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. (shrink)

Our goal here is to help identify the contextualist’s most worthy competitor to relativism. Recently, some philosophers of language and linguists have argued that, while there are contextualist-friendly semantic theories of deontic modals that fit with the relativist’s challenge data, the best such theories are not Lewis-Kratzer-style semantic theories. If correct, this would be important: It would show that the theory that has for many years enjoyed the status of the default view of modals in English and other languages is (...) in need of revision. Here we defend the default view by showing how a Kratzer-style semantics is able to make available readings of the relevant utterances that fit with the pretheoretical judgments opponents purport it cannot fully capture. Having established this, we turn to considering the more theoretical grounds proponents have offered for preferring their rival contextualist views. Here the question is to what extent such grounds favor semantic over what Korta and Perry call “near-side pragmatic” explanations of our judgments. In particular, we argue that our favored readings figure in near-side pragmatic explanations of those judgments that possess the methodological and theoretical advantages of systematicity and unity at least as well as, if not to a greater extent than, those of opponents who argue for their revised semantic theories on the basis of these advantages. (shrink)

A correct analysis of hierarchical selection processes must specify 1) the objects that succeed differentially as units, and 2) the properties that provide the causal bases for differential success. Here I illustrate how failing to recognize the units/bases distinction creates a contradiction in Elliott Sober's recent account of selection. A revised criterion for units of selection is developed and applied to examples at several biological levels. Criteria for bases of selection are discussed in terms of the degree of context-dependence and (...) directness of a property's effect on the success of units. The significance of previous work by Sober, Wimsatt and Brandon is thereby clarified. (shrink)

This article analyses the fallacy of wrenching from context, using the dialectical notions of commitment and implicature as tools. The data, a set of key examples, is used to sharpen the conceptual borderlines around the related fallacies of straw man, accent, misquotation, and neglect of qualifications. According to the analysis, the main characteristics of wrenching from context are the manipulation of the meaning of the other’s statement through devices such as the use of misquotations, selective quotations, and quoting out of (...) context. The theoretical tools employed in the analysis are pragmatic theories of meaning and a dialectical model of commitment, used to explain how and why a standpoint is distorted. The analysis is based on a conception of fallacies as deceptive strategic moves in a game of dialogue. As a consequence, our focus is not only on misquotations as distortions of meaning, but on how they are used as dialectical tools to attack an opponent or win a dispute. Wrenching from context is described as a fallacy of unfairly attributing a commitment to another party that he never held. Its power as a deceptive argumentation tactic is based on complex mechanisms of implicit commitments and on their misemployment to improperly suggest an attribution of commitment. (shrink)

Because motives and intentions are internal, and not directly observable by another agent, it has always been a problem to find a pathway of reasoning linking them to externally observable evidence...

This paper presents a speech act analysis of presumption, using the framework of a dialogue in which two parties reason together. In the speech act of presumption, as opposed to that of assertion, the burden of proof resides not on the proponent to prove, but on the respondent to rebut. Some connections of this account with nonmonotonic reasoning and informal fallacies in argumentation are explored.

Husserl sostiene que la metafísica es una ciencia de hechos y vincula el problema de Dios con el análisis de la racionalidad teleológica inherente a la facticidad. El artículo analiza cuatro interpretaciones que ponen énfasis en la relación entre contingencia y la necesidad en el proceso de constitución (J. G. Hart), la significación de la hylética (A. Ales Bello), la cuestión de la fenomenalidad de Dios y su relación con el acrecentamiento axiológico (E. Housset) y los problemas relativos a la (...) idea de Dios como garantía para el logro de una armonía en la comunidad de mónadas (K. Held). El propósito es subrayar la complementariedad entre un camino filosófico-argumentativo y un camino religioso-experiencial en el acceso a Dios, y hacer frente a la objeción de que la teoría de Husserl implica una idealización que encubriría el mundo de la vida. (shrink)

