Informal Arguments Research Articles

On being drawn to different types of arguments: a mouse-tracking study

How people distinguish well-justified from poorly justified arguments is not well known. To study the involvement of intuitive and analytic cognitive processes, we contrasted participants’ personal beliefs with argument strength that was determined in relation to established criteria of sound argumentation. In line with previous findings indicating that people have a myside bias, participants (N = 249) made more errors on conflict than on no-conflict trials. On conflict trials, errors and correct responses were practically equal in terms of response times and mouse-tracking indices of hesitation. Similarly to recent findings on formal reasoning, these findings indicate that correct reasoning about informal arguments may not necessitate corrective analytic processing. We compared findings across four argument schemes but found few differences. The findings are discussed in light of intuitive logic theories and the notion that evaluating informal arguments could be based on implicit knowledge of argument criteria.

Generalized Zurek's bound on the cost of an individual classical or quantum computation.

We consider the minimal thermodynamic cost of an individual computation, where a single input x is mapped to a single output y. In prior work, Zurek proposed that this cost was given by K(x|y), the conditional Kolmogorov complexity of x given y (up to an additive constant that does not depend on x or y). However, this result was derived from an informal argument, applied only to deterministic computations, and had an arbitrary dependence on the choice of protocol (via the additive constant). Here we use stochastic thermodynamics to derive a generalized version of Zurek's bound from a rigorous Hamiltonian formulation. Our bound applies to all quantum and classical processes, whether noisy or deterministic, and it explicitly captures the dependence on the protocol. We show that K(x|y) is a minimal cost of mapping x to y that must be paid using some combination of heat, noise, and protocol complexity, implying a trade-off between these three resources. Our result is a kind of "algorithmic fluctuation theorem" with implications for the relationship between the second law and the Physical Church-Turing thesis.

Of acquisitions and interference: accounting for systemic threats to the freedom to read

PurposeLibrarianship’s dominant conception of the freedom to read is governed by a liberal principle of noninterference, wherein free readers are those who face no intentional intervention in their choice of materials. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how this account fails to adequately capture systemic threats that impoverish people’s reading lives.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper deploys informal argumentation to expose a flaw in the dominant account of the freedom to read. The author uses a case study of comparative titles or comps, an editorial decision-making and justificatory convention that reproduces racial inequality in Anglophone trade publishing.FindingsComps present one example of how everyday norms and practices of literary production render people’s reading lives pervasively unfree, even absent some intent to interfere in them. The going account of the freedom to read calls, at best, for a greater diversity of book-commodities from which consumers may choose. However, the comp case suggests that this distributive remedy will be insufficient without relevant changes to the institutional arrangements that condition readers' choices in the first place.Originality/valueThis paper draws together insights from Library and Information Science, political philosophy and print culture studies to illuminate limitations in librarianship’s standard conception of the freedom to read. This reveals the need for an alternative, structural account of that freedom with significant implications for practice.

The Necessity of an Incarnate Prophet

This article aims to provide an a priori argument—termed the Flourishment Argument, for the veracity of the Christian conception of the Abrahamic religion that centres on God’s action of sending a divine and atoning prophet into the world. This specific informal argument will be presented through the formulation of a set of a priori reasons for why God would seek to interact with the world—developed in light of the work of Richard Swinburne, John Finnis, Linda Zagzebski and Alexander Pruss—which, in combination, will provide individuals with grounds for believing in the veracity of these important Christian teachings.

Use of logic for improving the higher-order thinking skills of student teachers

This paper is a report on the results of the intervention program designed for improving the higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) of Israeli Arab student teachers. The intervention program represents a series of webinars on the foundations of the Aristotelian logic, propositional logic, and some of the contemporary models of informal argumentation. Zoom application was used for the implementation of the webinars. This research project was designed as a pre-/post-test quantitative study with a qualitative component. A mixed-item questionnaire with two open-ended items was used to measure participants’ understanding of logical reasoning and argumentation. The results of the pilot showed good internal reliability of the scale (α<0.81). Tests of argumentation were performed to examine participants’ actual argumentation skills. The pre-intervention results indicated that many of the participants from both control and intervention groups had a vague understanding of logical reasoning and argumentation and weak argumentation competence. The post-intervention data suggested positive changes in the intervention group participants’ understanding of logical thinking and argumentation and an improvement in their actual argumentation skills. This study was planned as the first one in a series of studies aimed at using informal and formal logic to foster students’ HOTS.

