According to the argument scheme approach, to evaluate a given scheme-saturating instance completely does entail asking all critical questions relevant to it. Although this is a central task for argumentation theorists, the field currently lacks a method for providing a complete argument evaluation. Approaching this task at the meta-level, we combine a logical with a substantive approach to the argument schemes by starting from Toulmin’s schema: ‘data, warrant, so claim’. For the yet more general schema: ‘premise; if premise, then conclusion; (...) so conclusion’, we forward a meta-level CQ-list that is arguably both complete and applicable. This list should inform ongoing theoretical efforts at generating appropriate object-level CQs for specific argument schemes. (shrink)

This paper explains the importance of classifying argumentation schemes, and outlines how schemes are being used in current research in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics on argument mining. It provides a survey of the literature on scheme classification. What are so far generally taken to represent a set of the most widely useful defeasible argumentation schemes are surveyed and explained systematically, including some that are difficult to classify. A new classification system covering these centrally important schemes is built.

Abstract: The article presents and critically discusses Walton's (and Reed's and Macagno's) argument scheme approach to a theory of good argumentation. In particular, four characteristics of Walton's approach are presented: 1. It presents normative requirements for argumentation in the form of argument schemes, i.e. relatively concrete type descriptions. 2. These schemata are enthymematic, i.e. they omit some of the premises required by other approaches. 3. The actual argument schemes are usually supplemented by critical questions. 4. The method is inductive, bottom-up, (...) gaining the normative schemata by abstraction from empirically collected groups of similar arguments. These characteristics, among others, are then discussed on the basis of four adequacy conditions: AC1: effectiveness in achieving the epistemic goal of obtaining and communicating justified acceptable opinions; AC2: completeness in capturing the good argument types; AC3: efficiency in achieving the goals; AC4: justification of the argument schemes. The discussion then reveals a number of weaknesses in Walton's argument schemes; among other things, they are neither effective (in the defined sense) nor truly justified. Contributing factors to these problems include the schema approach, i.e. not looking at the form of arguments, and the lack of epistemological foundations in the development of good types of arguments. However, the critical analyses reveal a better alternative: an epistemological approach based on epistemological principles. The article concludes with a detailed analysis of the scheme Practical Inference, which confirms the general criticism in detail. (shrink)

While there has been in depth discussion of many particular argumentation schemes, some lament that there is little to no theory underpinning the notion of an argumentation scheme. Here I shall argue against the utility of argument schemes, at least as a fundamental part of a complete theory of arguments. I shall also present and defend a minimalist theory of their nature—a scheme is just a set of proposition expressions and propositional functions. While simple, the theory contravenes several typical desiderata (...) of argumentation schemes such as aiding in the identification of enthymemes and keeping arguments constrained to a manageable taxonomy. So much the worse for the desiderata. Instead, I shall recommend focusing less on schemes and more on the component propositional functions. (shrink)

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)

In this article, a new, idealizing-hermeneutic methodological approach to developing a theory of philosophical arguments is presented and carried out. The basis for this is a theory of ideal philosophical theory types developed from the analysis of historical examples. According to this theory, the following ideal types of theory exist in philosophy: 1. descriptive-nomological, 2. idealizing-hermeneutic, 3. technical-constructive, 4. ontic-practical. These types of theories are characterized in particular by what their basic types of theses are. The main task of this (...) article is then to determine the types of arguments that are suitable for justifying these types of theses. Surprisingly, practical arguments play a key role here. (shrink)

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.

The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)

The contribution critically discusses Walton's argumentation scheme approach. On the one hand, its enormous richness and closeness to the empirical argumentation material is appreciated, but, on the other, fundamental conceptual weaknesses are revealed. Although the approach more recently has been declared to strive for “true beliefs and correct choices” it has not systematically developed the proposed schemes in a way that these goals are reached. Accordingly, many proposed schemes are fallacious from an epistemological standpoint.

Practical arguments for actions are arguments which, besides their epistemic function, shall motivate an addressee to execute the justified action. First, a strategy is developed how this motivational and other requirements can be met. Part of this strategy is to identify a thesis for which holds that believing it motivates in the required manner. Second, relying on empirical decision theory, such a thesis is identified. Finally, precise validity criteria for the respective arguments are developed.

The paper critically discusses an empirical study by Mizrahi & Dickinson 2020, which analyzes in a huge data base (JSTORE) the incidence of three types of philosophical arguments. Their results are: 1. Deductive arguments were the most commeon type of argument in philosophy until the end of the 20th century. 2. Around 2008 a shift in methodology occurred, such that the indcutive arguments outweigh other types of argument. The paper, first, criticizes the empirical study as grossly false and considers the (...) - very limited - possibilities of recognition of argument types by present computer programs. (shrink)