Showing papers in "Informal Logic in 2010"
TL;DR: This article argued that the dominance of the argument-as-war metaphor is not warranted, since this metaphor misconstrues the epistemic role of good argument as a tool of rational persuasion.
Abstract: Philosophy’s adversarial argumentation style is often noted as a factor contributing to the low numbers of women in philosophy. I argue that there is a level of adversariality peculiar to philosophy that merits specific feminist examination, yet doesn’t assume controversial gender differences claims. The dominance of the argument-as-war metaphor is not warranted, since this metaphor misconstrues the epistemic role of good argument as a tool of rational persuasion. This metaphor is entangled with the persisting narrative of embattled reason, which, in turn, is linked to the sexism-informed narrative of the “man of reason” continually warding off or battling “feminine” unreason.
68 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an explanation of how fallacies are deceptive is presented based on heuristics and paraschemes, which are fast and frugal shortcuts to a solution to a problem that sometimes jump to a conclusion that is not justified.
Abstract: This paper offers a solution to the problem of understanding how a fallacious argument can be deceptive by “seeming to be valid”, or (better) appearing to be a better argument of its kind than it really is. The explanation of how fallacies are deceptive is based on heuristics and paraschemes. Heuristics are fast and frugal shortcuts to a solution to a problem that sometimes jump to a conclusion that is not justified. In fallacious instances, according to the theory proposed, this jump overlooks prerequisites of the defeasible argumentation scheme for the type of argument in question. Three informal fallacies, argumentum ad verecundiam, argumentum ad ignorantiam and fear appeal argument, are used to illustrate and explain the theory.
67 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that it is possible to argue reasonably for and against arguments from classifications and definitions, provided they are seen as defeasible (subject to exceptions and critical questioning), and how such schemes can be identified with heuristics, or short-cut solutions to a problem.
Abstract: We contend that it is possible to argue reasonably for and against arguments from classifications and definitions, provided they are seen as defeasible (subject to exceptions and critical questioning). Arguments from classification of the most common sorts are shown to be based on defeasible reasoning of various kinds represented by patterns of logical reasoning called defeasible argumentation schemes. We show how such schemes can be identified with heuristics, or short-cut solutions to a problem. We examine a variety of arguments of this sort, including argument from abductive classification, argument from causal classification, argument from analogy-based classification and arguments from classification based on generalizations.
33 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a progressive evolution for the fallacies approach is offered as an authoritative alternative to the popular fallacies pedagogy, which is authoritarian in being unresponsive to the scholarly developments in informal logic and argumentation theory.
Abstract: Popular textbook treatments of the fallacies approach to argument evaluation employ the Adversary Method identified by Janice Moulton (1983) that takes the goal of argumentation to be the defeat of other arguments and that narrows the terms of discourse in order to facilitate such defeat. My analysis of the textbooks shows that the Adversary Method operates as a Kuhnian paradigm in philosophy, and demonstrates that the popular fallacies pedagogy is authoritarian in being unresponsive to the scholarly developments in informal logic and argumentation theory. A progressive evolution for the fallacies approach is offered as an authoritative alternative.
31 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that virtue epistemology supplies this analysis and that three sorts of ad hominems that attack the speaker's intellectual character are legitimate: possession of reliabilist vices, possession of responsibilistic vices and failure to perform intellectually virtuous acts.
Abstract: The recent literature on ad hominem argument contends that the speaker’s character is sometimes relevant to evaluating what she says. This effort to redeem ad hominems requires an analysis of character that explains why and how character is relevant. I argue that virtue epistemology supplies this analysis. Three sorts of ad hominems that attack the speaker’s intellectual character are legitimate. They attack a speaker’s: (1) possession of reliabilist vices; or (2) possession of responsibilist vices; or (3) failure to perform intellectually virtuous acts. Legitimate ad hominems conclude that we should not believe what a speaker says solely on her say-so.
