Argument by Analogy

In this essay I characterize arguments by analogy, which have an important role both in philosophical and everyday reasoning. Arguments by analogy are different from ordinary inductive or deductive arguments and have their own distinct features. I try to characterize the structure and function of these arguments. It is further discussed that some arguments, which are not explicit arguments by analogy, nevertheless should be interpreted as such and not as inductive or deductive arguments. The result is that a presumed outcome of a philosophical dispute will have to be reconsidered.     

Reflective Argumentation: A Cognitive Function of Arguing

Why do we formulate arguments? Usually, things such as persuading opponents, finding consensus, and justifying knowledge are listed as functions of arguments. But arguments can also be used to stimulate reflection on one’s own reasoning. Since this cognitive function of arguments should be important to improve the quality of people’s arguments and reasoning, for learning processes, for coping with “wicked problems,” and for the resolution of conflicts, it deserves to be studied in its own right. This contribution develops first steps towards a theory of reflective argumentation. It provides a definition of reflective argumentation, justifies its importance, delineates it from other cognitive functions of argumentation in a new classification of argument functions, and it discusses how reflection on one’s own reasoning can be stimulated by arguments.     

Transcendental Arguments and the Problem of Dogmatism

Abstract

Transcendental arguments have been described as undogmatic or non‐dogmatic arguments. This paper examines this contention critically and addresses the question of what is required from an argument for which the characterization is valid. I shall argue that although transcendental arguments do in certain respects meet what one should require from non‐dogmatic arguments, they – or more specifically, what I shall call ‘general transcendental arguments’ – involve an assumption about conceptual unity that constitutes a reason for not attributing to them the status of non‐dogmatic arguments. As a solution to this problem I distinguish general transcendental arguments from what I shall call ‘specific transcendental arguments’ and seek to explain how by limiting the use of transcendental arguments to the latter type it would be possible to avoid dogmatism. This methodological adjustment also opens up a possibility of re‐interpreting transcendental arguments from the past in a novel non‐dogmatic fashion.     

MORALITY AND POLITICS IN THE WORK OF MICHAEL WYSCHOGROD

Michael Wyschogrod claims that his arguments proceed from his biblical faith. But many of the (commendable) things that he has to say about politics and morality seem to derive from an autonomous ethics. I give five examples of arguments that cannot, in my reading of them, be drawn out of the relevant (but not definitive) biblical texts. Either the texts don't support the arguments at all, or they require interpretation, or some texts must be chosen above others if the arguments are to stand. Faith in the texts cannot by itself sustain the arguments that Wyschogrod wants to make.     

Novel argumentation and attitude change: The case of polarization following group discussion

This study is concerned with attitude polarization as a function of two properties of a persuasive message: (a) its validity or acceptability and (b) its novelty. The latter is defined as the extent to which the message contains new arguments unlikely to have been already considered by the individual. Acceptability is assumed to be a necessary condition for inducing attitude change; the impact of novelty, therefore, was expected to be most pronounced for arguments of high validity. This hypothesis was tested in two related studies using arguments produced in response to choice dilemma items, widely used in research on polarization. First, it was shown that arguments rated as both valid and novel were perceived as more persuasive than arguments rated either as highly valid but obvious (non-novel) or as low in validity (non-valid) but novel. Second, when subjects read samples of valid arguments, their attitudes polarized in the direction advocated by the novel arguments rather than by the non-novel ones. These findings are considered relevant to the polarization of attitudes in groups. Other research demonstrates that this phenomenon is the result of persuasive arguments raised during group discussion, The present study suggests why such arguments may be persuasive.     

Is even thought compositional?

