In academic contexts the appeal to authority is a quite common but seldom tested argument, either because we accept the authority without questioning it, or because we look for alternative experts or reasons to support a different point of view. But, by putting ourselves side by side an already accepted authority, we often rhetorically manoeuvre to displace the burden of the proof to avoid the fear to present our opinions and to allow face saving.

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)

The analysis of multimodal argumentation in advertising is a crucial and problematic area of research. While its importance is growing in a time characterized by images and pictorial messages, the methods used for interpreting and reconstructing the structure of arguments expressed through verbal and visual means capture only isolated dimensions of this complex phenomenon. This paper intends to propose and illustrate a methodology for the reconstruction and analysis of “double-mode” arguments in advertisements, combining the instruments developed in social semiotics, pragmatics, (...) and argumentation theory. An advertisement is processed through a five-step path. The analysis of its context, text genre, and images leads to a first representation of the messages that it encodes both pictorially and verbally (step 1). These first semantic representations are further enriched by including their polyphonic articulations and presuppositions (step 2), their explicatures (step 3), and their dialogical functions and illocutionary forces (step 4). These pragmatic steps retrieve the commitment structure of the ad, which allows a further argument analysis conducted through argumentation schemes (step 5). (shrink)

I discuss under what conditions the objection that an expert’s argument is biased by her self-interest can be a meaningful and sound argumentative move. I suggest replacing the idea of bias qua self-interest by that of a conflict of interests, exploit the distinction between an expert context and a public context, and hold that the objection can be meaningful. Yet, the evaluation is overall negative, because the motivational role of self-interest for human behavior remains unclear. Moreover, if recent social-psychological results (...) from the “heuristics and biases” program are accepted, it is plausible to assume that humans also satisfice (rather than optimize/maximize) when identifying and then acting in their self-interest. My thesis is: insofar as the objection is sound with a particular audience, it is not needed; and insofar as the objection is needed, it is unsound. (shrink)

Even though tools for identifying and analyzing arguments are now in wide use in the field of argumentation studies, so far there is a paucity of resources for evaluating real arguments, aside from using deductive logic or Bayesian rules that apply to inductive arguments. In this paper it is shown that recent developments in artificial intelligence in the area of computational systems for modeling defeasible argumentation reveal a different approach that is currently making interesting progress. It is shown how these (...) systems provide the general outlines for a system of argument evaluation that can be applied to legal arguments as well as everyday conversational arguments to assist a user to evaluate an argument. (shrink)

In this paper, the traditional view that argumentum ad ignorantiam is a logical fallacy is challenged, and lessons are drawn on how to model inferences drawn from knowledge in combination with ones drawn from lack of knowledge. Five defeasible rules for evaluating knowledge-based arguments that apply to inferences drawn under conditions of lack of knowledge are formulated. They are the veridicality rule, the consistency of knowledge rule, the closure of knowledge rule, the rule of refutation and the rule for argument (...) from ignorance. The basic thesis of the paper is that knowledge-based arguments, including the argument from ignorance, need to be evaluated by criteria for epistemic closure and other evidential rules that are pragmatic in nature, that need to be formulated and applied differently at different stages of an investigation or discussion. The paper helps us to understand practical criteria that should be used to evaluate all arguments based on knowledge and/or ignorance. (shrink)

This paper takes an argumentation approach to find the place of trust in a method for evaluating arguments from expert opinion. The method uses the argumentation scheme for argument from expert opinion along with its matching set of critical questions. It shows how to use this scheme in three formal computational argumentation models that provide tools to analyse and evaluate instances of argument from expert opinion. The paper uses several examples to illustrate the use of these tools. A conclusion of (...) the paper is that from an argumentation point of view, it is better to critically question arguments from expert opinion than to accept or reject them based solely on trust. (shrink)