This paper looks around among the major traditional fallacies — centering mainly around the so-called “gang of eighteen” — to discuss which of them should properly be classified as fallacies of relevance. The paper argues that four of these fallacies are fallacies primarily because they are failures of relevance in argumentation, while others are fallacies in a way that is more peripherally related to failures of relevance. Still others have an even more tangential relation to failures of relevance. This paper (...) is part of a larger research project on dialecical relevance in argumentative discourse, currently underway in collaboration with Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst. (shrink)

This paper combines three computational argumentation systems to model the sequence of argumentation in a famous murder trial and the appeal procedure that followed. The paper shows how the argumentation scheme for argument from expert opinion can be built into a testing procedure whereby an argument graph is used to interpret, analyze and evaluate evidence-based natural language argumentation of the kind found in a trial. It is shown how a computational argumentation system can do this by combining argument schemes with (...) argumentation graphs. Frighteningly, it is also shown by this example that when there are potentially confusing conflicting arguments from expert opinion, a jury can only too easily accept a conclusion prematurely before considering critical questions that need to be asked. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that dialogue between legal philosophers and social scientists can be mutually beneficial. Nicola Lacey offers a vision of jurisprudence that supposes as much. I start by setting out my interpretation of her view. I then defend its potential, which she takes for granted, from the challenges posed by, first, an apparent friend—Brian Leiter—and, second, obvious adversaries—Joseph Raz and others. My response proposes an alternative to their conceptions of legal philosophy, one that is consistent with my (...) understanding of the approach to jurisprudence that Lacey recommends. (shrink)

La fenomenología muestra desde su comienzo mismo una tendencia teológica. Mientras que Husserl desarrolló una teología filosófica vinculada a la teleología infinita de la comunidad trascendental, Scheler elaboró un saber de salvación como participación en el ens a se. A su vez, Heidegger se refirió al último Dios como el comienzo de las inconmensurables posibilidades de nuestra historia. Sobre este trasfondo, que realza la excedencia de posibilidades, el giro teológico en la fenomenología reciente puede ser entendido como un intento de (...) centrar la demasía en reinos particulares como la intersubjetividad, la interioridad y el mundo, o bien en la condición de los fenómenos refiriéndolos a una lógica de la sobreabundancia o a una máxima saturación. (shrink)

This article assesses what standards of safety and certainty of diagnosis need to be met in the determination of brain death. Recent medical, legal, and philosophical developments on brain death are summarized. It is argued that epistemologically adequate standards require the finding of whole-brain death rather than destruction of the cortex. Because of the possibility of positive error in misdiagnosing death, a tutioristic approach of being on the safe side is advocated. Given uncertainties in diagnosis of so-called vegetative states like (...) the apallic syndrome, anything less than whole-brain death, especially given the present state of diagnostic capability, should not qualify as an argument for removing therapy specifically on grounds that the patient is dead. (shrink)

This project tackles the problem of analyzing a specific form of reasoning called ‘sunk costs’ in economics and ‘argument from waste’ in argumentation theory. The project is to build a normative structure representing the form of the argument, and then to apply this normative structure to actual cases in which the sunk costs argument has been used. The method is partly structural and partly empirical. The empirical part is carried out through the analysis of case studies of the sunk costs (...) argument found in business decision-making, as well as other areas like medical decision-making and everyday conversational argumentation. The structural part is carried out by using existing methods and techniques from argumentation theory, like argumentation schemes. The project has three especially significant findings. First, the sunk costs argument is not always fallacious, and in many cases it can be seen to be a rational precommitment strategy. Second, a formal model of argumentation, called practical reasoning, can be constructed that helps a rational critic to judge which sunk costs arguments are fallacious and which are not. Third, this formal model represents an alternative model of rationality to the cost-benefit model based on Bayesian calculation of probabilities. This alternative model is called the argumentation model, and it is based on interpersonal reasoning in dialogue as the model of rational thinking. This model in turn is based on the underlying notion of commitment in dialogue. (shrink)

