Argumentation as a Bridge Between Metaphor and Reasoning

UID/FIL/00183/2013 SFRH/BPD/115073/2016 WoS - record outside the portuguese subscription range.The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between metaphor and reasoning, by claiming that argumentation might act as a bridge between metaphor and reasoning. Firstly, the chapter introduces metaphor as a framing strategy through which some relevant properties of a (generally more concrete and known) source domain are selected to understand a (generally less concrete and known) target domain. The mapping of properties from the source to the target domain implicitly forces the interpreter to consider the target from a specific perspective. Secondly, the chapter presents metaphor as an implicit argument where some inferences can be drawn from the comparison between the source and the target domain. In particular, this chapter aims to understand whether and to what extent such an argument might be linked to analogical reasoning. The chapter argues that, in case of faulty analogy, this kind of argument might have the form of a quaternio terminorum, where metaphor is the middle term. Finally, the chapter presents the results of an experimental study, aiming to test the effect of the linguistic nature of the middle term on the detection of such faulty analogy. The chapter concludes that a wider context is needed to make sense of an analogical argument with novel metaphors, whilst in a narrow context, a lexicalised metaphor might be extended and the overall argument might be interpreted as metaphoric.authorsversionpublishe

After the Great Recession: Law and Economics\u27 Topics of Invention and Arrangement and Tropes of Style

AFTER THE GREAT RECESSION: LAW AND ECONOMICS’ TOPICS OF INVENTION AND ARRANGEMENT AND TROPES OF STYLE by Michael D. Murray Abstract The Great Recession of 2008 and onward has drawn attention to the American economic and financial system, and has cast a critical spotlight on the theories, policies, and assumptions of the modern, neoclassical school of law and economics—often labeled the Chicago School —because this school of legal economic thought has had great influence on the American economy and financial system. The Chicago School\u27s positions on deregulation and the limitation or elimination of oversight and government restraints on stock markets, derivative markets, and other financial practices are the result of decades of neoclassical economic assumptions regarding the efficiency of unregulated markets, the near-religious-like devotion to a hyper-simplified conception of rationality and self-interest with regard to the persons and institutions participating in the financial system, and a conception of laws and government policies as incentives and costs in a manner that excludes the actual conditions and complications of reality. This Article joins the critical conversation on the Great Recession and the role of law and economics in this crisis by examining neoclassical and contemporary law and economics from the perspective of legal rhetoric. Law and economics has developed into a school of contemporary legal rhetoric that provides topics of invention and arrangement and tropes of style to test and improve general legal discourse in areas beyond the economic analysis of law. The rhetorical canons of law and economics—mathematical and scientific methods of analysis and demonstration; the characterization of legal phenomena as incentives and costs; the rhetorical economic concept of efficiency; and rational choice theory as corrected by modern behavioral social sciences, cognitive studies, and brain science—make law and economics a persuasive method of legal analysis and a powerful school of contemporary legal rhetoric, if used in the right hands. My Article is the first to examine the prescriptive implications of the rhetoric of law and economics for general legal discourse as opposed to examining the benefits and limitations of the economic analysis of law itself. This Article advances the conversation in two areas: first, as to the study and understanding of the persuasiveness of law and economics, particularly because that persuasiveness has played a role in influencing American economic and financial policy leading up to the Great Recession; and second, as to the study and understanding of the use of economic topics of invention and arrangement and tropes of style in general legal discourse when evaluated in comparison to the other schools of classical and contemporary legal rhetoric. I examine each of the rhetorical canons of law and economics and explain how each can be used to create meaning, inspire imagination, and improve the persuasiveness of legal discourse in every area of law. My conclusion is that the rhetorical canons of law and economics can be used to create meaning and inspire imagination in legal discourse beyond the economic analysis of law, but the canons are tools that only are as good as the user, and can be corrupted in ways that helped to bring about the current economic crisis

Text, History, and Tradition: What the Seventh Amendment Can Teach Us About the Second

In District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court made seemingly irreconcilable demands on lower courts: evaluate Second Amendment claims through history, avoid balancing, and retain as much regulation as possible. To date, lower courts have been unable to devise a test that satisfies all three of these conditions. Worse, the emerging default candidate, intermediate scrutiny, is a test that many jurists and scholars consider exceedingly manipulable.This Article argues that courts could look to the Supreme Court’s Seventh Amendment jurisprudence, and in particular the Seventh Amendment’s “historical test,” to help them devise a test for the Second. The historical test relies primarily on analogical reasoning from text, history, and tradition to determine the constitutionality of any given practice or regulation. Yet the historical test is supple enough to respond to the demands of a twenty-first-century judicial system. As such, it provides valuable insights, but also its own set of problems, for those judges and scholars struggling to implement the right to keep and bear arms

A Narrative Account of Argumentation

In this dissertation I attempt to accomplish three goals. The first goal is to develop a narrative account of argumentation. I show that storytelling serves as a legitimate mode of argumentation. I develop an account of narrative argument based on generalized features of narrative and a conception of argument that is rhetorical and in line with Charles Willards notion of argument as an interaction. I identify features of narrative argument that enable narrative to function as an argument and thus to provide reasons for a claim in the context of disagreement. As a result, I synthesize literatures on narrative and argumentation to provide a definition of narrative argument. The second goal of the dissertation is to argue for maintaining the narrative as a process without reconstructing the narrative into the dominant model of argument. In this part of the dissertation, I elaborate on the definition of narrative argument and argue that narrative argument must be understood as a process, and not as a product of argument. While the product view focuses on the form and structure of an argument as being linear, explicit, and containing premises and a conclusion, and treats arguments as things, the process view focuses on the whole act of arguing, thus highlighting the importance of the context of argumentation and the people involved. In support of this thesis, I show that reducing the narrative into premises and a conclusion is problematic because it deprives it of some of its persuasive force. Reducing the narrative into a product removes the real argumentpart of which is implicitfrom its context, its unique situation, and its complex social setting. The third goal of this dissertation is to develop an account of argument evaluation that is suitable for narrative argument understood as a process. I offer an account of how to evaluate narratives using the virtuous audience, combining theories of virtue argumentation and rhetorical audiences. In sum, this dissertation provides a definition of narrative argument, stipulates the conditions of narrative arguments that make them successful, and offers ways of evaluating the narrative while maintaining its form as a process

