Posted in Discussion, Rhetoric, tagged argument, Argumentation, Kairos, Rhetoric, Staley, visual argumentation on March 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »
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, Teaching, tagged argument diagramming, argument mapping, Argument Maps/Diagrams, Argumentation, philosophy, Teaching on February 16, 2010| 5 Comments »
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 Connections, Discussion, Rationality, tagged Argumentation, Discussion, Future of Humanity Institute, Less Wrong, Rationality, semantic stopsigns on January 29, 2010| 4 Comments »
Less Wrong is a blog sponsored by Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute: a research group devoted mostly to issues in AI development aimed at increasing human intelligence. While many posts center on those issues, the folks over there frequently consider ideas about rationality and reasoning. Essentially, hardcore Bayesianism rules the roost, and there seems to be an instinctive impulse towards formalism that is perhaps not as widely shared among likely readers of RAIL. That said, at times they hit on ideas and ways of seeing things that are fascinating and useful to consider.
One of those ideas is that of a “semantic stopsign“, the mark of which is “failure to consider the obvious next question.” As the examples make clear, the upshot of this is someone’s tendency to over-rely on a particular answer to tough questions, to rely on it as something like a conversational deus ex machina. If, for instance, I am willing to question the ability of any institution to solve social problems but seem mysteriously unable to apply the same scrutiny to “god” or “liberal democracy” or “the free market”, then those things are, for me, semantic stopsigns. When a chain of discursive reasoning brings me to my stopsign I simply stop asking critical questions, automatically satisfied that nothing further need be said.
Semantic stopsigns seem to me to be a familiar phenomenon, but one I’ve not seen discussed very much or labeled with that sort of precision before. One wonders what a list of common semantic stopsigns would look like, and more importantly, what argumentative strategies one might use to circumvent them.
Posted in Discussion, Rationality, tagged AI, Argumentation, Rationality, Yudkowski on January 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I found this interesting post on the twelve virtues of rationality on the blog of artificial intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowski. The fifth virtue, you’ll be happy to know, is argument. 🙂
Posted in Discussion, Informal Logic, tagged Argumentation, Hamblin, premises, truth on December 16, 2009| 1 Comment »
This past Summer I had the great good fortune to participate in the Summer Institute in Argumentation hosted by CRRAR. The Summer Institute preceded the OSSA conference, so the whole experience turned out to be about two and half weeks of really great discussions on all kinds of topics in argumentation theory and rhetoric.
One of the topics that’s been bouncing around in the back of my thoughts since then has been the question of whether or not an argument must have true premises in order to be good. The question was raised in a fantastic session on Chapter 7 of Hamblin’s Fallacies that was led by David Hitchcock during the Summer Institute. Hamblin, of course, answers this question in the negative, and I think it fair to say that the consensus of most of those attending agreed with him in that. For my part, I’ve been mulling it over since then and a few thoughts are beginning to emerge.
RAIL 