Ruinous arguments: Escalation of disagreement and the dangers of arguing

People argue to reconcile differences of opinion, but reconciliation may fail to happen. In these cases, most theorists assume arguers are left with the same disagreement from which they started. This is too optimistic, since disagreement might instead escalate, and this may happen because of the argumentative practice, not in spite of it. These dangers depend on epistemological, pragmatic, and cultural factors, and show why arguers should be (and are) careful in picking their dialogical fights

Towards an authentic argumentation literacy test

A central goal of education is to improve argumentation literacy. How do we know how well this goal is achieved? Can we measure argumentation literacy? The present study is a preliminary step towards measuring the efficacy of education with regards to argumentation literacy. Tests currently in use to determine critical thinking skills are often similar to IQ-tests in that they predominantly measure logical and mathematical abilities. Thus, they may not measure the various other skills required in understanding authentic argumentation. To identify the elements of argumentation literacy, this exploratory study begins by surveying introductory textbooks within argumentation theory, critical thinking, and rhetoric. Eight main abilities have been identified. Then, the study outlines an Argumentation Literacy Test that would comprise these abilities suggested by the literature. Finally, the study presents results from a pilot of a version of such a test and discusses needs for further development

Towards Computational Persuasion via Natural Language Argumentation Dialogues

Computational persuasion aims to capture the human ability to persuade through argumentation for applications such as behaviour change in healthcare (e.g. persuading people to take more exercise or eat more healthily). In this paper, we review research in computational persuasion that incorporates domain modelling (capturing arguments and counterarguments that can appear in a persuasion dialogues), user modelling (capturing the beliefs and concerns of the persuadee), and dialogue strategies (choosing the best moves for the persuader to maximize the chances that the persuadee is persuaded). We discuss evaluation of prototype systems that get the user’s counterarguments by allowing them to select them from a menu. Then we consider how this work might be enhanced by incorporating a natural language interface in the form of an argumentative chatbot

Dialogical intentions and customization of recommendations for the assessment of medical deliberation

UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020 PTDC/FER‐FIL/28278/2017 PTDC/MHC-FIL/0521/2014Dialogue moves are a pragmatic instrument that captures the most important categories of “dialogical intentions.” This paper adapts this tool to the conversational setting of chronic care communication, characterized by the general goal of making reasoned decisions concerning patients’ conditions, shared by the latter. 7 mutually exclusive and comprehensive categories were identified, whose reliability was tested on an Italian corpus of provider-patient encounters in diabetes care. The application of this method was illustrated through explorative analyses identifying possible correlations between the dialogical structure of medical interviews and one of the indicators of personalized decision-making, namely the specificity of the recommendations given by the provider (“customization”). The statistical analyses show a significant correlation between the exchange of personal information and very specific and customized recommendations for change. It suggests how the creation of common ground, exceeding the boundaries of the paternalistic or patient-centered models, can lead to highly effective communication.authorsversionpublishe

Strategic argumentation dialogues for persuasion: Framework and experiments based on modelling the beliefs and concerns of the persuadee

Persuasion is an important and yet complex aspect of human intelligence. When undertaken through dialogue, the deployment of good arguments, and therefore counterarguments, clearly has a significant effect on the ability to be successful in persuasion. Two key dimensions for determining whether an argument is 'good' in a particular dialogue are the degree to which the intended audience believes the argument and counterarguments, and the impact that the argument has on the concerns of the intended audience. In this paper, we present a framework for modelling persuadees in terms of their beliefs and concerns, and for harnessing these models in optimizing the choice of move in persuasion dialogues. Our approach is based on the Monte Carlo Tree Search which allows optimization in real-time. We provide empirical results of a study with human participants that compares an automated persuasion system based on this technology with a baseline system that does not take the beliefs and concerns into account in its strategy

Strategic Argumentation Dialogues for Persuasion: Framework and Experiments Based on Modelling the Beliefs and Concerns of the Persuadee