How should we evaluate an argument in which two witnesses independently testify to some claim? In fact what would happen is that the testimony of the second witness would be taken to corroborate that of the first to some extent, thereby boosting up the plausibility of the first argument from testimony. But does that commit the fallacy of double counting, because the second testimony is already taken as independent evidence supporting the claim? Perhaps the corroboration effect should be considered illogical, (...) since each premise should be seen as representing a separate reason in a convergent argument for accepting the claim as plausible. In this paper, we tackle the problem using argumentation schemes and argument diagramming. We examine a number of examples, and come up with two hypotheses that offer methods of analyzing and evaluating this kind of evidence. (shrink)

This paper has three dimensions, historical, theoretical and social. The historical dimension is to show how the Ciceronian system of dialectical argumentation served as a precursor to computational models of argumentation schemes such as Araucaria and Carneades. The theoretical dimension is to show concretely how these argumentation schemes reveal the interdependency of rhetoric and logic, and so the interdependency of the normative with the empirical. It does this by identifying points of disagreement in a dialectical format through using argumentation schemes (...) and critical questions. The social dimension is to show how the Ciceronian dialectical viewpoint integrates with the use of computational tools that can be used to support the principle of reason-based deliberation and facilitate deliberative democracy. (shrink)

The aim of this investigation is to explore the role of argumentation schemes in enthymeme reconstruction. This aim is pursued by studying selected cases of incomplete arguments in natural language discourse to see what the requirements are for filling in the unstated premises and conclusions in some systematic and useful way. Some of these cases are best handled using deductive tools, while others respond best to an analysis based on defeasible argumentations schemes. The approach is also shown to work reasonably (...) well for weak arguments, a class of arguments that has always been difficult to analyze without the principle of charity producing a straw man. (shrink)

In this paper we show that an essential aspect of solving the problem of uncritical acceptance of expert opinions that is at the root of the ad verecundiam fallacy is the need to disentangle argument from expert opinion from another kind of appeal to authority. Formal and computational argumentation systems enable us to analyze the fault in which an error has occurred by virtue of a failure to meet one or more of the requirements of the argumentation scheme from argument (...) from expert opinion. We present a method for enhancing this capability by showing how arguments from expert opinion are related to, but different from, arguments from deontic authority. (shrink)

While courts depend on expert opinions in reaching sound judgments, the role of the expert witness in legal proceedings is associated with a litany of problems. Perhaps most prevalent is the question of under what circumstances should testimony be admitted as expert opinion. We review the changing policies adopted by American courts in an attempt to ensure the reliability and usefulness of the scientific and technical information admitted as evidence. We argue that these admissibility criteria are best seen in a (...) dialectical context as a set of critical questions of the kind commonly used in models of argumentation. (shrink)

Tribunals have come to depend increasingly on expertise for determining the facts in cases. However, current legal methods have proved problematic to work with. This paper argues that, as a special model of public understanding of science, assessing expertise should consider source credibility of expertise from internal aspects, including scientific validity and reliability, and external aspects involving the credibility of experts. Using the Carneades Argumentation System we show that the internal and the external aspects are mediated by the structure of (...) the argument from expert opinion with its matching set of critical questions. (shrink)

In this contribution, I will develop a comprehensive tool for the reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation from expert opinion. This is done by analyzing and then combining two dialectical accounts of this type of argumentation. Walton’s account of the ‘appeal to expert opinion’ provides a number of useful, but fairly unsystematic suggestions for critical questions pertaining to argumentation from expert opinion. The pragma-dialectical account of ‘argumentation from authority’ offers a clear and systematic, but fairly general framework for the reconstruction and (...) evaluation of this type of argumentation. The tool is developed by incorporating Walton’s critical questions into a pragma-dialectical framework. (shrink)

