A classification system for argumentation schemes

This paper explains the importance of classifying argumentation schemes, and outlines how schemes are being used in current research in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics on argument mining. It provides a survey of the literature on scheme classification. What are so far generally taken to represent a set of the most widely useful defeasible argumentation schemes are surveyed and explained systematically, including some that are difficult to classify. A new classification system covering these centrally important schemes is built

Arguing for Argument’s Sake? Exploring Public Conversations around Climate Change on Twitter

Audience-facilitated information flow has become the new norm created by a public divergence from traditional media sources. Mobile device advancements and partnerships have changed how audiences view news media and the sources relied upon to obtain information. With these advancements, social media users have become primary information providers and information gatekeepers. Twitter specifically has become a news media platform for some based on its effectiveness in facilitating information flow and triggering reorganization as it provides a platform for collaboration and coordination. Despite widespread acceptance of the threat climate change poses by the scientific community, it is still a topic of contention on social media. Climate conversations are typically approached with an us versus them mindset with us being used as representation of the communities to which audiences belong. The communities one belongs to typically follows social media users social, political and environmental ideologies. Walton’s theory of argument or inference schemes served as the theoretical framework for this study. Argument schemes represent common arguments and special context arguments, in this case scientific argumentation. Walton’s argument from ignorance was used as a framework for the study. The argument states that if there has been a thorough search through the knowledge base then concrete proof of a fact would exist. The findings indicated social media may be a useful tool when exploring climate change conversations through a sociopolitical lens and additional research is needed to closely examine how political ideologies, global location, and different environmental topics impact issue awareness and beliefs

Piggybacking In? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Argumentation Schemes

In this paper, Douglas Walton’s Argumentation Schemes and corresponding critical questions are taken through Thomas Huckin’s (1997) Critical Discourse Analysis in order to further demonstrate that a schematic-pragmatic approach to argument evaluation needs to account for bias in and of itself. Building on the work of Audrey Yap (2013, 2015) and Ciurria and Al Tamini (2014) which demonstrates how the schemes have not addressed, and may even intensify, various disadvantages people with systemic identity prejudices face, Huckin’s approach offers additional nuance as to how these concerns can be exacerbated by the schemes. As the schemes have been devised through observations of “stereotypical patterns of reasoning (Walton, 1990)… [and because t]hey represent patterns used in everyday conversational argumentation, and in other contexts such as legal and scientific argumentation” (Walton & Macagno, 2016, p.1), social biases have the potential for having piggybacked into the schemes. What is often fallacious in one social context is cogent in another, often based on what counts as credible testimony and evidence. Therefore, we must consider how social biases may be built into the tools we use to evaluate arguments, as well as how our tools (do not) handle, or even perpetuate, these biases

A literature review. Introduction to the special issue

UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020 PTDC/FER-FIL/28278/2017 CHIST-ERA/0002/2019Argumentation schemes [35, 80, 91] are a relatively recent notion that continues an extremely ancient debate on one of the foundations of human reasoning, human comprehension, and obviously human argumentation, i.e., the topics. To understand the revolutionary nature of Walton’s work on this subject matter, it is necessary to place it in the debate that it continues and contributes to, namely a view of logic that is much broader than the formalistic perspective that has been adopted from the 20th century until nowadays. With his book Argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning, Walton attempted to start a dialogue between three different fields or views on human reasoning – one (argumentation theory) very recent, one (dialectics) very ancient and with a very long tradition, and one (formal logic) relatively recent, but dominating in philosophy. Argumentation schemes were proposed as dialectical instruments, in the sense that they represented arguments not only as formal relations, but also as pragmatic inferences, as they at the same time depend on what the interlocutors share and accept in a given dialogical circumstance, and affect their dialogical relation. In this introduction, the notion of argumentation scheme will be analyzed in detail, showing its different dimensions and its defining features which make them an extremely useful instrument in Artificial Intelligence. This theoretical background will be followed by a literature review on the uses of the schemes in computing, aimed at identifying the most important areas and trends, the most promising proposals, and the directions of future research.publishersversionpublishe

Argumentative topoi seen from a discourse analytic perspective

One core aspect of argumentation is the inferential reasoning that justifies the transition from the premises to the conclusion. Classical rhetoric accounted for such inference in terms of topoi (or topics), while contemporary approaches have introduced the notion of argumentation schemes, even if the two concepts still largely coexist. Different approaches exist to the analysis and classification of topoi/schemes. This paper ponders on how two different approaches, the Argomentum Model of Topics (AMT) and the pragma-dialectical account of schemes, can serve the purposes of discourse analysts interested in argumentation. While discourse analysis tends to approach topoi from a content-based perspective, in this paper the view is taken that relying on more formalised accounts may add methodological rigour to the analysis of real-life argumentation, while enhancing points of contact between discourse analysis and argumentation theory. In particular, the AMT and the pragma-dialectical schemes are applied to the analysis of arguments used in editorials on Brexit, with a focus on populism. Building on a previous study in which recurrent topoi were analysed drawing on a content-based approach, this paper will try to establish connections between the topoi thus identified and more formalised classifications of argument schemes, considering the pros and cons of the two approaches

Conceptual and Methodological Approach in the Study of the Philosophical and Gniseological Status of the Culture of the Disput

The article analyzes the approach to conducting debates in modern logic and epistemology, examining the process of knowledge acquisition in debates, the practical aspects of conducting scientific discussions, especially in formulating and solving scientific problems, based on the analysis of scientific sources

Análise argumentativa dos debates sobre a primeira Lei de Imprensa (1821)

UIDB/05021/2020 UIDP/05021/2020Este capítulo analisa os argumentos dos deputados das Cortes Constituintes contra e a favor da liberdade de imprensa. O projeto de lei de imprensa foi apresentado em fevereiro de 1821, praticamente abrindo os trabalhos parlamentares (a sessão inaugural ocorreu a 26 de janeiro), e a discussão finalizou em julho, com a promulgação da lei. Através do mapeamento das estratégias argumentativas utilizadas num dos principais debates – ocorrido na sessão de 2 de maio de 1821 – enquadramos a discussão sobre o valor e as perceções acerca da liberdade de imprensa no projeto constitucional do Liberalismo. Este texto presta homenagem à Professora Doutora Isabel Nobre Vargues, uma leitora perspicaz dos jornais vintistas cuja obra académica iluminou parte do caminho que leva à compreensão plena da centralidade da história da imprensa nas dinâmicas políticas, culturais e discursivas do século XIX. Revolução Liberal,publishersversionpublishe