Arguing about thought experiments

We investigate the impact of informal arguments on judgments about thought experiment cases in light of Deutsch and Cappelen’s mischaracterization view, which claims that philosophers’ case judgments are primarily based on arguments and not intuitions. If arguments had no influence on case judgments, this would seriously challenge whether they are, or should be, based on arguments at all—and not on other cognitive sources instead, such as intuition. In Experiment 1, we replicated Wysocki’s (Rev Philos Psychol 8(2):477–499, 2017) pioneering study on a Gettier-style case, and we confirmed that the informal arguments used by him had no significant effect. However, we also included an improved argument for ascribing knowledge, which did have a significant effect even in Wysocki’s original design. We therefore followed up with Experiment 2 on three Gettier-style cases, where we used a more natural dialogical format for presenting both case descriptions and informal arguments. Overall, we found a clear impact of prima facie good pro and con arguments on case judgments. The issue of argument impact is thus no obstacle to arguing about thought experiments.

Promoting students’ argument comprehension and evaluation skills: Implementation of two training interventions in higher education

The ability to comprehend and evaluate informal arguments is important for making sense of scientific texts and scientific reasoning. However, university students often lack the skills necessary to comprehend the functional structure and evaluate the structural plausibility of informal arguments. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two training interventions to a) improve students’ argument comprehension (identification of argument structure), and to b) improve students’ argument evaluation (distinguishing good vs. bad arguments). The training interventions were implemented as a voluntary online add-on to a regular university course. The study used a crossover-experimental design with a pre-test and two training phases in which participants (N = 29) alternated between the two training interventions. Students generally improved on the measures of scientific literacy that were practiced in each training intervention. The results provide evidence that voluntary online training interventions for components of scientific literacy can be effectively integrated into higher education settings. However, results further showed an interference effect between the training interventions, indicating that students had problems integrating the different aspects of scientific literacy targeted in the two training interventions.

Geometric Thinking Profile in Problem Solving Based on SOLO Plus Taxonomy

The purpose of this study is to describe geometric thinking based on the SOLO Plus taxonomy. This research used qualitative method which involved 34 students of the mathematics education study program. Data collection is done by tests and interviews. Data analysis is done by triangulation which, includes data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. The results showed that subjects with high and moderate mathematical abilities were included in the Van Hiele category of geometric thinking analytically by connecting components and geometric properties that were interconnected. This analytical ability is categorized as multistructural by identifying information that is considered useful and has a relationship with the problem solving process. In ordering-multistructural geometric thinking, it is done by sorting and connecting properties accompanied by informal arguments. Deduction-semirelational geometric thinking is done by analyzing and explaining the relationships between shapes and being able to prove theorems deductively, giving reasons with formal proof but not reaching the truth. Meanwhile, subjects with a low ability to think are said to think analytically geometrically by connecting components and geometric properties and in problem solving have multistructural responses. In ordering thinking, it is done by sorting and connecting the properties found previously and providing informal arguments. In the problem solving process included in the pre-structural category, they do not understand the problem and the information provided and do something that has nothing to do with the problem that is given.

Cognitive miserliness in argument literacy? Effects of intuitive and analytic thinking on recognizing fallacies

Abstract Fallacies are a particular type of informal argument that are psychologically compelling and often used for rhetorical purposes. Fallacies are unreasonable because the reasons they provide for their claims are irrelevant or insufficient. Ability to recognize the weakness of fallacies is part of what we call argument literacy and imporatant in rational thinking. Here we examine classic fallacies of types found in textbooks. In an experiment, participants evaluated the quality of fallacies and reasonable arguments. We instructed participants to think either intuitively, using their first impressions, or analytically, using rational deliberation. We analyzed responses, response times, and cursor trajectories (captured using mouse tracking). The results indicate that instructions to think analytically made people spend more time on the task but did not make them change their minds more often. When participants made errors, they were drawn towards the correct response, while responding correctly was more straightforward. The results are compatible with “smart intuition” accounts of dual-process theories of reasoning, rather than with corrective default-interventionist accounts. The findings are discussed in relation to whether theories developed to account for formal reasoning can help to explain the processing of everyday arguments.

