Premise Of Argument Research Articles

Explaining Epistemic Intuitions: From Intuitionist Particularism to Intuitionist Explanationism

Abstract In Radical Skepticism & Epistemic Intuition Michael Bergmann attempts to overcome the threat of radical skepticism as it arises in several different forms. The key to Bergmann’s response to skepticism is his method of intuitionist particularism wherein we give our intuitions about particular beliefs being justified more weight than we do intuitions about the premises of arguments for skepticism. There are two general problems for Bergmann’s response to skepticism. First, he fails to accurately portray the key principle of the skeptical argument. As a result, much of the apparent motivation for looking to intuitionist particularism as opposed to other responses to skepticism is merely apparent. Second, intuitionist particularism faces significant problems when it comes to the Problem of the Criterion and the resolution of conflicting intuitions. However, a related intuitionist method, one incorporating explanationism, may be able to deliver what intuitionist particularism promises while avoiding its problems.

Précis of On evidence in philosophy

AbstractOn Evidence in Philosophy sketches an epistemology of philosophy itself, a method for philosophical inquiry. Part 1 defends a version of Moore's method of “common sense,” in which humble, boring everyday facts like “I have hands” and “I had breakfast earlier today” trump the a priori philosophical premises of arguments for various eliminative idealisms and skepticisms. Part 2 exhibits the deeper poverty of philosophical method, arguing that philosophy cannot prove or even refute any interesting thesis. But Part 3 defends intuitions as giving us good prima facie reason to accept the judgments they support, and then develops the method of wide reflective equilibrium in the context of a broader explanatory‐coherentist epistemology.

Идиомы в формулировке посылок аргумента в общении на английском языке

In order to ensure effective communication, it is necessary to activate critical thinking, including the analysis of information, the argumentation of statements. The argument formulation is based on the presentation of its premises, the correct construction with the help of discursive markers. It helps to determine the cause-and-effect relationship, highlight the main and the secondary information, and links to individual judgment. It is noted, that the use of idioms as discursive markers of an argument premises allows building the logic of the message, formulating a clear statement, providing figurativeness, emotional coloring, and a variety of speech. A study conducted using the Sketch Engine system in the British National Corpus showed that a sufficient number of idioms were identified as synonyms, such as by right of, except that, in the light of something and others. The frequency of idioms use demonstrates a sufficient number of their occurrences in the corpus, and indicates their use in modern English. Identified and grouped idioms: idioms that reflect the reliability or doubts about the information provided; idioms that show the subjectivity of information evaluation, idioms that allow structuring prerequisites. It is shown that idioms make it possible to focus on the fact that certain information is introduced, which is the basis for an argument, the introduction of information, a premise for conclusions or generalizations, and they are widely used in informal and semi-official academic communication.

From Stories—via Arguments, Scenarios, and Cases—to Probabilities: Commentary on Floris J. Bex's “The Hybrid Theory of Stories and Arguments Applied to the Simonshaven Case” and Bart Verheij's “Analyzing the Simonshaven Case With and Without Probabilities”

From Stories—via Arguments, Scenarios, and Cases—to Probabilities: Commentary on Floris J. Bex's “The Hybrid Theory of Stories and Arguments Applied to the Simonshaven Case” and Bart Verheij's “Analyzing the Simonshaven Case With and Without Probabilities”

How to Do Things with Theory: The Instrumental Role of Auxiliary Hypotheses in Testing

Pierre Duhem’s influential argument for holism relies on a view of the role that background theory plays in testing: according to this still common account of “auxiliary hypotheses,” elements of background theory serve as truth-apt premises in arguments for or against a hypothesis. I argue that this view is mistaken. Rather than serving as truth-apt premises in arguments, auxiliary hypotheses are employed as (reliability-apt) “epistemic tools”: instruments that perform specific tasks in connecting our theoretical questions with the world but that are not (or not usually) premises in arguments. On the resulting picture, the acceptability of an auxiliary hypothesis depends not on its truth but on contextual factors such as the task or purpose it is put to and the other tools employed alongside it.

