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14th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning (NMR 2012)

April 30, 2012 by SP

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

NMR 2012

14th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning (NMR 2012)

http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/NMR12/

Co-located with KR 2012, DL 2012, CILC 2012, AI*IA 2012, KiBP 2012

Rome, Italy

June 8-10, 2012

IMPORTANT DATES FOR REGISTRATION

NMR-12 Registration fee includes lunches for three workshop days,
coffee breaks, and one ticket for the social event.

Previous registration at KR2012 allows for a reduced fee (for early
registrations only).

Discounted Early Registration ends:  May 11
Late Registration ends:              May 31
on site registration:                7-10 June

In this year, NMR will share a joint session together with the International
Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2012).
A special fee for joint registration with DL-12 is also available.

Details on NMR 2012 fees are available at
http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/NMR12/registration.html

Information on accommodations can be found at
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~kr12/?p=hotels

STUDENT GRANTS Continue Reading »

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Critical stakes

April 27, 2012 by Cate Hundleby

I keep hearing from colleagues in other disciplines that the stakes are incredibly low in contemporary psychology.  Requests for explanation get me no further than utterances of despair over the stranglehold caused by increased ethical standards for research on humans.  There will be no more Stanford prison experiments or Milgram authority tests.  All that is left are either peculiar lab objectifications of the social or discourse analysis.

I don’t understand the despair:  we’ve learned what we needed to from Zimbardo and Milgram, surely.  The new social psychology involved with cognition and discourse provides good fodder for argumentation studies (or at least it can).  It encourages critical thinking that will be informed by empirical analysis of what works, rather than armchair speculations.  All this feeds democracy.

Argumentation and discourse analysis (of which I have only the vaguest understanding) seem especially important given the current proliferation of discourse.  Discourse may also be the site of some of the most persistent stumbling blocks to social justice.  Micro-inequalities and implicit bias impede women’s and minorities’ social and political participation.

Cecelia Ridgeway suggests implicit bias may be a central cause for the stalled gender revolution:  despite the massive improvements for women in wealthy countries during the 20th century the progress stalled around 1990.  On the major markers of social status (income, wealth, and political participation as I recall), we are still where we were 22 years ago!

While Ridgeway argues we cannot directly affect our cognitive biases, given their deep and unconscious operation, we can certainly affect their impact on our discourse, watch for it, and compensate.  We can revise our hiring and promotion practices, we can change more casual standards too perhaps, e.g. by making direct eye-contact with marginalized people.  That could be part of critical thinking too, and might aid its impact. Attention to micro-inequalities may be critical too in the sense of necessary to push beyond the stall, and psychology is helping us sort them out.  The stakes remain pretty high for women and minorities.

Posted in Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Discourse Analysis | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

(Another) Fallacies Infographic

April 24, 2012 by SP

My but these things are popular. This one comes to us via yourlogicalfallacyis.com and is free to download in three sizes. The graphic is also downloadable as vector art for those saavy and motivated enough to want to work with the image some more. In terms of design I think I like this one the best of all those shared on RAIL so far. (You can see the others here and here.) It also avoids the tricky business of classification and therefore might be more useful for teaching purposes. Below is a (crummy) screenshot. The files available for download are much higher quality.

Who are those three chaps in the middle there?

It is interesting that the fallacies seem to be bubbling up as a meme in the culture at large like this. I wonder if it’s a sign of sorts that people have had enough of the shoddy, transparently shortsighted and self-interested discourse that has come to characterize so much of public life and are starting to crave discourse of a different kind–perhaps more rational, thoughtful, and careful.  That would be nice…and timely too.

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, Fallacies, Teaching | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

The Trouble with Experts

April 22, 2012 by SP

Here’s a short documentary on appeal to expert authority, produced by the CBC.  I found it by way of Ben Goldacre’s secondary blog. If you don’t know about Goldacre or his work on calling out abusive and phony experts in the UK, you should. His blog Bad Science is highly recommended reading.

The documentary:

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

R.I.P. Facts

April 20, 2012 by SP

Today there’s a lovely little piece by Rex W. Huppke in the Chicago Tribune on the life and death of facts.

That’s right, facts are dead.

A favorite quote from the obituary:

“It’s very depressing,” said Mary Poovey, a professor of English at New York University and author of A History of the Modern Fact. “I think the thing Americans ought to miss most about facts is the lack of agreement that there are facts. This means we will never reach consensus about anything. Tax policies, presidential candidates. We’ll never agree on anything.”

I often tell my students that to have critical discussions that aren’t aimed either at truth or at consensus is like having archery without targets. Nice to see I’m not the only one who will miss Facts (and probably duck more frequently) now that they’re gone.  Ah, but how did facts die, you ask?  Poovey again:

“There was an erosion of any kind of collective sense of what’s true or how you would go about verifying any truth claims,” Poovey said. “Opinion has become the new truth. And many people who already have opinions see in the ‘news’ an affirmation of the opinion they already had, and that confirms their opinion as fact.”

Of course, the article goes on to point out, many people won’t believe that facts are dead.  This makes them something like the people who think that Elvis is alive and walking among us, or that Tupac Shakur survived his 1996 shooting.  Jeez. As if being a philosophy prof wasn’t challenging enough already…

The op-ed is funny–but only in that way that makes you glance nervously around the room with a look in your eyes that says “We’re all laughing because this is preposterous, right? Right?”

I’d write more on this, but I think I just saw the flash of sequins out of the corner of my eye. I’m gonna go check it out. Just to be sure.

