The dominant approach to argument mining has been to treat it as a machine learning problem based upon superficial text features, and to treat the relationships between arguments as either support...

Various argumentation analysis tools permit the analyst to represent functional components of an argument (e.g., data, claim, warrant, backing), how arguments are composed of subarguments and defenses against potential counterarguments, and argumentation schemes. In order to facilitate a study of argument presentation in a biomedical corpus, we have developed a hybrid scheme that enables an analyst to encode argumentation analysis within the framework of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), which can be used to represent the discourse structure of a text. This (...) paper describes the hybrid representation scheme and illustrates its use for investigation of contexts that license omission of elements of an argument. The analyses given in the paper involve reconstruction of enthymemes. Defeasible argumentation schemes serve as a constraint on reconstruction. In addition, the examples illustrate several other types of contextual constraints on reconstruction of enthymemes. (shrink)

There is a driving need computationally to interrogate large bodies of text for a range of non-denotative meaning (e.g., to plot chains of reasoning, detect sentiment, diagnose genre, and so forth). But such meaning has always proven computationally allusive. It is often implicit, ‘hidden’ meaning, evoked by linguistic cues, stylistic arrangement, or conceptual structure – features that have hitherto been difficult for Natural Language Processing systems to recognize and use. Non-denotative textual effects are the historical concern of rhetorical studies, and (...) we have turned to rhetoric in order to find new ways to advance NLP, especially for sophisticated tasks like Argument Mining. This paper highlights certain rhetorical devices that encode levels of meaning that have been overlooked in Computational Linguistics generally and Argument Mining particularly, and yet lend themselves to automated detection. These devices are the linguistic configurations known as Rhetorical Figures. We argue for the importance of these devices for Argument Mining, especially in collocations, and we present an XML annotation scheme for Rhetorical Figures to make figuration more tractable for computational approaches, particularly with an eye on the improvements they offer Argument Mining. We also discuss the intellectual and technical challenges involved in figure annotation and the implications for Machine Learning. (shrink)

This article presents an architecture for natural language generation of biomedical argumentation. The goal is to reconstruct the normative arguments that a domain expert would provide, in a manner that is transparent to a lay audience. Transparency means that an argument's structure and functional components are accessible to its audience. Transparency is necessary before an audience can fully comprehend, evaluate or challenge an argument, or re-evaluate it in light of new findings about the case or changes in scientific knowledge. The (...) architecture has been implemented and evaluated in the Genetics Information Expression Assistant, a prototype system for drafting genetic counselling patient letters. Argument generation makes use of abstract argumentation schemes. Derived from the analysis of arguments used in genetic counselling, these mainly causal argument patterns refer to abstract properties of qualitative causal domain models. (shrink)

Diligent citizens must critically analyze arguments for science policy recommendations, such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions or growing genetically modified food crops. Science policy articles present arguments for and against such recommendations using scientific evidence and rhetorical devices. In this paper we present an in-depth analysis of argumentation and rhetorical devices in two journal articles on climate change issues. One objective was to gain a better understanding of use of rhetorical devices in this genre, as a prerequisite for designing and (...) building a rhetorically-annotated digital corpus of full-text science policy articles. The near term objective was to inform the design of pedagogical tools to help students analyze science policy arguments. (shrink)

Critical thinking about international politics often involves reasoning about the beliefs, goals, appraisals, actions, and plans of actors such as countries, governments, politicians, etc. We analyzed arguments in interpretive reports about international politics, in order to develop a prototype argument diagramming tool for this domain, AVIZE (Argument Visualization and Evaluation). The purpose of AVIZE is to aid users in the construction and self-evaluation of real-world arguments in the domain of international politics. AVIZE provides a set of argument schemes as cognitive (...) building blocks for constructing argument diagrams. Most of the schemes are related to concepts from the field of automated plan recognition in artificial intelligence. While some currently available argument diagramming tools provide schemes, they are not tailored to the domain of international politics. This paper describes the argument schemes for this domain and the design of the argument diagramming tool. (shrink)