Enthymematic free space: the efficacy of anti-stop-and-frisk arguments in the face of racial prejudice

Much scholarly energy has been invested in understanding how rhetors covertly invoke racial bias and how “color-blind” rhetoric produces unintended racist effects. Less scholarly attention has been paid to the unintended racist effects of anti-racist rhetoric. Anti-racist rhetors often present racial disparities in the criminal justice system to argue for reform, but psychological research suggests that such information can inspire audiences to support the status quo. To understand the rhetorical factors that contribute to such results, we analyze anti-stop-and-frisk literature produced by two New York advocacy organizations. These organizations employ racial disparity figures in enthymemes, defined by Aristotle as syllogisms that invite audiences to complete sometimes incompletely expressed lines of reasoning. Variations in which parts of an enthymeme are clearly or prominently stated influence the range of possible propositions that audiences can supply to fill in missing or obscured pieces—the enthymematic free space. Based on our analysis, we identify three sources of risky enthymematic free space involving racial disparities that allow audiences to employ their racial prejudices as premises in arguments against stop-and-frisk, consequently concluding the opposite of what is intended. We recommend three alternative argumentative strategies to reduce the risk of producing this unintended rhetorical result.

Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? A Probabilistic Answer Examined

AbstractPeter van Inwagen has given an answer to the question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’. His answer is: Because there being nothing is as improbable as anything can be: it has probability 0. Here I shall examine his argument for this answer and I shall argue that it does not work because no good reasons have been given for two of the argument's premises and that the conclusion of the argument does not constitute an answer to the question van Inwagen wanted to answer.

Classical logic, argument and dialectic

A well studied instantiation of Dung's abstract theory of argumentation yields argumentation-based characterisations of non-monotonic inference over possibly inconsistent sets of classical formulae. This provides for single-agent reasoning in terms of argument and counter-argument, and distributed non-monotonic reasoning in the form of dialogues between computational and/or human agents. However, features of existing formalisations of classical logic argumentation (Cl-Arg) that ensure satisfaction of rationality postulates, preclude applications of Cl-Arg that account for real-world dialectical uses of arguments by resource-bounded agents. This paper formalises dialectical classical logic argumentation that both satisfies these practical desiderata and is provably rational. In contrast to standard approaches to Cl-Arg we: 1) draw an epistemic distinction between an argument's premises accepted as true, and those assumed true for the sake of argument, so formalising the dialectical move whereby arguments' premises are shown to be inconsistent, and avoiding the foreign commitment problem that arises in dialogical applications; 2) provide an account of Cl-Arg suitable for real-world use by eschewing the need to check that an argument's premises are subset minimal and consistent, and identifying a minimal set of assumptions as to the arguments that must be constructed from a set of formulae in order to ensure that the outcome of evaluation is rational. We then illustrate our approach with a natural deduction proof theory for propositional classical logic that allows measurement of the ‘depth’ of an argument, such that the construction of depth-bounded arguments is a tractable problem, and each increase in depth naturally equates with an increase in the inferential capabilities of real-world agents. We also provide a resource-bounded argumentative characterisation of non-monotonic inference as defined by Brewka's Preferred Subtheories.

Music Teaching in Brazilian Schools: Arguments Towards Ethos Formation

This article analyzes arguments that music has the power to transform people in that it is relevant to an individual’s development and education. To this end, we compare the propositions on music by the ancient Greeks to the justifications in 2008 that defend music as a compulsory content in Brazilian schools. Rhetorical analysis from the perspective of argumentation theory was used to examine the discourse since argumentative schemes allow us to identify the values of groups. The conclusion establishes that loci of quality ground the premises of arguments in general and are based on epideictic rhetoric by strengthening adherence to the values proclaimed.

Stereotypical Inferences: Philosophical Relevance and Psycholinguistic Toolkit

AbstractStereotypes shape inferences in philosophical thought, political discourse, and everyday life. These inferences are routinely made when thinkers engage in language comprehension or production: We make them whenever we hear, read, or formulate stories, reports, philosophical case‐descriptions, or premises of arguments – on virtually any topic. These inferences are largely automatic: largely unconscious, non‐intentional, and effortless. Accordingly, they shape our thought in ways we can properly understand only by complementing traditional forms of philosophical analysis with experimental methods from psycholinguistics. This paper seeks, first, to bring out the wider philosophical relevance of stereotypical inference, well beyond familiar topics like gender and race. Second, we wish to provide (experimental) philosophers with a toolkit to experimentally study these ubiquitous inferences and what intuitions they may generate. This paper explains what stereotypes are (Section1), and why they matter to current and traditional concerns in philosophy – experimental, analytic, and applied (Section2). It then assembles a psycholinguistic toolkit and demonstrates through two studies (Sections3–4) how potentially questionnaire‐based measures (plausibility‐ratings) can be combined with process measures (reaction times and pupillometry) to garner evidence for specific stereotypical inferences and study when they ‘go through’ and influence our thinking.

