Argumentation

Fallacies in mathematics

by Andrew Aberdein

Published in Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics, 27(3), 2007, pp. 1-6.

This paper considers the application to mathematical fallacies of techniques drawn from informal logic, specifically... more This paper considers the application to mathematical fallacies of techniques drawn from informal logic, specifically the use of ‘argument schemes’. One such scheme, for Appeal to Expert Opinion, is considered in some detail.

Managing informal mathematical knowledge: Techniques from informal logic

by Andrew Aberdein

Managing informal mathematical knowledge: Techniques from informal logic. In MKM 2006 (Lecture notes in artificial intelligence 4108), Jonathan M. Borwein & William M. Farmer, edd. (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2006), pp. 208–221.

Much work in MKM depends on the application of formal logic to mathematics. However, much mathematical knowledge is... more Much work in MKM depends on the application of formal logic to mathematics. However, much mathematical knowledge is informal. Luckily, formal logic only represents one tradition in logic, specifically the modeling of inference in terms of logical form. Many inferences cannot be captured in this manner. The study of such inferences is still within the domain of logic, and is sometimes called informal logic. This paper explores some of the benefits informal logic may have for the management of informal mathematical knowledge.

Persuasive definition

by Andrew Aberdein

In Argumentation and rhetoric, H. V. Hansen, C. W. Tindale & A. V. Colman, edd. (Newport News, VA: Vale Press, 1998).

Charles Stevenson introduced the term 'persuasive definition' to describe a suspect form of moral argument 'which... more Charles Stevenson introduced the term 'persuasive definition' to describe a suspect form of moral argument 'which gives a new conceptual meaning to a familiar word without substantially changing its emotive meaning'. However, as Stevenson acknowledges, such a move can be employed legitimately. If persuasive definition is to be a useful notion, we shall need a criterion for identifying specifically illegitimate usage. I criticize a recent proposed criterion from Keith Burgess-Jackson and offer an alternative.

The informal logic of mathematical proof

by Andrew Aberdein

Published in Perspectives on mathematical practices: Bringing together philosophy of mathematics, sociology of mathematics, and mathematics education, J. P. Van Bendegem & B. Van Kerkhove, edd. (Dordrecht: Springer-Verlag, 2007), pp. 135-51. Reprinted in 18 Unconventional essays on the nature of mathematics, Reuben Hersh, ed, (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2006), pp. 56-70.

Informal and formal logic are complementary methods of argument analysis. Informal logic provides a pragmatic... more Informal and formal logic are complementary methods of argument analysis. Informal logic provides a pragmatic treatment of features of argumentation which cannot be reduced to logical form. This paper shows how paying attention to aspects of mathematical argumentation captured by informal, but not formal, logic can offer a more nuanced understanding of mathematical proof and discovery.

Keywords: dialectic - four colour theorem - informal logic - mathematical proof - Stephen Toulmin - Douglas Walton

The uses of argument in mathematics

by Andrew Aberdein

Published in Argumentation, 19(3), 2005, pp. 287-301.

Stephen Toulmin once observed that ‘it has never been customary for philosophers to pay much attention to the rhetoric... more Stephen Toulmin once observed that ‘it has never been customary for philosophers to pay much attention to the rhetoric of mathematical debate’ [Toulmin et al., 1979, An Introduction to Reasoning, Macmillan, London, p. 89]. Might the application of Toulmin’s layout of arguments to mathematics remedy this oversight? Toulmin’s critics fault the layout as requiring so much abstraction as to permit incompatible reconstructions. Mathematical proofs may indeed be represented by fundamentally distinct layouts. However, cases of genuine conflict characteristically reflect an underlying disagreement about the nature of the proof in question.

