Dialogical Argumentation Research Articles

Ложный аргумент, три Лже­ца и эффективное завершение спора

We propose a conception of false argument as the opposite to the conception of valid argument with respect to three approaches to arguments, inferential, dialogical, and abstract. A false argument is strongly invalid according to all the validity criteria of arguments, as distinct from a weakly invalid argument amounting to flawed arguments ac­cording to one of the criteria. The examples from the narratives of the film “Wag the dog” and A. Strindberg’s novel “The Sacred Bull or The Triumph of Lies” illustrate the rele­vance of the conception of false arguments for the analysis of argumentation from the perspective of the addressee, which paves the way for differentiating the epistemological approach to falsity from that of logic. False arguments are defined in three ways of refer­ring to them in dialogs, referential, attributive and self-referring, call them Liars (a), (b) and (c) respectively. False arguments of Liar (b) exist for all the three kinds of arguments. In the referential sense, there exists only a dialogical false argument; inferential false ar­guments are redundant. The conception of a false dialogical argument supports an effec­tive resolution of difference of opinions in discussion where the author fails to prove their point.

Modern Philosophy and Origen

AbstractThis essay asks in what ways modern (i.e. twentieth‐century) philosophy can either make use of Origen or inform our reading of him. It argues in the first section that the predominantly exegetic method of Origen makes it difficult for analytic philosophy to accommodate his reasoning. In the second section it examines the comparisons drawn by John Lyons between Origen and Teilhard de Chardin, which also suggest affinities with Henri Bergson, but concludes that the disparity between modern evolutionary thinking and Origen’s timeless approach to the truth of scripture is not easily overcome. The rest of the article suggests that it would be more illuminating to note affinities between Origen and modern theorists who pursue their arguments in dialogue with canonical texts. In particular, Origen’s ubiquitous search for Christ in the text of scripture, without clear evidence of authorial intent, might be more intelligible in modern eyes if Christ were seen as a Derridean pharmakos or Girardean scapegoat.

Unveiling and packaging: A model for presenting philosophy in schools

Abstract As a philosopher and a reflective practitioner of philosophy in schools, I explore two aspects of presentation which I call unveiling and packaging. Both aspects bear on the work of designing and facilitating philosophy workshops for school students. I describe unveiling philosophy as a practice of collaborative inquiry and dialogic argument: social processes that foster thinking skills and dispositions, an evaluativist epistemology, and a range of constructive norms. I then discuss packaging philosophical materials in ways that create effective stimuli for thinking. I encourage educators engaged in designing or curating stimuli to draw on the rich diversity of available media, to focus on the quality of both the philosophical content and its creative expression, and to ensure that the content connects with students’ life experiences. I propose five criteria for judging the likely effectiveness of a philosophical stimulus: that it activate emotion, induce perplexity, challenge intuitions, ignite controversy and elicit reasoned argument. I offer three detailed examples of high school philosophy workshops to illustrate the practical application of these criteria, and to illuminate fruitful possibilities for arranging stimuli, including using a Provocation-Complication sequence or arranging stimuli as elements in a more complex puzzle.

Dialog‐constraining institutional logics and their interactional manifestation in the science classroom

AbstractThis study seeks to understand why dialogic argumentation has not been adopted as a legitimate means of instruction by science teachers. To answer this question, this qualitative case study examines the mutually constitutive relationships between macrolevel phenomena, such as the taken‐for‐granted institutional mandates that teachers and schools call upon to maintain their legitimacy in society, and microlevel routinized teacher–student classroom interactions. Integrating ethnography with the analysis of classroom interactions, we seek to capture the social structuring that informs instruction and classroom interactions. Based on an inductive analysis of observations, interviews with teachers, and documents, three types of macrolevel institutional logics that mediate against the implementation of dialogic argumentation emerged. These included the logics of (a) accountability, (b) tracking, and (c) the profession. These logics give rise to instructional practices that run counter to the pursuit of dialogic argumentation. Classroom observations were analyzed to examine how these logics are conveyed through institutionally bounded interactions between teachers and students. Shaped by these institutional logics, instruction in classrooms is narrowed to mostly direct instruction of terminology and absolute facts, and is stratified into various status levels according to classroom tracking. We argue that teachers may resist dialogic argumentation primarily because it violates the fundamental rules, norms, and practices that grant them individual and organizational legitimacy. This contextualization of teacher–student interactions as motivated by institutional logics may explain in greater detail the absence of dialogic argumentation from science classrooms.

