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

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

Profiles of Dialogue: A Method of Argument Fault Diagnosis and Repair

This paper builds the profiles of dialogue tool into a fault diagnosis method that can be applied to problematic examples of argumentation such as those involving informal fallacies. The profiles method works by comparing a descriptive graph with a normative graph. The descriptive graph represents how a dialogue sequence actually went in the example chosen for analysis. The normative graph represents an analysis of how the sequence should ideally proceed, according to the protocols (rules) for this type of dialogue. The descriptive graph is mapped into the normative graph, so that a comparison can be made to diagnose the fault in the sequence displayed in the descriptive graph and repair it

Speech Acts and Indirect Threats in Ad Baculum Arguments: A Reply to Budzynska and Witek

The importance of speech acts for analyzing and evaluating argumentation in cases where it is suspected that the ad baculum fallacy has been committed is demonstrated in this paper by using a typical textbook example of this fallacy. It is shown how the argument in the example can be analyzed and evaluated using the devices of Gricean implicature and indirect speech acts. It is shown how these two devices can be applied to extrapolate the evidence furnished by the text and dialectical context of the exampl

A new dialectical theory of explanation

This paper offers a dialogue theory of explanation. A successful explanation is defined as a transfer of understanding in a dialogue system in which a questioner and a respondent take part. The questioner asks a special sort of why-question that asks for understanding of something and the respondent provides a reply that transfers understanding to the questioner. The theory is drawn from recent work on explanation in artificial intelligence (AI), especially in expert systems, but applies to scientific, legal and everyday conversational explanations

Intelligent Practical Reasoning for Autonomous Agents: An Introduction

This paper is an introduction to recent work on practical (means-end, goal-direct ed) reasoning in artificial intelligence. By using an example of community deliberation concerning whether to change to a no-fault system of insurance, it is explained how practical reasoning is used in public deliberation. It is shown how argument mapping and argumentation schemes are useful tools for modeling the structure of the argumentation in such cases. The distinction between instrumental practical reasoning and value-based practical reasoning is modeled using argumentation schemes

The Basic Slippery Slope Argument

Although studies have yielded a detailed taxonomy of types of slippery slope arguments, they have failed to identify a basic argumentation scheme that applies to all. Therefore, there is no way of telling whether a given argument is a slippery slope argument or not. This paper solves the problem by providing a basic argumentation scheme. The scheme is shown to fit a clear and easily comprehensible example of a slippery slope argument that strongly appears to be reasonable, something that has also been lacking