Walton's Argumentation Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning: A Critique and Development

The aim of the paper is to advance the theory of argument or inference schemes by suggesting answers to questions raised by Walton's Argumentation Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning (1996), specifically on: the relation between argument and reasoning; distinguishing deductive from presumptive schemes, the origin of schemes and the probative force of their use; and the motivation and justification for their associated critical questions.     

Evaluating the Meta-Slope: Is there a Slippery Slope Argument against Slippery Slope Arguments?

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) have often been viewed as inherently weak arguments, to be classified together with traditional fallacies of reasoning and argumentation such as circular arguments and arguments from ignorance. Over the last two decades several philosophers have taken a kinder view, often providing historical examples of the kind of gradual change on which slippery slope arguments rely. Against this background, Enoch (2001, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 21(4), 629–647) presented a novel argument against SSA use that itself invokes a slippery slope. Specifically, he argued that the very reasons that can make SSAs strong arguments mean that we should be poor at abiding by the distinction between good and bad SSAs, making SSAs inherently undesirable. We argue that Enoch’s meta-level SSA fails on both conceptual and empirical grounds.     

与《告别中医中药》论者商榷

《告别中医中药》一文的立论和方法是不可取的;《告别中医中药》一文的四点论据还需商榷,《告别中医中药》一文与党的中医政策和构建社会主义和谐社会有着不和谐的声音.中医和西医与其他自然科学一样在各自起作用的范围内存在和发展.     

An evaluation and comparison of claims made in behavioural investigative advice reports compiled by the National Policing Improvements Agency in the United Kingdom

This study examined the content of a contemporary sample of behavioural investigative advice reports produced by the National Policing Improvements Agency (NPIA), formally known as the National Centre for Policing Excellence, and compared this sample with previous offender‐profiling samples reported by Alison, Smith, Eastman, and Rainbow in 2003. Forty‐seven reports written in 2005 were content analysed. The reports contained 805 claims, although 96% of the claims contained grounds for their claim, only 34% had any formal support or backing. In terms of confirmability, 70% of the claims were verifiable. However, only 43% were falsifiable, in that they could be objectively measured post‐conviction. Analysis also showed that there were differences when comparing the different types of claims made (i.e. behavioural, temporal) and the different types of reports compiled by the NPIA (i.e. behavioural assessment report, linking report, etc.) Comparisons show that there is a very large positive difference between the contemporary behavioural investigative advice sample and previous non‐NPIA expert advice in terms of the substantiveness of their arguments. Contemporary NPIA behavioural investigative advice has clearer boundaries around the claims made and presents material in a more coherent and evidence‐based format than previous expert advice. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

非形式推理的研究及展望

非形式推理目前被界定为对结构不良的、用自然语言表述的、没有固定答案的、需要进行归纳的问题的推理,推理的结果是个体对问题形成一定的态度和观点。已有研究探讨了非形式推理的一般特征、衡量标准、影响推理的个体特征,以及学生非形式推理能力的培养方式等问题。作者认为开展非形式推理及其影响因素的研究将促进人格特征与认知关系的研究,并有广泛的教育意义,同时提出了有待深入研究的课题。     

Response to Stuart Kauffman: The Measurement Problem in Quantum Mechanics

Richard Feynman, a 1965 Nobel Prize winner in physics, quoting an unknown philosopher, said: “It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results.” And Feynman's reply: “Well, they don't.” Double-slit experiments with both slits open and the wave interference pattern created by electrons falling on a screen behind the slits speak volumes to those two statements and the interpretive problem created by the non-deterministic behavior of microscopic matter. Quantum mechanics (QM) with its successes over the last 85 years has created the information age, and with insights into nature has given humans an economy concentrated with products based on quantum technology. All this even with questions about the fundamental aspects of measurement in the quantum world still being debated! Discussing the measurement aspect of QM does not require a physics background where physics scholars join other scholarly disciplines engaged in gaining knowledge about the reality of the one world of human experience. The necessary tools for discussion are imagination, speculation, and curiosity. But for a new credible interpretation of the measurement problem, quantum training or a quantum theoretician is required.     

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.     

Developing a Validity Argument Through Abductive Reasoning with an Empirical Demonstration of the Latent Class Analysis

This article proposes and demonstrates a methodology for test score validation through abductive reasoning. It describes how abductive reasoning can be utilized in support of the claims made about test score validity. This methodology is demonstrated with a real data example of the Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP)-General test—a program assessing functional English language ability in the community and workplace. Abductive reasoning seeks the enabling conditions through which a claim about a person's ability makes sense. For example, it makes sense that a person has strong functional language proficiency if he or she has been regularly using English to write emails and meet with colleagues at work. A valid test score should be affected by the extent of a person's engagement with such enabling conditions. Empirical evidence that warrants such an abductively reasoned claim is illustrated through a latent class analysis within a structural equation model. Evidence is examined to investigate whether certain classes of test takers who have been differentially engaging in the enabling conditions do, in fact, predict a person's CELPIP-General performance. The steps of the methodology are summarized in the closing section.     

Are our moral responsibility practices justified? Wittgenstein,Strawson and justification in ‘Freedom and Resentment’

D. Justin Coates argues that, in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, P. F. Strawson develops a modest transcendental argument for the legitimacy of our moral responsibility practices. I disagree with Coates’ claim that Strawson’s argument provides a justification, in Wittgenstein’s and/or Strawson’s sense of that term, of our responsibility practices. I argue that my interpretation of Strawson solves some difficulties with Coates’ argument, while retaining its advantages.     

SOUTHGATE'S COMPOUND ONLY‐WAY EVOLUTIONARY THEODICY: DEEP APPRECIATION AND FURTHER DIRECTIONS

Christopher Southgate offers a remarkable evolutionary theodicy that includes six affirmations and arguments; together they form a unique and very persuasive proposal which he terms a “compound evolutionary theodicy.” Here I summarize the arguments and offer critical reflections on them for further development, with an emphasis on the ambiguity in the goodness of creation; the role of thermodynamics in evolutionary biology; the challenge of horrendous evil in nature; and the theological response to theodicy in terms of eschatology, with its own severe challenge from cosmology.