Shock polars for ideal and non-ideal gases

Abstract

Assessing University Students' Critical Online Reasoning Ability: A Conceptual and Assessment Framework With Preliminary Evidence

Critical evaluation skills when using online information are considered important in many research and education frameworks; critical thinking and information literacy are cited as key twenty-first century skills for students. Higher education may play a special role in promoting students' skills in critically evaluating (online) sources. Today, higher education students are more likely to use the Internet instead of offline sources such as textbooks when studying for exams. However, far from being a value-neutral, curated learning environment, the Internet poses various challenges, including a large amount of incomplete, contradictory, erroneous, and biased information. With low barriers to online publication, the responsibility to access, select, process, and use suitable relevant and trustworthy information rests with the (self-directed) learner. Despite the central importance of critically evaluating online information, its assessment in higher education is still an emerging field. In this paper, we present a newly developed theoretical-conceptual framework for Critical Online Reasoning (COR), situated in relation to prior approaches (“information problem-solving,” “multiple-source comprehension,” “web credibility,” “informal argumentation,” “critical thinking”), along with an evidence-centered assessment framework and its preliminary validation. In 2016, the Stanford History Education Group developed and validated the assessment ofCivic Online Reasoningfor the United States. At the college level, this assessment holistically measures students' web searches and evaluation of online information using open Internet searches and real websites. Our initial adaptation and validation indicated a need to further develop the construct and assessment framework for evaluating higher education students in Germany across disciplines over their course of studies. Based on our literature review and prior analyses, we classified COR abilities into three uniquely combined facets: (i) online information acquisition, (ii) critical information evaluation, and (iii) reasoning based on evidence, argumentation, and synthesis. We modeled COR ability from a behavior, content, process, and development perspective, specifying scoring rubrics in an evidence-centered design. Preliminary validation results from expert interviews and content analysis indicated that the assessment covers typical online media and challenges for higher education students in Germany and contains cues to tap modeled COR abilities. We close with a discussion of ongoing research and potentials for future development.

How do students promote mathematical argumentation through guide-redirecting warrant construction?

Argumentation is a mathematical discourse that is currently widely studied by researchers as a stepping stone in constructing mathematical evidence. A variety of argumentation studies display different formats and constructs ranging from Toulmin’s argumentation with a formal logic system to a general discourse that presents justifications and explanations for informal arguments with an inductive approach. It is based on the student’s difficulties in preparing a search warrant until later gave rise to the idea of reconstruction of the warrant and the importance of guide-redirecting warrant construction (GWC). The results showed that GWC could guide students in constructing statements and reasons or explanations towards the expected evidence. Students also realize that statements are related to reason and explanation in building whole arguments. Even so, the presentation of the statement is still aligned with the evidence submitted, so for reasons that display the axiomatic system, it still faces problems.

Effects of accounting conservatism on investment efficiency and innovation

We study how biases in financial reporting affect managers' incentives to develop innovative projects and to make appropriate investment decisions. Conservative reporting practices impose stricter verification standards for recognizing good news, and reduce the chance that risky innovations will lead to favorable future earnings reports. Holding all else constant, more conservative reporting therefore weakens the manager's incentive to work on innovative ideas, consistent with informal arguments in the extant literature. However, all else does not stay constant because the manager's pay plan will change in response to changes in the accounting system. We show that under optimal contracting, more conservative accounting does not stifle innovation in organizations, but rather increases incentives for innovation, as long as conservatism reduces the risk of an overstatement.

MML Is Not Consistent for Neyman-Scott

Strict Minimum Message Length (SMML) is an information-theoretic statistical inference method widely cited (but only with informal arguments) as providing estimations that are consistent for general estimation problems. It is, however, almost invariably intractable to compute, for which reason only approximations of it (known as MML algorithms) are ever used in practice. Using novel techniques that allow for the first time direct, non-approximated analysis of SMML solutions, we investigate the Neyman-Scott estimation problem, an oft-cited showcase for the consistency of MML, and show that even with a natural choice of prior neither SMML nor its popular approximations are consistent for it, thereby providing a counterexample to the general claim. This is the first known explicit construction of an SMML solution for a natural, high-dimensional problem.

Bocheński's Formalization of Summa Theologiae (Ia,75,6) Reconsidered

I investigate Bocheński's first-order logic formalization of the argument for the incorruptibility of the human soul given by Aquinas in Summa Theologiae (Ia,75,6). I suggest a slightly different axiomatization that reflect better Aquinas' informal argument. Along the way, I also fix a mistake in Bocheński's derivation that the human soul is not corruptible per se.