Keywords Euclid - mathematical argumentation - proof - rebuttal - Stephen Toulmin - undercutter

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

Contextual frames and their argumentative implications: A case study in media argumentation

by Sara Greco Morasso

Discourse Studies April 2012 vol. 14 no. 2 197-216

By presenting a case study based on the argumentative analysis of news in the press, this article introduces and... more By presenting a case study based on the argumentative analysis of news in the press, this article introduces and discusses strategic manoeuvring with contextual frames. Drawing on the linguistic notion of frame, I introduce the concept of contextual frame to refer to the news context, that is, the background against which a certain event is presented as a piece of news. I argue that newspapers and journalists make use of contextual frames in the apparently neutral genre of news reporting to propose specific interpretations of the facts at issue, which become the basis for explicit comments and editorials. To show how this works, I investigate in detail a case of newspaper coverage of a complex episode using the pragma-dialectical notion of strategic manoeuvring and the Argumentum Model of Topics (AMT) to analyse argument schemes. I show that, in the use of contextual frames, there is a prominent relation between presentational devices (the lexical choices that build up the frame) and topical potential; contextual frames provide the implicit material premises (endoxa) which are at the basis of argumentations through which newspapers interpret and comment on the news.

R. Pilgram (2012). Reasonableness of a doctor's argument by authority: A pragma-dialectical analysis of the specific soundness conditions. Journal of Argumentation in Context, 1(1), 33-50.

by Roosmaryn Pilgram

Invoking the Authority of Feelings as a Strategic Maneuver in Family Mealtime Conversations

by Antonio Bova

How to cite:
Bova, A. and Arcidiacono, F. (2012), Invoking the Authority of Feelings as a Strategic Maneuver in Family Mealtime Conversations. J. Community. Appl. Soc. Psychol.. doi: 10.1002/casp.2113

This paper is centred on family conversations and focuses on the conditions that allow a specific strategic maneuver,... more This paper is centred on family conversations and focuses on the conditions that allow a specific strategic maneuver, the invocation of the authority, to be an effective argumentative strategy when used by parents to convince their children to accept rules and prescriptions. Within a corpus of argumentative sequences selected from 30 video-recordings of family mealtime conversations, an argumentative sequence between parents and children, which brings to light the results obtained through the qualitative analysis of a corpus of 60 argumentative sequences, is presented and discussed. The analysis relies on a communicative-argumentative methodology based on the extended pragma-dialectical theory and on the Argumentum Model of Topics to identify the participants’ moves and to analyze the inferential configuration of arguments, respectively. The findings of the analysis show that the invocation of the authority by parents represents an argumentative strategy that is effective when two conditions are met: (i) the nature of the relationship between the person who represents the authority and the person to whom the argument is addressed is based on the certainty of positive feelings, rather than on the fear of punishment, and (ii) the reasons the prohibition is based on are not to be hidden from the child’s eyes, but are to be shared by family members. The analysis has thus brought out a specific type of invocation of authority that we have defined as the authority of feelings. The results of this study contribute to research on family argumentation and on the interactional dynamics between parents and children.

Aydeniz, M., Pabuccu, A., Cetin, P. S. & Kaya, E. (2012).Argumentation and students' conceptual understanding of properties and behaviors of gases. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education.DOI: 10.1007/s10763-012-9336-1

by Mehmet Aydeniz

The Procedural Queer: Substantive Due Process, Lawrence v. Texas, and Queer Rhetorical Futures

by Peter Campbell

Quarterly Journal of Speech 98, 2 (May 2012): 203-229

I offer a reading of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s celebrated and maligned majority opinion for the United States... more I offer a reading of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s celebrated and maligned majority opinion for the United States Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas. Specifically, Kennedy’s choice to foreground the Due Process Clause rather than the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as the basis for the majority’s opinion has the potential to realize a constitutional legal doctrine that is more consistent with radical queer politics than the foregrounding of the Equal Protection Clause in other recent favorable decisions in gay and lesbian civil rights cases.

My purpose here is not to rehabilitate or ‘‘queer’’ Kennedy or the Supreme Court. Nor is it to argue that legal liberalism can function as queer political advocacy. Rather, I ask the question of whether Kennedy’s legal procedural arguments about sexuality and the Constitution can be framed in ways that are useful to substantively radical queer politics. The procedural arguments about the relationship between sexuality and constitutional law in Kennedy’s opinion have the material consequence of expanding and restricting the boundaries of acceptable sexual life in the United States. Consequently,
queer rhetorical analysis of the decision should consider how the arguments about due process in Lawrence matter to the goal of realizing a radical queer future.

