Nature Of Arguments Research Articles

Reconciling positivism and realism

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between law and morality, and has even been tempted by natural law arguments in developing his theory of jurisprudence (see Part IV), Kelsen is more receptive to arguments drawn from legal and political realism. Yet Habermas is hardly oblivious to these arguments, as can be seen from his recent acknowledgment that human rights that secure subsistence and development depend on ‘global domestic policy’ for their full enjoyment. This acknowledgment, I submit, brings Habermas’ legal philosophy closer to Kelsen’s monistic view that a supranational human rights regime must regulate political as well as purely legal matters (Part III). Given this stronger analogy between domestic and global institutions of governance, I argue (Part IV) that a global human rights regime must also incorporate features of constitutional review. Conceding this point, however, raises further questions about the insulation of international law from so-called extra-legal (political) influences. I conclude that not only do multicultural differences in understanding human rights (conflicts between legal paradigms) generate political problems for international courts but so do competing subsystems of international law.

Exponentially spread dynamical Yukawa couplings from nonperturbative chiral symmetry breaking in the dark sector

We propose a new paradigm for generating exponentially spread standard model Yukawa couplings from a new $U(1{)}_{F}$ gauge symmetry in the dark sector. Chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken among dark fermions that obtain nonvanishing masses from a nonperturbative solution to the mass gap equation. The necessary ingredient for this mechanism to work is the existence of higher-derivative terms in the dark $U(1{)}_{F}$ theory, or equivalently the existence of Lee--Wick ghosts, that (i) allow for a nonperturbative solution to the mass gap equation in the weak coupling regime of the Abelian theory and (ii) induce exponential dependence of the generated masses on dark fermion $U(1{)}_{F}$ quantum numbers. The generated flavor and chiral symmetry breaking in the dark sector is transferred to the standard model Yukawa couplings at the one-loop level via Higgs portal-type scalar messenger fields. The latter carry quantum numbers of squarks and sleptons. A new intriguing phenomenology is predicted that could be potentially tested at the LHC, provided the characteristic mass scale of the messenger sector is accessible at the LHC as is suggested by naturalness arguments.

Memories of Japanese militarism: The Yasukuni Shrine as a commemorative site

The annual official visits of Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, a Shinto commemorative site, have led to considerable controversy throughout Asia. While there are those within Japan who insist that it is a politician's duty to pay tribute to the past, many others view the shrine as a symbol of militarism, a reminder of Japan's colonial past and the visits as an act of provocation to those who suffered under Japan's rule. The fact that, among the worshiped, are the spiritual essences of 14 War Criminals has frequently served as a public lightning rod in this conflict. In our study of the Yasukuni Shrine and the associated Yûshûkan war museum, we explore the memories of the Asia-Pacific War supported by this shrine. In our analysis, problematic, nationalistic arguments emerge. In summary, the Yasukuni Shrine and the Yûshûkan are constructing and promoting memories of the Asia-Pacific War as a war of self-defense. Indirectly the shrine, therefore, promotes attitudes of militarism as well as a historical world view distinctly at odds with that of Japan's neighbors. By examining the war memories connected to the Yasukuni, we also bring to attention the rise of nationalism and militarism in contemporary Japan.

Nationalism studies and the spatial turn: The concept of national territory

The modern 'spatial turn' in humanities and social sciences has launched an interest in problems of space related to the phenomenon of nationalism. The basic concept through which the spatial issues are being investigated in the nationalism studies is territory, which is understood as a delineated space shaped through relations of power. Already the very definition of nationalism as a modern form of sovereignty contains a clear reference to the spatial dimension. Namely, in order to define the sovereignty of a nation, with a possibility of establishing a nation-state, one has to demarcate the reach of the national territory which would belong to the nation. This paper critically evaluates the approaches which analyse national territory as an instrument of violence and a factor of identity. Within the discourse of nationalism one can identify two different groups of arguments regarding the appropriation of territories by the nation: the natural and the historical. Natural arguments are already clearly presented in the writings of Johann Gottfried Herder and they are based on an assumption that there is an organic link and congeniality between the natural and geographical features of the land, and the characteristic features of a nation. On the other hand, the historical arguments are based on the claim that a certain territory represents a nation's place of birth, or that it had belonged to the nation in a certain significant point in history. Discourses of nationalism regularly encompass different strategies and mechanisms of space representation, with a purpose to show that the national territory is an organic whole, as well as an indivisible and inviolable entity.

Drawing Analogies between Logic Programming and Natural Language Argumentation Texts to Scaffold Learners’ Understanding

An international association advancing the multidisciplinary study of informing systems. Founded in 1998, the Informing Science Institute (ISI) is a global community of academics shaping the future of informing science.

Libertarianism and circumcision.