Explanations of exceptions in biology: corrective asymmetry versus autonomy

It is often argued that biological generalizations have a distinctive and special status by comparison with the generalizations of other natural sciences, such as that biological generalizations are riddled with exceptions defying systematic and simple treatment. This special status of biology is used as a premise in arguments that posit a deprived explanatory, nomological, or methodological status in the biological sciences. I will discuss the traditional and still almost universally held idea that the biological sciences cannot deal with exceptions and application conditions of their generalizations with their own distinctive and proprietary explanantia, but need the help of lower-level sciences to carry out this task. The idea of lower-level explanations of exceptions is connected to the idea that the biological sciences need lower-level sciences to better themselves and to the idea that biological sciences cannot provide reliable and extrapolatable results or explanations by themselves. I present counterexamples to the idea of lower-level explanations of exceptions in biology. I also discuss and refute more general arguments why the idea of lower-level explanations of exceptions has been held to hold in the special sciences, such as the screening-off and openness arguments. This suggest that there might be nothing special about the biological sciences vis-a-vis the more fundamental natural sciences, such as physics insofar as explanations of exceptions are concerned, and that the biological sciences can provide reliable and extrapolatable results or explanations by themselves.

DEGREES OF PROCEDURE ACTIVATION AND THE GERMAN MODAL PARTICLES JA AND DOCH– PART 1

In this paper I argue that a unitary account of the modal and non-modal uses of the German particles ja and doch can be provided by appealing to essentially non-representational properties of the theory of procedural meaning in Relevance Theory (RT). According to Wilson (2011), procedural indicators such as ja and doch function by raising the activation level of cognitive procedures, increasing the likelihood that audiences following the RT comprehension heuristic will use these procedures. Partially following proposals by Konig (1997) and Blass (2000, 2014), I would like to posit that ja and doch trigger a procedure to raise the epistemic strength of the proposition conveyed. Doch triggers a second procedure in addition, a constraint on context selection to the effect that the proposition conveyed must be processed in a context containing its negation. Since raising the activation level of cognitive procedures can be done in degrees, I argue that the basic difference between modal and non-modal uses of ja and doch is a reflection of differences in the degree of activation level rise: non-modal uses of ja and doch raise the activation of the manifestness procedure to a high degree, giving rise to effects such as emphasis or contrast, whereas modal uses raise this procedure’s activation level merely to some degree. As a result, modal ja and doch are uniquely suitable to mark propositions that do not need much evidential strengthening but would benefit from some such effect. This is most typically the case in mutually manifest assumptions that the communicator intends to use as premises in arguments. However, in some discourse contexts assumptions that are not mutually manifest may also fit this description. The prediction of this analysis is that the modal uses of ja and doch do not form a clearly delimited class; rather, borderline cases exist defying generalizations. I will present data from a qualitative corpus study that confirms these predictions.

Philosophical Method and Intuitions as Assumptions

AbstractMany philosophers claim to employ intuitions in their philosophical arguments. Others contest that no such intuitions are used frequently or at all in philosophy. This article suggests and defends a conception of intuitions as part of the philosophical method: intuitions are special types of philosophical assumptions to which we are invited to assent, often as premises in argument, that may serve an independent function in philosophical argument and that are not formed through a purely inferential process. A series of philosophical case studies shows that intuitions in these arguments contain the relevant features. The view has implications for philosophical method, offering a compromise between opponents on the divisive debate of the merits of experimental philosophy: experimental philosophy provides an especially useful role in philosophical assumption analysis.

Ethics and Fictive Imagining

Sometimes it is wrong to imagine or take pleasure in imagining certain things, and likewise it is sometimes wrong to prompt these things. Some argue that certain fictive imaginings—imaginings of fictional states of affairs—are intrinsically wrong or that taking pleasure in certain fictive imaginings is wrong and so prompting either would also be wrong. These claims sometimes also serve as premises in arguments linking the ethical properties of a fiction to its artistic value. However, even if we grant that it might sometimes be wrong to imagine x or to take pleasure in imagining x, nothing follows about the ethical status of fictively imagining x, with or without pleasure. Prompting some fictive imagining is intrinsically wrong only when the fiction is a means to encourage for export from the fiction to the actual world some belief or attitude that it would be blameworthy to hold. The failure of arguments for the wrongness of certain fictive imaginings and their prompting lies in part in a failure to recognize that imagining x and fictively imagining x are distinct mental acts. This distinction blocks many arguments attempting to forge a link between a work's ethical properties and its artistic properties.