Unlike some of the most powerful recent critiques of Kennedy’s opinion by queer legal theorists, my analysis of Lawrence applies a combination of legal rhetorical, queer legal, and queer futurist theory to reveal the presence of a futuristic, always-open-to-change vision in Kennedy’s framing of constitutional law that is substantively less damaging to possibilities for ‘‘queer world making’’ in the United States than other contemporary US judicial arguments about sexuality.

Keywords as passwords to communities

by Stefano Tardini

Tardini S. (2003). Keywords as passwords to communities. in: F.H. van Eemeren et al. (eds), Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, Amsterdam: SicSat, pp. 995-1000.

Writing to learn argument and persuasion: A'Trojan Horse'for promoting the adoption of'Writing Across the Curriculum'(WAC) principles in an international …

by Peter Mellalieu

Mellalieu, P. J. (2008). Writing to learn argument and persuasion: A “Trojan Horse” for promoting the adoption of “Writing Across the Curriculum” (WAC) principles (Working paper). Auckland, NZ: Unitec New Zealand Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

In response to feedback from employers that was critical of business graduates’ writing capability, the article... more In response to feedback from employers that was critical of business graduates’ writing capability, the article presents the results of a process of continuous innovation that aimed to develop business students' skills in formal writing, especially written persuasive argument. The learning environment created to achieve this task was informed by a selection of the principles and practices of a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programme implemented in New Zealand (Emerson, 1999, 2002, 2004).


The techniques were deployed within one specific course - organisational behaviour - in a class where students had little affection for formal writing tasks. Furthermore, the institution had no commitment towards implementing a formal WAC programme, and the teacher/researcher had no formal education in language teaching. Consequently, the study presents results of a 'pathfinder' study aimed at probing the extent to which WAC principles might be of value in achieving the learning outcomes sought by the business school.


An orchestrated sequence of interventions included the adoption of five-paragraph essay writing, Halswell’s Minimal Marking (1983), peer critiques, and McAlpine’s Global English (1997) as a style guide. A Small Group Instructional Diagnostic (SGID) conducted at the conclusion of the formal teaching sessions identified the reasons why most students valued the interventions as contributing to important developments in their academic literacy.


Carroll (2005) argues that ‘teachers themselves remain the most significant facilitator of students’ adjustments to studying in English’. Accordingly, the investigation presents practical strategies that can be implemented by a motivated teacher in a variety of courses - irrespective of course content - in a manner which minimises risk to both student and teacher, and do not require extensive language teaching skills on the part of the teacher.

I can't get no (epistemic) satisfaction: Why the hard problem of consciousness entails a hard problem of explanation

by Brian Earp

Earp, B. D. (2012). I can’t get no (epistemic) satisfaction: Why the hard problem of consciousness entails a hard problem of explanation. Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences, in press.

Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers’ (1995) assertion that there is a “hard problem of consciousness”... more Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers’ (1995) assertion that there is a “hard problem of consciousness” worth solving in the philosophy of mind. In this paper I defend Chalmers against Dennett on this point: I argue that there is a hard problem of consciousness, that it is distinct in kind from the so-called easy problems, and that it is vital for the sake of honest and productive research in the cognitive sciences to be clear about the difference. But I have my own rebuke for Chalmers on the point of explanation. Chalmers (1995, 1996) proposes to “solve” the hard problem of consciousness by positing qualia as fundamental features of the universe, alongside such ontological basics as mass and space-time. But this is an inadequate solution: to posit, I will urge, is not to explain. To bolster this view, I borrow from an account of explanation by which it must provide “epistemic satisfaction” to be considered successful (Rowlands, 2001; Campbell, 2009), and show that Chalmers’ proposal fails on this account. I conclude that research in the science of consciousness cannot move forward without greater conceptual clarity in the field.

Quantifying disagreement in argument-based reasoning

by Richard Booth

with Martin  Caminada, Mikolaj Podlaszewski and Iyad Rahwan

An argumentation framework can be seen as expressing, in an abstract way, the conflicting information of an under-... more An argumentation framework can be seen as expressing, in an abstract way, the conflicting information of an under- lying logical knowledge base. This conflicting information often allows for the presence of more than one possible rea- sonable position (extension/labelling) which one can take. A relevant question, therefore, is how much these positions differ from each other. In the current paper, we will examine the issue of how to define meaningful measures of distance between the (complete) labellings of a given argumentation framework. We provide concrete distance measures based on argument-wise label difference, as well as based on the notion of critical sets, and examine their properties.