Despite the millenniums-old tradition in Abrahamic circles of removing the foreskin of a penis at birth, the involuntary and aggressive practice of circumcision must not be made an exception to the natural, negative right to self-ownership-a birthright which should prevent a parent from physically harming a child from the moment of birth going forward. This paper will present a natural rights argument against the practice of male child circumcision, while also looking into some of the potential physical and psychological consequences of the practice. It will compare the practice with that of female circumcision, which is banned in developed nations but still practiced in the third world, as well as other forms of aggressive action, some once-prevalent, while disputing arguments made for parental ownership of the child, religious expression, cultural tradition, cleanliness, cosmetics, and conformity.

Search for direct top squark pair production in final states with one isolated lepton using 21 fb−1of data collected with the ATLAS detector

Naturalness arguments for weak-scale supersymmetry favour supersymmetric partners of the third generation quarks with masses not too far from those of their Stan- dard Model counterparts. Top or bottom scalar quarks (or squarks) with masses less than a few hundred GeV can give rise to direct pair production rates at the LHC that can be ob- served in the data sample recorded by the ATLAS detector. This proceeding summarises the latest results of a search for top squark pair production in final states with one isolated lepton, jets, and missing transverse momentum in √ s = 8 TeV pp collisions at the LHC, using 20. 7f b −1 of ATLAS data. Two top squark (˜) decay scenarios are considered: the decay to a top quark and a stable undetected neutral particle ( ˜ χ 0 ), and the decay to a bot- tom quark and a chargino, where the chargino decays via an on- or off-shell W boson to the ˜ χ 0 . The data are found to be consistent with Standard Model expectations and have been reinterpreted in terms of various SUSY scenarios.

New ATLAS results in SUSY searches for 3rdgeneration squarks and electroweak production

Naturalness arguments for weak-scale supersymmetry favour supersymmet- ric partners of the third generation quarks with masses close to those of their Standard Model counterparts. Real and virtual production of third generation squarks via decay of a gluino can be significant if the mass of the gluino does not exceed the TeV scale. Top or bottom squarks with masses less than a few hundred GeV can also give rise to direct pair production rates at the LHC that can be observed in the 8 TeV data sample recorded by the ATLAS detector. Moreover, many supersymmetric models feature neu- tralinos, charginos and even sleptons with masses less than a few hundred GeV so that they can be observed in the available data sample. The talk presents recent ATLAS re- sults from searches for direct stop and sbottom pair production as well as pair production of charginos, neutralinos and sleptons.

Disappearance and emergence of space and time in quantum gravity

We discuss the hints for the disappearance of continuum space and time at microscopic scale. These include arguments for a discrete nature of them or for a fundamental non-locality, in a quantum theory of gravity. We discuss how these ideas are realized in specific quantum gravity approaches. Turning then the problem around, we consider the emergence of continuum space and time from the collective behaviour of discrete, pre-geometric atoms of quantum space, and for understanding spacetime as a kind of “condensate”, and we present the case for this emergence process being the result of a phase transition, dubbed “geometrogenesis”. We discuss some conceptual issues of this scenario and of the idea of emergent spacetime in general. As a concrete example, we outline the GFT framework for quantum gravity, and illustrate a tentative procedure for the emergence of spacetime in this framework. Last, we re-examine the conceptual issues raised by the emergent spacetime scenario in light of this concrete example.

Service quality framework for the South African Revenue Service from the perspective of the tax practitioner

The objective of the present research was to propose a service quality framework regarding the service quality of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) from the perspective of the tax practitioner. In order to develop the specific “lens of the tax practitioner” regarding the service quality of SARS, an in-depth, qualitative approach was required to identify a comprehensive range of determinants that potentially drive service quality in the revenue service industry and setting. One such qualitative method is the critical incident technique, which relies on a set of procedures to collect comments on service experiences, to perform a content analysis and to classify the observations of service experiences. A process of natural language argument was used to convert the data analysis results and the relevant elements of the theory from the literature survey into the service determinants. This “lens of the tax practitioner” can be used as a basis for developing a service quality measuring instrument that could measure the service quality of SARS from the perspective of the tax practitioner.