26 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that women in argumentation contexts face oppress-sive limitations undermining argument success because their authority is un-dermined by gendered norms of po-liteness.
Abstract: This essay argues that ideals of cooperation or adversariality in argumentation are not equally attainable for women. Women in argumentation contexts face oppress-sive limitations undermining argument success because their authority is un-dermined by gendered norms of po-liteness. Women endorsing or, alter-natively, transgressing feminine norms of politeness typically defend their au-thority in argumentation contexts. And yet, defending authority renders it less legitimate. My argument focuses on women in philosophy but bears the implication that other masculine dis-course contexts present similar double binds that urge social and political change.
20 citations
TL;DR: The authors define and refine Habermas's notion of systematically distorted communication by means of focused, structured comparison among three of its instances and show that its critique is possible within the confines of his theory by recourse to a minimalist concept of rationality and a version of the truth.
Abstract: I define and refine Habermas’s notion of systematically distorted communication by means of focused, structured comparison among three of its instances Next, I show that its critique is possible within the confines of his theory by recourse to a minimalist concept of rationality and a version of the truth that avoids the unwelcome metaphysical baggage of truth with a capital T For critique to be complete, however, it must be supplemented by the full range of rhetorical proofs Even so, there are limits to the power of critique In the end, only social and political action can alter oppressive institutional arrangements
17 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the epistemologists Biro and Siegel have raised two objections against the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation: the first objection is based on what they regard as the misconception that the goal of resolving differences of opinion cannot provide a normative approach.
Abstract: The epistemologists Biro and Siegel have raised two objections against the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. According to the first objection the pragma-dialectical theory is not genuinely normative. According to the second objection the rejection of justificationism by pragma-dialecticians is unwarranted: they reject justificationism prematurely and they are not consistent in accepting some arguments (‘justifications’) as sound. The first objection is based on what we regard as the misconception that the goal of resolving differences of opinion cannot provide a normative approach. In response to the second objection we argue that in pragma-dialectics, the notion of argument, and related notions, are defined in a non-justificatory manner.
17 citations
TL;DR: The authors define argument and explanation as distinct forms of reasoning with an underappreciated complementary relationship, and identify the mischief that results from conflating them, elucidate their complementary relationship and employ this relationship to provide a fruitful approach to analyzing the logical structure of the common editorial.
Abstract: Argument and explanation are distinct forms of reasoning with an underappreciated complementary relationship. In this essay I define these terms precisely, identify the mischief that results from conflating them, elucidate their complementary relationship and employ this relationship to provide a fruitful approach to analyzing the logical structure of the common editorial.
Keywords: argument, evidence, explanation, cause, complementarity, editorial.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that ad hominem arguments are not always fallacious and that in certain cases of practical reasoning, the circumstances of a person are relevant to whether or not the conclusion should be accepted.
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that ad hominem arguments are not always fallacious. More explicitly, in certain cases of practical reasoning, the circumstances of a person are relevant to whether or not the conclusion should be accepted. This occurs, I suggest, when a person gives advice to others or prescribes certain courses of action but fails to follow her own advice or act in accordance with her own prescriptions. This is not an instance of a fallacious tu quoque provided that such circumstantial ad hominem arguments are construed as rebuttals to appeals to (administrative) authority (of expertise), or so I argue.
13 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Garssen and van Laar concede their main criticism of the pragma-dialectical approach, that the conclusions of arguments can be "P-D reasonable" yet patently unreasonable, epistemically speaking.
Abstract: Garssen and van Laar in effect concede our main criticism of the pragma-dialectical approach. The criticism is that the conclusions of arguments can be ‘P-D reasonable’ yet patently unreasonable, epistemically speaking. The concession consists in the claim that the theory “remains restricted to the investigation of standpoints in the light of particular sets of starting points” which are “up to individual disputants to create” and the admission that all the relevant terms of normative appraisal have been redefined. We also discuss their criticisms of the epistemic account of argumentation and argument evaluation and raise some new questions about the approach they defend.