False dilemma is a specific form of reasoning : despite the fact that it is based on a deductively valid argument form, it is rightly depicted as fallacy. A systematic exposition of false dilemma is missing in theoretical approaches to fallacies. This article formulates six criteria for a well-grounded exposition of a fallacy, suggesting also a systematic exposition of false dilemma. These criteria can be used to both explain, and categorise, the various false dilemma fallacies. The article introduces distinction between (...) four types of false dilemma : False quandary, Defeasible sound quandary, False obstruction and Defeasible sound obstruction. The types of criticism appropriate for each variant of false dilemma are suggested. Being able to discover false dilemma in situations when it is important to make good and free choices is a significant dimension of critical thinking. It may liberate us from accepting the consequences that necessarily follow from prearranged alternatives, when these are not the only alternatives possible. It may also liberate us from refraining from actions on the basis of obstructive disjunctive statements. In that respect, the faculty of critical thinking directed at uncovering reasoning based on false dilemma may also initiate the discovery of new alternatives, or discover the ways of unifying seemingly opposing alternatives. Thus, a well-developed ability to understand the tricky argumentative moves of false dilemma may be a good step towards initiating some features of creative thinking. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to develop an informal model for the analysis and evaluation of argumentative strategies based on active authorities. The explanations necessary to understand the idea of the model and what is modelled are given through the development of the paper. I first give an example of argumentative activities. After that, the main assumption of the model is given. In the third part, the relevant aspects of the argumentative activity are analysed, while the principles of the evaluation (...) are explained in the fourth part. The informal model is presented in the fifth part. In the final remarks, the suggestions for further work are given, as well as a comparison with some related recent works in argumentation theory. (shrink)

Recent sociological/philosophical treatments of expertise, best represented by the work of Steve Fuller, attempt to (1) reduce displays of expertise to sophistic exercises of discretionary power, and (2) refute the claim that because laypeople are epistemically inferior to experts, it is rational to defer to an expert's opinion rather than making up one's own mind. But upon inspection, Fuller fails to provide reasonable grounds for liberating laypeople from the tyranny of cognitive authoritarianism. Rather, he presents a patronizing description of the (...) expert‐lay relation, one that actually makes the public seem more ignorant than is warranted. (shrink)

Dreyfus's model of expert skill acquisition is philosophically important because it shifts the focus on expertise away from its social and technical externalization in STS, and its relegation to the historical and psychological context of discovery in the classical philosophy of science, to universal structures of embodied cognition and affect. In doing so he explains why experts are not best described as ideologues and why their authority is not exclusively based on social networking. Moreover, by phenomenologically analyzing expertise from a (...) first person perspective, he reveals the limitations of, and sometimes superficial treatment that comes from, investigating expertise from a third person perspective. Thus, he shows that expertise is a prime example of a subject that is essential to science but can only be fully elaborated with the aid of phenomenological tools. However, both Dreyfus's descriptive model and his normative claims are flawed due to the lack of hermeneutical sensitivity. He assumes an expert's knowledge has crystallized out of contextual sensitivity plus experience, and that an expert has shed, during the training process, whatever prejudices, ideologies, hidden agendas, or other forms of cultural embeddedness, that person might have begun with. One would never imagine, from Dreyfus's account, that society could possibly be endangered by experts, only how society's expectations and actions could endanger experts. The stories of actual controversies not only shows things do not work the way Dreyfus claims, but also that it would be less salutary if they did. Such stories amount to counterexamples to Dreyfus's normative claims, and point to serious shortcomings in his arguments. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that many arguments from expert opinion are strong arguments. Therefore, in many cases it is rational to rely on experts since in many cases the fact that an expert says that p makes it highly likely that p is true. I will defend this claim by providing 5 arguments that illuminate and elaborate on 5 crucial claims about expertise. In this way, I aim to undermine recent attempts to establish a rampant scepticism about arguments from (...) expert opinion. (shrink)

Science advisory committees exercise complex collaborative expertise. Not only do committee members collaborate, they do so across disciplines, producing expert reports that make synthetic multidisciplinary arguments. When reports are controversial, critics target both report content and committee process. Such controversies call for the assessment of expert arguments, but the multidisciplinary character of the debate outstrips the usual methods developed by informal logicians for assessing appeals to expert authority. This article proposes a multi-dimensional contextualist framework for critical assessment and tests it (...) with a case study of the controversies over reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The case study shows (1) how the critical contextualist framework can illuminate the controversy and guide evaluation of the various arguments and counterarguments; (2) how cases of this sort open up avenues for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration between argumentation theorists and other fields; and (3) where further work is required in argumentation theory. (shrink)