Fodor (Mind Lang 16:1–15, 2001) endorses the mixed view that thought, yet not language, is compositional. That is, Fodor accepts the arguments of radical pragmatics that language is not compositional, but he claims these arguments do not apply to thought. My purpose here is to evaluate this mixed position: Assuming that the radical pragmaticists are right that language is not compositional, what arguments can be provided in support of the claim that thought is compositional? Before such arguments can be evaluated, the relevant notion of compositionality must be clarified. So I first clarify this notion of compositionality, and then consider three arguments in support of the mixed position. All three of these arguments are found to be inadequate, and thus I conclude that the mixed position is unstable: If one endorses the arguments of radical pragmatics against the compositionality of language, then one should also reject the compositionality of thought.     

Profiles of Dialogue for Evaluating Arguments from Ignorance

This investigation uses the technique of the profile of dialogue as a tool for the evaluation of arguments from ignorance (also called lack-of-evidence arguments, negative evidence, ad ignorantiam arguments and ex silentio arguments). Such arguments have traditionally been classified as fallacies by the logic textbooks, but recent research has shown that in many cases they can be used reasonably. A profile of dialogue is a connected sequence of moves and countermoves in a conversational exchange of a type that is goal-directed and can be represented in a normative model of dialogue. Selected case studies are used to probe special features of using the profile technique as applied to arguments from ignorance of a kind that occur frequently in everyday conversational exchanges. One of these special features is the use of Gricean implicature. Another is the need to use negative profiles of argument.     

A Note on Formality and Logical Consequence

Logic is formal in the sense that all arguments of the same form as logically valid arguments are also logically valid and hence truth-preserving. However, it is not known whether all arguments that are valid in the usual model-theoretic sense are truth-preserving. Tarski claimed that it could be proved that all arguments that are valid (in the sense of validity he contemplated in his 1936 paper on logical consequence) are truth-preserving. But he did not offer the proof. The question arises whether the usual model-theoretic sense of validity and Tarski's 1936 sense are the same. I argue in this paper that they probably are not, and that the proof Tarski had in mind, although unusable to prove that model-theoretically valid arguments are truth-preserving, can be used to prove that arguments valid in Tarski's 1936 sense are truth-preserving.     

Do incompatible arguments cause extensive processing in the evaluation of arguments? The role of congruence between argument compatibility and argument quality

Previous studies have demonstrated that arguments incompatible with prior beliefs are subjected to more extensive refutational processing, scrutinized longer, and judged to be weaker than arguments compatible with prior beliefs. However, this study suggests whether extensive processing is implemented when evaluating arguments is not decided by argument compatibility, but by congruence between two evaluating tendencies elicited by both argument compatibility and argument quality. Consistent with this perspective, the results of two experiments show that relative to congruent arguments, participants judged arguments eliciting incongruent evaluating tendencies as less extreme in strength, spent more time, and felt more hesitant generating strength judgments for them. The results also show that it is mainly incongruent arguments, not congruent arguments, whose strength ratings were more closely associated with the perceived personal importance of the issue, which intensified the tendency to evaluate arguments depending on argument compatibility. These results suggest that it is the incongruity between argument compatibility and argument quality, and not simply the argument compatibility, that plays a more important role in activating an extensive processing in the evaluation of arguments.     

An Intuitionist Theory of Argument Strength in Politics: How Intuitive Cognitive Biases Produce Universally Strong Arguments

Why are some political arguments more persuasive than others? Extant theories have mainly explained argument strength with reference to familiarity. Such explanations suggest that arguments are only strong for particular populations: those living in particular cultures, those following particular news, or those holding particular political values. Here, we argue for and identify the existence of a universally strong class of arguments transcending such divides: arguments that are congruent with intuitively held cognitive biases. We focus on arguments about social welfare that are congruent with a particular cognitive bias: the deservingness heuristic. Embedding a novel experiment in representative surveys in the United States, Japan, and Denmark, we demonstrate that people intuitively process arguments that resonate with this heuristic and that such arguments are strong across cultural divides, across individual levels of familiarity with the arguments, and across individual differences in political values. Finally, against the idea that intuitive arguments are simplistic, we demonstrate that such arguments can be inferentially complex, as long as they resonate with a cognitive bias.     

