Readers of RAIL might remember this chestnut from two years ago on infographics and visual argument. That post featured a TED talk by David McCandless. Though I’m tempted, I’ll refuse to commit the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy here and simply report that McCandless’s website, Information is Beautiful, now features a very nice-looking infographic on the fallacies, (oddly) titled Rhetological Fallacies. Clicking on the thumbnail below will take you to the full version at its home site.
Posted in Discussion, Fallacies | Tagged Argumentation, David McCandless, fallacies, infographics, Informal Logic, Rhetoric | 1 Comment »
THINKING AND SPEAKING A BETTER WORLD
Fourth International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment
11-13 January 2013, Doha, Qatar
Qatar National Convention Center
Organized by QatarDebate Center
Affiliate organizations:
-World Debate Institute, University of Vermont, USA
-Za in Proti Institute for a Culture of Dialogue, Slovenia
-International Society for the Study of Argumentation, Netherlands
-International Center for the Advancement of Political Communication and Argumentation, USA
WEBSITE
http://www.qatardebate.org/en/Home/fourth-ICARD-PE/fourth-ICARD-PE.aspx
The conference will welcome scholars and educators from diverse fields for vigorous dialogue and exchange. This conference will unite scholars of argumentation and rhetoric, teachers, and organizers of local, national and international debating networks to discuss critical thinking and advocacy discourse through pedagogy. We intend for the conference to welcome all who are involved in public discussions and debates about different issues.
This conference is extremely timely. A global information society which seeks reasoned solutions to problems through broad citizen involvement needs to develop and refine techniques for criticizing and validating ideas through discourse and then impart these to new generations of citizens if we are to create a better future and avoid looming crises. This conference represents a unique opportunity to share ideas, network and cross-fertilize with global critical thinkers. Continue Reading »
Posted in CFP | Tagged Argumentation, crtical thinking, debate, pedagogy, Rhetoric | Leave a Comment »
The latest edition of Informal Logic is now available. Contributing authors to this volume include Lilian Bermejo-Luque , Louise Cummings , Christoph Lumer, Michael Gary Duncan, David Botting and Ben Hamby. While there are, as usual, several very interesting articles, of particular interest to readers of RAIL will be Cristián Santibáñez Yáñez’s thorough and well-researched critical notice of the forthcoming book-length treatment of Mercier and Sperber’s argument theory of reasoning. The arrival of this book will undoubtedly be one of the highest-impact events of recent years on argumentation studies. If you’ve not become acquainted with it yet, this critical notice is a good place to start. (The archives here at RAIL aren’t bad either!)
Posted in Announcements, Discussion, Informal Logic | Tagged argument theory, Ben Hamby, Christoph Lumer, Cristián Santibáñez Yáñez, Dan Sperber, David Botting, Hugo Mercier, Lilian Bermejo-Luque, Louise Cummings, Michael Gary Duncan | Leave a Comment »
It seems to me that these reasons are not sufficient to prefer men (or white, straight, wealthy, able-bodied, etc. people) over other people. It’s not sufficient because the sorts of impressions addressed here while quite ubiquitous are of minor relevance to what makes a good …. whatever the issue is. Speakers need more than an authoritative voice, and also a social significance that can be parsed in many different ways. Track records can also be assessed in different ways and being established by track record in any case may also indicate entrenchment in outdated approaches and even burnout or over-exposure. The person who attracts an audience is also not necessarily the person who makes the greatest impression on an audience.
Yet it seems argumentation theory ought to be able to provide a clearer means for dismissing these sorts of appeals. In a hierarchical society hierarchical social categories such as gender and race are sometimes relevant, but how can we show the (severe) limitation of that relevance? Is generic status ever sufficient reason to promote or prefer a person?
In a sexist society where there is a very long tradition of women being excluded from a wide range of desirable public roles, we should expect many of the following things to be said of men and these roles:
People expect a man to be doing X.
People associate manliness with important features of this role. (E.g., a male voice has more authority.)
Men have much more of a proven track record at X.
(Some) men will have much more of an audience than any woman does.
So what do we think of appealing to such beliefs as a reason to favor picking only men for such roles? One response is to label it as the ‘Sexism Wins’ strategy, with the implication that the actions are sexist. What would you suggest? Notice that the strategy is different from the frequently false response to the effect that there just aren’t any…
View original post 90 more words
Posted in Argumentation, Connections, Fallacies, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
The program for the University of Windsor symposium on Psychology, Emotion and the Human Sciences is now available at http://www.thehumansciences.com/programme/. Registration should be available in a few days.
Posted in Announcements, Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, Rhetoric, Seminar/Workshop/Program Announcements | Tagged argument, Argumentation, argumentation conferences, political discourse, reasoning, University of Windsor, visual argumentation | Leave a Comment »
The workshop is intended as a multicultural and interdisciplinary gathering of researchers, practitioners and students. The following are just some of the topics we propose to explore: Continue Reading »
Posted in CFP | Tagged Argumentation, creative thinking, critical thinking, dialogue, ESTIDIA, teaching strategies | Leave a Comment »
An unprecedented apology for excluding women has been offered by the organizers of the Extended Cognition and Epistemology conference at TU Endhoven.