Trust is a natural mechanism by which an autonomous party, an agent, can deal with the inherent uncertainty regarding the behaviours of other parties and the uncertainty in the information it shares with those parties. Trust is thus crucial in any decentralised system. This paper builds on recent efforts to use argumentation to reason about trust. Specifically, a set of schemes is provided, and abstract patterns of reasoning that apply in multiple situations geared towards trust. Schemes are described in which (...) one agent, A, can establish arguments for trusting another agent, B, directly, as well as schemes that A can use to construct arguments for trusting C, where C is trusted by B. For both sets of schemes, a set of critical questions is offered that identify the situations in which these schemes can fail. (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)

This work pretends to unveil the relationship between the psychosocial features grouped under the argument frame concept and the degree of discursive density that is reached by a sample of 243 older adults in the production of argumentative discourses. In order to specify the main psychosocial features of the sample’s subjects, the Hample test was employed. In order to evaluate argumentative density, all of the participants were asked for an essay about a controversial situation derived from the Dilemma of the (...) D.I.T. Questionnaire. The information crossover between both instruments allowed the establishment of a significant relationship between the way in which the older adults frame reality and the discursive products through which it is communicated. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that ad hominem arguments are not always fallacious. More explicitly, in certain cases of practical reasoning, the circumstances of a person are relevant to whether or not the conclusion should be accepted. This occurs, I suggest, when a person gives advice to others or prescribes certain courses of action but fails to follow her own advice or act in accordance with her own prescriptions. This is not an instance of a fallacious tu quoque provided that (...) such circumstantial ad hominem arguments are construed as rebuttals to appeals (administrative) authority (of expertise), or so I argue. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that arguments from expert opinion, i.e., inferences from “Expert E says that p” to “p,” where the truth value of p is unknown, are weak arguments. A weak argument is an argument in which the premises, even if true, provide weak support—or no support at all—for the conclusion. Such arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments unless the fact that an expert says that p makes p significantly more likely to be true. However, research on (...) expertise shows that expert opinions are only slightly more accurate than chance and much less accurate than decision procedures. If this is correct, then it follows that arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments. (shrink)

Science progresses through debate and disagreement, and scientific controversies play a crucial role in the growth of scientific knowledge. However, not all controversies and disagreements are progressive in science. Sometimes, controversies can be pseudoscientific; in fact, bogus controversies, and what seem like genuine scientific disagreements, can be a distortion of science set up by non-scientific actors. Bogus controversies are detrimental to science because they can hinder scientific progress and eventually bias science-based decisions. The first goal of this paper is to (...) elucidate the distinction between bogus and genuine scientific controversies and provide a qualitative methodology, based on the literature on expertise, for distinguishing between the two. We will illustrate six epistemic criteria for distinguishing bogus from genuine scientific debates in science and medicine. This heuristic strategy applies directly to scientific reports, and it relies mostly on the social structure of science. We will then apply the above criteria to a case study: the controversy over statins, which are widely prescribed drugs for reducing the level of cholesterol and preventing cardiovascular disease. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that evidence-focused strategies of science communication may be complemented by possibly more effective rhetorical arguments in current public debates on vaccines. I analyse the case of direct science communication - that is, communication of evidence - and show that it is difficult to effectively communicate evidential standards of science in the presence of well-equipped anti-science movements. Instead, I argue that effective rhetorical tools involve ad hominem strategies, that is, arguments involving claims of expertise. I provide (...) a rationale, and sketch a methodology, for using ad hominem arguments in science communication. (shrink)

The notions of types of dialogue and dialectical relevance are central themes in Walton’s work and the grounds for a dialectical approach to many fallacies. After outlining the dialogue models constituting the background of Walton’s account, this article presents the concepts of dialectical relevance and dialogue shifts in their application to biased argumentation, fallacious moves, and illicit argumentative strategies. Showing the different dialectical proposals Walton advanced in several studies on argumentation as a development of a dialogical system, it has proved (...) possible to highlight the fundamental aspects of his theory in a comprehensive model of communication and interaction. (shrink)

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)

Recent disputes :57–79, 2013; Mizrahi in Inform Logic 36:238–252, 2016; Mizrahi in Argumentation 32:175–195, 2018; Seidel in Inform Logic 34:192–218, 2014; Seidel in Inform Logic 36:253–264, 2016; Hinton in Inform Logic 35:539–554, 2015) on the strength of arguments from expert opinion give rise to a potential legitimacy crisis of it. Mizrahi :57–79, 2013; Inform Logic 36:238–252; Argumentation 32:175–195, 2018) claims that AEO are weak arguments by presenting two independent arguments. The first argument is that AEO are weak arguments because empirical (...) studies show that expert opinions p do not make p significantly more likely to be true. The second argument is that AEO are weak arguments because empirical studies show that expert opinions are susceptible to the kinds of cognitive biases that novice opinions are susceptible to. In this paper, I intend to argue that Mizrahi’s two arguments both fail because of inconsistency, irrelevance, and insufficiency. Nevertheless, Mizrahi’s arguments help to evaluate AEO better by expanding the relevant critical questions. (shrink)

Different approaches to expertise and argumentation are discussed. After introducing the problem of expertise and its present day significance in a historical context, various connections with the study of arguments are highlighted. The need for and potential of argumentation analysis to contribute to existing research in social epistemology, science studies, and cognitive science, is discussed, touching on the problems of reasoning and argumentation, embodiment, tacit knowledge, expert context versus public context, expert disagreement, persuasion versus justification, and argument analysis as meta-expertise. (...) As the arguments used by experts constitute a boundary object, we presume that a dialogue format is suitable to address central problems of the special issue “Rethinking Arguments from Experts”. (shrink)

The present essay discusses a notorious rhetoric means familiar to all scholars in the social sciences and humanities including philosophy: name-dropping. Defined as the excessive over-use of authoritative names, I argue that it is a pernicious practice leading to collective disorientation in spoken discourse. First, I discuss name-dropping in terms of informal logic as an ad verecundiam-type fallacy. Insofar this perspective proves to lack contextual sensitivity, name-dropping is portrayed in Goffman’s terms as a more general social practice. By narrowing down (...) the focus to social science and the humanities, the essay emphasizes its function of discursive legitimation. This view, I argue, is incomplete because it overlooks the basic mechanism beneath. Names not only provide legitimation of but also orientation in discourse. Consequently, two tipping points—detour and disorientation—are proposed as benchmarks for it to become problematic. The conclusion re-widens the argument’s scope by suggesting questions for future inquiries. (shrink)

The thesis of the paper holds that some future developments of argumentation theory may be inspired by the rich logico-methodological legacy of the Lvov–Warsaw School (LWS), the Polish research movement that was most active from 1895 to 1939. As a selection of ideas of the LWS which exploit both formal and pragmatic aspects of the force of argument, we present: Ajdukiewicz’s account of reasoning and inference, Bocheński’s analyses of superstitions or dogmas, and Frydman’s constructive approach to legal interpretation. This paper (...) does not aim at exhaustive elaboration of any of these topics or their usefulness in current discussions within argumentation theory. Rather, we intend to indicate chosen directions of a potentially fruitful research program for the emerging Polish School of Argumentation which would consist in application of methods and conceptions elaborated by the LWS to selected open problems of contemporary research on argumentation. (shrink)

When the likelihood ratio approach is employed for evidential reasoning in law, it is often necessary to employ subjective probabilities, which are probabilities derived from the opinions and judgement of a human. At least three concerns arise from the use of subjective probabilities in legal applications. Firstly, human beliefs concerning probabilities can be vague, ambiguous and inaccurate. Secondly, the impact of this vagueness, ambiguity and inaccuracy on the outcome of a probabilistic analysis is not necessarily fully understood. Thirdly, the provenance (...) of subjective probabilities and the associated potential sources of vagueness, ambiguity and inaccuracy tend to be poorly understood, making it difficult for the outcome of probabilistic reasoning to be explained and validated, which is crucial in legal applications. The former two concerns have been addressed by a wide body of research in AI. The latter, however, has received little attention. This paper presents a novel approach to employ argumentation to reason about probability distributions in probabilistic models. It introduces a range of argumentation schemes and corresponding sets of critical questions for the construction and validation of argument models that define sets of probability distributions. By means of an extended example, the paper demonstrates how the approach, argumentation schemes and critical questions can be employed for the development of models and their validation in legal applications of the likelihood ratio approach to evidential reasoning. (shrink)

