Questioning the Virtual Friendship Debate: Fuzzy Analogical Arguments from Classification and Definition

Arguments from analogy are pervasive in everyday reasoning, mathematics, philosophy, and science. Informal logic studies everyday argumentation in ordinary language. A branch of fuzzy logic, approximate reasoning, seeks to model facets of everyday reasoning with vague concepts in ill-defined situations. Ways of combining the results from these fields will be suggested by introducing a new argumentation scheme—a fuzzy analogical argument from classification—with the associated critical questions. This will be motivated by a case study of analogical reasoning in the virtual friendship debate within information ethics. The virtual friendship debate is a disagreement over whether virtual friendships are genuine friendships. It will be argued that the debate could move away from its current impasse, caused by unproductive metaphysical and logical assumptions, if extant arguments are reinterpreted as fuzzy analogical arguments from classification, and subjected to a new set of critical questions which would replace the quest for facts of essence about friendship with an emphasis on empirical data, persuasion, and definitional power.     

Reconstructing and Evaluating Genetic Arguments in Judicial Decisions

Although the genetic argument is a widely used interpretative argument, what it amounts to does not seem to be altogether clear. Basic forms of the genetic argument that are distinguished are often too rough to provide an adequate basis for the evaluation of an interpretative decision. In this article I attempt to provide a more detailed analysis of the genetic argument by making use of pragma-dialectical insights. The analysis clarifies the character and the structure of different forms of the genetic argument and thus the elements that are relevant for the evaluation of the argument.* * An earlier version of this paper was presented at 21st IVR World Congress (Lund, 2003).     

哈贝马斯关于基因技术应用的人性论论证

现代生物工程技术的迅猛发展使人类对自身生命过程的干预和控制成为可能,与此同时也对人的尊严和价值构成了极大的挑战和冲击。在新的情势下,怎样利用技术才能避免伤害,体现尊重人的精神?哈贝马斯从人性论的角度出发,认为每个人只有将自己看作是人类当中的一个平等的成员,是人种当中的一个份子,才能避免对其他生命控制和操纵,才能避免对待他人的工具化态度。只有从人类学的广阔视野出发,变人与人之间的主客体关系为主体间性关系,才能深刻理解生命伦理学尊重原则的哲学基础和人文内涵,从而为技术的道德化使用指明了方向。     

哈贝马斯关于基因技术应用的人性论论证

现代生物工程技术的迅猛发展使人类对自身生命过程的干预和控制成为可能,与此同时也对人的尊严和价值构成了极大的挑战和冲击.在新的情势下,怎样利用技术才能避免伤害,体现尊重人的精神?哈贝马斯从人性论的角度出发,认为每个人只有将自己看作是人类当中的一个平等的成员,是人种当中的一个份子,才能避免对其他生命控制和操纵,才能避免对待他人的工具化态度.只有从人类学的广阔视野出发,变人与人之间的主客体关系为主体间性关系,才能深刻理解生命伦理学尊重原则的哲学基础和人文内涵,从而为技术的道德化使用指明了方向.     

从基因伦理论争看新型基因伦理学构建之必要性

基因技术在医学领域的应用使原有的生命伦理学面临极大张力。危及人性、人的尊严与自由是以哈贝马斯为首的反对基因强化和自由优生人士的主要关切;而支持者却以人性并不固定而且人性也应进化为自己辩护。基因伦理学实体论和主观论哲学观都面临着理论失灵的困境。前瞻性新型基因伦理学应该直面基因技术的挑战, 从全人类福祉出发, 努力促成基因伦理学普适性规范的制定, 加强对基因技术的国际监管, 并对基因技术进行全人类、全局性、全过程的伦理审查。     

The Cultural Embeddedness of Arguments Raised as a Part of the Bulgarian Debate About the Ratification of the Istanbul Convention

The paper presents an analysis of the cultural embeddedness of arguments, raised as a part of the Bulgarian debate about the ratification of the Istanbul convention. The method I employed was the localization procedure of Generalized Argumentation theory. Through a qualitative analysis of empirical argumentation data, I identified arguments in favour of or against the ratification of the Istanbul convention. Information about the cultural background against which these arguments were raised, i.e. about Bulgarian culture, was gathered from the part of the ninth wave of the European Social Survey that used the Portrait Value Questionnaire—an instrument for measuring human values, based on Schwartz’s theory of human values. By establishing a certain relationship between the arguments and the cultural background information, I came to the conclusion that the debate between the proponents and the opponents of the ratification represented a conflict between the basic values of universalism and tradition, and more particularly, between the lower-order values of equality and respect for tradition.

     

The Devil is in the Framework. Comment on Mizrahi vs. all Debate on the Strength of Arguments from an Expert Opinion

Philosophia - In one of his papers, Moti Mizrahi argues that arguments from an expert opinion are weak arguments. His thesis may seem controversial due to the consensus on this topic in the field...     

