The Value of Topoi

Despite Vancil’s (1979) proclamation over twenty years ago that topoi have been abandoned in argument theory, this essay contends that topoi should have a vital role in contemporary argumentation theory. Four key areas are identified where topoi are (or can be) essential tools for argumentation: Locating argument, building argument, development of critical thinking, and argument pedagogy. As a result, teachers and students of argument can both benefit from a (re)discovery of topoi.     

The Economic, Political, Strategic, and Rhetorical Uses of Simple Constructive Dilemma in Legal Argument

The author argues that simple constructive dilemma is a valuable argument form for reasoning under relative conditions of uncertainty. When applied to legal argument this value of simple constructive dilemma is shown in its political, strategic, rhetorical, and especially economic, uses by lawyers and judges. After considering some examples of the use of the form by trial lawyers, the author gives examples of the more interesting use of the form by appellate courts. Research into the use of simple constructive dilemma by appellate courts helps us to understand how those courts distribute judicial resources. It also helps us to understand the political role of the appellate courts with respect to the doctrine of the separation of powers. Given some of the specific examples of legal reasoning used by the appellate courts presented in this article, and given the discussion of the doctrine of precedent, the article’s focus is on common law legal systems of the Anglo-American-type.     

做一个大写的人:我们在阅读中与《孟子》相逢

如果我们愿意在阅读中与《孟子》相逢,我们就应该立志去做一个大写的人。从道德理想主义层面看,《孟子》要求我们“证性善”,确立人之为人的性善之本;期盼我们“恶乡愿”,拒斥八面玲珑的伪善之方。从文化守成主义层面看,《孟子》呼唤我们“友古人”,经由对优秀文化传统的回想而求证本根之源;促使我们“辟邪说”,通过对异端邪说的批驳而澄清智慧之旅。有理想有文化的人,才会是一个大写的人。无论对于针砭欲望横流的当下世态,还是对于建构人皆尧舜的未来愿景,这种人格的理论意义和现实作用都是不可低估的。     

Quality of written record following mock eyewitness testimony: Note taking should be a minimum standard!

By using a video‐based narrative (unidirectional) eyewitness statement of an alleged victim, participants were asked to imagine they were police officers. We compared the quality of mock police officer written records in a between‐subjects design comprising three conditions: (a) a free recall (n = 27), (b) a free recall by using recall strategies of the cognitive interview (n = 27), or (c) note taking while watching the video (n = 26). The quality of the reports was determined by the amount of correctly recalled details, omitted details, added details (commission errors), and changed details (confabulations). As predicted, the number of correct details was higher in the “Note Taking” condition whereas performance in the “Free Recall” and in the “Cognitive Interview” conditions did not differ. Higher verbal memory ability resulted in a better quality of the written records. Our results suggest that note taking facilitates the quality of written records.     

Reflections on the Incompatibilist’s Direct Argument

The Direct Argument for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility is so christened because this argument allegedly circumvents any appeal to the principle of alternate possibilities – a person is morally responsible for doing something only if he could have avoided doing it – to secure incompatibilism. In this paper, I first summarize Peter van Inwagen’s version of the Direct Argument. I then comment on David Widerker’s recent responses to the argument. Finally, I cast doubt on the argument by constructing counterexamples to a rule of inference it invokes.

Is Structure Dependence an Innate Constraint? New Experimental Evidence From Children's Complex‐Question Production

According to Crain and Nakayama (1987) , when forming complex yes/no questions, children do not make errors such as Is the boy who smoking is crazy? because they have innate knowledge of structure dependence and so will not move the auxiliary from the relative clause. However, simple recurrent networks are also able to avoid such errors, on the basis of surface distributional properties of the input ( Lewis & Elman, 2001 ; Reali & Christiansen, 2005 ). Two new elicited production studies revealed that (a) children occasionally produce structure‐dependence errors and (b) the pattern of children's auxiliary‐doubling errors (Is the boy who is smoking is crazy?) suggests a sensitivity to surface co‐occurrence patterns in the input. This article concludes that current data do not provide any support for the claim that structure dependence is an innate constraint, and that it is possible that children form a structure‐dependent grammar on the basis of exposure to input that exhibits this property.     

On the Issues of Transcendental Argument

The transcendental approach initiated by Immanuel Kant and Peter Strawson has been the most representative contemporary exponent of this line of thinking. Barry Stroud understands this form of transcendental argument as relying on an empirical “verification principle” and hence he rejects it as unnecessary. Nevertheless, Stroud’s view is only warranted to a certain extent. In some non-empirical objective spheres, including concepts and propositions as regards general metaphysics, moral metaphysics and philosophy of religion, the transcendental approach is still necessary. In terms of quality, transcendental approach belongs to “conceptual argumentation,” which differs from experience and logic with the fundamental characteristic of setting up a theoretical antecedent before further inquiry at the level of doctrine, i.e., concepts.     

Why ‘non-mental’ won’t work: on Hempel’s dilemma and the characterization of the ‘physical’

Recent discussions of physicalism have focused on the question how the physical ought to be characterized. Many have argued that any characterization of the physical should include the stipulation that the physical is non-mental, and others have claimed that a systematic substitution of ‘non-mental’ for ‘physical’ is all that is needed for philosophical purposes. I argue here that both claims are incorrect: substituting ‘non-mental’ for ‘physical’ in the causal argument for physicalism does not deliver the physicalist conclusion, and the specification that the physical is non-mental is irrelevant to the task of formulating physicalism as a substantive, controversial thesis.

Dyadic processes of disclosure and reciprocity in bargaining with communication

We offer a study revealing the mechanisms through which communication helps actual bargaining behavior outperform economic predictions. The possibility of individually strategic behavior in the presence of private information leads to game‐theoretic predictions of less than full efficiency. We present a one‐stage, simultaneous offers bargaining game in which buyers and sellers have independent, privately held valuations for the item being sold (i.e. a bilateral auction with two‐sided private information). In three communication treatments, parties are: (a) allowed face‐to‐face communication prior to submitting offers; (b) allowed written communication prior to submitting offers; or (c) allowed no‐communication prior to submitting offers. When parties are allowed pre‐play communication, we find nearly full efficiency (98%). We examine two systematically predictable aspects of dyadic interaction—disclosure and reciprocity—to explain how negotiators achieve this efficiency. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What Are We to Think about Thought Experiments?

Arguments from thought experiment ask the reader to imagine some hypothetical, sometimes exotic, often fantastic, scenario for the sake of illustrating or countering some claim. Variously characterized as mental experimentation, imaginary cases, and even crazy cases, thought experiments figure into both scientific and philosophical arguments. They are often criticized for their fictive nature and for their lack of grounding. Nevertheless, they are common especially in arguments in ethics and philosophy of mind. Moreover, many thought experiments have spawned variations that attempt to both affirm and refute their original arguments. These emended thought experiments exhibit a variety of styles, details, and embellishments. A rhetorical analysis of these variations suggests a reciprocal influence between the arguers' selection of details and their philosophical commitments. I offer examples of this relationship from the variations on John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment and Judith Thomson's unconscious violinist thought experiment.