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Archive for the ‘Connections’ Category

Dishonesty and Fallacious Arguing

Posted in Connections, Discussion, Fallacies, Pragma-dialectics, tagged , , , on March 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »

We all know we’re not supposed to engage in fallacious argumentation.  We might disagree about what fallacies there are or how they work, but we all agree that there are certain moves in argumentation–at least in some contexts–that are just downright, well…dishonest. How do we keep students and others in our charge from wandering down that path? Most of the time the method is to teach and to reinforce practices of good argumentation, while at the same time teaching them how to recognize and nullify, with critique, the fallacious arguments of others. So far the story is not all that different from any other well-known model of moral education. Teach and promote the good, identify and punish the bad.  And that works most of the time in the hermetically sealed environment of the classroom.  Then our students go out into the world and encounter argumentation like this:

Or this… (more…)

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CRRAR 4th Summer Institute on Argumentation

Posted in Argumentation, Connections, Informal Logic, Rhetoric, Summer School, tagged , , on February 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

4th Summer Institute On Argumentation:-

Multi‐Modal Arguments: Making sense of images (and other non‐verbal content) in Argument

May 27-31, 2013 

  • Can works of art, films, virtual realities and other kinds of non-verbal content operate as arguments?
  • Why have some objected to this suggestion? What can we learn from their objections?
  • How can the various theoretical perspectives that make up argumentation theory, such as informal logic, rhetoric, dialectics, dialogue theory, and discourse analysis, account for multi-modal arguments?
  • How can we construct a comprehensive theory of argument that makes room for, explains, and allows us to assess, arguments of this sort?

In conjunction with the tenth OSSA (Ontario Society for the Study of Argument) conference, CRRAR will offer a summer institute on multimodal arguments.

One trend in the development of argumentation theory is an  increasingly broad conception of argument which recognizes (among other things) the use of “multi-modal”  elements – images, music, and other non-verbal components – as key components of many arguments. In this course we consider the questions that this raises. (more…)

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CFP: Special Issue of Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

Posted in CFP, Connections, tagged , , , , , on February 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Pragmatics and Dialectics of Argument: Special Issue of the Journal Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

K. Budzynska, F. van Eemeren & M. Koszowy (Eds.)

February 4, 2013

This special issue on Pragmatics and Dialectics of Argument is the third of a series of special issues dedicated to argumentation in the journal Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric (SLGR). The previous two issues were dedicated to major research strands in the philosophy of argument (vol. 29, 2009; in its introduction to Informal Logic, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says of SLGR that it has “published important special issue on the field”), and the computational approaches to argumentation (vol. 36, 2011).

The volume will be organised into two parts focusing on the most general and impor- tant topics in pragmatics and dialectics of argument: Speech Acts and Argument, and Argumentation in Dialogue. This issue will also establish a new platform the aim of which is to encourage and support discussion amongst researchers in the argumenta- tion community. We therefore also solicit ‘Discussion’ papers: shorter contributions commenting on papers published in previous issues of the SLGR argumentation series. (more…)

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CFP: 2nd IFL Graduate Student Conference

Posted in CFP, Connections, tagged , , , , on January 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

2nd IFL Graduate Student Conference: “Reasons and Deliberation in Real-World Contexts”

DATES: JUNE 17TH-18TH 2013

The Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem (Institute for the Philosophy of Language) at FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa (New University of Lisbon) is proud to announce its second Graduate Student Conference, to be held on the 17th and 18th of June, 2013, as part of the “Argumentation, Communication, and Context” project.

Keynote speakers:

Dr. Hugo Mercier (CNRS Research Scientist, Laboratoire Langage, Cerveau et Cognition, Lyon, France)

and

Dr. Catherine Moury (Assistant Professor, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)

 

Following the title of the conference, we are inviting graduate students from a variety of disciplines to deliver a 30-minute presentation discussing their current research pertaining to reason-giving and deliberation. The aim is to discuss the application of theoretical observations to empirical, or real-world, scenarios and thus highlight the importance of context to the processes of reason-giving and deliberation. (more…)

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The Science of Persuasion

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, tagged , , , , on January 17, 2013| 2 Comments »

Here’s an interesting little RSA-style, 12 minute video on the psychology of persuasion:

The information mainly is delivered by Arizona State University’s Robert Caldini, of whom it is written, at the Farnam Street blog:

is the author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and the co-author of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week International Bestseller Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive.

For my part, every time I come across information like this I’m struck that (1) it doesn’t get much mention in argumentation theory and (2) that if it is even half correct then the potential for abuse is considerable. Any critical thinking class worth its salt should make students aware of dynamics like those depicted here.

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John Cleese on Creative Thinking

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, tagged , , , on December 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

Here’s a lovely little talk by John Cleese on the subject of creativity.  While watching it I was struck that many of Cleese’s points applied equally well to the sort of problem solving we think of as central to critical thinking. Readers of RAIL may recall earlier discussions of this topic that can be found here and here about the (supposed) distinction between the two. This video extends those discussions nicely.