Visual Arguments in Film

Our aim is to point out some differences between verbal and visual arguments, promoting the rhetorical perspective of argumentation beyond the relevance of logic and pragmatics. In our view, if it is to be rational and successful, film as (visual) argumentation must be addressed to spectators who hold informed beliefs about the theme watched on the screen and the medium’s constraints and conventions. In our reflections to follow, we apply rhetorical analysis to film as a symbolic, human, and communicative act that may sometimes be understood as a visually laid out argument. As a mixture of visual, auditory, and verbal stimuli, film demands active and complex interpretation and (re)construction. Our suggestion is to focus on five different but interrelated elements. The reconstruction and evaluation of the visual argument will be based on those elements, and the whole process will be one of visual argumentation.

Begging the Question in Arguments Based on Testimony

Summary This paper studies some classic cases of the fallacy of begging the question based on appeals to testimony containing circular reasoning. For example, suppose agents a, b and c vouch for d’s credentials, and agents b, d, and e vouch for a’s credentials. Such a sequence of reasoning is circular because a is offering testimony for d but d is offering testimony for a. The paper formulates and evaluates restrictions on the use of testimonial evidence that might be used to deal with such problematic arguments. One is called the Non-repeater Rule: in an extended sequence of argumentation based on testimony, once a source x has been appealed to at any given point in the sequence, that same source x must never be appealed to again at any next point in the same sequence.     

Three Arguments Against the Expertise Defense

Experimental philosophers have challenged friends of the expertise defense to show that (a) the intuitive judgments of professional philosophers are different from the intuitive judgments of nonphilosophers, and (b) the intuitive judgments of professional philosophers are better than the intuitive judgments of nonphilosophers, in ways that are relevant to the truth or falsity of such judgments. Friends of the expertise defense have responded by arguing that the burden of proof lies with experimental philosophers. This article sketches three arguments which show that both (a) and (b) are probably false. If its arguments are cogent, then shifting the burden of proof is a futile move, since philosophical training makes no difference so far as making intuitive judgments in response to hypothetical cases is concerned.     

司法论证充分性辨析

司法论证充分性问题是一个和法学理论与司法实践都密切相关的问题,各种关于法律论证的争议是和规则治理与纠纷解决两种司法职能的互相冲撞息息相关的。什么样的法律论证才是最合适的,在法律资源有限的情况下,如何运用有限的资源达到司法实践的目的,是各国法制建设的一个永恒话题。文章试图以我国的司法情景为例,从理性思考与现实实践两个层面,展示法官在裁决中所运用的具有地方性知识性质的辅助资源具有实践合理性,说明司法论证应该也必须追求其充分性。     

制度伦理之我见

“制度伦理”概念的不确定性和理论的分歧 ,在一定程度上妨碍了制度伦理理论的深入发展和社会应用。目前关于制度伦理的歧义 ,均与论者所依据的理论背景和所强调的侧重点不同有关 ,并无本质的不同。根据制度伦理与社会发展的关系来理解和规定制度伦理 ,它主要应包括制度中所蕴涵的伦理目标即制度中的伦理 ,以及一定道德要求的制度化这两个方面     

Resolving the Confusion in the Spiritual Development Debate

This paper argues that there is a need to make a distinction between 'spiritual development' (educational in intent, relevant for all) and 'developing spirituality' (catechetical in intent and therefore inappropriate for some). Making this distinction resolves much of the confusion in the spiritual development debate that results from (i) problems concerning definition; (ii) co-terminous usage of related but distinct concepts; and (iii) a plurality of competing models of spiritual development. This confusion is illustrated with reference to a variety of authors, particularly Hay, Erricker, Wright, Bradford, Mott-Thornton, Carr and Thatcher. Further, distinguishing between 'spiritual development' and 'developing spirituality' will bring clearer thinking to discussions about spiritual education and will overcome some of the weaknesses in the work of specified authors.     

Arguments in the practical reasoning underlying constructed probability responses

Reasoning is an important cognitive activity in probability assessment, and one that has been understudied. This proposition motivates the paper's three general aims. First, based on research in rhetoric, we present a theoretical means of analyzing the arguments constructed during the reasoning that occurs in probability assessment. Second, from verbal protocol data, we establish that subjects constructed arguments in forming beliefs and assessing the associated probabilities. Third, we analyze the data for the structure of subject's arguments, including argument content and form. Subjects used a limited amount of relevant evidence and used a variety of argument forms that could be characterized by the nature of the knowledge that subjects brought to bear in forming the arguments. Subjects predominantly used causal reasoning, but also employed hierarchical category knowledge, resemblance relationships, and arguments from authority. These findings form a basis for expanding our accounts of probability assessment and for improving assessment practice.     

Fault Lines in the Great EST Debate

Three fault lines traverse inquiries into empirically supported therapies, along which pro and contra positions can be taken. First, failure to distinguish scientific from artistic properties of therapy has lead to neglect of pervasive personological and cultural variables that are implicated in this field of inquiry. Second, scientific anomalies result from focusing more on what ESTs are than on how they effect change. Psyche is portrayed as a humanistic Cartesian place-holder for an encroaching neuro-endocrinological and systemic understanding of human experiencing. Third, the EST movement is seen as a socio-political and business model, confounded with and eroding scientific objectives.