Since Mezirow, there has been considerable research into transformative learning. However the research methods generally used have been of the same kind that are drawn on to inquire into any area of interest. A key aim of this journal is to explore the transformative possibilities of research, and in the process to investigate creative methods which are expanding and transforming our understanding of what constitutes valid research in a postmodern world. In this context, where the assumptions and worldview of classical (...) Newtonian science are being fundamentally challenged, the idea of the ‘transpersonal’ is receiving increasing attention, particularly within the field of psychology. This paper explains the origins of interest in the transpersonal, and provides an introduction to some emerging research methods which accept the idea of the transpersonal as valid. It concludes with the recognition that for many it will require a transformative shift in thinking and beliefs to accept a transpersonal worldview. However recent findings suggest that engaging in research which is accepting of this worldview can be truly transformative in its outcomes for the researcher, the research participants, and for the reader. (shrink)

This investigation joins recent research on problems with ambiguity in two fields, argumentation and computing. In argumentation, there is a concern with fallacies arising from ambiguity, including equivocation and amphiboly. In computing, the development of agent communication languages is based on conversation policies that make it possible to have information exchanges on the internet, as well as other forms of dialogue like persuasion and negotiation, in which ambiguity is a problem. Because it is not possible to sharply differentiate between problems (...) arising from ambiguity and those arising from vagueness, obscurity and indeterminacy, some study of the latter is included. The semantic web is based on what are called ontologies, or systems of classification of concepts, shown to be useful tools for dealing with these problems. (shrink)

Transitioning to food systems that are equitable, resilient, healthy and environmentally sustainable will require the cultivation and diffusion of transformational sociotechnical innovations—and grassroots movements are an essential source of such innovations. Within the literature on strategic niche management, government-provided ‘protected spaces’ where niche innovations can develop without facing the pressures of the market is an essential part of sustainability transitions. However, because of their desire to _transform_ rather than _transition_ food systems, grassroots movements often struggle to acquire such protected spaces (...) and so must determine how and where to generate change whilst being marginalised and exposed to unprotected spaces. The aim of this research is to gain a precise view of the multiple touchpoints of marginalisation that exist across the grassroots-government interface and to apply a new framework for conceptual analysis of these touchpoints that can help to identify where and how grassroots movements might be able to push against this marginalisation. The study finds that, by applying a ‘who, what, where’ framework of analysis to policies across this interface, it is possible to find pathways forward for achieving small wins towards food systems transformation. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein (C&L) ignore the long history by which social scientists have developed more nuanced and ultimately more helpful ways to understand the relationship between persons and situations. This tradition is reflected and advanced in a large literature on “wise” social–psychological or mindset interventions, which C&L do not discuss yet mischaracterize.