Tracing Cultural Values in Thai Students’ Dialogical Argumentation

Critical thinking and argumentation skills are crucial for developing responsible citizens and active participants in society. Indeed, reasoning and argumentation are known to be exercised differently in distinctive cultures. Historical, cultural and institutional contexts shape the way people in a society think, communicate and act. In this regard, the predominant Western assumption that reasoning should be detachable from emotion may not necessarily be accurate within the Thai cultural context. This paper highlights how different cultural assumptions were displayed in dialogical argumentation in English for fourteen, first-year undergraduates of the English Programme at a Thai university. The analysis of the argumentation data indicated that some participants presented their claims close to the end of their argumentative turns. In addition, personal experience was regularly employed as an argumentative strategy. Interestingly, there was also an absence of claims in some argumentative turns. The aforementioned findings and the themes derived from an analysis of the semi-structured interview data reflect some specific characteristics of Thai culture and values. They include indirectness and a desire for harmony, a subjectivity in argumentation and modesty.

Bargaining and descriptive content: prospects for a teleosemantic ethics

Teleosemantics is the view that mental content depends on etiological function. Moral adaptationism is the view that human morality is an evolved adaptation. Jointly, these two views offer new venues for naturalist metaethics. Several authors have seen, in the conjunction of these views, the promise of assigning naturalistically respectable descriptive content to moral judgments. One such author is Neil Sinclair, who has offered a blueprint for how to conduct teleosemantic metaethics with the help of moral adaptationism. In this paper, I argue that the prospects for assigning descriptive content to moral judgments on the basis of teleosemantics are bad. I develop my argument in dialogue with Sinclair’s paper and argue that, although Sinclair’s account of the evolution of morality is plausible, the teleosemantic account of the descriptive content of moral judgments which he bases thereon suffers from crucial shortcomings. I argue further that, given some minimal plausible assumptions about the evolution of morality made by Sinclair, no assignment of descriptive content is possible. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, the combination of moral adaptationism and teleosemantics suggests that moral judgments lack descriptive content.

A Barthian Critique of Schleiermacher’s Doctrine of God: Questioning the Schleiermacher Renaissance

Schleiermacher is an increasingly important resource for contemporary systematic theology, particularly as Barth’s criticisms of Schleiermacher, which were thought to have undermined his dogmatic relevance, are subject to severe criticism. With reference to the doctrine of God, Barth argues that Schleiermacher’s theology generates a “God behind God” and is problematized by Feuerbach. I offer a detailed reading of Schleiermacher’s mature account of the divine being and attributes and suggest in view of this interpretation that a slightly nuanced version of Barth’s critique rightly applies to Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God. I make this argument in dialogue with the many contemporary voices arguing in Schleiermacher’s defense and raise some critical questions for those seeking to retrieve Schleiermacher’s doctrine of God.

Contesting Political Decisions Involving Environmental Issues: A Case Study in Portugal Based on the Press About Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling

This paper presents a case study about the drilling of offshore oil and gas in mainland Portugal, a process that ended with the cancelation of all contracts. It aimed to better understand the argumentative and value dynamics involved in how municipalities, populations, civic organizations, and others successfully contested the central government decision of prospection. Since the press was one of the main stages for this conflict, it was important to analyze how it presented the respective arguments to society. Articles on this topic were collected from the two widely read national newspapers “Correio da Manhã” and “Público” in the culmination period of this confrontation, which occurred between June 2016 and December 2018. In total, 155 articles were found, 61.3% (n= 95) from “Público” and 38.7% (n= 60) from “Correio da Manhã.” The quantitative analysis focused on the number of news per month and the frequency of themes, as well as the frequency of actors and arguments used against and in favor of exploitation on the news. Thematic analysis was used to qualitatively assess the articulation of arguments in the two opposing views. Results show that, in both newspapers, the majority of articles focused on the positions and actions of those opposing prospection, as the Government and other actors in favor of drilling were much less active in presenting its arguments. Overall, the analysis suggests two different strategies: (a) a strong argumentative synergy between a wide range of actors against offshore prospection. Their concerted arguments defended multiple values, including public participation in political decisions, protecting local communities and places from environmental risks, countering climate change, and protecting local economic activities. (b) The Government was usually isolated in its arguments with the occasional exception of oil companies or representatives of the national industry. The scarce arguments used by these actors evoked mostly national economic values, with little engagement with other societal goals. This study suggests that the large mobilization of different sectors of society, their use of a convergent and wide range of arguments, and the lack of engagement of the Government in a dialogical argumentation were crucial to delegitimize the latter’s political decision.

Teaching argumentative synthesis writing through deliberative dialogues: instructional practices in secondary education

Dialogical argumentation practice contributes positively to argumentative writing skills. Specifically, deliberative dialogues are effective in promoting argument and counterargument integration in students' essays. However, the potential of dialogic activities may be increased if they are combined with instructional practices. The primary objective of this research is to compare the impact of four intervention programs, aimed at improving argumentative synthesis writing from conflicting sources. The four programs resulted from the combination of two instructional components (Explicit Instruction through video modelling—EI, or a Procedural Guideline—G), while Deliberative Dialogues—DD—were a constant element. We conducted a pre-post quasi-experimental study in which 186 Spanish third grade secondary school students (aged 14–15) participated. We evaluated the quality of the syntheses by examining the level of argumentative coverage (the total number of arguments included in the synthesis) and the level of integration (the type and frequency of the argumentative strategies used in the syntheses). The results showed that the effectiveness of the instructional methods varies according to the synthesis quality indicator. Explicit instruction, in combination with deliberative dialogues, was especially helpful in improving the level of integration of syntheses. The procedural guideline, in combination with deliberative dialogues, contributed significantly to the coverage of arguments. The combination of these two elements did not favor the writing of synthesis as expected, probably due to the conditions in which the intervention was carried out. The findings of this study revealed that the coverage of arguments and integration processes are of different nature, follow different learning paths and require different instructional processes.

Queer Monuments: Visibility, (Counter)actions, Legacy

ABSTRACT This article synthesizes original comparative perspectives of visibility, (counter)actions, and legacy regarding queer monuments: public artworks dedicated to, and questioning or queering normativities around, the lives of LGBT+ people. It pursues a dialogic, interdisciplinary, and multisite and intercultural argument, drawing from approaches and preliminary insights from a scholarly project (Queer Memorials) and artist’s project (Strange Inheritance) with topical case studies covering North America and Europe. After abductive ethnography, the analysis oscillates between theory/literature and scholarly and creative practice. It attends to the critical roles queer monuments have played in engaging with how sexual “others” have fallen in and out of place through social struggles, radical politics, and collective memory. The peer exchange provides a cross-case taxonomy of queer monuments’ roles, navigating between sorrowful, celebratory, provocative, and informative types and values. It advocates both arts-based enquiry and practice as grounded pathways for narrating queer monuments’ activist potential to memorialize, and visibilize, sexual and gender minorities and their overlapping rights in/to space.

Can teachers implement a student-centered dialogical argumentation method across the curriculum?

Does student-centered dialogical argumentation work in authentic classroom settings? Four experienced secondary teachers implemented an argument-based curriculum situated within the contexts of their four respective disciplines - language arts, history, science, and civic education. A mixed-method analysis showed that students who participated in the curriculum performed significantly better on a final argumentative essay, compared to control groups who studied the same content with the same teachers using customary methods. Teachers' interviews suggested additional effects including cognitive, metacognitive and socio-emotional skills. Discussion focuses on teachers' role within a dialogical curriculum and argumentation's applicability and efficiency as a transdisciplinary pedagogical method.