Persuasion is an important and yet complex aspect of human intelligence. When undertaken through dialogue, the deployment of good arguments, and therefore counterarguments, clearly has a significant effect on the ability to be successful in persuasion. Two key dimensions for determining whether an argument is good in a particular dialogue are the degree to which the intended audience believes the argument and counterarguments, and the impact that the argument has on the concerns of the intended audience. In this paper, we present a framework for modelling persuadees in terms of their beliefs and concerns, and for harnessing these models in optimizing the choice of move in persuasion dialogues. Our approach is based on the Monte Carlo Tree Search which allows optimization in real-time. We provide empirical results of a study with human participants showing that our automated persuasion system based on this technology is superior to a baseline system that does not take the beliefs and concerns into account in its strategy.Comment: The Data Appendix containing the arguments, argument graphs, assignment of concerns to arguments, preferences over concerns, and assignment of beliefs to arguments, is available at the link http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/a.hunter/papers/unistudydata.zip The code is available at https://github.com/ComputationalPersuasion/MCC

Argumentation and disagreement:a pluralistic approach

In our everyday life and in the public sphere, we often find disagreements that the parties cannot resolve nor even overcome. We might call them persistent disagreements. The main question of this thesis is: “What can the parties do to overcome disagreements reasonably, especially when disagreements are persistent?” I argue that the most reasonable way to deal with disagreement is by using argumentation, whereby I approach argumentation pluralistically. This pluralistic approach implies an expansion of traditional approaches to argumentation like pragma-dialectics or informal logic. According to this pluralistic approach, rational persuasion need not be the only goal of argumentation, because it rarely succeeds, especially in the case of persistent disagreement. Therefore, a pluralistic approach to argumentation implies: a) that the parties might overcome their disagreements by reasonable means different from persuasion - among these means we can consider deliberation, negotiation and settlement; b) that if those means revolve around presenting reasons, they should be considered under the concept argumentation; c) that sometimes persuasion is necessary, but that even then, if the setting of the dialogue is sub-optimal, as in the persistent case, we need a general or nonspecific normative approach to evaluate the contributions of the parties; d) that when fallacies are presented, the proper response to them will depend on certain circumstances of the dialogue, considering the goal of overcoming disagreements reasonably; e) that for overcoming disagreements the parties may need to shift between different dialogue types, and that those shifts have special conditions of their own

The visual dimension in organizing, organization, and organization research: Core ideas, current developments, and promising avenues

With the unprecedented rise in the use of visuals, and its undeniable omnipresence in organizational contexts, as well as in the individual's everyday life, organization and management science has recently started to pay closer attention to the to date under-theorized "visual mode" of discourse and meaning construction. Building primarily on insights from the phenomenological tradition in organization theory and from social semiotics, this article sets out to consolidate previous scholarly efforts and to sketch a fertile future research agenda. After briefly exploring the workings of visuals, we introduce the methodological and theoretical "roots" of visual studies in a number of disciplines that have a long-standing tradition of incorporating the visual. We then continue by extensively reviewing work in the field of organization and management studies: More specifically, we present five distinct approaches to feature visuals in research designs and to include the visual dimension in scholarly inquiry. Subsequently, we outline, in some detail, promising avenues for future research, and close with a reflection on the impact of visualization on scientific practice itself. (authors' abstract

Persuasive argumentation in systemic therapy interaction: a conversation analytic study

One of the core tasks of systemic therapy is to facilitate change which is largely considered to occur in an affiliative and non-interventionist manner. In this thesis I examine the role of an under-reported practice in the pursuit of 'change' in systemic therapy encounters, by focusing on a therapist's attempts to facilitate change in the client's perspective through persuasive argumentation. An interactional account of argumentation is offered through the means of conversation analysis which is the primary methodological framework for the research. The data consists of 13 hours of recorded and faithfully transcribed interaction between a person living with HIV and a systemic psychotherapist. I report three persuasion mechanisms that the therapist mobilises in the attempt to induce change. In the first,-subsequently to a display by the client of a negative stance the therapist solicits the client's grounds (or strongest grounds) in support of this stance. Pragmatically the move invites a defeasible account which the therapist then challenges or rebuts. In the second, the therapist launches a series of questions which progressively uncover a contradiction in the client's understanding of her lived experience. In the third, the therapist delivers a concession to which she attaches an account or elaboration which in fact opposes the client's trajectory and which renders the concession a tactical one. Based on the findings, I discuss some core characteristics of argumentation in therapy interaction. I also discuss the role of epistemic accessibility in the accomplishment of opposition in systemic therapy practice. Finally, I argue that argumentation in the data arises from the use of habitual systemic therapy techniques which reveals their argumentative potential and the under-theorised role of argumentation in facilitating psychotherapeutic change