Os chamados manuscritos C, recentemente publicados, têm um interesse especial para a clarificação da constituição do mundo na medida em que mostram como, a partir de um mundo primordial ou quasi-mundo correlato à pré-intencionalidade, se atinge o mundo plenamente intersubjetivo constituído por uma intencionalidade de interesses desde uma práxis comunicativa. Seguindo os manuscritos, este artigo tem um propósito quádruplo: 1) tentar discernir diferentes caracterizações do mundo como horizonte universal, representação-mundo, todo, forma, idéia e fundamento; mostra-se, assim, o papel da temporalidade (...) na raiz desses traços de mundanidade; 2) níveis de constituição do mundo são desvelados a fim de diferenciar um fundamento previamente dado de um fundamento que se desenvolve através dos estágios do mundo egóico, mundo da casa, mundo da vida e mundo-em-si; desvela-se aqui um encaixamento desses horizontes um no outro; 3) uma análise posterior dos níveis é dada através do questionamento retroativo na primalidade como um retrocesso que revela o desenvolvimento de um pré-mundo a um mundo genuíno; uma gênese permanente, antes de uma gênese do passado, é realçada; 4) finalmente, mostrar- se-á como antecipações da fenomenologia póshusserliana nos remetem a uma abertura originária do mundo em sua mundanidade, um âmbito que é anterior à manifestação de um mundo de objetos e uma ordem de manifestação diferente daquela do mundo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Fenomenologia genética. Husserl. Manuscritos C. Mundo. Temporalidade. ABSTRACT The recently published C-manuscripts hold special interest for the clarification of the constitution of the world by showing how, starting from a primal or quasiworld correlated with preintentionality, it advances to the full intersubjective world constituted by an intentionality of interests within communicative praxis. Following the manuscripts, this paper has a fourfold purpose. First, it attempts to discern different characterizations of the world as universal horizon, world-representation, whole, form, idea, and ground. The role of temporality at the roots of these traits of worldliness is shown. Second, levels of constitution of the world are disclosed in order to differentiate a readymade ground from a ground that develops through the stages of egoical world, homeworld, lifeworld, and world-in-itself. An encasement of these horizons one-in another is displayed. Third, a further analysis of levels is given through the inquiry back into primality as a retrogression that reveals the development from a pre-world to a genuine world. A permanent genesis rather than a past genesis is brought out. Finally, anticipations will be shown of post-Husserlian phenomenological views regarding an originary openness of the world in its worldliness, a realm that is prior to the manifestation of a world of objects, and a different order of manifestation than that of the world. KEY WORDS – Genetic phenomenology. Husserl. C-manuscripts. World. Temporality. (shrink)

This paper discusses what type of sociological context is appropriate for Rawls’ ‘property-owning democracy’. Following certain suggestions offered by Rawls and in the work of Joshua Cohen, it explores, in particular, the kind of fraternity and social interaction suitable for citizens in Rawlsian society and the role of the state in engineering these bonds. Utilising a normative framework based on Rawls’ discussion of a property-owning democracy and various data sets, the paper argues that bonds of social trust, active participation in (...) trade unions and enrolment in public schools, and the use of state policy to organise a mixture of public, cooperative, and private economic institutions would be suitable for a Rawlsian society to adopt because it appears that these structures are favourably connected to the ends of Rawlsian justice. (shrink)

El propósito del artículo es esclarecer el modo en que los principales problemas tratados por J. Iribarne giran en torno de cuestiones éticas. Se subrayan dos lados del problema ético. Por un lado, se muestra el papel del cuerpo propio, la habitualidad, la memoria y la creciente moralización en la constitución de la identidad personal. En este proceso, una teleología individual se dirige hacia grados más elevados de libertad por medio de actos autónomos y racionales. Por el otro, una teleología (...) intersubjetiva da lugar a un habitar ético en el mundo que exige tanto actuar del modo más correcto de acuerdo con nuestras particulares posibilidades como estar vinculado con los otros por medio de lazos de amor. Finalmente se intenta mostrar la relación entre ética y el sentido de la vida a través de un análisis de preguntas referidas a la finitud, la esperanza y la muerte.The purpose of the article is to shed light on the way in which the main problems examined by J. Iribarne turn on ethical issues. Two sides of the ethical problem are stressed. On the one hand, the role of the living body, habituality, memory, and increasing moralization in the constitution of personal identity is highlighted. In this process, an individual teleology is directed to higher degrees of freedom by means of autonomous and rational acts. On the other hand, an intersubjective teleology brings forth an ethical dwelling in the world that entails both acting in the most correct manner according to our particular possibilities and being linked with the others by bonds of love. Finally, an attempt is made to show the relationship between ethics and the meaning of life through an analysis of issues that concern finitude, death, and hope. (shrink)

