15,791 research outputs found

    In defense of compilation: A response to Davis' form and content in model-based reasoning

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    In a recent paper entitled 'Form and Content in Model Based Reasoning', Randy Davis argues that model based reasoning research aimed at compiling task specific rules from underlying device models is mislabeled, misguided, and diversionary. Some of Davis' claims are examined and his basic conclusions are challenged about the value of compilation research to the model based reasoning community. In particular, Davis' claim is refuted that model based reasoning is exempt from the efficiency benefits provided by knowledge compilation techniques. In addition, several misconceptions are clarified about the role of representational form in compilation. It is concluded that techniques have the potential to make a substantial contribution to solving tractability problems in model based reasoning

    Common Grounds for Psychiatrists and Priests

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    Intellectual humility and argumentation

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    In this chapter I argue that intellectual humility is related to argumentation in several distinct but mutually supporting ways. I begin by drawing connections between humility and two topics of long-standing importance to the evaluation of informal arguments: the ad verecundiam fallacy and the principle of charity. I then explore the more explicit role that humility plays in recent work on critical thinking dispositions, deliberative virtues, and virtue theories of argumentation

    Formalism and judgement in assurance cases

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    This position paper deals with the tension between the desire for sound and auditable assurance cases and the current ubiquitous reliance on expert judgement. I believe that the use of expert judgement, though inevitable, needs to be much more cautious and disciplined than it usually is. The idea of assurance “cases ” owes its appeal to an awareness that all too often critical decisions are made in ways that are difficult to justify or even to explain, leaving the doubt (for the decision makers as well as other interested parties) that the decision may be unsound. By building a well-structured “case ” we would wish to allow proper scrutiny of the evidence and assumptions used, and of the arguments that link them to support a decision. A

    Genetics Crime and Justice

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    This review is unashamedly from the perspective of English law because busy United Kingdom criminal law solicitors and barristers mostly wish to know what the law states, which case is a precedent case and whether the author has provided up-to-date legal information. This is because legal practitioners deal with real and urgent cases. The English Income Tax Act gained Royal Assent in 1799 the first government attempt to stop early tax avoidance. Later, tax avoidance schemes (which in English Law were deemed a legitimate method of minimising one payment of taxation) became de rigueur all over the world and often involved creation of Deeds of Covenant and Trusts, notably Discretionary Trusts under civil law. Man’s ingenuity knows no bounds and this applies to man’s characteristic of criminality as it does to scholarship, enterprise and innovation. Despite protestations by some countries police agencies, contrary to the rise of crime, the fact is that that crime is increasing exponentially worldwide, but the number of people committing crime is not increasing because many crimes are repeated crimes committed by persons with habitual criminal behaviour, ie hard-core criminals

    Information Seeking Processes in Evaluating Argumentation

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    This article points out the relevance of the research on information seeking for argumentation theory. The process of evaluating argumentation presupposes diverse principles of argument classification and forms thus conflicting information needs. Following Taylor (1989), we distinguish between Aristotelian classification and the prototype classification. We show how these classification kinds form the conflicting principles of information seeking providing at the same time a common ground for the dissent information seeking processes in evaluating argumentation

    Examination dialogue: An argumentation framework for critically questioning an expert opinion

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    Recent work in argumentation theory (Walton and Krabbe, 1995; Walton, 2005) and artificial intelligence (Bench-Capon, 1992, 2003; Cawsey, 1992; McBurney and Parsons, 2002; Bench-Capon and Prakken, 2005) uses types of dialogue as contexts of argument use. This paper provides an analysis of a special type called examination dialogue, in which one party questions another party, sometimes critically or even antagonistically, to try to find out what that party knows about something. This type of dialogue is most prominent in law and in both legal and non-legal arguments based on expert opinion. It is also central to dialogue systems for questioning and answering in expert systems in artificial intelligence. Examples studied are: (1) exegetical analyses and criticisms of religious and philosophical texts, and (2) legal examinations and cross-examinations conducted in a trial setting

    Finding the way forward for forensic science in the US:a commentary on the PCAST report

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    A recent report by the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) [1] has made a number of recommendations for the future development of forensic science. Whereas we all agree that there is much need for change, we find that the PCAST report recommendations are founded on serious misunderstandings. We explain the traditional forensic paradigms of match and identification and the more recent foundation of the logical approach to evidence evaluation. This forms the groundwork for exposing many sources of confusion in the PCAST report. We explain how the notion of treating the scientist as a black box and the assignment of evidential weight through error rates is overly restrictive and misconceived. Our own view sees inferential logic, the development of calibrated knowledge and understanding of scientists as the core of the advance of the profession
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