Conversational Argumentation in Decision Making: Chinese and U.S. Participants in Face-to-Face and Instant-Messaging Interactions

by Craig Stewart

with Leslie D. Setlock & Susan R. Fussell, Discourse Processes (2007), Vol. 44, No. 2

This study investigates cultural and communication medium effects on conversational argumentation in a decision-making... more This study investigates cultural and communication medium effects on conversational argumentation in a decision-making context. Chinese and U.S. participants worked in pairs on two decision-making tasks via face-to-face (FtF) and instant messaging (IM). The analyses showed that Chinese participants tended to engage in potentially more complex argumentation, whereas U.S. participants tended to utilize proportionally more statements of claims and statements of convergence (agreements, acknowledgments, and concessions). Argumentation in IM tended to be more direct than in FtF interactions. There were no interaction effects between culture and communication medium on argumentation behavior. In addition, statements of convergence were found to be negatively related to measures of persuasion, indicating that such statements do not necessarily indicate true agreements or shifts in opinion. The results are discussed in terms of structuration theory and the socioegocentric model of communication.

Bueno, yo lo oí del País Vasco. La resolución del desacuerdo en la conversación

by Johan Gille

2009. Published in Shiro, M. et al (eds.), Haciendo discurso. Homenaje a Adriana Bolívar. Caracas, Venezuela: Comisión de Estudios de Postgrado de la Facultad de Humanidades y Educación de la Universidad Central de Venezuela, pp. 59-74.

Communicative functions of Why-questions in parent-child interaction at home

by Antonio Bova

Bova, A. (2012). Communicative functions of Why-questions in parent-child interaction at home. Proceedings of the 15th European Conference of Developmental Psychology (pp. 301-306). Bologna: Medimond.

Bioetická argumentácia na základe princípu potenciality

by Pavol Labuda

in: Argumentácia v bioetike / Ján Hrkút (ed.). Ružomberok: Filozofická fakulta Katolíckej univerzity, 2009, s. 9-38. ISBN 978-80-8084-261-1

Cieľom textu je logická a konceptuálna analýza argumentácie založenej na princípe potenciality (PP) a stanovenie... more Cieľom textu je logická a konceptuálna analýza argumentácie založenej na princípe potenciality (PP) a stanovenie podmienok pre platnosť a spoľahlivosť argumentu na základe PP v prospech práva na život ľudských embryí. V (1) kapitole bude všeobecne predstavená základná terminológia a štruktúra argumentu a spôsoby určovania platnosti a spoľahlivosti argumentu. (2) kapitola predstaví samotný PP a univerzálnu formu bioetického argumentu na základe PP. (3) kapitola sa bude venovať konceptuálnej analýze základných pojmov argumentu s akcentom najmä na centrálny pojem potenciality. (4) kapitola predstaví najčastejšie námietky voči argumentu na základe PP a pokúsi sa ich vyvrátiť. (5) piata záverečná kapitola navrhne podmienky pre platnosť a spoľahlivosť bioetického argumentu v prospech práva na život ľudských embryí prostredníctvom jasného vymedzenia typu potenciality a prostredníctvom vysvetlenia povahy druhovo špecifických vlastností ako dispozícií.

A Conceptual Analysis of the Potentiality Argument

by Pavol Labuda

co-authored with Ján Baňas;
published in Internationl Journal of Philosophy, July 2009, p. 49-64.

The aim of this paper is a logical and conceptual analysis of argumentation based on the potentiality principle (PP)... more The aim of this paper is a logical and conceptual analysis of argumentation based on the potentiality principle (PP) and a designation of conditions of validity and soundness of the PP based argument that is in favor of human embryo's right to life. The first chapter will present the PP and the universal form of the bioethical argument based on it. The Second chapter will realize conceptual analysis of argument’s concepts with special emphasis on the central concept - potentiality. The third and final chapter will offer conditions for validity and soundness of the bioethical argument developed in favor of human embryo’s right to life via clear explication of the type of potentiality in the PP based argument and via the explication of the species-specific properties as dispositions.