Effects of conflicting scientific arguments on belief change: Argument evaluation and expert consensus perception as mediators

In our society, people are often exposed to conflicting information about a scientific issue. However, our knowledge about the effects of exposure to conflicting scientific information is still highly limited. By combining paradigms of research on belief polarization and science communication, two experiments examined whether and how exposure to conflicting scientific arguments influences scientific belief change and behavioral intentions. Participants (Experiment 1, N = 102; Experiment 2, N = 115) received two conflicting arguments (favorable and unfavorable to the effects of vitamin C supplementation on the prevention and treatment of the common cold) or two nonconflicting arguments (unfavorable to and neutral on the vitamin C supplementation effects). Exposure to conflicting arguments changed participants' beliefs about the preventing and treating effects of vitamin C supplementation less than exposure to nonconflicting arguments but did not cause actual belief polarization. Compared with participants who received nonconflicting arguments, those who received conflicting arguments perceived the quality of unfavorable argument to be low and experts' opinions about the issues to be divided, resulting in modest belief change. Exposure to conflicting arguments also promoted the formation of moderate behavioral intentions to take a regular high dose of vitamin C as a result of the belief change.     

The Irrationality of Choosing Egoism—A Reply to Eshelman

Despite the vast literature on Rawls's work, few have discussed his arguments for the value of democracy. When his arguments have been discussed, they have received staunch criticism. Some critics have charged that Rawls's arguments are not deeply democratic. Others have gone further, claiming that Rawls's arguments denigrate democracy. These criticisms are unsurprising, since Rawls's arguments, as arguments that the principle of equal basic liberty needs to include democratic liberties, are incomplete. In contrast to his trenchant remarks about core civil liberties, Rawls does not say much about the inclusion of political liberties of a democratic sort – such as the right to vote – among the basic liberties.

In this paper, I complete some of Rawls's arguments and show that he has grounds for including political liberties, particularly those of a democratic nature, in the principle of equal basic liberty. In doing so, I make some beginning steps toward illustrating the genuinely democratic nature of Rawls's arguments. Rawls believes that a few different arguments can be given for democratic institutions and that these arguments work together to support the value of democracy. In this paper, I focus on Rawls's arguments relating to self-respect. I focus on this set of arguments because they are among the strongest of Rawls's arguments for equal political liberty and its fair value.     

Equality in Law and Philosophy

This article discusses various arguments for and against treating equality as a fundamental norm in law and political philosophy, combining prior arguments to the effect that equality is essentially an empty idea with arguments that treat it as a non‐empty but mistaken value that should be rejected. After concluding that most of the arguments for treating equality as a fundamental value fall victim to one or both of these arguments, it considers more closely arguments made by philosophers such as Ronald Dworkin and Thomas Nagel that base a duty of promoting equality on the fact that governments impose a legal order on persons without their consent. It concludes that these arguments are mistaken: if the legal order imposed by government is justified then imposing it is not wrongful and generates no duty of equal treatment, while if that order is not justified no requirement of equality of treatment would cure the lack of justification. It concludes that equality should not be a value in law or political theory, but in some cases other considerations (such as alleviating poverty and distress, promoting accuracy and substantive justice, avoiding arbitrariness, and other values) may justify particular rules that are sometimes mistakenly thought to be based on equality.     

Two skeptical arguments or only one?

The first step in responding to the challenge of external world skepticism is to get clear on the structure of the skeptic’s argument. The most prominent varieties of skeptical arguments either rely on closure principles or underdetermination principles. The relationship between these two sorts of arguments is contentious. Some argue that these arguments can independently motivate skepticism. Others argue that they are really equivalent. I argue that although these two arguments are distinct, their independence is not as obvious as some have thought. The fact that these arguments are not equivalent is important because skeptical arguments that appeal to underdetermination principles cannot be refuted by simply denying closure. So, the strategy for responding to skepticism offered by Nozick/Dretske does not seem an adequate solution.     