El artículo considera en primer lugar el papel asignado por Heidegger, en su análisis del viraje , al acontecimiento-apropiación como el punto medio entre el ser y el Dasein. En el carácter abismal de la oscilación entre el llamado del primero y la pertenencia del segundo reside la unidad originaria del tiempo-espacio que deja emerger ambos momentos hacia su separación. Esto permite a su vez el despliegue de un tiempo derivado y un orden para la medición. En segundo lugar, se (...) intentan encontrar puntos de vista similares en los análisis de Husserl sobre la temporalidad. Así, al abismo del ser corresponde un horizonte inicial originario; al tiempo-espacio abismal, la pretemporalización de una protohyle de la mano con kinestesias espacializantes; a la proyección del Dasein para captar la oscilación mediante una contraoscilación, el volverse del yo hacia la prototemporalización; a la separación del tiempo a partir del abismo, la constitución de las distinciones temporales; y a la derivación del orden del tiempo, la constitución del tiempo como forma. En tercer lugar, se expone la noción heideggeriana de decisión respecto de la pertenencia o no-pertenencia al ser a fin de criticar una parte componente de la historia del ser, esto es, la posición. En cuarto lugar, el artículo se ocupa de la noción husserliana de decisión en tanto ligada a la institución de un horizonte histórico. Por último, se destacan semejanzas y diferencias entre las nociones de acontecimiento-apropiación y presente viviente en la medida en que ambas desempeñan el mismo papel en la búsqueda de un nivel último que hace posible todo. (shrink)

Along with a static and genetic egological inquiry, Husserl offers a nonegological analysis that advances through different levels or stages of history. Basic phenomenological themes—subjectivity, temporality, intersubjectivity, and worldliness—appear in varying figures with the progressive bringing-into-play of levels that concern conditions of possibility, actual development, and rational goals. In addition, post-Husserlian phenomenology discloses a surplus that brings us to a level outside the reach of history. This scheme confronts us both with the enduring issue of the stratification of reality and (...) with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's contention that philosophical problems are concentric. In order to shed light on these levels and figures, and thus to set in order the main themes of human experience, an attempt might be made to clarify the relationship between them in terms of the determinateness and indeterminateness of horizonality. As for every such level, there emerges a varying stage of rational legitimation; new advances could also be made with regard to the perennial problem of the unity of reason in the midst of its diversity. (shrink)

El artículo expone la interpretación y ampliación realizada por Embree respecto de las ideas de Schutz sobre las ciencias de la cultura. Se ocupa en primer lugar de las características generales de todas las ciencias de la cultura en su tarea de analizar el mundo de la vida como un mundo intersubjetivo e histórico estructurado de acuerdo con coasociados, contemporáneos, predecesores y sucesores. Luego examina los tres partes constituyentes principales que Embree destaca en cada una de ellas: la definición de (...) la disciplina, sus conceptos básicos y sus reglas de procedimiento. Por último, se consideran los puntos de vista de Embree sobre la relación entre metodología y filosofía. Su tesis es que científicos y filósofos pueden encontrarse en una interacción mutua en el ámbito de la teoría de la ciencia que puede ser a la vez filosófica y científica.The article is a presentation of Embree’s interpretation and development of Alfred ideas on the cultural sciences. It deals first with the general characteristics of all cultural sciences in their task of analyzing the lifeworld as an intersubjective and historical world structured according to consociates, contemporaries, predecessors, and successors. Then it examines the three main constituent parts that Embree highlights in each of them: the definition of the discipline, its basic concepts, and its rules of procedure. Finally, Embree’s views on the relationship between methodology and philosophy are considered. His thesis is that scientists and philosophers can meet in a mutual interplay in the realm of a theory of science that can be both philosophic and scientific. (shrink)

A common reaction among idealist philosophers to the classical syntactic characterization of proof so crisply articulated by Tarski is an urgent but inchoate Angst that something momentous is missing, an awesome intimation of bereftness. The simple fact is that in many pursuits proof involves an empirical appeal, an operation that Tarski excludes from the domain of proof and assigns to the company of confirmation. In Tarski’s terms, empirical statements never even admit of the predicate true, let alone proved, unless perhaps (...) they hanker after truth or proof in the limit in some dimly understood and always unsuccessful way. Some sources of queasiness about the syntactic account are not hard to pinpoint. On the syntactic account, the injunction “Prove it!” can never be fulfilled, or even well-formedly uttered, in regard to an empirical statement, ┏∅, therefore ∅┓ is valid for any well-formed ∅ in a given first-order language, for any theorem, t, ┏∅, therefore t┓ is an impeccable proof for any well-formed ∅ in the classical languages. It is easy to think, with Bradley, that there is an important and legitimate, if not formally well-articulated sense of proof, characteristic of much of philosophical reasoning and argumentation, which is badly misrepresented by the syntactic conception. The kind of proof often sought after in theology, and sought after and found in the law, and the experimental and social sciences, is not purely syntactic. Idealists, of course, have frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the Tarski conception of truth. We will here extend this skepticism to the Tarski notion of proof. (shrink)