Change in Classroom Dialogicity to Promote Cultural Literacy across Educational Levels

In a highly diverse world, cultural literacy is an essential tool for living together in harmony, and dialogic teaching may be a way to promote and develop it among children and adolescents. We define cultural literacy as a set of attitudes (inclusion, tolerance, and empathy) and skills (dialogic argumentation) needed to understand others in our everyday lives. This paper focuses on the effect of a professional development programme to promote dialogue and argumentation to help children and adolescents overcome pre-existing stereotypes and prejudices and foster students’ participation in discussions that contrast divergent viewpoints. This was done through debates on social responsibility issues, living together, and belonging as presented in books and short films addressing the following topics: citizenship, the celebration of diversity, democracy, globalisation, human rights, cooperation, sustainable development, and climate change. After the professional development programme was implemented, we video-recorded two of the 15 student–teacher interaction sessions during the project’s implementation (session #3 and session #8). We analysed the data using a validated coding scheme across three educational levels (three preschool, four primary school, and four secondary school classrooms). We observed moderate gains in secondary education and preschool, but statistically significant gains in primary education.

"Argue With Me": A Method for Developing Argument Skills.

Philosophers, psychologists, and educators all acknowledge the need to support individuals to develop argument skills. Less clear is how to do so. Here, we examine a particular program, the “Argue with Me” dialogue-based pedagogical approach, having this objective. Reviewing approximately 30 studies that have used the “Argue with Me” (AWM) method with students of different backgrounds and educational levels—primary, middle, high school, and university—across five different countries, we examine its strengths and limitations in terms of what develops and how this development occurs. Dense engagement in goal-based activities involving extended dialogic practice and reflection is shown to be effective in fostering argument skills and dispositions. Studies examining the mechanisms of such development identify the role of meta-level understanding regarding the purpose of argument. This understanding is epistemological in nature and supports the development of dialogic skills at the strategic level. In addition to examining the AWM method as a means for supporting the development of argument skills, this review examines how empirical research employing the method in varying contexts provides insights into the nature of argument skills and their development, as well as the relations between argument skills and other skills or forms of understanding. For instance, we examine how studies employing the AWM method answer questions such as “How general or content-specific are argument skills?” or “How do dialogic argument and individual written or spoken argument connect as they develop?” We address these questions by examining evidence regarding the transfer of gains across topics, domains, and individual vs. dialogic modes of expression. Finally, the pedagogical implications of the “Argue with Me” approach are discussed, especially with regard to its potential both as a stand-alone method for developing argument skills and integrated into traditional literacy and social studies curricula.

Analyzing College Students' Dialogic Argumentation in the Context of Nanotechnology Issues Based on Idiocentrism and Allocentrism

Analyzing College Students' Dialogic Argumentation in the Context of Nanotechnology Issues Based on Idiocentrism and Allocentrism

EVA 2.0: Emotional and rational multimodal argumentation between virtual agents

Abstract Persuasive argumentation depends on multiple aspects, which include not only the content of the individual arguments, but also the way they are presented. The presentation of arguments is crucial – in particular in the context of dialogical argumentation. However, the effects of different discussion styles on the listener are hard to isolate in human dialogues. In order to demonstrate and investigate various styles of argumentation, we propose a multi-agent system in which different aspects of persuasion can be modelled and investigated separately. Our system utilizes argument structures extracted from text-based reviews for which a minimal bias of the user can be assumed. The persuasive dialogue is modelled as a dialogue game for argumentation that was motivated by the objective to enable both natural and flexible interactions between the agents. In order to support a comparison of factual against affective persuasion approaches, we implemented two fundamentally different strategies for both agents: The logical policy utilizes deep Reinforcement Learning in a multi-agent setup to optimize the strategy with respect to the game formalism and the available argument. In contrast, the emotional policy selects the next move in compliance with an agent emotion that is adapted to user feedback to persuade on an emotional level. The resulting interaction is presented to the user via virtual avatars and can be rated through an intuitive interface.