This paper presents a study of use of the rhetorical figure of antithesis and other contrastive relations in several modern-day environmental science policy journal articles on issues of food security, climate change, and water resource management. The articles present the conflicting perspectives of environmentalists and engineers, i.e., the view that nature should be preserved and protected versus the view that it should be engineered to solve human problems. The main contribution of this paper is a taxonomy characterizing argumentative uses of (...) contrastive relations in these articles based on our semantic/pragmatic interpretation of text including, in some cases, discourse coherence relations. The number of examples and the breadth of the taxonomy is indicative of the key role of contrastive relations in argumentation in this genre. This investigation is a necessary step towards comprehensive computational approaches to detecting antithesis and other contrastive relations and to identifying their argumentative roles. (shrink)

Argumentation schemes have played a key role in our research projects on computational models of natural argument over the last decade. The catalogue of schemes in Walton, Reed and Macagno’s 2008 book, Argumentation Schemes, served as our starting point for analysis of the naturally occurring arguments in written text, i.e., text in different genres having different types of author, audience, and subject domain, for different argument goals, and for different possible future applications. We would often first attempt to analyze the (...) arguments in our corpora in terms of those schemes, then adapt schemes as needed for the goals of the project, and in some cases implement them for use in computational models. Among computational researchers, the main interest in argumentation schemes has been for use in argument mining by applying machine learning methods to existing argument corpora. In contrast, a primary goal of our research has been to learn more about written arguments themselves in various contemporary fields. Our approach has been to manually analyze semantics, discourse structure, argumentation, and rhetoric in texts. Another goal has been to create sharable digital corpora containing the results of our studies. Our approach has been to define argument schemes for use by human corpus annotators or for use in logic programs for argument mining. The third goal is to design useful computer applications based upon our studies, such as argument diagramming systems that provide argument schemes as building blocks. This paper describes each of the various projects: the methods, the argument schemes that were identified, and how they were used. Then a synthesis of the results is given with a discussion of open issues. (shrink)

We present a high-level declarative programming language for representing argumentation schemes, where schemes represented in this language can be easily validated by domain experts, including developers of argumentation schemes in informal logic and philosophy, and serve as executable specifications for automatically constructing arguments, when applied to a set of assumptions. Since argumentation schemes are defeasible inference rules, both premises and conclusions of schemes can be second-order schema variables, i.e. without a fixed predicate symbol. Thus, while particular schemes can be and (...) have been implemented in computer programs, in general argumentation schemes cannot be represented as executable specifications using logic programming languages based on first-order logic, such as Prolog. Moreover, even if the conclusion (head) of Prolog rules could be second-order variables, a depth-first, backward-chaining search strategy, as typically used in logic programming, would usually cause such programs to not terminate, since every goal would match the head of such a scheme, including all goals created by instantiating the body of the same scheme. The language for representing argumentation schemes presented here, for the purpose of automatically constructing arguments, uses Constraint Handling Rules (CHR), a declarative, Turing complete, forwards-chaining, rule-based programming language introduced by Thom Frühwirth in 1991. CHR is attractive for representing and implementing argumentation for several reasons, including: 1) Inference rules, rewrite rules, sequents, proof rules, and logical axioms can be directly written in CHR. 2) The execution of CHR rules can be interrupted and restarted at any time, with intermediate results approximating the final solution, and 3) Constraints can be input incrementally as they become known, during rule execution, without requiring recomputation. These three properties of CHR appear attractive for representing and implementing argumentation schemes. Since argumentation schemes are (defeasible) inference rules, the ability of CHR to represent inference rules directly would appear to be quite useful. The ability to stop the computation and produce approximate results is compatible with one objective of argumentation, to provide a principled method for supporting approximate reasoning with limited resources. Because argumentation typically takes place in dialogs, with evidence and arguments brought forward and asserted by the participants incrementally, during the course of the dialog, CHR’s ability to handle new information, incrementally introduced during the computation, may be useful. This new rule language for representing argumentation schemes is validated by using it to represent twenty representative argumentation schemes. (shrink)

As genetic testing for the presence of potentially health-affecting mutations becomes available for more genetic conditions, many people will soon be faced with the decision of whether or not to have a genetic test. Making an informed decision requires an understanding and evaluation of the arguments for and against having the test. As a case in point, this paper considers argumentation involving the decision of whether to have a BRCA gene test, one of the first commercially available genetic tests. First, (...) argumentation in a five-page patient brochure from a for-profit company that provides BRCA gene testing, is analyzed. Next, for comparison, argumentation on BRCA testing in materials for healthcare consumers written by a not-for-profit health plan and a government organization, is analyzed. In view of the challenges identified by considering these examples, this article discusses how argumentation-oriented computer systems may be able to help the healthcare consumer to make informed decisions about genetic testing. (shrink)

Tailoring assistive systems for guiding and monitoring an individual in daily living activities is a complex task. This paper presents ALI, an assistive system combining a formal possibilistic argumentation system and an informal model of human activity: the Cultural-Historic Activity Theory, facilitating the delivery of tailored advices to a human actor. We follow an activity-centric approach, taking into consideration the human’s motives, goals and prioritized actions. ALI tracks a person in order to I) determine what activities were performed over a (...) period of time (activity recognition tracking), and II) send personalized notifications suggesting the most suitable activities to perform (decision-making monitoring). The ALI system was evaluated in a formative pilot study related to promote social activities and physical exercise. (shrink)

Explanation and argumentation can be used together in such a way that evidence, in the form of arguments, is used to support explanations. In a hybrid system, the interlocking of argument and explanation compounds the problem of how to differentiate between them. The distinction is imperative if we want to avoid the mistake of treating something as fallacious while it is not. Furthermore, the two forms of reasoning may influence dialogue protocol and strategy. In this paper a basis for solving (...) the problem is proposed using a dialogue model where the context of the dialogue is used to distinguish argument from explanation. (shrink)

Illocutionary structure in real language use is intricate and complex, and nowhere more so than in argument and debate. Identifying this structure without any theoretical scaffolding is extremely challenging even for humans. New work in Inference Anchoring Theory has provided significant advances in such scaffolding which are helping to allow the analytical challenges of argumentation structure to be tackled. This paper demonstrates how these advances can also pave the way to automated and semi-automated research in understanding the structure of natural (...) debate. (shrink)

In many domains of public discourse such as arguments about public policy, there is an abundance of knowledge to store, query, and reason with. To use this knowledge, we must address two key general problems: first, the problem of the knowledge acquisition bottleneck between forms in which the knowledge is usually expressed, e.g., natural language, and forms which can be automatically processed; second, reasoning with the uncertainties and inconsistencies of the knowledge. Given such complexities, it is labour and knowledge intensive (...) to conduct policy consultations, where participants contribute statements to the policy discourse. Yet, from such a consultation, we want to derive policy positions, where each position is a set of consistent statements, but where positions may be mutually inconsistent. To address these problems and support policy-making consultations, we consider recent automated techniques in natural language processing, instantiating arguments, and reasoning with the arguments in argumentation frameworks. We discuss application and “bridge” issues between these techniques, outlining a pipeline of technologies whereby: expressions in a controlled natural language are parsed and translated into a logic (a literals and rules knowledge base), from which we generate instantiated arguments and their relationships using a logic-based formalism (an argument knowledge base), which is then input to an implemented argumentation framework that calculates extensions of arguments (an argument extensions knowledge base), and finally, we extract consistent sets of expressions (policy positions). The paper reports progress towards reasoning with web-based, distributed, collaborative, incomplete, and inconsistent knowledge bases expressed in natural language. (shrink)

A background assumption of this paper is that the repertoire of inference schemes available to humanity is not fixed, but subject to change as new schemes are invented or refined and as old ones are obsolesced or abandoned. This is particularly visible in areas like health and environmental sciences, where enormous societal investment has been made in finding ways to reach more dependable conclusions. Computational modeling of argumentation, at least for the discourse in expert fields, will require the possibility of (...) modeling change in a stock of schemes that may be applied to generate conclusions from data. We examine Randomized Clinical Trial, an inference scheme established within medical science in the mid-20th Century, and show that its successful defense by means of practical reasoning allowed for its black-boxing as an inference scheme that generates (and warrants belief in) conclusions about the effects of medical treatments. Modeling the use of a scheme is well-understood; here we focus on modeling how the scheme comes to be established so that it is available for use. (shrink)

In the course of an immune response, antibodies undergo affinity maturation in order to increase their efficiency in neutralizing foreign invaders. Affinity maturation occurs by the introduction of multiple point mutations in the variable region gene that encodes the antigen binding site. This somatic hypermutation is restricted to immunoglobulin genes and occurs at very high rates. The precise molecular basis of this process remains obscure. However, recent studies using a variety of in vivo and in vitro systems have revealed important (...) regulatory regions, base motifs that are preferred targets of mutation and evidence that transcription may play an active role in hypermutation. BioEssays 20:227–234, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

We present an analysis of ethical argumentation and rhetorical elements in an article on the debate about growing genetically modified food (GMF), an issue of current interest in environmental ethics. Ethical argumentation is argumentation that a certain action is permissible, forbidden, or obligatory in terms of ethical intuitions, principles, or theories. Based on analysis of argumentation in the article, we propose several argumentation schemes for descriptive modeling of utilitarian arguments as an alternative to using more general schemes such as practical (...) reasoning and argument from consequences. We also show how the article promoted its pro-GMF stance using rhetorical elements such as quotation, argument from expert opinion, and ad hominem attacks. Pedagogical and computational implications of the analysis of argumentation and rhetoric are discussed. (shrink)

Militante et réflexive, l’histoire des femmes a aussi besoin d’exprimer ses doutes et ses inconforts. Rattrapée par l’actualité, la violence et nombre d’événements cruels et tragiques, par des incertitudes majeures vécues par l’ensemble du monde intellectuel, elle pose aujourd’hui en cet article collectif des interrogations et des inquiétudes. Ce travail à plusieurs (les participantes du Groupe d’histoire des femmes du CRH) cherche à mettre à plat ce qui actuellement se dérobe à notre connaissance, en partant de notions-clés souvent utilisées comme (...) consentement, sexualité, écriture, patriarcat, etc. Chacune de ces notions est discutée à la lumière des brouillages actuels, des temporalités nouvelles, de l’avènement triomphant du corps marchandise, de la pauvreté grandissante, etc. (shrink)

This paper is to critically examines Pollock’s critical-link semantics with variable degrees of justification. Some possibly counterintuitive consequences of Pollock’s definition of degrees of justification are identified and a modified definition is proposed which avoids these consequences. Then the new solution is applied to the case of so-called presumptive defeat. A second contribution of the paper is to show how the modified semantics can be applied to the ASPIC+ framework: first the ASPIC+ framework is modified to allow for variable degrees (...) of justification and then the modified way to compute these degrees is applied in a new notion of an argument graph. (shrink)

Revenant sur les prémisses mêmes de la Cité nationale de l’Histoire de l’immigration , Nancy L. Green retrace la politique entourant le projet ainsi que le choix du bâtiment. Contestée depuis le début dans le fond comme dans la forme, la CNHI doit affronter le problème de ses origines et sa tentative de renverser la symbolique de la colonisation par une reconnaissance de l’immigration, elle-même sujette à des définitions multiples. Passant en revue différentes « options » dans la représentation des (...) immigrés au sein d’un musée d’immigration – une chronologie des vagues d’arrivées, une présentation par groupe ou des choix thématiques –, l’auteur s’interroge sur les tensions entre historiens et scénographes, entre art et histoire au sein du musée, ainsi que sur l’idée de procéder par thèmes, finalement retenue. Si cette approche permet de souligner les similitudes dans l’expérience migratoire, elle peut également en gommer les spécificités. La CNHI elle-même représente un moment spécifique dans la représentation des immigrés en France.From the beginning, the Cité nationale de l’Histoire de l’immigration project was plagued by both political and symbolic difficulties. Nancy L. Green discusses the choices made and the politics surrounding the choice of the building, a former colonial arts museum. How successful is the idea of using an old symbol of France’s hubris at the height of her colonial empire to highlight the historical irony of her former colonies arriving to live in France? In analysing the multiple meanings of immigration itself and the different “options” available to represent a history of immigration in France – a chronological view of successive waves of immigrants, displays highlighting different groups – Green discusses the tensions between researchers and exhibition designers, between art and history as modes of representation, and the idea of the thematic approach, which was the option eventually chosen. While this approach brings out similarities in experiences of migration, it can also detract from an understanding of specific circumstances. The CNHI itself reflects a specific moment in the representation of immigrants in French history. (shrink)

Deontological ethics views the morality of an action based upon its accordance with duty or rights, regardless of its consequences. In previous work, we presented some argumentation schemes for descriptive modeling of utilitarian ethical arguments. The premises of those schemes refer to utilitarian concepts such as maximum utility. Here we extend that approach by proposing some argumentation schemes for analysis of arguments based on deontological ethics. The premises refer to deontological concepts of duty, rights, and justice. The conclusions specify whether (...) an action is morally required, forbidden, or permitted. The critical questions are based upon common challenges to deontological ethics. These schemes provide semantic templates for recognizing implicit or explicit premises and conclusions of deontological arguments. Our approach to ethical argumentation is an alternative to current approaches using argumentation schemes of practical reasoning (reasoning about what to do). In addition to proposing novel argumentation schemes, in this paper we examine ethical argumentation in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” The analysis shows that deontological argumentation schemes as well as ethical variants of some “standard” schemes and rhetorical devices play a major role. (shrink)

Le goût s'apprend. Il est une construction sociale qui vient tantôt d'« en haut » tantôt d'« en bas ». Il est aussi affaire de pouvoir et de médiateurs culturels, de « professionnels du goût » (taste professionals) comme Leora Auslander le met si bien en évidence dans son analyse de l'ameublement français de la Cour de Louis XIV au tournant du XXe siècle. La chaise, le fauteuil, la commode sont autant d'objets qui prennent un nouveau sens à la lecture (...) de ce livre très bien illustré par... (shrink)

Cet article propose de retracer les transformations historiographiques concernant le champ des études migratoires depuis quatre décennies, en distinguant quatre périodes différentes mais non étanches, à partir des cas (largement similaires) états-unien et français. Dans un premier temps, la « découverte » des travailleurs immigrés dans les années 1960-1970 permit de questionner l’homogénéité de la classe ouvrière nationale. Mais assez vite, s’imposa une autre « découverte », celle des femmes immigrées, qui donna lieu à un second âge historiographique à partir (...) des années 1970-1980. Ensuite, comme dans l’historiographie plus générale, le genre apparut comme une catégorie d’analyse essentielle dans ce qu’on pourrait appeler le troisième âge de l’histoire des migrations. Encore opératoire aujourd’hui, il permet d’analyser ensemble le politique et l’économique, en portant attention à la façon dont les politiques migratoires comme les marchés du travail nationaux et internationaux affectent la mobilité des hommes et des femmes. Cependant, un quatrième âge s’intéresse désormais à la sexualité des migrants, comme objet d’inquiétude pour les États (peur de la prostitution ou de l’homosexualité) ou comme espace d’intimité (libération sexuelle comme conséquence, voire comme cause, de la migration). L’article s’achève par une réflexion sur l’approche intersectionnelle, inhérente à l’histoire des migrations qui a toujours croisé appartenances sociales et origines. Il souligne également l’importance d’examiner à la fois l’impact du genre sur la migration et celui de la migration sur les rôles genrés. (shrink)