TL;DR: In the process of challenging epistemological assumptions that preclude relationships between knowers and the objects of knowing, feminist epistemologists Lorraine Code and Donna Haraway also can be interpreted as troubling forms of argumentation predicated on positivist-derived logic.
Abstract: In the process of challenging epistemological assumptions that preclude relationships between knowers and the objects of knowing, feminist epistemologists Lorraine Code and Donna Haraway also can be interpreted as troubling forms of argumentation predicated on positivist-derived logic. Against the latter, Christopher Tindale promotes a rhetorical model of argument that appears able to better engage epistemologies of situated knowledges. I detail key features of the latter from Code, especially, and compare and contrast them with relevant parts of Tindale’s discussion of context on the rhetorical model, and I suggest ways that his work could be expanded to accommodate rhetorical implications of situated knowledges.
TL;DR: This paper examined genealogical critiques and addressed the question of whether such critiques are fallacious and, if so, whether this vitiates their usefulness, and concluded that while there may be one or more senses in which genealogic critiques were fallacious, this does not vitiate their value.
Abstract: Since at least the 1938 publication of Hans Reichenbach’s Experience and Predication, there has been widespread agreement that, when discussing the beliefs that people have, it is important to distinguish contexts of discovery and contexts of justification. Traditionally, when one conflates the two contexts, the result is a “genetic fallacy”. This paper examines genealogical critiques and addresses the question of whether such critiques are fallacious and, if so, whether this vitiates their usefulness. The paper concludes that while there may be one or more senses in which genealogical critiques are fallacious, this does not vitiate their value.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This article argued that the problem with the pragma-dialectical view of argumentation is that it takes argumentation as aiming at consensus rather than truth or justified belief, and they argued that argumentation can be interpreted as a theory of criticism.
Abstract: The problem with the pragma-dialectical view, it has been argued, is that it takes argumentation as aiming at consensus rather than truth or justified belief. The pragma- dialecticians often imply that an ar- gumentative process aiming at con- sensus in a way constrained by the "Ten Commandments" will in the long run converge on epistemically favourable standpoints. I will argue that they are right provided: (i) pragma-dialectics is construed, as they say, as a theory of criticism; (ii) pragma-dialectics and the other theo- ries of argumentation have in common the requirement to account for the fallacies. Resume:
TL;DR: In this paper, the 2007 majority opinion of the German National Ethics Council, which seeks to establish new information (as to the inferior quality of legally procurable human embryonic stem cells) as a sufficient reason for a relaxation of the 2002 Stem Cell Law was analyzed and evaluated.
Abstract: This paper analyzes and evaluates the 2007 majority opinion of the German National Ethics Council which seeks to establish new information (as to the inferior quality of legally procurable human embryonic stem cells) as a sufficient reason for a relaxation of the 2002 Stem Cell Law. A micro-level analysis of the opinion’s central section is conducted and evaluated vis a vis the strongest known opponent position in the national debate at that time. The argumentation is claimed to rely on an unsupported semantic assumption regarding the parthood relation of the 2002 compromise and to misconstrue the strongest known opponent position.
TL;DR: This article argued that the problem with the pragma-dialectical view is that it takes argumentation as aiming at consensus rather than truth or justified belief, and that the theory of argumentation has in common the requirement to account for the fallacies.
Abstract: The problem with the pragma-dialectical view, it has been argued, is that it takes argumentation as aiming at consensus rather than truth or justified belief. The pragma-dialecticians often imply that an argumentative process aiming at consensus in a way constrained by the “Ten Commandments” will in the long run converge on epistemically favourable standpoints. I will argue that they are right provided (i) pragma-dialectics is construed, as they say, as a theory of criticism; (ii) pragma-dialectics and the other theories of argumentation have in common the requirement to account for the fallacies.