Game Technologies to Assist Learning of Communication Skills in Dialogic Settings for Persons with Aphasia

Persons with aphasia suffer from a loss of communication ability as a consequence of a brain injury. While rare, a small strand of research indicates effectiveness of dialogic interventions for communication development for persons with aphasia, but a vast amount of research studies shows its effectiveness for other target groups. In this paper, we describe the main parts of the hitherto technological development of an application named Dialogica that is (i) aimed at facilitating increased communicative participation in dialogic settings for persons with aphasia and other communication disorders, (ii) based on computer game technology as well as on theory in dialogic education and argumentation theory, and (iii) designed for mobile devices with larger screens.

Peer Instruction Dialogical Argumentation Model (PIDAM) for Authentic Learning of Science

The research is a pretest-posttest experimental design that integrated peer instruction into the dialogical argumentative instruction to investigate the authentic learning experience among College students. The participants were pre-service physics students of a College of Education in Nigeria. The mixed-method approach was adopted to obtain data for the study. The research instruments were Electromagnetism Physics Test (EPT) and Semi-structured interviews. The ANOVA and thematic coding were used to analyse the data obtained. The outcome of the research shows that students' authentic learning was enhanced with the integration of PI into the dialogical argumentation instruction. It also shows that the gender difference in academic performance was not significant. The study makes some recommendations; one of them is further studies on PIDAM because this is the first study on PIDAM in a College.

Collaborative writing as a bridge from peer discourse to individual argumentative writing

Converging evidence indicates that argumentative thinking and writing are promoted by peer discourse. Here it is proposed that collaborative writing can serve as a bridge from peer discourse to individual argumentative writing. Three groups of sixth graders participated in a study that tested this hypothesis. Two of the groups took part in a month-long intervention that emphasized engagement and practice in dialogic argumentation. These two groups differed only in addition of a joint writing activity in one group. The third group served as a non-intervention control. Final individual essays showed superior performance by the joint writing group. Essays of the superior group more frequently included evidence-based arguments. They also more often integrated belief-incongruent statements with belief-congruent ones. Group differences transferred in several respects to essays on a new topic. Results support the claim that engagement in collaborative writing offers a promising path in developing argumentative writing.

Doing Justice to Religious Diversity: Theological Foundations for “Principled Pluralism”

This article argues a theological case for “principled pluralism,” a particular stance regarding the proper attitude of the state towards the plural religious affiliations of its citizens. Its central claim is that the role of the state is both to defend the religious freedom of adherents to all faiths and to maintain a public square equally open to contributions from all faiths without publicly privileging any faith, even Christianity. It develops the argument in critical dialogue with a “Christian nation” position, according to which nations can exercise corporate religious agency, should be formed where possible according to Christian principles, and in which Christian citizens should call their governments to support the nation’s Christian character. KEYWORDS: Principled pluralism, religious diversity, state, Christian nation, public square

Relato crítico de uma experiência didática acerca de uma temática científica aplicada na educação básica: algumas reflexões epistemológicas e a defesa de um ensino de ciências fundamentado na argumentação dialógica

Este trabalho tem como objetivo principal fazer um relato crítico e propor reflexões epistemológicas sobre o uso da metodologia de ensino por argumentação em uma atividade de divulgação de uma temática científica desenvolvida na disciplina de Física, em uma turma de ensino médio de uma escola pública estadual de educação básica de Porto Alegre (RS). Tal atividade, desenvolvida no formato de um júri simulado, foi pensada e elaborada para ser aplicada na forma de um micromódulo de ensino em que assumimos ser possível, mediante este recurso pedagógico, atingir um nível de aprendizado adequado a essa faixa etária, através do debate e da argumentação dialógica. Buscamos, para tanto, oferecer elementos para que os estudantes se envolvam em tal estratégia no ambiente de sala de aula e desenvolvam habilidades de argumentação. Os referenciais teórico-metodológicos utilizados nesta pesquisa são os do ensino por argumentação articulado a uma epistemologia que desenvolva virtudes intelectuais e o pensamento crítico no estudante. O que se pretende neste trabalho, que é parte de uma investigação mais abrangente, é fazer através do relato crítico do estudo de caso, uma defesa desses referenciais como potencializadores para a promoção de uma educação científica mais autônoma e reflexiva.