Of Miracles and Evidential Probability: Hume’s “Abject Failure” Vindicated

This paper defends David Hume's "Of Miracles" from John Earman's (2000) Bayesian attack by showing that Earman misrepresents Hume's argument against believing in miracles and misunderstands Hume's epistemology of probable belief. It argues, moreover, that Hume's account of evidence is fundamentally non-mathematical and thus cannot be properly represented in a Bayesian framework. Hume's account of probability is show to be consistent with a long and laudable tradition of evidential reasoning going back to ancient Roman law

Strategic Argumentation is NP-Complete

In this paper we study the complexity of strategic argumentation for dialogue games. A dialogue game is a 2-player game where the parties play arguments. We show how to model dialogue games in a skeptical, non-monotonic formalism, and we show that the problem of deciding what move (set of rules) to play at each turn is an NP-complete problem

John Florio and Shakespeare: Life and Language

Investigations into the link between Shakespeare and John Florio stretch back to the mid eighteenth century when, in his edition of the plays (1747), William Warburton suggested that “by Holofernes is designed a particular character, a pedant and schoolmaster of our author’s time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London.” Since then, other modern critics have been haunted by a sort of “magnificent obsession” to prove a connection, both in a biographical and/or in a linguistic perspective, between these giants of Elizabethan culture. However, no solid facts have been put forward but only conjectures about a possible, at best probable, acquaintanceship. Failing to find historical dates and documents which link Florio’s and Shakespeare’s lives, the essay suggests a re-examination and reappraisal of their supposed reciprocal influence, especially as far as their dramatic and didactic dialogues and Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italian are concerned. The attempt is thus to combine a historical-pragmatic investigation into early modern dialogues with a historical framework which might account for “the Shakespeare and Florio connection”

On answering accusations in controversies

Accusations are a very frequent type of speech act both in everyday life and in formal controversies, and answering accusations is a sophisticated type of linguistic practice well worth analysing from a pragmatic point of view. In my paper I shall first describe some basic properties of accusations and characteristic types of reactions to accusations, i. e. denying the alleged fact, making excuses, and giving justifications. I then go on to describe some fundamental functions of accusations in controversies. Using the basic patterns of accusations and reactions to accusations as an object of comparison, I then analyse some relevant exchanges from historical controversies (l6th to 18th century), among them famous polemical interactions like the Hobbes-Bramhall controversy, but also less well-known debates from the fields of medicine and theology. The present paper is both a contribution to the theory of controversy and to the pragmatic history of controversies. Keywords: historical pragmatics, theory of controversy, ad hominem moves, dynamics of controvers

In memoriam Douglas N. Walton: the influence of Doug Walton on AI and law

Doug Walton, who died in January 2020, was a prolific author whose work in informal logic and argumentation had a profound influence on Artificial Intelligence, including Artificial Intelligence and Law. He was also very interested in interdisciplinary work, and a frequent and generous collaborator. In this paper seven leading researchers in AI and Law, all past programme chairs of the International Conference on AI and Law who have worked with him, describe his influence on their work

Speech Acts and Burden of Proof in Computational Models of Deliberation Dialogue

We argue that burden of proof (BoP) of the kind present in persuasion does not apply to deliberation. We analyze existing computational models showing that in deliberation agents may answer a critique but there is no violation of the protocol if they choose not to. We propose a norm-­‐‑governed dialogue where BoP in persuasion is modeled as an obligation to respond, and permissions capture the different types of constraint observed in deliberation

The problem of retraction in critical discussion

The problem is to find a model of dialogue that allows retractions where they seem reasonable or even required, and puts sanctions on them (or even bans them altogether) whenever they would be disruptive of a well-organized process of dialogue. One ty pe of solution will let retraction rules determine which retractions are permissible, and if permissible what the consequences of retraction are. These rules vary according to the type of dialogue and to the type of commitment to which the retraction per tains. To accommodate various incoherent intuitions on retractions, one may resort to modelling complex types of dialogue