From action to understanding – student teachers’ learning and practical reasoning during teaching practice

This paper reports the findings of a study where student teachers’ practical reasoning and the development of professional knowledge were investigated during teaching practice in pre-service class teacher education. The model of student teachers’ supervision applying the philosophy and principles of the practical argument approach was used in the study and data collection. In this model practical argument premises can be situational, empirical, stipulative or they can be based on value assessments. The videos of student teachers’ lessons, stimulated recall interviews and critical incidents, were used in order to grasp the situationality and contextuality of the classroom reality. Results show that student teachers mainly expressed situational and empirical premises in their practical argumentation. Stipulative and value premises were also present, but to a lesser degree. During the process, the student teachers developed their arguments from situational and empirical premises towards new value premises and reflections on the stipulative premises guiding their work.

Why postnatal abortion throws the baby out with the bath water.

This paper articulates a careful and detailed objection to the moral permissibility of postnatal abortion. Giubilini and Minerva (2012) claim that if being unable to nurture one's newborn child without significant burdens to oneself, family or society, is a proper moral ground for the demand that the life of a fetus be terminated, then 'after-birth abortion should be considered a permissible option for women who would be damaged by [rearing the child or] giving up their newborns for adoption.' It will be shown that the permissibility of postnatal abortion does not follow from the argument's premises, in particular, the premise that the newborn is not a person in the morally relevant sense.

Talisse’s Epistemic Justification of Democracy Reconsidered

Paul Ott offers three related arguments that Robert Talisse's epistemic conception of democracy fails. Together, they are intended to support proposition that a Deweyan approach to democracy provides a better explanatory basis for how to facilitate democracy. I argue that each argument provided by Ott fails. As a result, they do not reflect a successful critique of Talisse's conception of democracy. Nor do they provide support for Ott's defense of Dewey. I close by offering a more promising line of criticism against Talisse's epistemic justification.1. IntroductionIn a recent essay appearing in Contemporary Pragmatism, Paul Ott argues that Robert Talisse's most recent iteration of his epistemic conception of democracy fails. He offers three related arguments to make his case:Argument 1P] Moral pluralism, as Talisse characterizes it, is a plurality of held (Ott 2011, 146)P2 A plurality of fundamentally held doctrines is democratically untenable.Ci Democracy cannot accommodate moral pluralism, as Talisse understands it.Argument 2P^sub 1^ Endorsement of Talisse's epistemic justification is necessary for embracing Talisse's conception of democracy.P^sub 2^ One cannot endorse both a fundamentally held doctrine and also be persuaded by Talisse's epistemic justification.C^sub 2^ Talisse's own conception of democracy is inconsistent with value practice. (ibid., 146)Argument 3P;Talisse's claim that epistemic justification is sufficient to motivate (2009, 7; original emphasis) a commitment to democracy is &1~eP^sub 2^ The epistemic justification lacks persuasiveness for those not already morally committed to democracy.C^sub 3^ Democracy moral justification and motivation.Taken together, Ott intends these arguments to support proposition that a Deweyan approach to democracy, which, he states, requires an affective and moral motivation (ibid., 146), provides a better explanatory basis for how to facilitate democracy than does Talisse's epistemic justification. I will not rehash whether we should accept or reject Deweyan democracy; Talisse's (2007, 2011a) challenge to it strikes me as decisive.1 I will instead focus on merits of Ott's three arguments, arguing that each is invalid - or at least that Ott has failed to firmly establish validity of each. As a result, they do not reflect a successful critique of Talisse's epistemic justification. Nor do they provide any support for Ott's wider Deweyan proposition. This is not to say that Talisse's epistemic justification should be endorsed, however. I close by offering what I take to be a more promising line of criticism against it.2. Argument 1Given description provided in first premise of Argument 1 (i.e., 1P0, Talisse characterizes moral pluralism as a plurality of fundamentally held doctrines. According to Ott, that a doctrine is held fundamentally - that one engages in fundamental value practice - says nothing about content of that doctrine. This instead refers to the way in which doctrines, or values, are practiced (Ott 2011, 146). Namely, one engages in fundamental value practice, or fundamentalism (ibid., 149) for short, insofar as they hold and practice values in ... extreme ways, most notably by holding values as non-negotiable, regardless of changing circumstances (ibid., 148). Drawing on Dewey, Ott concludes that such a mode of practice reflects nothing less than carelessness, conceit, irresponsibility, and rigidity - in short, absolutism (ibid., 149).If it is case that moral pluralism is a fact of social and political life, that there exists a plurality of doctrines whose adherents have fundamental commitments that they refuse in principle to abandon or revise no matter what circumstances, Ott contends that said adherents cannot be expected to embrace democracy. …

