of authorities issuing norms in deontic applications. In both paradigms, methods have been developed to deal with prioritized knowledge bases and normative systems. Questions of comparability of these methods therefore naturally arise. Argumentation theory has been developed with a strong emphasis on unification. It is therefore a desideratum to obtain natural representations of various approaches to (prioritized) default logic within frameworks of structured argumentation, such as ASPIC. Important steps in this direction have been presented in Liao et al. (2016, 2018). In this work, we identify and address some problems in earlier translations, we broaden the focus from total to modular orderings of defaults and we consider non-normal defaults.

The “Because Science” meme as virtual commonplace

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship in virtual rhetorics has demonstrated that we must abandon static notions of place if we wish to account for the rhetorical effects of internet memes and other forms of virtual argumentation. However, displacing virtual rhetorics entirely effaces grounds for collective political action, particularly political resistance organized in virtual environments such as internet forums. We can restore this crucial grounding, without sacrificing an orientation to circulation, by treating memes as commonplaces in a topological framework. A commonplace approach to virtual rhetorics further revivifies for us the essential virtuality of Aristotle’s original topical doctrine. This interanimation of current and classical rhetorics is dramatized via a case study of the ironic reversal of political polarity in the “Because Science” meme.

Ground bias: A driver for skepticisms about space exploration

This paper introduces and develops the concept of “ground bias.” The bias in question involves a background underestimation of the importance of space for an understanding of terrestrial processes. Underestimation then operates as a driver for various kinds of skepticism about space exploration. Ground bias is also more widespread than skepticism about space exploration and does not, on its own, entail it. There may need to be some further factor (such as populist political critique, fears about technology, or a generalized pessimism about the future of humanity) before space skepticism is embraced. Nonetheless, an appeal to ground bias can help to explain the stubborn persistence of skepticism about space exploration in the face of successive failed predictions about the negative impact of space programs upon humanity. The arc of the paper moves from an overview of space skepticisms to a clarification of the ground bias concept. The formal argument of the paper (that this bias helps to explain the persistence of skepticism about space exploration) is largely a foil to help set up the ground bias concept. The final section considers the standing of ground bias by comparison with other sorts of human bias, up to and including forms of irrational prejudice. Ground bias is significantly different from these, and closer to human biases about time (e.g., thinking of the future as more important than the past, and near events as more important than distant ones). However, it is also a good deal newer than bias about time, and less rooted in our human makeup.

Argumentation: A calculus for Human-Centric AI.

This paper aims to expose and analyze the potential foundational role of Argumentation for Human-Centric AI, and to present the main challenges for this foundational role to be realized in a way that will fit well with the wider requirements and challenges of Human-Centric AI. The central idea set forward is that by endowing machines with the ability to argue with forms of machine argumentation that are cognitively compatible with those of human argumentation, we will be able to support a naturally effective, enhancing and ethical human-machine cooperation and "social" integration.

Strong admissibility for abstract dialectical frameworks

Abstract dialectical frameworks (ADFs) have been introduced as a formalism for modeling argumentation allowing general logical satisfaction conditions and the relevant argument evaluation. Different criteria used to settle the acceptance of arguments are called semantics. Semantics of ADFs have so far mainly been defined based on the concept of admissibility. However, the notion of strongly admissible semantics studied for abstract argumentation frameworks has not yet been introduced for ADFs. In the current work we present the concept of strong admissibility of interpretations for ADFs. Further, we show that strongly admissible interpretations of ADFs form a lattice with the grounded interpretation as the maximal element. We also present algorithms to answer the following decision problems: (1) whether a given interpretation is a strongly admissible interpretation of a given ADF, and (2) whether a given argument is strongly acceptable/deniable in a given interpretation of a given ADF. In addition, we show that the strongly admissible semantics of ADFs forms a proper generalization of the strongly admissible semantics of AFs.