The role of experience in common sense and expert problem solving

Issued as Progress reports [nos. 1-5], Reports [nos. 1-6], and Final report, Project no. G-36-617 (includes Projects nos. GIT-ICS-87/26, GIT-ICS-85/19, and GIT-ICS-85/18

The Language and Logic of Law: A Case Study

Law is a social practice that consists of argument, in large part. This article is a case study of legal argument. The author has undertaken the study in the belief that the forms assumed by legal argument relate to lawyers\u27 conscious or unconscious understanding about what is persuasive in a given legal context. One can articulate these understandings by identifying and describing particular forms of argument and by determining the circumstances in which lawyers use each form. The author examines a set of Supreme Court opinions, using as a guide one of the few contemporary attempts to organize and classify forms of argument

Chief Justice Robots

Say an AI program someday passes a Turing test, because it can con-verse in a way indistinguishable from a human. And say that its develop-ers can then teach it to converse—and even present an extended persua-sive argument—in a way indistinguishable from the sort of human we call a “lawyer.” The program could thus become an AI brief-writer, ca-pable of regularly winning brief-writing competitions against human lawyers. Once that happens (if it ever happens), this Essay argues, the same technology can be used to create AI judges, judges that we should accept as no less reliable (and more cost-effective) than human judges. If the software can create persuasive opinions, capable of regularly winning opinion-writing competitions against human judges—and if it can be adequately protected against hacking and similar attacks—we should in principle accept it as a judge, even if the opinions do not stem from human judgment

Analysis, Research, and Communication in Skills-Focused Courses

Since the Carnegie Report and Best Practices for Legal Education were published, a new focus has emerged on building students’ traditional foundational skills through increased opportunities for experiential education, including legal research and writing instruction. Although the Carnegie Report explored legal writing pedagogy in some detail, Best Practices devoted little attention to how foundational analytical, research, and writing skills are or should be taught with specificity, which provided the impetus for more extended treatment here. This section identifies some “better practices” being used and urges adoption of best practices. In skills-focused courses, legal analysis, research, and writing should be taught as a fluid and recursive process in a client-centered context, giving students the opportunity to write, reflect, and revise. To build and retain fundamental skills, law students should have at least one significant writing experience each semester of law school. It could take the form of practice-related or “instrumental” writing, “writing to learn” exercises, or other forms. Although the ABA requires two rigorous writing courses in the J.D. curriculum, many schools require that only one be practice-related. Some schools have addressed the inadequacy of the ABA requirements by expanding their legal writing programs from two to three or four semesters. The best practice is also to offer advanced, upper-level courses in analysis, research, and writing. For maximum effectiveness, all foundational writing, research, and analysis courses taught in the first year should be taught in small classes by full-time law teachers with practice experience and equal status

Analysis, Research, and Communication in Skills-Focused Courses

Since the Carnegie Report and Best Practices for Legal Education were published, a new focus has emerged on building students’ traditional foundational skills through increased opportunities for experiential education, including legal research and writing instruction. Although the Carnegie Report explored legal writing pedagogy in some detail, Best Practices devoted little attention to how foundational analytical, research, and writing skills are or should be taught with specificity, which provided the impetus for more extended treatment here. This section identifies some “better practices” being used and urges adoption of best practices. In skills-focused courses, legal analysis, research, and writing should be taught as a fluid and recursive process in a client-centered context, giving students the opportunity to write, reflect, and revise. To build and retain fundamental skills, law students should have at least one significant writing experience each semester of law school. It could take the form of practice-related or “instrumental” writing, “writing to learn” exercises, or other forms. Although the ABA requires two rigorous writing courses in the J.D. curriculum, many schools require that only one be practice-related. Some schools have addressed the inadequacy of the ABA requirements by expanding their legal writing programs from two to three or four semesters. The best practice is also to offer advanced, upper-level courses in analysis, research, and writing. For maximum effectiveness, all foundational writing, research, and analysis courses taught in the first year should be taught in small classes by full-time law teachers with practice experience and equal status

Evaluation of Analogical Arguments by Choquet Integral

Analogical arguments are a special type of inductive arguments, whereby perceived similarities are used as a basis to infersome further similarity that has yet to be observed. Although they arenot deductively valid, they may yield conclusions that are very prob-ably true, and may be more cogent than others in persuasive contexts.This paper tackles the question of their evaluation. It starts by dis-cussing their features, how they can be attacked/supported, and keyconsiderations for their evaluation. It argues in particular for the needof semantics that are able to take into account possible interactions(synergies, redundancies) between attackers (respectively support-ers) of any analogical argument. It presents principles that serve asguidelines for choosing candidate semantics. Then, it shows that ex-isting (extension, gradual, ranking) semantics are not suitable as theymay lead to inaccurate assessments. Finally, it redefines three exist-ing semantics using the well-known Choquet Integral for aggregatingattackers/supporter, and discusses their properties