Work Satisfaction andd Employee Turnover Intentions: An Empirical Study

There has been a theoretical presumption in HRM that job satisfaction and employee turnover intention are negatively correlated. Based on this premise of argument, business leaders aspire to ensure optimal job satisfaction which is a key to the success of any business that relies on a variety of organizational and psycho-economic factors. This study was conducted in the fast-growing Grameenphone (GP) limited, which is the largest mobile phone company in Bangladesh. The factors i.e. independent variable are compensation package, supervision, career growth, training and development, working atmosphere, company loyalty and performance appraisal. The result shows that training and performance appraisal, work atmosphere, compensation package, supervision, and company loyalty are the key factory that positively influence job satisfaction which in turn reduce employees' turnover. The study also finds that the employees of this company possess the above at the moderate level and positive attitude towards work satisfaction which causes lower turnover incidence.

Imagining as a Guide to Possibility

A great many arguments in philosophy turn on claims about what is possible, and in fact it’s difficult to overstate how central modal claims are in all areas of philosophy. Making claims about what could be and what must be is the bread-and-butter of philosophy. In philosophy of mind, for example, it is contended that some of the best arguments for dualism hinge on a modal premise. In recent years there has been a resurgence of debate about the merits of modal arguments for dualism, and this has in turn sparked interest in modal arguments generally. What makes for a good modal argument? How do we know that the crucial modal premises of such arguments are true? Hume offers the traditional answer in the Treatise: “ ‘Tis an established maxim in metaphysics, That whatever the mind clearly conceives includes the idea of possible existence, or, in other words, that nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible” (I.ii.2, emphasis removed). Hume is certainly right about this much: many in philosophy presume this established maxim. We take ourselves to have some knowledge of what could be, or what could have been, and by this we mean knowledge of metaphysical possibility. Hume does not tell us, however, how this “established maxim” has been established. The more we consider the maxim, the more it cries out for explanation. What is it to conceive something? Why is it that conceiving, so understood, provides evidence for possibility? I think it is fair to say that we lack clear and satisfying positive answers to these questions; what we have instead is a general unease about the central philosophical practice of making claims about the possible and a particular dissatisfaction with “controversial” modal premises in arguments whose conclusions we don’t like. Part of the problem is that many candidate answers to the “what” question quite obviously lead nowhere. ‘Conceive’ is a word with many senses, and many of these senses are clearly unsuitable to play the role of evidence for possibility. Merely understanding, thinking, or entertaining a proposition is not sufficient, for it is easy enough to understand, think, or entertain thoughts about what is necessarily false. The same goes for assuming, supposing, and taking for granted. If the kind of conceiving that philosophers have in mind isn’t any of these, it is less obvious what the right kind is. (“Clear and distinct conception” anyone?)

Harmony in a sequent setting

In response to a problem pointed out by Steinberger (2009), the Harmony Principle of Tennant forthcoming (b) is here given a sequent formulation in order better to illustrate its application to the existential quantifier. 1. The Harmony of the rules for the standard existential quantifier The usual definition of the notion ‘φ is a (logically) stronger proposition than ψ’ is that one can deduce ψ from φ, but not conversely. An alternative definition, which will prove useful for present purposes, is that from any sequent of the form Γ, ψ:θ one can derive the sequent Γ, φ:θ. This stress on the respective roles of φ and of ψ in arguments goes back to §3 of Frege’s Begriffsschrift, where he defined identity of the propositional content of two sentences in terms of their intersubstitutability, salva validitate, as premises of arguments. Definition. Let A(x) be a formula with just the variable x free. Then for any closed term term t, we define A(t) to be the sentence that results from A(x) by replacing all free occurrences of x with occurrences of t. We shall also abbreviate ∃xA(x) to ∃xA. In sequent form, the rule of existential introduction (or ‘∃ on the right’) is (∃-I) Δ:A(t) , Δ:∃xA and the rule of existential elimination (or ‘∃ on the left’) is (∃-E) Δ, A(a):ψ where a does not occur in the lower sequent. Δ,∃xA:ψ Lemma 1. Suppose φ satisfies the conditions on ∃xA in the statement of (∃-I). Then by making full use of (∃-E) – but no use of (∃-I) – we can show that ∃xA is at least as strong as φ, i.e. from any sequent of the form Γ, φ:θ we can derive the sequent Γ, ∃xA:θ. Proof. That φ satisfies the conditions on ∃xA in the statement of (∃-I) means that the following sequent-inference (†) may be used: