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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Commentary On Novak, Jill Leblanc
Augustus De Morgan On Fallacy: Pettyfoggers And Controversialists, Marie Secor
Augustus De Morgan On Fallacy: Pettyfoggers And Controversialists, Marie Secor
OSSA Conference Archive
Augustus DeMorgan wrote an influential nineteenth-century treatise on logic, Formal Logic: The Calculus of Inference, Necessary and Probable, whose treatment of fallacy contributes significantly to the conversation carried on from Bentham to Alf red Sidgwick. Representing fallacy as concerning only inferential processes, DeMorgan focuses on ambiguous matters where it is difficult to determine whether the error resides in the matter or the form. His unpacking of terminological slipperiness and t actical maneuvering pushes his discussion from the logical towards the rhetorical. This study of nineteenth-century fallacy theory identifies logic's rhetorical turn and pulls out a strand connecting the histories of …
Commentary On Gellis, Michael Leff
Commentary On Hegelund & Kock, Jean Goodwin
Commentary On Hegelund & Kock, Jean Goodwin
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Commentary On Hoaglund, Leo Groarke
Commentary On Gough, Claude Gratton
Commentary On Goodwin, Mark Gellis
Dialectics Of Criticism: Argumentation In Literary Reviews, Rob Grootendorst
Dialectics Of Criticism: Argumentation In Literary Reviews, Rob Grootendorst
OSSA Conference Archive
Criticism is a neglected subject in the study of argumentation. In my talk, I explore the possibility of a pragma-dialectical analysis in literary reviews as a specific type of criticism. I argue that literary reviews are argumentative texts in which the critic attempts to convince the readers that his or her judgment is right or, at east, acceptable. The resolution of this nonmixed dispute between the critic as a protagonist and the reader as an antagonist is, pragma-dialectically speaking, highly problematic. First, there is no consensus among critics or between critics and their readers with respect to the norms for …
Rhetoric And Dialectic In The Twenty-First Century, Michael Leff
Rhetoric And Dialectic In The Twenty-First Century, Michael Leff
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Reasons For Reason-Giving In Unplanned Discourse, Martha Sylvia Cheng
Reasons For Reason-Giving In Unplanned Discourse, Martha Sylvia Cheng
OSSA Conference Archive
Most studies of reason-giving have focussed on formal, planned situations rather than on how reason-giving functions in relatively unplanned discourse. This study looks at reason-giving by respondents to an anonymous telephone public-opinion survey, e xploring the relationship between fact, policy, and value claims and the types of reasons used to support those claims. The results resonate with two important areas in argumentation theory: argument fields and critical thinking. Further, I suggest that reason-giving can serve as a method for individuals to present themselves as human and thoughtfully reasonable.
Critical Thinking, Charity And Care: Reason And Goodness Both, Jacqueline M. Davies
Critical Thinking, Charity And Care: Reason And Goodness Both, Jacqueline M. Davies
OSSA Conference Archive
Care reasoning is valuable not because its nicer or kinder. Rather, it is the most reasonable way to come to terms with moral phenomena. Interpreting arguments requires making sense of the relationship between statements. Making sense of moral pheno mena requires making sense of relationships between (inherently indeterminate) moral subjects. Thus, the best reconstructions of moral problems will be realized in a medium (such as narrative) where meaningfulness is not undermined by indeterminacy. Fur ther, the rationality of care reasoning, which Gilligan calls narrative, can be appreciated by analogy with the rationale for the principle of charity in the interpretation …
Agreement, Michael Anthony Gilbert
Agreement, Michael Anthony Gilbert
OSSA Conference Archive
Classically an argument terminates when the parties involved agree to the truth of a proposition known as the claim. On Gilbert's model of multi-model argumentation this approach is inadequate since a "claim" as such does not exist except as a logical artifact or abbreviation. In its place one must consider a "position," an object that contains within it much more information than can be found in an individual statement. While this adds a greater amount of complexity, it has the advantage of more ac curately describing the workings of marketplace argumentation.
The Truth About Truth As A Condition Of Premise Adequacy, James B. Freeman
The Truth About Truth As A Condition Of Premise Adequacy, James B. Freeman
OSSA Conference Archive
Is truth a condition of premise adequacy? We may distinguish objective and subjective argument correctness. Objective correctness means true premises rendering the conclusion true or probable. Subjective correctness means acceptable pr emises rendering the conclusion acceptable. Acceptability depends on evidence available and so is internalist. Objective and subjective correctness of the premises is ordinarily distinct. For connection adequacy, objective rightness and subjective righ tness coincide. We recognize entailment or rendering probably a priori. Logic is thus internalist. Logic needs an internalist notion of acceptability for premise evaluation to fall within its purview, although it need not deny the objective sens …
Cicero's Authority, Jean Goodwin
Cicero's Authority, Jean Goodwin
OSSA Conference Archive
In this paper I propose to continue the analysis of the appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) begun at the last OSSA conference. I proceed by examining the well-documented use of the appeal made by the ancient Roman advocate, Cicero. The fact that Cicero expressed his opinion was expectably sufficient to give his auditors--responsible citizens all--reason to do as he desired. But why? The resolution of this puzzle points to a strong sense in which arguments can be called rhetorical , for the rational force of Cicero's authority depends necessarily on what he says.
Are Economists Rational Or Just Different?, Tammy James, Lewis Saroka, John Benjafield
Are Economists Rational Or Just Different?, Tammy James, Lewis Saroka, John Benjafield
OSSA Conference Archive
Economics students are more likely than others to act self-interestedly and less likely to behave cooperatively, behaviour which is rational from the viewpoint of many economic theories. Students in other disciplines may have another conception of wha t is "rational." The latter may be more likely to behave cooperatively and less likely to behave self-interestedly. We have been comparing the behaviour of students from different disciplines in simple ultimatum bargaining and prisoner's dilemma games. Our paper discusses some of the ways in which different academic disciplines both reinforce and elaborate upon student's conceptions of rationality.
Persuasive Stories, Michael Kagan
Persuasive Stories, Michael Kagan
OSSA Conference Archive
Since some important and effective forms of persuasion are stories, a task for those interested in argumentation, informal logic and critical thinking, is to consider stories as arguments. In this essay, I discuss three: Plato's "Myth of the Cave," Ay n Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. I suggest some responses to persuasive stories, including criticizing the plausibility of the story as story, developing counter stories, and considering the stories premises as g rounds for its conclusion. By doing so, I tentatively take steps towards a theory of story argument validity.
Prejudice, Prudence And Fairness, Jean-Pierre Schachter
Prejudice, Prudence And Fairness, Jean-Pierre Schachter
OSSA Conference Archive
There exists reasoning popularly characterized as "prejudiced" that may nevertheless be both sound and prudential, and this reasoning involves the application of exactly the same inductive correlational strategies applied without moral objection in non -human cases. While such reasoning may be rationally unobjectionable, it may yet be morally objectionable because its methods inherently entail a risk of unfairness to others. This raises the interesting philosophical possibility that arguments may be a ppraised and found wanting on other than rational grounds, that arguments may be subject to moral defects in addition to defects of rationality.
Theoretic Bondage: Coalescent Argumentation And Higher-Order Goals, Denise Tayler
Theoretic Bondage: Coalescent Argumentation And Higher-Order Goals, Denise Tayler
OSSA Conference Archive
This paper will critically evaluate Pragma-Dialectics and Michael Gilbert's coalescent view of argumentation from a feminist-emancipatory perspective. Pragma-Dialecticians hold to higher-order goals such as the equality of arguers, and assume that the ir ideal model will function well under these conditions. But by not directly addressing arguments in situations of power imbalance, the pragma-dialectical model overlooks the possibility that it reinforces inequality and restricts expression. Gilbert's work on alternative argumentation modes diffuses the oppressive tendencies of the Pragma-Dialectical model, and may further higher-order ideals.
Speaking Of South Park, Christina Slade
Speaking Of South Park, Christina Slade
OSSA Conference Archive
This paper deals with the new cult cartoon series, "South Park". While reviled as vulgar and likely to lead children astray, it is in fact a fertile field of ethical and logical argumentation. The paper analyses in detail the argumentation of one epi sode, entitled "An elephant makes love to a pig" and shows how it can be used to teach reasoning skills.
Does Informal Logic Have Anything To Learn From Fuzzy Logic?, John Woods
Does Informal Logic Have Anything To Learn From Fuzzy Logic?, John Woods
OSSA Conference Archive
Probability theory is the arithmetic of the real line constrained by special aleatory axioms. Fuzzy logic is also a kind of probability theory, but of considerably more mathematical and axiomatic complexity than the standard account. Fuzzy logic purp orts to model the human capacity for reasoning with inexact concepts. It does this by exploring the assumption that when we argue in inexact terms and draw inferences in imprecise vocabularies, we actually make computations about the embedded imprecision s. I argue that this is in fact the last thing that we do, and indeed that we do the opposite.
Commentary On Benjafield, James & Saroka, Robert C. Pinto
Commentary On Benjafield, James & Saroka, Robert C. Pinto
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Commentary On Campolo, John Hoaglund
Commentary On Cheng, Fred Kauffeld
Commentary On Cohen & Rosenwald, Trudy Govier
Commentary On Cohen & Rosenwald, Trudy Govier
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Commentary On Davies, William Abbott
Commentary On Freeman, Derek Allen
Commentary On Godden, Christina Slade
Commentary On Groarke, Richard Fulkerson
Commentary On Groarke, Richard Fulkerson
OSSA Conference Archive
No abstract provided.
Commentary On Johnson, Erik C W Krabe