Douglas Walton’s multitudinous contributions to the study of argumentation seldom, if ever, directly engage with argumentation in mathematics. Nonetheless, several of the innovations with which he is most closely associated lend themselves to improving our understanding of mathematical arguments. I concentrate on two such innovations: dialogue types (§1) and argumentation schemes (§2). I argue that both devices are much more applicable to mathematical reasoning than may be commonly supposed.

This tribute to the breadth and influence of Trudy Govier’s philosophical work begins with her early scholarship in argumentation theory, paying special attention to its pedagogical expression. Most people first encounter Trudy Govier’s work and many people only encounter it through her textbooks, especially A Practical Study of Argument, published in many editions. In addition to the work on argumentation that has continued throughout her career, much of Govier’s later work addresses social philosophy and the problems of trust and response (...) to moral wrongs. The introduction by Catherine Hundleby situates Govier’s research along the path of her unusual academic life. While following the timeline of Govier’s research publication, in this collection the authors build on her work and suggest certain new connections between her argumentation theory and social philosophy. A Practical Study of Argument, first published in 1985, situates Govier among a distinct segment of informal logicians whose concerns about teaching reasoning to post-secondary students orient their research, Takuzo Konishi argues. Moira Kloster evaluates Govier’s progress in the challenge of providing critical thinking education to diverse and changing social contexts. Shifting gears to social philosophy but still addressing education, Laura Elizabeth Pinto explores the significance of Govier’s work on trust for explaining the problem of “audit culture” for teaching. At the centre of this volume, social philosophy receives an abstract meta-ethical defense from Linda Radzik. Moving solidly into the domain of normative social philosophy, Alice MacLachlan reconsiders Govier’s condemnation of revenge by viewing it as a form of moral address, but she notes how revenge as an act of communication contrasts with argumentation in lacking the respect that Govier maintains is intrinsic to argumentation. MacLachlan ultimately agrees that revenge is morally indefensible. The practical challenges of addressing others in the aftermath of wrongdoing, especially in public contexts, can make it difficult to distinguish between victims and combatants or wrongdoers, Alistair Little and Wilhelm Verwoerd explain, and Kathryn Norlock argues that forgiveness is psychologically vexed too. People may recognize transformation to be in principle possible for all people, Norlock argues, and yet we may find the evidence regarding some particular evildoer sufficient to count that person as an exception. Finally Govier responds to the various papers. (shrink)

: In this paper we examine two challenges to the orthodox understanding of the fallacy of denying the antecedent. One challenge is to say that passages thought to express the fallacy can usually be given an interpretation on which they express valid arguments, entitling us to query whether the fallacy is commonly, if ever, committed at all. We discuss this claim in Section 1. The second challenge comes from those who think that there are legitimate uses of denying the antecedent (...) that have traditionally been overlooked. In Section 2 we propose a general test for claims of this sort, and assess three versions of this view. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 53, Issue 2-4, pp 142 - 169 I offer an explanation of why the fallacy of “accident” is so called. By ‘accident’ here, Aristotle does not mean accidental predication but being _per accidens_. Understood in this way, the fallacy of accident can be analyzed in terms of the rules that Aristotle gives for being _per accidens_. The fallacy of accident lost the original justification for its name in the late Greek period. It became associated with accidental predication (...) and not with being _per accidens_. The fallacy was then solved by construing it syllogistically so that the paralogisms became invalid through not having a universal major premise. This medieval analysis became the dominant approach in the medieval period but has led to confusion over the fallacy of accident in millennia of logic books. I end by considering how to formulate the fallacy of accident more fruitfully in modern terms via Aristotle’s original approach. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have given up on the quest for a silver bullet to put an end to all pseudoscience, as such a neat formal criterion to separate good science from its contenders has proven elusive. In the literature on critical thinking and in some philosophical quarters, however, this search for silver bullets lives on in the taxonomies of fallacies. The attractive idea is to have a handy list of abstract definitions or argumentation schemes, on the basis of which one (...) can identify bad or invalid types of reasoning, abstracting away from the specific content and dialectical context. Such shortcuts for debunking arguments are tempting, but alas, the promise is hardly if ever fulfilled. Different strands of research on the pragmatics of argumentation, probabilistic reasoning and ecological rationality have shown that almost every known type of fallacy is a close neighbor to sound inferences or acceptable moves in a debate. Nonetheless, the kernel idea of a fallacy as an erroneous type of argument is still retained by most authors. We outline a destructive dilemma we refer to as the Fallacy Fork: on the one hand, if fallacies are construed as demonstrably invalid form of reasoning, then they have very limited applicability in real life. On the other hand, if our definitions of fallacies are sophisticated enough to capture real-life complexities, they can no longer be held up as an effective tool for discriminating good and bad forms of reasoning. As we bring our schematic “fallacies” in touch with reality, we seem to lose grip on normative questions. Even approaches that do not rely on argumentation schemes to identify fallacies fail to escape the Fallacy Fork, and run up against their own version of it. (shrink)

If good argument is virtuous, then fallacies are vicious. Yet fallacies cannot just be identified with vices, since vices are dispositional properties of agents whereas fallacies are types of argument. Rather, if the normativity of good argumentation is explicable in terms of virtues, we should expect the wrongness of fallacies to be explicable in terms of vices. This approach is defended through case studies of several fallacies, with particular emphasis on the ad hominem.

This dissertation argues that recent theoretical attempts to understand fallacious reasoning fail because these theories presuppose problematic accounts of the nature of argument. Current fallacy theories agree that a fallacy is a mistake, but differ wildly about what sort of mistake it is. Chapters one through three explore three very different suggestions. Chapter one is devoted to an examination of the oldest of the modern theoretical accounts of fallacious reasoning, what Hamblin calls the standard treatment. Chapter two begins with a (...) discussion of Finocchiaro's skeptical argument against the very possibility of a fallacy theory. It then turns to a discussion of van Eemeren and Grootendorst's pragma-dialectical treatment of fallacious reasoning as a possible response to Finocchiaro's skeptical challenge. Chapter three examines two epistemic responses to Finocchiaro's analysis: Fogelin and Duggan's frequency treatment and Wreen's mistaken inference treatment. The first three chapters set the stage for an alternative account of fallacies developed in chapter four. This alternative view of fallacious reasoning is consistent with Wright's recent work on the concept of an argument. It suggests that fallacious reasoning results from a kind of incompetency. Such failures of competency, however, are not nearly as common as traditional accounts of fallacious reasoning suggests. Moreover, the very possibility of being tempted by fallacious reasoning depends on our being very competent in normal cases. Chapter four ends with a discussion of some of the implications of this alternative theory of fallacious reasoning for the way we understand and teach argument and reasoning. (shrink)

I characterize the deductivist ideal of justification and, following to a great extent Toulmin’s work The Uses of Argument, I try to explain why this ideal is erroneous. Then I offer an alternative model of justification capable of making our claims to knowledge about substantial matters sound and reasonable. This model of justification will be based on a conception of justification as the result of good argumentation, and on a model of argumentation which is a pragmatic linguistic reconstruction of Toulmin’s (...) model of argument. (shrink)

Following a Toulmian account of argument analysis and evaluation, I offer a general unitary schema for, so called, deductive and inductive types of analogical arguments. This schema is able to explain why certain analogical arguments can be said to be deductive, and yet, also defeasible.