No matter where one comes down on the question of the relationship between critical and creative thinking, there are some interesting suggestions here. Of particular interest should be his remarks on space, time, quiet, and humor–all of which (though I think the last especially) are in increasingly short supply. Some of the psychology is a little dated (the video was shot in the 1980’s, I think), but the advice is still interesting and worthy of consideration.

Enjoy!

The end is worth hanging on for, as it affords a political edge to the talk.

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Announcement: 4th CRRAR Summer Institute on Argumentation

Posted in Argumentation, Connections, Summer School, tagged , , , on December 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

4th Summer Institute On Argumentation:-

Multi‐Modal Arguments: Making sense of images (and other non‐verbal content) in Argument

May 22-25, 2013

  • Can works of art, films, virtual realities and other kinds of non-verbal content operate as arguments?
  • Why have some objected to this suggestion? What can we learn from their objections?
  • How can the various theoretical perspectives that make up argumentation theory, such as informal logic, rhetoric, dialectics, dialogue theory, and discourse analysis, account for multi-modal arguments?
  • How can we construct a comprehensive theory of argument that makes room for, explains, and allows us to assess, arguments of this sort?

In conjunction with the tenth OSSA (Ontario Society for the Study of Argument) conference, CRRAR will offer a summer institute on multimodal arguments.

One trend in the development of argumentation theory is an  increasingly broad conception of argument which recognizes (among other things) the use of “multi-modal”  elements – images, music, and other non-verbal components – as key components of many arguments. In this course we consider the questions that this raises.

Lectures and discussion will emphasize the development of perspectives that can be used to analyze, explain and evaluate such arguments, and on the analysis of concrete examples of multi-modal arguments and will consider objections to “visual arguments” and other forms of multi-modal argumentation. (more…)

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Clay Shirky on Argumentation and Social Change

Posted in Connections, Discussion, tagged , , , , , on October 30, 2012| 1 Comment »

In this video Clay Shirky discusses how open source programmers channel social media technologies in ways that could, if thoughtfully and creatively adopted, bring about powerful changes in the way that democratic institutions work.  There are a number of features of this talk that should be of interest to argumentation theorists.  Students of pragma-dialectics and others who believe that disagreement is of central theoretical importance to argumentation theory, for instance, will find welcoming Shirky’s assertion that “The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with. More media always means more arguing.”  Also of interest for those of us interested in the intersection between argumentation theory and democratic theory is Shirky’s account of how the method of distributed version control used by early open source programmers enabled “cooperation without [top-down] coordination”. Perhaps most interesting, though, is Shirky’s description that changes in media bring about cultural changes largely by introducing new modes of argument.

Whether one agrees with everything Shirky says here or not, it is hard to disagree with the fundamental intuition that I think  lies underneath his points:  that argumentation is the core technology of democracy, and that improving democracy means attending, carefully and critically, to the modes in which we argue.

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Video: CRRAR Symposium on the Mercier-Sperber Theory

Posted in Argumentation, Connections, Discussion, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

As many will be aware, two weeks ago the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric (CRRAR) hosted a symposium on Mercier and Sperber’s argument-based theory of reasoning at the University of Windsor.  Hugo Mercier himself gave the keynote. The panelists were Ian Hacking, Burkhard Schafer, Mark Aakhus, and Lori Buchanan. The co-chairs were Doug Walton and myself. The event took place over two days. The first day was a public presentation and discussion of the theory. The center of the second day’s events was an open (but moderated) roundtable discussion on the theory in which the speakers, CRRAR fellows, and guests all participated.  Both days saw intense, but very stimulating and rewarding conversations.

Spurred by several requests from abroad, we decided to have the events of the first day recorded so that they could be shared with the entire argumentation studies community. I am pleased to be able to announce that that video is now available.  You can watch it by clicking here. Unfortunately, however, there were technical problems with the camera that resulted in our not having usable video. That said, the audio quality is good and the slides for the keynote presentation are synced so that they can be followed with the talk. The panelists’ responses to the keynote presentations are still included too. They were excellent and are well worth the listening.

Thanks again to all who participated, attended, and in other ways great and small helped to make it a great weekend!

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Dan Sperber: An Epidemiology of Representations

Posted in Connections, Discussion, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Though it isn’t exactly recent, this video of Dan Sperber describing his theory of mind and communication at Edge.orgis an excellent way to spend 12 minutes.  In addition to the

Are they “living” culture, making inferences, replicating memes, or sending & receiving code?

video, the page has an extended and lightly edited transcript of Sperber’s short talk that makes it very easy to see the differences between Sperber’s theory of mind and communication, that of Dawkins’, and what are, for some in argumentation theory, perhaps the more familiar semiological approaches.  The video will also be of interest to those working on these topics from philosophical starting points.
If often find myself wishing that there were more discussion about these issues in argumentation theory and informal logic than there often seems to be.  Perhaps Sperber’s work, including not just his talk here but last year’s release of Meaning and Relevance (an extension of the classic Relevance, also co-written with Deirdre Wilson), and the argument theory of reasoning he and Hugo Mercier have developed, will be just the stimulus we need to see our investigations afresh.

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