Epistemic and Dialectical Models of Begging the Question

This paper addresses the problem posed by the current split between the two opposed hypotheses in the growing literature on the fallacy of begging the question the epistemic hypothesis, based on knowledge and belief, and the dialectical one, based on formal dialogue systems. In the first section, the nature of split is explained, and it is shown how each hypothesis has developed. To get the beginning reader up to speed in the literature, a number of key problematic examples are analyzed illustrating how both approaches can be applied. Useful tools are brought to bear on them, including the automated argument diagramming system Araucaria, and profiles of dialogue used to represent circular argumentation in a dialogue tableau format. These tools are used to both to model circular reasoning and to provide the contextual evidence needed to properly determine whether the circular reasoning in a given case is better judged fallacious or not. A number of technical problems that have impeded the development of both hypotheses are studied. One central problem is the distinction between argument and explanation. It is concluded that the best way to move forward and solve these problems is to reformulate the two hypotheses in such a way that they might be able to co-exist. On this basis, a unified methodology is proposed that allows each hypothesis to move forward as a legitimate avenue for research using the same tools.     

Exploration of the attitudes of employees towards the provision of counselling within a profit‐making organisation

The provision of workplace counselling has risen significantly over the last 20 years in response to the increase in stress‐related illness amongst employees in UK profit‐making organisations. Despite this expansion there is very little exploration of employee attitudes towards this provision. This paper describes a case study of employee attitudes towards counselling in a UK profit‐making organisation utilising an Employee Assistant Programme (EAP) for staff counselling. The method used for the research was a quantitative approach administered using a short questionnaire distributed to employees by e‐mail. The responses to the questionnaire illustrated that most employees were highly aware of the service and believed stress to be the highest presenting issue to the EAP counsellors. However, stress was actually the lowest presenting issue. The results from this study also suggested that managers had a more negative attitude towards counselling than non‐managers. Men and women were found to have the same highly positive attitude towards counselling. Respondents felt that wider, constant and regular positive promotion of counselling, by the employer as well as the EAP, was needed to increase utilisation of the EAP counselling service. Concerns over confidentiality for those using, or contemplating using, the service were also found — as in other studies — but this study found concerns particularly in relation to managers finding out that an employee had attended counselling. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Latent Ability: Grades and Test Scores Systematically Underestimate the Intellectual Ability of Negatively Stereotyped Students

ABSTRACT— Past research has assumed that group differences in academic performance entirely reflect genuine differences in ability. In contrast, extending research on stereotype threat, we suggest that standard measures of academic performance are biased against non-Asian ethnic minorities and against women in quantitative fields. This bias results not from the content of performance measures, but from the context in which they are assessed—from psychological threats in common academic environments, which depress the performances of people targeted by negative intellectual stereotypes. Like the time of a track star running into a stiff headwind, such performances underestimate the true ability of stereotyped students. Two meta-analyses, combining data from 18,976 students in five countries, tested this latent-ability hypothesis. Both meta-analyses found that, under conditions that reduce psychological threat, stereotyped students performed better than nonstereotyped students at the same level of past performance. We discuss implications for the interpretation of and remedies for achievement gaps.     

Book reviews

Job Stress InterventionsLAWRENCE MURRAY ET AL. (Eds) American Psychological Association, 1995 439 pp., £27.95, ISBN 1 5579 8281 3

Organizational Risk Factors for Job StressSTEPHEN SANTER AND LAWRENCE MURPHY (Eds)American Psychological Association, 1995 400pp., £27.95, ISBN 1 5579 8297 X     

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.