The innovative contribution of kantian thinking in the history of political ideas

In the material below, the author brings in a well-structured and systematized form of the strong arguments about the place and role of Classical German Philosophy in the History of Political Ideas: the economic recovery and poor integration of the states of Germany under the blow of Napoleon’s occupational wars by German thinkers, some innovations in knowledge of German philosophers, the lessons imposed by the experience of the franchise revolution to the German bourgeoisie, its fear of its own people and pushing it to compromise with the aristocracy. On the other hand, German ideology in the new space of religious tolerance between Catholics and Protestants created favorable conditions for the development of abstract-theoretical thinking, as it freed philosophy from the need to depend entirely on religious dogma, but also alienating it from the necessities of practice. In these critical conditions of the previous theories and of elaboration of a new theoretical-methodological foundation of knowledge, the new political-philosophical movement is initiated, known as the classical German philosophy, which will strongly mark the modern political thinking. The founder of this movement will be the famous philosopher and great innovator of German thought in modern times Immanuel Kant, who will make an essential turn in political thought, will strongly mark the Western modern society and will be the basis of the most important modern political and contemporary ideas.

Large-Degree Asymptotics of Rational Painlevé-IV Solutions by the Isomonodromy Method

The Painlevé-IV equation has two families of rational solutions generated, respectively, by the generalized Hermite polynomials and the generalized Okamoto polynomials. We apply the isomonodromy method to represent all of these rational solutions by means of two related Riemann–Hilbert problems, each of which involves two integer-valued parameters related to the two parameters in the Painlevé-IV equation. We then use the steepest-descent method to analyze the rational solutions in the limit that at least one of the parameters is large. Our analysis provides rigorous justification for formal asymptotic arguments that suggest that in general solutions of Painlevé-IV with large parameters behave either as an algebraic function or an elliptic function. Moreover, the results show that the elliptic approximation holds on the union of a curvilinear rectangle and, in the case of the generalized Okamoto rational solutions, four curvilinear triangles each of which shares an edge with the rectangle; the algebraic approximation is valid in the complementary unbounded domain. We compare the theoretical predictions for the locations of the poles and zeros with numerical plots of the actual poles and zeros obtained from the generating polynomials, and find excellent agreement.

A Genetic Interpretation of the Preface of The Genealogy of Morals

Traditional interpretations of Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals (GM) argue that the work is a treatise on, or a straightforward account of, Nietzsche’s moral thinking. This is typically contrasted with what has become known as the postmodern reading, which holds that the core of GM is an attack on the very notion of the truth itself. These two interpretations are often taken to be non-coextensive and mutually exclusive. However, I argue, using a genetic form of argumentation that tracks the development of the text through archival evidence, that both are partially correct, since Nietzsche sees all fundamental problems hitherto as moral questions in service of the ascetic ideal and the will to truth. According to Nietzsche, all the hitherto fundamental questions of philosophy are not value-free but are deeply value-laden. To put this more precisely, Nietzsche rejects the fact-value distinction itself. Questions of morality are not separable from epistemology, questions of epistemology are not separable from morality, and both subjects have worked in service of the ascetic ideal. Further, I provide new evidence on the debate about the counter-ideal to the ascetic ideal. I claim that Amor Fati embodies that ideal. I argue for this using a section from the preface that was added but then removed. This section was removed because it gave away the conclusion of the work, that all fundamental problems, including questions of truth, are based on moral prejudices.

The Privilege of Family History

Abstract This article situates the recent phenomenon of historians writing openly about their own familial and kin networks. After a brief discussion of the evolution of family history as a scholarly field, this article foregrounds the experiences and words of a number of African Americans who engaged in a diverse range of historical, genealogical, archival, and memorial “family history” work over the last two centuries. In the context of slavery, I approach family history as a form of enslaved resistance and anti-slavery argument. In the post-emancipation era, I consider African American family history within and beyond the nascent historical profession amid the racist national backlash to Reconstruction and the early Jim Crow era. From the Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance to the modern civil rights era, I explore the popularization of African American family history, the rise of the “new” social history, and the waves of men and women who entered the profession at the intersection of scholarship and social movement. In closing, I reflect upon African American family history in the post-civil rights era, from Roots to the rise of genetic genealogy, and the legacies of these transformations for the historical profession.

An Argumentation-Based Approach for Goal Reasoning and Explanations Generation

Abstract Explainable Artificial Intelligence systems, including intelligent agents, are expected to explain their internal decisions, behaviors and reasoning that produce their choices to the humans (or to other systems) with which they interact. Given this context, the aim of this article is to introduce a practical reasoning agent framework that supports generation of explanations about the goals the agent committed to. Firstly, we present an argumentation-based formalization for supporting goal reasoning. This is based on the belief-based goal processing model proposed by Castelfranchi and Paglieri, which is a more granular and refined model than the Beliefs–Desires–Intentions model. We focus on the dynamics of goals since they are desires until they become intentions, including the conditions under which a goal can be cancelled. We use formal argumentation reasoning to support the passage of the goals from their initial state until their final state. Secondly, in order that agents based on the proposed formalization be able to generate explanations about the goals they decided to commit to, we endow them with a mechanism for generating both complete and partial explanations. Finally, we use a scenario of rescue robots in order to illustrate the performance of our proposal, for which a simulator was developed to support the agents goal reasoning.

