It is time to move research based upon Piaget’s stage of formal thought into new territory. Recent critics of this stage point out weaknesses in various aspects of the combinatorial system and the four-group (INRC) postulated as the structural foundation for a qualitatively different mode of thinking at the time of adolescence. Specifically, one camp in the old territory concentrates on the weaknesses in Piaget’s use of propositional logic (for example, Brainerd, 1975; Bynum, Thomas, & Weitz, 1972; Ennis, 1975a,b). Some of the confusion in this area may be attributed to misinterpretations of the aim of Piaget’s structuralism: to study children and adolescents not so much as logicians, but as scientists who invent and construct their own understandings (Falmagne, 1975; Stone, 1976).

Introduction to Logic.

The Future of Formal Thought Research: The Study of Analogy and Metaphor

In this paper an argument for the proposition that emphasizing the pursuit of excellence in sport is discriminatory against women is presented. The argument is developed in three stages. First, a definition of “discrimination” is proposed and discussed. Second, the idea of sport as a quest for excellence is traced through various interpretations of the meaning of sport. Third, excellence is discussed as a socially constructed concept and phenomenon. The dominant social meaning of excellence as a supreme achievement is confronted with the gender consequences of emphasizing the pursuit of excellence in sport. The argument concludes that alongside the primary texts of the glories and triumphs of excellence runs a subtext of inequality and gender discrimination.

Discrimination against Women as a Subtext of Excellence.

This dissertation inquires into the nature of dissociation – a maneuver through which a single entity is subdivided and arranged according to a hierarchy – as proposed by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. Drawing on their New Rhetoric Project, Perelman’s regressive philosophy, and research on argumentation schemes, I develop ways of conceptualizing, analyzing, and appraising dissociation as it is utilized in reasoning and argument in natural language. I first examine Chaim Perelman’s regressive philosophy to better situate argumentation in relation to demonstration, then delineate the Project’s framework of argumentation as constituted by a speaker, an audience, and an argumentative discourse. Argumentation is defined here as a symbolic act increasing audience members’ epistemic adherence to a thesis, based on their adherence to the premise and the scheme’s changing of their “level of adherence.” Additionally, I conceptualize dissociation in relation to association, breaking links, and what I call “re-confirming connecting links.” In the process of conceptualization, I defend the position that dissociation and three other categories of argument contain, but are not reducible to, argumentation schemes proper. Based on the four-partite category of argument and the premise-scheme-thesis structure, I analyze eight examples of dissociation and validate the notion that dissociation makes use of various argumentation schemes proper in advancing definitive theses, subdividing an entity, and arranging the subdivided entities according to a hierarchy. Building upon the analysis of dissociation, I explore ways in which to appraise dissociation by incorporating regressive philosophy, critical questions, and universal audience. Principles of regressive philosophy remind the critic that argumentation challenges the totality of experience in the rhetorical situation, never achieves certainty, and leaves room for revision. Critical questions address specific points that dissociation must answer in order to count as a “cogent” argument. The universal audience, anchored in particular audience members, must be constructed to maintain the balance between normative orientations of appraisal as well as realistic expectations of the rhetorical situation. Besides advancing our understanding of dissociation, this dissertation contributes to a richer understanding of the New Rhetoric Project, defends relativism in argumentation, and emphasizes the significance of production as well as appraisal of argument.

Dissociation in Reasoning and Argumentation

Argumentation occurs through and as communicative activity. Communication (and therefore argumentation) is organized by pragmatic principles of expression and interpretation. Grice’s (1975) theory of conversational implicature provides a model for how people use rational principles to manage the ways in which they reason to representations of arguments, and not just reason from those representations. These principles are systematic biases that make possible reasonable decision-making and intersubjective understandings in the first place; but they also make possible all manner of errors and abuses. Much of what is problematic in argumentation involves the ways in which the pragmatic principles of communication are exploited and the difficulties audiences and interlocutors have detecting and managing these abuses.

background

/pdf/employing-and-exploiting-the-presumptions-of-communication-1jp0mukv7c.pdf

Employing and Exploiting the Presumptions of Communication in Argumentation: An Application of Normative Pragmatics

The following paper contains a new refutation of the skeptical argument
concerning our knowledge of the external world. The central idea is that
the argument fails because it presupposes ambiguous attributions of reality. 
Once these ambiguities are identified, they make the argument either trivial
or equivocal. Differently from others, this refutation does not lead us to
undesired results.

Introduction to Logic.

Citations

The Future of Formal Thought Research: The Study of Analogy and Metaphor

Discrimination against Women as a Subtext of Excellence.

Dissociation in Reasoning and Argumentation

Employing and Exploiting the Presumptions of Communication in Argumentation: An Application of Normative Pragmatics

The Skeptical Deal with our Concept of External Reality