Computational opposition analysis using word embeddings: A method for strategising resonant informal argument

In informal argument, an essential step is to ask what will “resonate” with a particular audience and hence persuade. Marketers, for example, may recommend a certain colour for a new soda can because it “pops” on Instagram; politicians may “fine-tune” diction for different social demographics. This paper engages the need to strategise for such resonance by offering a method for automating opposition analysis (OA), a technique from semiotics used in marketing and literary analysis to plot objects of interest on oppositional axes. Central to our computational approach is a reframing of texts as proxies for thought and opposition as the product of oscillation in thought in response to those proxies, a model to which the contextual similarity information contained in word embeddings is relevant. We illustrate our approach with an analysis of texts on gun control from ProCon.org, implementing a three-step method to: 1) identify relatively prominent signifiers; 2) rank possible opposition pairs on prominence and contextual similarity scores; and 3) derive plot values for proxies on opposition pair axes. The results are discussed in terms of strategies for informal argument that might be derived by those on each side of gun control.

Students’ Belief Biases Concerning Climate Change and Factors Considered While Evaluating Informal Reasoning Arguments

This study determines whether 9th-grade students have belief biases about the cause of climate change. Furthermore, it determines the factors considered while evaluating the informal arguments about climate change. This study employs a case study, a qualitative research method. Participants included 137 9th-grade students (76 females, 61 males) from three different high schools located in the central district of the city of Aksaray, Turkey. Four types of arguments for climate change were considered: strong-believable, weak-believable, strong-unbelievable, and weak-unbelievable. Each argument contained two questions. One of the questions was related to the strength (strong, weak) of the argument, while the other was linked to the reason why students considered an argument to be weak or strong. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. As a result, the findings showed that students evaluated various argument types in different ways. Students considered the strong-believable arguments to be the strongest. This was followed by weak-believable, strong-unbelievable, and weak-unbelievable arguments with diminishing strength. The students showed a weak tendency for the argument-based evaluation concerning the reasons for the strength and weak of arguments that included logical reasoning between premises and conclusions. Most of the students focused on the assertion-based evaluations that include the reality of premises and conclusion rather than the relationship between the premises and conclusions. This was followed by the arguments focusing on the relation between the conclusion and premise as well as alternative evaluations independent from the argument and those that considered the different aspects of the issue.

Demographic statistics in defensive decisions

A popular informal argument suggests that statistics about the preponderance of criminal involvement among particular demographic groups partially justify others in making defensive mistakes against members of the group. One could worry that evidence-relative accounts of moral rights vindicate this argument. After constructing the strongest form of this objection, I offer several replies: (i) most demographic statistics face an unmet challenge from reference class problems, (ii) even those that meet it fail to ground non-negligible conditional probabilities, (iii) even if they did, they introduce new costs likely to cancel out any justificatory contribution of the statistic, but (iv) even if they didn’t, demographic facts are the wrong sort to make a moral difference to agents’ negative rights. I conclude that the popular argument should be rejected, and evidence-relative theories do not have the worrisome implication.

A Theory of Succession in Family Firms

Succession is one of the most important issues for the most common type of firms. The literature on family firm succession has straggled as a part of different paradigms, setting forth stylized facts, informal arguments and observations. In this paper, we present a theory of family firm succession that unifies and synthesizes scattered and dispersed contributions depicted in family business research; specifically, the key role of the training activity in preparing the potential candidate, the importance of amenity potentials that is inherent to family businesses, the incumbent’s reluctance to step aside, the underperforming succession, the role of trust in the succession process, and the barriers to a “non-family” succession. Within a simple microeconomics framework, we find that these different facts and arguments spelt out in the literature are reflections of the same fundamental economic trade-off between proficiency (skills) and honesty (incentives) when choosing among potential successors.

Comment on ‘The Aestivation Hypothesis for Resolving Fermi’s Paradox’

In their article [arXiv:1705.03394], 'That is not dead which can eternal lie: the aestivation hypothesis for resolving Fermi's paradox', Sandberg et al. try to explain the Fermi paradox (we see no aliens) by claiming that Landauer's principle implies that a civilization can in principle perform far more (${\sim} 10^{30}$ times more) irreversible logical operations (e.g., error-correcting bit erasures) if it conserves its resources until the distant future when the cosmic background temperature is very low. So perhaps aliens are out there, but quietly waiting. Sandberg et al. implicitly assume, however, that computer-generated entropy can only be disposed of by transferring it to the cosmological background. In fact, while this assumption may apply in the distant future, our universe today contains vast reservoirs and other physical systems in non-maximal entropy states, and computer-generated entropy can be transferred to them at the adiabatic conversion rate of one bit of negentropy to erase one bit of error. This can be done at any time, and is not improved by waiting for a low cosmic background temperature. Thus aliens need not wait to be active. As Sandberg et al. do not provide a concrete model of the effect they assert, we construct one and show where their informal argument goes wrong.