Have a look at this interesting sequence of images by David J. Staley over at Kairos. When you get there give it a few minutes to cycle through all the images. This series of images is put forward as a visual argument. Clearly it’s visual (well mostly, at any rate), but is it an argument? If so, what is the conclusion of the argument and what are the premises?
Posted in Discussion, Rhetoric | Tagged argument, Argumentation, Kairos, Rhetoric, Staley, visual argumentation | Leave a Comment »
Call for Papers: Special Issue of Argumentation and Advocacy on Public Argument and Digital Media
Almost ten years ago, bloggers spurred public argument about Trent Lott’s controversial toast to a retiring Strom Thurmond. Since then, digital intermediaries using a variety of forms–blogs, podcasts, wikis, photo and video, social networking sites, and microblogs–have influenced innumerable episodes of public deliberation. This special issue of Argumentation and Advocacy calls for submissions that investigate public argument occurring through digital media. We especially seek essays that probe how digital media produce novel argument forms and modes of advocacy, historical analysis of digitally-driven deliberative episodes, and critical approaches to transformations in the nature of public argument. Submissions should be completed by June 1, 2010, and will be competitively reviewed. The special issue will be guest edited by Damien Smith Pfister, and published under Argumentation and Advocacy’s new co-editorship of Catherine H. Palczewski and John Fritch.
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I’ve recently begun experimenting with diagramming arguments in my classes–and not my Critical Thinking/Informal Logic classes, but the other more traditional philosophy classes that I teach. I’ve tried using a few different programs to set my diagrams up (Araucaria, Carneades) but so far what works best are color-coded, free-hand “VanGelder-style” diagrams done on a transparency and projected via a document camera. (I’d love to have ReasonAble, but so far I can’t seem to talk anyone into getting it into the budget for me.)
What I’ve found is that diagramming arguments actually seems to work better than setting the arguments out in classical standard form (i.e. premises numbered sequentially with a line under the last premise as in an arithmetic problem, followed by the conclusion, etc.). When I diagram the argument students seem to get a clearer idea of the argumentation in the text, and a better appreciation for the overall structure of the article or chapter. I haven’t been doing it long enough to back it up with trends in test scores or anything like that, but the students tell me it really helps them get a grip on what’s going on in the text. I’ve yet to hear anyone tell me that it confuses them even more.
Is anyone else using argument diagramming/mapping in this way outside of classes where a primary aim is to teach argumentation? If so, how are you doing it and how is it working for you?
Posted in Discussion, Teaching | Tagged argument diagramming, argument mapping, Argument Maps/Diagrams, Argumentation, philosophy, Teaching | 5 Comments »
Persuasion has long been opposed to argumentation. From this standpoint, conviction would pertain only to argumentation because it is based on reason, whereas persuasion would rest on techniques of manipulation aimed at producing an effect on the audience. Perelman, for instance, even though he put emphasis on the importance of the audience, nevertheless defended a universally valid conception of rationality whose goal is to convince a universal audience, whereas persuasion is oriented toward a particular audience. Yet this opposition has been qualified by what is called, since Hamblin’s seminal work, the “pragmatic turn” of argumentation, as argumentation always occurs in a given context, limiting its scope to the context in which it occurs.
Nowadays, many distinct and even conflicting conceptions are held in the field of argumentation, among which persuasion is one of the most debated. For the epistemic trend (John Biro and Harvey Siegel), persuasion and argumentation remain quite distinct, for even if it is allowed that persuasion may sometimes be the aim of argumentation, proponents of this position nevertheless consider that the validity of an argument must be evaluated through epistemic criteria only. Based on a different analysis, Marc Angenot arrived at the same conclusion in his latest book (Dialogue de sourds, 2008): for him, argumentation rarely leads to persuasion, so that they should be radically separated. At the other end of the spectrum stands Douglas Walton’s position, as he considers persuasion to be one of the different kinds of dialogue that constitute argumentation as a whole. Between these extreme positions there is room for many intermediary ones.
The pragma-dialectical approach, for instance, evolved. In 2004, it insisted on the opposition between, on the one hand, the process of persuasion, centered on the effect to be produced and therefore on the rhetorical categories aimed at influencing effectively a given audience and, on the other, on the process of convincing which rests on how an arguer can resolve a difference of opinion by means of an argumentative discourse. Van Eemeren and his coauthors consider now that these two elements are always present to some degree in every argumentation. Their concept of “strategic maneuvering” is intended to take these two complementary but different aims of argumentation into account: both the dialectical objective of reasonableness and the rhetorical objective of effectiveness. Strategic maneuvering is also directed at reducing, within argumentative practice, the potential tension resulting from these opposed aims.
On the other hand, according to the informal logic approach (Tony Blair and Ralph Johnson), persuasion and argumentation are not really opposed. Hence Johnson’s definition of the aim of argumentation as that of a “rational persuasion.”
The objective of this conference is to review the controversial relationship between persuasion and argumentation within the different theories of argumentation. Several lines of research might be explored, among which:
Participants are welcome to deliver their papers in French or in English.
The final decision of the selection committee will be communicated by February 28, 2010.
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Today the communities of rhetoric and argumentation studies mourn the sudden passing of Michael Leff. Those who wish may read an obituary from one of the papers in Memphis where he lived and taught here. There is also a remembrance at the blog Bad Rhetoric here. At this time our thoughts go out to Michael Leff’s family and his many friends, students and colleagues all over the world.