Telling a story in a deliberation: addressing epistemic injustice and the exclusion of indigenous groups in public decision-making

ABSTRACT Deliberative scholars have suggested that citizens should be able to exchange arguments in public forums. A key element in this exchange is the rational mode of communication, which means speaking through objective argumentation. However, some feminists argue that this mode of communication may create or intensify epistemic injustices. Furthermore, we should not assume that everyone is equally equipped to take part in deliberation. Certain groups, such as Indigenous peoples, for instance, who may not be versed in rational forms of argumentation, may not be listened to or involved sufficiently in the deliberative process. Therefore, it seems we need an alternative mode of communication, such as storytelling, which is a first-person or collective narrative. Given this, how should we pursue this goal? This article aims to answer this question by analysing a local conflict involving an Indigenous tribe and a neighbouring community in Brazil and exploring the underlying testimonial and hermeneutical injustices. I argue that storytelling has an important normative and institutional role in public deliberation and show that its applied version could overcome epistemic injustices and lead to better public policies.

The Pedagogy of Bafflement: Bernard Bailyn's History 2910, Fall 1996

The Pedagogy of Bafflement: Bernard Bailyn's History 2910, Fall 1996

Ghazal Containing My Estranged Mexican Tongue

Ghazal Containing My Estranged Mexican Tongue Felicia Zamora (bio) Your incisors tear flesh of the bottom lip. Tastebuds flood with iron. Jaw: a boneunhinges from socket by fists by fists [this isn't supposed to have an arc]; jar of ribs shakes between palms, a cocktail for the devil hides behind the vowels, round mandiblein gape to expose the blackhole of throat where conocimiento dwells in open maxilla yet remains silent [your fucking up foundations again] [whose foundations] in hyoidyou consider all anatomical parts rupture when pressurized; a knee breaks a sternum crushes a nation's aortic everything [we in here, breathing after erasure]; universe in skullsynapsing across voids [lick the elbow, lick the nipple, lick the clitoris—never separate: sphenoid; frontal; zygomatic; ethmoid; scaffolds of orbicular] orbit us, see in collection. Song in sacrumin swivel to rhythms of naciemiento of wet & wondering cells circulating a spine threads muscles, veins, tissues [a body a rhetorical argument form cannot unweave], costillas—steps in a mausoleum of flesh [broken language climbs], in chest, Felicia, breaking wings from scapulas. [End Page 20] Felicia Zamora Felicia Zamora's books include I Always Carry My Bones, 2020 Iowa Poetry Prize winner (2021), Quotient (forthcoming 2022), Body of Render, Benjamin Saltman Award winner (2020), and Of Form & Gather, Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize Winner. A CantoMundo and Ragdale Foundation fellow, she won the 2020 C.P. Cavafy Prize from Poetry International, the Wabash Prize for Poetry and the Tomaž Šalamun Prize. Her poems appear in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Guernica, Orion, POETRY, The Nation, and others. She is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati and associate poetry editor for the Colorado Review. Copyright © 2022-2023 Pleiades and Pleiades Press

God and God’s beloved: A constructive re‐reading of Scotus’s supralapsarian Christological argument

AbstractIn this essay I argue that John Duns Scotus offers two arguments to support his well‐known supralapsarian Christological position: a formal argument based on the ordering within God’s will, and a material argument based on the ordering of God’s love. While the latter is constructively more fruitful, its most natural reading, according to which God becomes incarnate so as to be loved not just by Godself but also by another, is also inconsistent with Scotus’s own account of the metaphysics of the incarnation. An alternative reading, according to which God hypostatically unites with the human soul of Christ because God falls in love with it, is equally untenable. I offer therefore an alternative reading that, while not consistent with the letter of Scotus’s argument, I believe nonetheless to be consistent with its spirit. On this reading, the love expressed in the incarnation is directed at creation. In deciding to become incarnate, God decides to give Godself to that what is not God; the embodiment of this decision is Christ. The incarnation is not an expression of divine self‐love, or love for one particular soul, but an expression of love for others.