“The organizers of the conference sincerely regret the gender imbalance in the list of contributors. They admit that they should have, before the list of contributions became final, taken more proactive measures to guarantee a better gender balance in the special issue/conference line-up.”
“Gender imbalance” is an understatement regarding the all-male lineup, and respecting the recommendation of pretty much the same lineup at the Episteme conference on privacy and secrecy. There are plenty of women doing work in these fields, and not just (to use Sandra Harding’s terminology about scientists) the “women worthies,” such as Miranda Fricker and Jennifer Lackey. The apology goes a good way toward indicating a desire to do differently (at least I think it is mistaken to be sceptical), but treating gender as an afterthought, the remedy that they suggest, won’t suffice.
What needs to be addressed is why women are being overlooked, and similar biases have been clear in job applications, promotions, and so on for decades (as Steve keeps reminding me). We can blame this on implicit bias, but that may seem to limit prospects for a deep or lasting solution. It suggests that the problem has unconscious and permanent roots in individual cognition, which may discourage those who want to make equitable choices. It doesn’t provide constructive direction to those who would like to do differently, such as the organizers of the TU conference. Also, the problem is not isolated: it is a problem of reasoning, a problem for epistemology, and suggests a lack of appropriate critical thinking tools.
We need skills for addressing implicit bias, for negotiating the ways in which our thinking is undermined by gender and racial bias, and other “status quo bias.” We need to develop procedures that encourage the recognition of socially marginalized contributors, experts and otherwise weakly recognized testifiers. These considerations need to be built into decision-making at all levels. Evidence of the problem for invited speakers, insofar as those decisions are made at great length, only indicates that the problem has great epistemological depth.
A step in the right direction would be to orient conferences to this problem from the outset: include race and gender analysis in the conference topic; have a regular conference to address that topic; consider how epistemologists are educating philosophers in ways that reinforce social bias; think first of which women (and people of colour) can be featured. Make analysis of social privilege part of the critical thinking practice in philosophy and the critical thinking curriculum, not just an afterthought.
Posted in Critical Thinking, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
We solicit submission of 500-1000-word abstracts in pdf format. Submissions should be submitted using Easychair at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sipi2012
For further information, see the above-mentioned Symposium web site.
Feel free to forward to interested parties.
Submission of abstracts: 28 March 2012
Symposium date: 25 April 2012
Posted in Argumentation, CFP, Computation, Connections | Tagged decision support, decision systems, how information influences decision-making, informatics, information presentation, inter-disciplinary conferences, natural language generation, SICSA | Leave a Comment »
Though I’ve been keeping up with the CFP’s, RAIL readers may have noted that I’ve not been posting much else. Apologies for that! Deadlines, deadlines. 🙂 At times like these I try to assuage my guilt for not writing more of my share of the content here by pointing RAIL readers to interesting posts on other blogs. I may be bogged down with research and writing, but the argumentation blogosphere outside of RAIL is alive and well too. As proof, I humbly suggest to you the following very worthy reads:
First up, check out A Toulminian approach to thought experiments, by our good friend-blog Argumentics. In this post you’ll find the writer’s usual insightful and knowledgeable article analysis, this time on the use of thought experiments in philosophy and in science. Those who are familiar with Maurice Finocchiaro’s work on Galileo might want to read the entire serious of posts at Argumentics on this issue. It’s good stuff. So is the series of posts on Searle’s Chinese Room argument. In fact, just add this blog to your bookmarks. It’s consistently great.
Also consistently great is Jean Goodwin’s blog Between Scientists and Citizens. Though not as prolific as Argumentics (with whom I challenge anyone to keep up), Between Scientists and Citizens consistently serves up gems like this one: Burden of Proof #1: Managing our own thinking, In this post Jean identifies an all-too-familiar argumentative use of the concept of burden-of-proof that, while general in scope, will resonate with readers who have been enjoying Cate’s recent posts too.
Lastly I suggest The dismal state of political discourse, over at Tim Van Gelder’s blog. The reason I suggest it isn’t so much because there’s novel conceptual analysis to be had, but because it’s a wonderful example of van Gelder’s hallmark: practical application of ideas from argumentation theory to concrete problems. This time the problem being taken on is the need for better communication between ordinary citizens and political institutions in Australia. It’s an interesting project that deserves to be better known. Have a look!
Also, don’t forget to check out the Twitter feed in the top right corner of the page next to the posts or just follow us: @RAILBlog
Happy Reading!
Posted in Connections, Discussion | Tagged argumentics, burden of proof, Jean Goodwin, thought experiments, Tim Van Gelder, Toulmin, YourView | Leave a Comment »
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