Denying the antecedent is an invalid form of reasoning that is typically identified and frowned upon as a formal fallacy. Contrary to arguments that it does not or at least should not occur, denying the antecedent is a legitimate and effective strategy for undermining a position. Since it is not a valid form of argument, it cannot prove that the position is false. But it can provide inductive evidence that this position is probably false. In this role, it is neither (...) defective nor deceptive. Denying the antecedent provides inductive support for rejecting a claim as improbable. (shrink)

The paper analyses the role played by the concept of ‘common ground’ in argumentation theories. If a common agreement on all the rules of a discursive exchange is required, either at the beginning or at the end of an argumentative practice, then no violation of the rules is possible. The paper suggests an alternative understanding of ‘common ground’ as something that can change during the development of the argumentative practice, and in particular something that can change without the practice being (...) stopped, just as one sometimes violates the rule of a game without stopping playing. The analysis of some historical examples shows that the violation of rules sometimes leads to a consensual change of a set of beliefs and values. The argumentative rationality thus needs to be reconsidered in the light of the analysis of the conditions under which it would be legitimate to change the rules of an argumentative practice: ‘common ground’ and the right to disagreement, even radical or violent, could then be defended as essential components of argumentative rationality. (shrink)

In recent and not so recent years, fallacy theory has sustained numerous challenges, challenges which have seen the theory charged with lack of systematicity as well as failure to deliver significant insights into its subject matter. In the following discussion, I argue that these criticisms are subordinate to a more fundamental criticism of fallacy theory, a criticism pertaining to the lack of intelligibility of this theory. The charge of unintelligibility against fallacy theory derives from a similar charge against philosophical theories (...) of truth and rationality developed by Hilary Putnam. I examine how Putnam develops this charge in the case of the conception of rationality pursued by logical positivism. Following that examination, I demonstrate the significance of this charge for how we proceed routinely to analyse one informal fallacy, the fallacy of petitio principii. Specifically, I argue that the significance of this charge lies in its issuance of a rejection of the urge to theorise in fallacy inquiry in general and petitio inquiry in particular. My conclusion takes the form of guidelines for the post-theoretical pursuit of fallacy inquiry. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to show why recent research in the psychology of deductive and probabilistic reasoning does not have.

This volume presents a selection of papers reflecting key theoretical issues in argumentation theory. Its six sections are devoted to specific themes, including the analysis and evaluation of argumentation, argument schemes and the contextual embedding of argumentation. The section on general perspectives on argumentation discusses the trends of empiricalization, contextualization and formalization, offers descriptions of the analytical and evaluative tools of informal logic, and highlights selected principles that argumentation theorists do and do not agree upon. In turn, the section on (...) linguistic approaches to argumentation focuses on the problem of distinguishing between explanation and argument, while also elaborating on the role of verbal indicators of argument schemes. All essays included in this volume point out notable recent developments in the study of argumentation. (shrink)

Consider the proposition, "Informal logic is a subdiscipline of philosophy". The best chance of showing this to be true is showing that informal logic is part of logic, which in turn is a part of philosophy. Part 1 is given over to the task of sorting out these connections. If successful, informal logic can indeed be seen as part of philosophy; but there is no question of an exclusive relationship. Part 2 is a critical appraisal of the suggestion that informal (...) logic is applied epistemology. Part 3 examines the claim that informal logic has failed to penetrate into mainstream philosophy, and suggestions for amelioration are considered. (shrink)

The history of fallacy theory is long, distinguished and, admittedly, checkered. I offer a bird eye view on it, with the aim of contrasting the standard conception of fallacies as attractive and universal errors that are hard to eradicate with the contemporary preoccupation with “non-fallacious fallacies”, that is, arguments that fit the bill of one of the traditional fallacies but are actually respectable enough to be used in appropriate contexts. Godden and Zenker have recently argued that reinterpreting alleged fallacies as (...) non-fallacious arguments requires supplementing the textual material with something else, e.g. probability distributions, pragmatic considerations, dialogical context. Thus fallacies remain gappy on all accounts, and this is the hallmark of their failure. However, I argue that such gappiness is typically unproblematic, and thus no more flawed than enthymematic argumentation in general. This, in turn, calls into question the usefulness of the very notion of fallacy. (shrink)