Posted in Critical Thinking, Discussion, Humor | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

2012 AILACT Prize

April 17, 2012 by SP

The Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking invites submissions the 2012 AILACT Essay Prize.  Value: $300 U.S. The prize-winning paper will be published in Informal Logic, contingent upon meeting the conditions specified in the prize’s notice, available at http://ailact.mcmaster.ca/. Papers related to the teaching or theory of informal logic or critical thinking, and papers on argumentation theory, will be considered for the prize. Authors need not be members of AILACT. Previously unpublished papers, and papers published or accepted for publication between January 1, 2009 and October 31, 2012, are eligible.  Maximum length: 6,000 words. Please send the paper ready for blind-reviewing. The deadline for receipt of submissions now is October 31, 2011.  For further questions, contact Susana Nuccetelli at sinuccetelli@stcloudstate.edu.

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CFP: Logic, Algebra and Truth Degrees 2012

April 16, 2012 by SP

The third meeting in the series Logic, Algebra and Truth Degrees will be held on 10-14 September 2012 in Kanazawa, Japan. Former meetings in this series have been in Siena, 2008 and Prague, 2010. The conference is organized by Research Center for Integrated Science, of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, in cooperation with the EUSFLAT Working Group on Mathematical Fuzzy Logic.

Mathematical Fuzzy Logic is a subdiscipline of Mathematical Logic which studies the notion of comparative truth. The assumption that “truth comes in degrees” has proved to be very useful in many, both theoretical and applied, areas of Mathematics, Computer Science and Philosophy. The main goal of this meeting is to foster collaboration between researchers in the area of Mathematical Fuzzy Logic, and to promote communication and cooperation with members of neighbouring fields. The featured topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
•    Proof systems for fuzzy logics: Hilbert, Gentzen, natural deduction, tableaux, resolution, computational complexity, etc.
•    Algebraic semantics: residuated lattices, MTL-algebras, BL-algebras, MV-algebras, Abstract Algebraic Logic, functional representation, etc.
•    Game-theory: Giles games, Rényi-Ulam games, evaluation games, etc.
•    First-order fuzzy logics: axiomatizations, arithmetical hierarchy, model theory, etc.
•    Higher-order fuzzy logical systems: type theories, Fuzzy Class Theory, and formal fuzzy mathematics.
•    Philosophical issues: connections with vagueness and uncertainty.
•    Applied fuzzy logical calculi: foundations of logical programming, logic-based reasoning about similarity, description logics, etc.

We also welcome contributions on any relevant aspects of related logical systems (such as substructural and quantum logics, and many-valued logics in general).
The conference scientific programme will include one tutorial, five invited lectures and contributed talks. Researchers whose interests fit in the general aims of the conference are encouraged to participate.

We invite researchers interested in presenting a paper to submit a 2-4 pages abstract at the Easychair submission page http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=latd2012

The deadline for contributions is 22 April 2012. The notification of acceptance/rejection will be sent until 3 June 2012.

For further information please contact: latd12 at jaist dot ac dot jp

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American Dialectic’s Annual Dissertation Competition

April 15, 2012 by SP

Knowing that the process of intellectual development begins long before publication, The American Dialectic Charitable Trust provides opportunities for promising individuals whose efforts and contributions might otherwise go unaided or unrecognized.  The Annual Dissertation Contest provides visibility and support for promising new scholars in philosophy and related fields, promoting individuals who continually develop themselves intellectually in such a way that the greater community of thinkers is also served.

The American Dialectic Dissertation Contest is open to all current and recent graduates.  The author of the winning essay will receive $500 and the winning essay will be published in American Dialectic the following term.  Materials are accepted on a rolling basis, but all finalized materials must be recieved no later than October 1st.  For eligibility requirements and contest instructions, please visit:  www.AmericanDialectic.org/Dissertation/

American Dialectic is currently accepting submissions in all areas of philosophy.  If you would like to learn more about  how to submit an article or response to American Dialectic, please visit our submission guidelines page.

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ArguBlogging

April 12, 2012 by SP

The ever-industrious folks at ARG:Dundee (the group behind the popular argument diagramming software Araucaria) have a lovely new tool for keeping track of and participating in argumentation on the “blogosphere”.  They call it “argublogging“. I think it’s an impressive extension of the work they’ve done on the Argument Interchcange Format, or AIF. The video below gives a demonstration of how ArguBlogging works.  If you use argument diagrams in class and discuss the kinds of current events that get discussed on blogs then this program may well be your new best friend. Have a look. Try it out.  Send them feedback.  This is work worth supporting.

Posted in Argumentation, Computation, Connections | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

CFP: Special Issue of Argument and Computation

April 12, 2012 by SP

Call for papers:

Argument and Computation – special issue on Argumentation for Consumers of Healthcare

Abstracts due May 15, 2012
Full papers due September 1, 2012.

Topics include but are not limited to computationally-oriented treatments of:

  • Theories of argumentation for health system design,
  • Persuasion for health-behavior change or health management,
  • Negotiation with patients about treatment regimens,
  • Lay-oriented justification of diagnosis or proposed medical interventions,
  • Effective risk communication and meeting other patient education needs via argumentation,
  • Argument source attributes, e.g., establishing credibility and trust,
  • Argument medium attributes, e.g., engagement and immediacy through interaction with conversational agents or multimodal systems,
  • User modeling, i.e., leveraging computational models of the message recipient’s (initial or evolving) attitudes for content selection and presentation design,
  • Assistance for consumers in finding and evaluating evidence, possibly conflicting, in the medical literature or with respect to direct-to-consumer medical advertisements,
  • Tools for training health professionals in argumentation theory and practice,
  • Argumentation-theory based tools for training patients and consumers in critical thinking.

For more information see call for papers for special issue on
the journal’s web site:  http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tarc

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