TL;DR: In the special issue of Informal Logic as mentioned in this paper, the authors bring together two important areas of philosophy that have shown significant development in the last three decades: informal logic and feminist philosophy, a significant innovation they both share is new thinking about practices of argumentation and related practices of reasoning.
Abstract: This special issue of Informal Logic brings together two important areas of philosophy that have shown significant development in the last three decades: informal logic and feminist philosophy A significant innovation they both share is new thinking about practices of argumentation and related practices of reasoning Feminist theorizing supporting social and political change foregrounds “reasoning for change” in a way that draws attention to the contextual and rhetorical dimensions of argument and thus connects with significant developments in informal logic
TL;DR: This article identified and described the metaphoric fallacy to a deductive inference (MFDI) that is an example of incorrect reasoning along the lines of the false analogy fallacy and provided three examples of the MFDI to demonstrate the structure of this invalid form of reasoning.
Abstract: Our article identifies and describes the metaphoric fallacy to a deductive inference (MFDI) that is an example of incorrect reasoning along the lines of the false analogy fallacy. The MFDI proceeds from informal semantical (metaphorical) claims to a supposedly formally deductive and necessary inference. We charge that such an inference is invalid. We provide three examples of the MFDI to demonstrate the structure of this invalid form of reasoning. Our goal is to contribute to the set of known informal fallacies.
TL;DR: The authors discuss the role that truth plays in the evaluation of arguments, when the purpose of arguments is understood as truth-directed in some important way, and argue that the proper place for the concept of truth is in the metatheory in terms of which the theory of evaluation is worked out.
Abstract: We are all familiar with the traditional conception of what makes for a good argument: that its premises are true and that it is valid. [1] That traditional view of the goodness of arguments has sustained serious criticism over the past few decades, so that most theorists have dropped either the validity requirement or the truth requirement or both. Almost all theorists that I am aware of take it that an argument is good if it fulfills its purpose, and it is widely agreed that arguments can fulfill their purpose even when not all of their premises are true, or they are not deductively valid. Still, some theorists retain a focus on the truth-directed nature of arguments, and those theorists rightly hold that, given such a focus, truth plays an important role in the evaluation of arguments. Johnson (2000) goes so far as to reintroduce truth as a constraint on premise adequacy, alongside the criterion of acceptability, and he holds that in a case where a premise is false but acceptable, truth (/falsity) outweighs acceptability. What I propose to do in this essay is to discuss the role that truth plays in the evaluation of arguments, when the purpose of arguments is understood as truth-directed in some important way. I begin with a discussion of truth and the purpose of arguments. In the second section of the paper, I give an argument to the effect that the theory of argument evaluation ought not to involve truth as a constraint on premise adequacy. The third section contains my argument for the positive claim that the proper place for the concept of truth is in the metatheory in terms of which the theory of evaluation is worked out. [2] I conclude the essay with a response to Hamblin’s (1970) argument that no arguments are truth-directed. [1] Hitchcock (1999) traces the concept of soundness in the textbook tradition to Black (1946), and before that (but with different terminology), to Cohen and Nagel (1934). [2] By "theory of evaluation" I mean the set of criteria that a theory provides us with for evaluating arguments. By "the metatheory" in terms of which the theory of evaluation is worked out, I mean the broader theory of argument, including reference to what it is that the criteria for argument evaluation are supposed to accomplish, in which the theory of evaluation is articulated.
TL;DR: In this article, an approach for their systematic and transparent evaluation by discourse participants is presented, based on the conceptual framework of the "argumentative model of planning" proposed by H. Rittel, and the potential for information technology support for such processes explored.
Abstract: Arguments commonly used in discussions about design, planning, policy-making issues have not been adequately analyzed in the literature. The structure of such ‘planning arguments’ is discussed. Based on the conceptual framework of the ‘argumentative model of planning’ proposed by H. Rittel, an approach for their systematic and transparent evaluation by discourse participants is presented. Procedural implications for its application in the planning process are discussed, and the potential for information technology support for such processes explored.