On The Validity of a Simple Argument for Moral Error Theory

In The Myth of Morality Richard Joyce presents a simple and very influential argument for the truth of moral error theory. In this paper I point out that (i) the argument does not have the form Joyce attributes to it, (ii) the argument is not valid in an extensional propositional logic and (iii) on the most natural way of explicating the meanings of the involved terms, it remains invalid. I conclude that more explanation is needed if we are to accept this particular argument for moral error theory.     

子夏与《乐》的传授

《乐》是孔子用以教学的主要内容之一,子夏深得其传,不仅善于演奏音乐,而且将古乐所代表的儒家思想传给后世。虽然古乐最终没能流传下来,但是子夏传播乐的贡献却是不能抹煞的。     

Rhetoric and Dialectic: Some Historical and Legal Perspectives

The thesis is defended that rhetoric is not, as is often said, a discipline which is hierarchically subordinate to dialectic. It is argued that the modalities of the links between rhetoric and dialectic must be seen in a somewhat different light: rhetoric and dialectic should be viewed as two complementary disciplines. On the basis of a historical survey of the views of various authors on the links between rhetoric and dialectic, it is concluded that efforts to establish clear boundaries or unequivocal conceptual or moral hierarchical relationships between the two disciplines have failed and that therefore, they must be conceived as being mutually dependent.     

Nonfallacious Rhetorical Strategies: Lyndon Johnson’s Daisy Ad

The traditional concepts of rhetorical strategy and argumentative fallacy cannot be readily reconciled. Doing so requires escaping the following argument: All argumentation involves rhetorical strategies. All rhetorical strategies are violations of logical or dialectical ideals. All violations of logical or dialectical ideals are fallacies. Normative pragmatics provides a perspective in which rhetorical strategies can be seen to have the potential for constructive contributions to argumentation and in which fallacies are not simply violations of ideals. One kind of constructive contribution, framing moves, is illustrated with the case of Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 TV campaign commercial known as the Daisy ad.     

“Let Me Tell You Why!”. When Argumentation in Doctor–Patient Interaction Makes a Difference

This paper throws some light on the nature of argumentation, its use and advantages, within the setting of doctor–patient interaction. It claims that argumentation can be used by doctors to offer patients reasons that work as ontological conditions for enhancing the decision making process, as well as to preserve the institutional nature of their relationship with patients. In support of these claims, selected arguments from real-life interactions are presented in the second part of the paper, and analysed by means of a model of argumentation borrowed from classical rhetoric, and refined according to the modern orientation of the pragma-dialectic approach.     

Children's reasoning with peers in cooperative and competitive contexts

We report two studies that demonstrate how five‐ and seven‐year‐olds adapt their production of arguments to either a cooperative or a competitive context. Two games elicited agreements from peer dyads about placing animals on either of two halves of a playing field owned by either child. Children had to produce arguments to justify these decisions. Played in a competitive context that encouraged placing animals on one's own half, children's arguments showed a bias that was the result of withholding known arguments. In a cooperative context, children produced not only more arguments, but also more ‘two‐sided’ arguments. Also, seven‐year‐olds demonstrated a more frequent and strategic use of arguments that specifically refuted decisions that would favour their peers. The results suggest that cooperative contexts provide a more motivating context for children to produce arguments.

Statement of contribution

What is already known on this subject ?

• Reasoning is a social skill that allows people to reach joint decisions.
• Preschoolers give reasons for their proposals in their peer conversations.
• By adolescence, children use sophisticated arguments (e.g., refutations and rebuttals).

What the present study adds?

• Cooperation offers a more motivating context for children's argument production.
• Seven‐year‐olds are more strategic than five‐year‐olds in their reasoning with peers.
• Children's reasoning with others becomes more sophisticated after preschool years.

     

Teaching by Convincing: Strategies of Argumentation in Lectures

The aim of this article is to show the argumentative component in the discourse of teachers. This is done on the basis of an analysis of the argumentative strategies used by teachers during the first class of a university course in order to increase their discourse efficiency. The analysis of the corpus studied shows that in such a session teachers use argumentative strategies in order to control the social distance which separates them from students. In doing so, they make a double movement, one of distancing and one of approximation, with the aim of achieving a balance which permits them to consolidate their authority in the eyes of the students and, at the same time, present an accessible and well-disposed image to them.     

Towards Automating Decision Aiding Through Argumentation

Decision aiding can be abstractly described as the process of assisting a user/client/decision maker by recommending possible courses of his action. This process has to be able to cope with incomplete and/or inconsistent information and must adapt to the dynamics of the environment in which it is carried out. Indeed, on the one hand, complete information about the environment is almost impossible, and on the other hand, the information provided by the user is often affected by uncertainty; it may contains inconsistencies and may dynamically be revised because of various reasons. The aim of this paper is to present a model of the decision aiding process that is amenable to automation. The main features of the approach is that it models decision aiding as an iterative defeasible reasoning process, and it uses argumentation for capturing important aspects of the process. More specifically, argumentation is used for representing the relations between the cognitive artefacts that are involved in decision aiding, as well as for modelling the artefacts themselves. In modelling the cognitive artefacts, we make use of the notion of argument schemes and specify the related critical questions. More specifically, the work reported here aims at initiating a systematic study of the use of argumentation in future decision aiding tools. Our ambition is twofold: (i) enhance decision support capabilities of an analyst representing explicitly and accountably the reasons for which he recommend a solution for a decision maker and (ii) enhance decision support capabilities of an (semi) automatic device to handle (at least partially) the dialogue with the user. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A QBF-based formalization of abstract argumentation semantics

We introduce a unified logical theory, based on signed theories and Quantified Boolean Formulas (QBFs) that can serve as the basis for representing and computing various argumentation-based decision problems. It is shown that within our framework we are able to model, in a simple and modular way, a wide range of semantics for abstract argumentation theory. This includes complete, grounded, preferred, stable, semi-stable, stage, ideal and eager semantics. Furthermore, our approach is purely logical, making for instance decision problems like skeptical and credulous acceptance of arguments simply a matter of entailment and satisfiability checking. The latter may be verified by off-the-shelf QBF-solvers.