Tackling light higgsinos at the ILC

In supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model, higgsino-like charginos and neutralinos are preferred to have masses of the order of the electroweak scale by naturalness arguments. Such light $\widetilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$ , $\widetilde{\chi}^{0}_{2}$ and $\widetilde{\chi}^{\pm}_{1}$ states can be almost mass degenerate, and their decays are then difficult to observe at colliders. In addition to the generic naturalness argument, light higgsinos are well motivated from a top-down perspective. For instance, they arise naturally in certain models of hybrid gauge-gravity mediation. In the present analysis, we study two benchmark points which have been derived in the framework of such a model, which exhibit mass differences of $\mathcal {O}(\mathrm {GeV})$ in the higgsino sector. For chargino-pair and neutralino associated production with initial-state photon radiation, we simulate the detector response and determine how accurately the small mass differences, the absolute masses and the cross sections can be measured at the International Linear Collider. Assuming that 500 fb−1 has been collected at each of two beam-polarisations P(e +,e −)=(±30 %,∓80 %), we find that the mass differences can be measured to 40–300 MeV, the cross sections to 2–5 %, and the absolute masses to 1.5–3.3 GeV, where the range of values correspond to the different scenarios and channels. Based on these observables we perform a parameter fit in the MSSM, from which we infer that the higgsino mass parameter μ can be measured to a precision of about Δμ=2–7 GeV. For the electroweak gaugino mass parameters M 1, M 2, which are chosen in the multi-TeV range, a narrow region is compatible with the measurements. For both parameters independently, we can determine a lower bound.

Natural Justice at the Boundaries of Public Law

This paper considers the ways in which natural justice arguments have historically been invoked in private law proceedings against private bodies. It first appeared on the UK Constitutional Law Blog, and will serve as the basis of a wider paper assessing the historical use of public law principles in private law proceedings.

The Nature of Nurture: Refining the Definition of the Exposome

Historical debates concerning human biology and behavior have frequently focused on contributions of nature, ie, the inherited characteristics with which we are born, and nurture, ie, life’s influences after birth. Indeed, the concept of nature vs nurture has guided our understanding of human biology for decades, if not centuries. A series of discoveries has greatly advanced the knowledge of our nature. Watson and Crick’s unraveling of the double helix revolutionized the understanding of our genetic makeup (Watson and Crick, 1953). The polymerase chain reaction allowed amplification and manipulation of genes (Saiki et al., 1988). Identified links between specific genes and disease (Saiki et al., 1985) led to new diagnostic tools and treatments. These advances spurred the Human Genome Project with success in sequencing the entire human genome (Lander et al., 2001; Venter et al., 2001). This epic undertaking of biomedical science and technology was completed with amazing speed and celebrated with great fanfare. But the limitation of genetics to predict disease rapidly became obvious; as noted by Dr Venter shortly after the completion of human genome sequence, “We simply do not have enough genes for this idea of biological determinism to be right (McKie 2001).” Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed genetic associations and networks that improve understanding of disease, but these still account for only a fraction of disease risk. With the majority of disease causation being nongenetic, the need for improved tools to quantify environmental contributions seems obvious. The simple distinction between genes and environment is blurred by knowledge that environmental exposures cause permanent genetic changes via mutagenesis and also have long-term impact on gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms. Importantly, epigenetic mechanisms are central to differentiation and development, impacting genome function before birth and throughout life. The epigenome is highly reliant on nurture, ie, the nature and timing of environmental exposures and external forces. Randy Jirtle, a pioneer in epigenomics stated “The nature vs. nurture argument is rapidly proving to be irrelevant, because we’re finding that the 2 forces interact in highly specific ways that alter gene behavior (Duke Health, 2006).” Although Dr Jirtle suggests the argument is becoming irrelevant, the reality is that biomedical research is overwhelmingly focused on the gene side of this debate. The tools and knowledge of our nature are far ahead of those for the environment. If we want to focus on the interaction between nature and nurture, we need better ways of cataloguing and integrating the complex exposures and forces that represent nurture. Such a framework is provided by the exposome.

What Do Normative Approaches to Argumentation Stand to Gain from Rhetorical Insights?

ABSTRACT This article appropriates Thomas Conley's (1990) four classical positions on the nature and function of rhetoric, and assesses their relevance vis-à-vis three contemporary normative approaches to argumentation: the epistemological approach, pragma-dialectical theory, and informal logic. In each case, the room for the integration of rhetorical insights into argument evaluation is found to be restricted by dialectical and logico-epistemic norms endorsed in these approaches. Moreover, when rhetorical insights could fit the so restricted room, then the reliability and the specificity of such insights remain inversely related, with methodologically well-hardened knowledge of what persuades remaining too general. The trade-off between reliability and specificity of suasory knowledge, or so is our thesis, undermines the claim that rhetorical insights can presently inform the evaluation of natural language arguments in these three normative approaches.

Possibility, Necessity and Probability: A Meditation on Underdetermination and Justification

After providing some historical and systematic background, I introduce the structure of a very natural and influential sceptical underdetermination argument. The argument assumes that it is metaphysically possible for a deceived subject to have the same evidence that a non-deceived subject has, and tries to draw consequences about justification from that assumption of metaphysical possibility. I first variously object to the transition from the assumption to its supposed consequences. In the central part of the paper, I then critically consider some influential ways of bridging the gap between the assumption and its supposed consequences, which generally consist in strengthening the assumption from one of metaphysical possibility into one of either counterfactual implication or entailment. The discussion indicates that epistemic facts are much more independent from metaphysically modal facts than the sceptical underdetermination argument requires.