Wigmore thought that there was a science of proof underlying legal reasoning that could be displayed in any given case as a graphic sequence of argumentation from the evidence in the case leading to the ultimate probandum. Argumentation technology has now vindicated this approach by providing useful qualitative methods that can be applied to identifying, analyzing, and evaluating the pro and con arguments put forward by both sides in a trial. In this chapter, it is shown how to apply argumentation (...) schemes, such as argument from witness testimony, using argument diagrams applied to typical sequences of evidence-based legal reasoning in which there is a successive refinement of arguments displayed as the evidence comes into a case. It is shown how argument from applying rules to cases, teleological, argument from expert witness testimony, and abductive reasoning are centrally important for this purpose. (shrink)

This paper begins with a brief account of how I started out as a young logician studying modal logic with the hope that it would be useful when applied to evaluating real examples of arguments found in natural language texts. The exposition moves on to relate how my interests shifted to the study of argumentation in informal logic, and from there to computational systems combining defeasible argumentation schemes with argument mapping (diagramming). The story ends by leading to recent collaborations with (...) three young logicians and computer scientists who are continuing on the path of my journey. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of argumentation in direct-to-consumer health product ads in Newsweek that brings out special features of the arguments used in the ads, including practical reasoning, chained arguments, enthymemes, and prolepsis. A way to help overcome deficiencies in techniques of tailored health communication in consumer health informatics is shown by using argumentation schemes, argument visualisation tools, and dialogue models to frame these persuasive communication messages. The evidence collected is shown to be useful to allow the health informatics (...) communicator and the person to whom message was directed to interact in a dialogue format where arguments can be put forward by both parties in a way that responds to the previous arguments and questions of the other party. (shrink)

The concept of a witch hunt is frequently invoked, in recent times, to describe a kind of procedure for deciding the guilt of a person against whom an accusation has been made. But what exactly is a witch hunt? In this paper, ten conditions are formulated as a cluster of properties characterizing the witch hunt as a framework in which arguments are used: (1) pressure of social forces, (2) stigmatization, (3) climate of fear, (4) resemblance to a fair trial, (5) (...) use of simulated evidence, (6) simulated expert testimony, (7) nonfalsifiability characteristic of evidence, (8) reversal of polarity, (9) non-openness, and (10) use of the loaded question technique. The witch hunt, as characterized by these criteria, is shown to function as a negative normative structure for evaluating argumentation used in particular cases. (shrink)

El trabajo considera la fundamentación de un deber en relación con una situación moral vivida por Ramón Rodriguez, y destaca la interpretación husserliana de un caso análogo. El análisis presentado en la Segunda Parte de Fenómeno e interpretación sobre el “ser por mor de sí” del Dasein como condición de posibilidad de una personalidad moral tiene el gran mérito de ofrecer una sólida base y una fuerte motivación para esclarecer la relación entre Heidegger y Husserl. Esta posibilidad se presenta en (...) razón de que se ha destacado con mucha claridad la diferencia entre la pregunta por el modo de ser de un ente que es fin por sí mismo y la cuestión del comportamiento moral en que ese modo de ser se manifiesta. La distinción establecida entre los dos problemas ofrece la oportunidad para mostrar una semejanza y una diferencia entre ambos pensadores porque convergen en el primer punto y se separan en el segundo. (shrink)