I begin by formulating the problem of the nature of fallacy in terms of the logic of the negative evaluation of argument, that is, in terms of a theory of logical criticism; here I discuss several features of my approach and several advantages vis-à-vis other approaches; a main feature of my approach is the concern to avoid both formalist and empiricist excesses. I then define six types of fallaciousness, labeled formal, explanatory, presuppositional, positive, semantical, and persuasive; they all involve arguments (...) whose conclusion may be said not to follow from the premises, that is, they involve the logical evaluation of relationships among propositions. I also provide a set of data consisting of four historical cases or nine specific instances of fallacious arguments; these all pertain to the Copernican controversy about the earth's motion in the seventeenth century. I end with a discussion of further problems and inquiries that deserve attention. (shrink)

In spite of significant research efforts, argument technologies do not seem poised to scale up as much as most commentators would hope or even predict. In this paper, I discuss what obstacles bar the way to more widespread success of argument technologies and venture some suggestions on how to circumvent such difficulties: doing so will require a significant shift in how this research area is typically understood and practiced. I begin by exploring a much broader yet closely related question: To (...) what extent are people natively good at arguing? This issue has always been central to philosophical reflection and it has become even more urgent nowadays, with the explosion of persuasive technologies and unprecedented opportunities for large-scale social influence. The answer hinges on what aspect of argumentation is taken under consideration: evidence suggests that people are relatively bad at analyzing the structure of arguments, especially when these are presented out of context and in abstract terms; in contrast, data show that even laymen tend to excel in the interactive practice of argumentation, in particular when motivation is high and something significant is at stake. Unfortunately, current argument technologies are more closely tailored to the former type of activity than to the latter, which is the main reason behind their relative lack of success with the general public. Changing this state of affair will require a commitment to ecological argument technologies: that is, technologies designed to support real-time, engaging and meaningful argumentative interactions performed by laypeople in their ordinary life, instead of catering to the highly specific needs of a minority of niche users. (shrink)

The temptation to look for the “purely normative essence” of argument stems from the understandable ambition to distinguish rational persuasion from mere persuasion. But in seeking a purely normative notion of argument it is easy to overlook—or actually deny—that rational persuasion is a kind of persuasion. The burden of this essay is to show that the concept of reason from which our interest in argument derives can only exist and have normative force as a kind of persuasion, that is, as (...) something causal. (shrink)

The temptation to look for the “purely normative essence” of argument stems from the understandable ambition to distinguish rational persuasion from mere persuasion. But in seeking a purely normative notion of argument it is easy to overlook—or actually deny—that rational persuasion is a kind of persuasion. The burden of this essay is to show that the concept of reason from which our interest in argument derives can only exist and have normative force as a kind of persuasion, that is, as (...) something causal. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of a fallacy we will call bothsiderism, which is to mistake disagreement on an issue for evidence that either a compromise on, suspension of judgment regarding, or continued discussion of the issue is in order. Our view is that this is a fallacy of a unique and heretofore untheorized type, a fallacy of meta-argumentation. The paper develops as follows. After a brief introduction, we examine a recent bothsiderist case in American politics. We use this as (...) a pivot point to survey the theoretical literature on the fallacy. The most prominent theory is that bothsiderism is a case of dialogue-shifting. This view fails, we maintain, to explain how bothsiderism might be persuasive. We argue, rather, bothsiderism is a kind of meta-argumentative fallacy. (shrink)

Although the fallacy of composition is little studied and trivially illustrated, some view it as ubiquitous and paramount. Furthermore, although definitions regard the concept as unproblematic, it contains three distinct elements, often confused. And although some scholars apparently claim that fallacies are figments of a critic’s imagination, they are really proposing to study fallacies in the context of meta-argumentation. Guided by these ideas, I discuss the important historical example of Michels’s iron law of oligarchy.