Stop and sbottom search using dileptonic MT2 variable and boosted top technique at the LHC

The ATLAS and CMS experiments at the CERN LHC have collected about 20 $fb^{-1}$ of data each at the end of their 8 TeV run, and ruled out a huge swath of parameter space in the context of Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model(MSSM). Limits on masses of the gluino ($\tilde{g}$) and the squarks of the first two generations($\tilde{q}$) have been pushed to the TeV range. Light third generation squarks namely stop and sbottom of sub-TeV masses, on the other hand, are still allowed by their direct search limits. Interestingly, the discovery of a Standard Model(SM) higgs boson like particle with a mass of $\sim$ 125 GeV favours a light third generation which is also motivated by naturalness arguments. Decays of stop and sbottom quarks can in general produce a number of distinct final states which necessitate different search strategies in the collider experiments. In this paper we, on the other hand, propose a general search strategy to look for third generation squarks in the final state which contains a top quark in the sample along with two additional hard leptons and substantial missing transverse momentum. We illustrate that a search strategy using the dileptonic $M_{T2}$, the effective mass $m_{eff}$ and jet substructure to reconstruct the hadronic top quark can be very effective to reduce the SM backgrounds. With the proposed search strategy, we estimate that the third generation squarks with masses up to about 800 GeV can be probed at the 14 TeV LHC with a 100 $fb^{-1}$ data set. We also interpret our results in two simplified scenarios where we consider the stop (sbottom) pair production followed by their subsequent decay to a top quark and the second lightest neutralino (lightest chargino). In this case also we find that stop (sbottom) mass up to 1 TeV (0.9 TeV) can be discovered at the 14 TeV LHC with 100 $fb^{-1}$ integrated luminosity.

Exhibiting interpretational and representational validity

A natural language argument may be valid in at least two nonequivalent senses: it may be interpretationally or representationally valid (Etchemendy in The concept of logical consequence. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1990). Interpretational and representational validity can both be formally exhibited by classical first-order logic. However, as these two notions of informal validity differ extensionally and first-order logic fixes one determinate extension for the notion of formal validity (or consequence), some arguments must be formalized by unrelated nonequivalent formalizations in order to formally account for their interpretational or representational validity, respectively. As a consequence, arguments must be formalized subject to different criteria of adequate formalization depending on which variant of informal validity is to be revealed. This paper develops different criteria that formalizations of an argument have to satisfy in order to exhibit the latter’s interpretational or representational validity.

A natural language bipolar argumentation approach to support users in online debate interactions†

With the growing use of the Social Web, an increasing number of applications for exchanging opinions with other people are becoming available online. These applications are widely adopted with the consequence that the number of opinions about the deb

Securing Fish for the Nation: Food Security and Governmentality in Japan

Concerns about supplies of food have been a feature of Japanese politics since Japan started modernising in the second half of the 1800s. It has remained a prominent political issue even after Japan cemented its status as a wealthy country in the 1980s, with the Japanese Government continuing to protect domestic food production from international competition. Protectionism is a curious policy for a country so dependent on world trade, including for food. Protectionist practices have led to entrenched interests in some sections of government and industry. Protectionist ideas are used in nationalist arguments against food imports. The protection of domestic food production, however, resonates positively well beyond the groups that benefit economically from protection and those that indulge in chauvinist notions about the dangers of “foreign” food. The issue, therefore, is broader than interest-group capture or xenophobia. We find it is deeply embedded in Japanese policies relating to food domestically and internationally, and goes beyond government policy as such, involving ways of thinking about protection of national culture, and social and environmental responsibility. Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality helps to explain this approach to food security, accounting for the balancing act between free trade and protection as well as the pervasiveness of this rationality beyond government as such.

Pragmatic Case Studies as a Source of Unity in Applied Psychology

To unify or not to unify applied psychology: That is the question. In this article we review pendulum swings in the historical efforts to answer this question—from a comprehensive, positivist, “top-down,” deductive yes between the 1930s and the early 1960s, to a postmodern no since then. A rationale and proposal for a limited, “bottom-up,” inductive yes in applied psychology is then presented, using a case-based paradigm that integrates both positivist and postmodern themes and components. This paradigm is labeled pragmatic psychology and, its specific use of case studies, the Pragmatic Case Study Method (PCS Method). We call for the creation of peer-reviewed journal databases of pragmatic case studies as a foundational source of unifying applied knowledge in our discipline. As one example, the potential of the PCS Method for unifying different angles of theoretical regard is illustrated in an area of applied psychology, psychotherapy, via the case of Mrs. B. The article then turns to the broader historical and epistemological arguments for the unifying nature of the PCS Method in both applied and basic psychology.