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September 20-22, 2010
Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Ghent University, Belgium
The idea that there is a strong connection between logic, reasoning, and rationality, which was very popular among the philosophers of the Wiener Kreis, has long been out of fashion. Findings from history and philosophy of science and from cognitive psychology have revealed that the traditional logician’s tool, Classical Logic, is not fit for explicating human reasoning either in the sciences or in everyday life. Times have changed, however. Today, a multiplicity of formal frameworks (ranging from non-classical logics over probability theory to Bayesian networks) is available in addition to Classical Logic. Also, historians and philosophers of science as well as psychologists have described a rich variety of patterns in both scientific and common sense reasoning.
The aim of LRR10 is to stimulate the use of formal frameworks to explicate concrete examples of human reasoning and, conversely, to challenge scholars in formal studies by presenting them with interesting new examples of actual reasoning. Therefore, we welcome papers in all areas related to non-classical logics and non-classical formal frameworks. We also welcome case studies from history and philosophy of science, as well as from psychology, that enhance our apprehension of concrete reasoning patterns that occur in the sciences and in everyday life. Finally, we welcome contributions that deal with the philosophical implications of the present-day insights for our understanding of rationality.
Contributions may cover topics from the following (non-exhaustive) list:
– non-classical logics (adaptive logics, paraconsistent logics, relevant logics, modal logics, non-monotonic logics, epistemic and doxastic logics, erotetic logics, many-valued logics, fuzzy logics, conditional logics, …)
– formal methods in philosophy of science and in epistemology (probability theory, bayesian and causal nets, …)
– knowledge and belief dynamics (belief revision, belief merging, conceptual change, …)
– reasoning patterns (induction, abduction, IBE, analogical reasoning, model-based reasoning, inconsistency-handling, defeasible reasoning, causal reasoning, argumentation schemes, historical case-studies, …)
– present-day views on rationality (bounded rationality, rationality and values,fallibilism, …)
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Arnon Avron, Diderik Batens, Giovanna Corsi, Newton da Costa, Nancy Nersessian, Thomas Nickles, Graham Priest and Andrzej Wisniewski
Practical information:
* If you would like to present a paper at the conference, please submit an abstract (500 to 1000 words) by MARCH 15, 2010 to the following e-mail address: LRR10@UGent.be.
* Please write “ABSTRACT SUBMISSION” in the Subject header of your mail.
* Abstracts can be submitted in .doc, .docx or .pdf. Abstracts received will be acknowledged by e-mail. All abstracts will be carefully refereed.
Timetable:
* March 15, 2010: deadline for submission of abstracts
* May 1, 2010: notification of acceptance of abstracts
* May 15, 2010: deadline for speaker confirmation of attendance
* September 19, 2010: Academic Session in honour of Diderik Batens (partly in Dutch, followed by a reception)
* September 20-22, 2010: Conference
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Call for Papers:
Argumentation as a Cognitive Process:
Neurodynamics, Logic, and Models of Argumentation
May 13 – 15, 2010
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
http://www.argumentacja.umk.pl/
The conference is being held under the auspices of the Polish Society for Cognitive Science and so has an interdisciplinary profile within the domain of Cognitive Science. The conference is included into a wider project whose general goal is to bring together the results of research on argumentation gained on the basis of various sciences: philosophy, formal logic, computer science, cognitive psychology and neuroscience. It is the second conference on this topic organized at the NCU (UMK) in Toruń.
Invited Speakers:
At present, in addition to the key lectures the organizers’ plan involves three sections (workshops):
(1) in cognitive logic
(2) in applied computer sciences and neuroscience
(3) in cognitive psychology and philosophy
Those who wish to present a paper are kindly asked to send the abstract (approx.200 words, no more than 500 words) of a paper to our conference secretary: anitapacholik@wp.pl Submission deadline is: February 15. 2010 (or March 1, 2010, participation without any paper) (The number of papers is limited) Standard oral presentation papers: 20 minute oral presentation (plus 10 mins discussion)
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Call for Papers
3rd International Conference on
COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF ARGUMENT (COMMA 2010)
Desenzano del Garda, Italy, 8th-10th September 2010
Argumentation is an important and exciting research topic in artificial intelligence, with a broad spectrum of research activities ranging from theory to applications. The International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA) is a regular forum for presentation and exchange of the latest research results related to computational aspects of argumentation.
After the successful editions in Liverpool (2006) and Toulouse (2008), COMMA 2010 will be held in Desenzano del Garda in September 2010.
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Where’s Your Argument?
Informal Logic, Critical Thinking and Argumentation
A Conference at Manchester Metropolitan University, Cheshire UK
Monday and Tuesday April 12th & 13th 2010
SPEAKERS:
the Pragma-Dialectical Approach to Argument
the Grammar of Inference
the Informality of Logic
the “Evidence Based Medicine” Debate
Unspeak
Criteria for Good Argument
“Reframing” and “Unspeak” or Politics Without Propaganda?
Bad Thoughts and Worse Policies
The conference is free to attend. Places must be booked before April 1st. We can arrange discounted accommodation, for a small booking fee
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Abstracts of 400-500 words on any topic within the areas of informal logic, argumentation theory and critical thinking will be considered. The deadline for submission of abstracts is Friday February 26th. Those being successful will be notified the following week.
Please submit abstracts no later than Friday Feb 26th to: whereisyourargument.mmu@googlemail.com
Where’s Your Argument is funded by the Aristotelian Society, The Mind Association and the British Society for the Philosophy of Science.
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RAIL 