One Way to Face Facts

Stephen Neale takes theories of facts, truthmakers and non-extensional connectives to be threatened by triviality in the face of powerful 'slingshot' arguments. I rehearse the most powerful of these, and then show that friends of facts have sufficient resources not only to resist slingshot arguments but also to be untroubled by them. If a fact theory is provided with a model, then the fact theorist can be sure that this theory is secure from triviality arguments.     

Some Artificial Intelligence Tools for Argument Evaluation: An Introduction

Even though tools for identifying and analyzing arguments are now in wide use in the field of argumentation studies, so far there is a paucity of resources for evaluating real arguments, aside from using deductive logic or Bayesian rules that apply to inductive arguments. In this paper it is shown that recent developments in artificial intelligence in the area of computational systems for modeling defeasible argumentation reveal a different approach that is currently making interesting progress. It is shown how these systems provide the general outlines for a system of argument evaluation that can be applied to legal arguments as well as everyday conversational arguments to assist a user to evaluate an argument.     

The Elusive Notion of “Argument Quality”

We all seem to have a sense of what good and bad arguments are, and there is a long history—focusing on fallacies—of trying to provide objective standards that would allow a clear separation of good and bad arguments. This contribution discusses the limits of attempts to determine the quality of arguments. It begins with defining bad arguments as those that deviate from an established standard of good arguments. Since there are different conceptualizations of “argument”—as controversy, as debate, and as justification—and since arguments in each of these senses can be used for different purposes, a first problem is that we would need a large variety of standards for “good” arguments. After this, the contribution focuses in particular on proposals made in the literature on how to assess the quality of arguments in the sense of justification. It distinguishes three problems of assessment: How to determine (1) whether reasons are acceptable, (2) whether reasons are sufficient to justify the conclusion, and (3) how to identify arguments in real-world speech acts and texts? It is argued that limitations of argument assessment result from unavoidable relativism: The assessment of many—if not most—arguments depends on the epistemic situation of the evaluator.     

A Reply to Some Standard Objections to Euthanasia

The purpose here is to cast doubt on some utilitarian non-rights-based arguments that are generally thought to be decisive objections to voluntary and non-voluntary euthanasia. The aim is not to prove that euthanasia is morally vindicated (although I think rights-based arguments can do this) but rather to contend that such arguments, far from being decisively anti-euthanasia, can be made to point equally in the opposite direction.     

The Origination of a Human Being: A Reply to Oderberg

Recently David S. Oderberg has tried to refute three arguments that have been advanced in favour of the view that a human being does not begin to exist at fertilization. These arguments turn on the absence of differentiation between the embryoblast and trophoblast, the possibility of monozygotic twinning, and the totipotency of the cells during the first days after fertilization. It is here contended that Oderberg fails to rebut these arguments, though it is conceded that the first two arguments are not conclusive. They do, however, make it at least as reasonable to deny this early origination as to affirm it. It should be noticed that this is all that is needed by those who have used these arguments to dispute that something with a special moral status exists right from fertilization. Nonetheless, it will be seen that the third argument could be developed to the point of giving a conclusive reason to believe that a human being does not begin to exist at fertilization.     

Mind-body meets metaethics: a moral concept strategy

The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between anti-physicalist arguments in the philosophy of mind and anti-naturalist arguments in metaethics, and to show how the literature on the mind-body problem can inform metaethics. Among the questions we will consider are: (1) whether a moral parallel of the knowledge argument can be constructed to create trouble for naturalists, (2) the relationship between such a “Moral Knowledge Argument” and the familiar Open Question Argument, and (3) how naturalists can respond to the Moral Twin Earth argument. We will give particular attention to recent arguments in the philosophy of mind that aim to show that anti-physicalist arguments can be defused by acknowledging a distinctive kind of conceptual dualism between the phenomenal and the physical. This tactic for evading anti-physicalist arguments has come to be known as the Phenomenal Concept Strategy. We will propose a metaethical version of this strategy, which we shall call the ‘Moral Concept Strategy’. We suggest that the Moral Concept Strategy offers the most promising way out of these anti-naturalist arguments, though significant challenges remain.