In this article, I further analyze the notion of the effectiveness of argumentative strategies, introduced in Jovičić, 2001. The most relevant achievements of the theories of reasonable discussion and the theories of persuasion are called to mind with the aim of explaining the mechanism of the argumentative effectiveness. As a result, a procedure for evaluating the effectiveness of argumentative strategies is suggested.

This essay proposes a design perspective on argumentation, intended as complementary to empirical and critical scholarship. In any substantive domain, design can provide insights that differ from those provided by scientific or humanistic perspectives. For argumentation, the key advantage of a design perspective is the recognition that humanity’s natural capacity for reason and reasonableness can be extended through inventions that improve on unaided human intellect. Historically, these inventions have fallen into three broad classes: logical systems, scientific methods, and disputation frameworks. (...) Behind each such invention is a specifiable “design hypothesis”: an idea about how to decrease error or how to increase the quality of outcomes from reasoning. As problems in contemporary argumentation practice become more complex, design thinking rises in relevance and importance. A design research agenda in argumentation would focus on theorizing design innovations and on evaluating design hypotheses. (shrink)

Contemporary reasoning about health is infused with the work products of experts, and expert reasoning about health itself is an active site for invention and design. Building on Toulmin’s largely undeveloped ideas on field-dependence, we argue that expert fields can develop new inference rules that, together with the backing they require, become accepted ways of drawing and defending conclusions. The new inference rules themselves function as warrants, and we introduce the term “warranting device” to refer to an assembly of the (...) rule plus whatever material, procedural, and institutional resources are required to assure its dependability. We present a case study on the Cochrane Review, a new method for synthesizing evidence across large numbers of scientific studies. After reviewing the evolution and current structure of the device, we discuss the distinctive kinds of critical questions that may be raised around Cochrane Reviews, both within the expert field and beyond. Although Toulmin’s theory of field-dependence is often criticized for its relativism, we find that, as a matter of practical fact, field-specific warrants do not enjoy immunity from external critique. On the contrary, they can be opened to evaluation and critique from any interested perspective. (shrink)

Popular textbook treatments of the fallacies approach to argument evaluation employ the Adversary Method identified by Janice Moulton (1983) that takes the goal of argumentation to be the defeat of other arguments and that narrows the terms of discourse in order to facilitate such defeat. My analysis of the textbooks shows that the Adversary Method operates as a Kuhnian paradigm in philosophy, and demonstrates that the popular fallacies pedagogy is authoritarian in being unresponsive to the scholarly developments in informal logic (...) and argumentation theory. A progressive evolution for the fallacies approach is offered as an authoritative alternative. (shrink)

Epistemic democrats are rightly concerned with the quality of outcomes and judge democratic procedures in terms of their ability to ‘track the truth’. However, their impetus to assess ‘rule by experts’ and ‘rule by the people’ as mutually exclusive has led to a meagre treatment of the role of expert knowledge in democracy. Expertise is often presented as a threat to democracy but is also crucial for enlightened political processes. Contemporary political philosophy has so far paid little attention to our (...) reliance on experts and has not sufficiently addressed the question of how expertise can be used to improve the epistemic quality of democratic decision making. We believe this lack of interest is spurred by a too hasty acceptance of arguments dismissive of the political role of experts. The article examines a series of often-cited epistemic objections and concludes that several of them are overstated or misconceived, yet they all reflect real difficulties that need to be addressed. On this background, we tentatively outline a set of mechanisms that can contribute to alleviating the irreducible problem of epistemic asymmetries and ensuring that experts really are experts and use their expertise in the right way. (shrink)

Herein, I consider arguments resting on an appeal to a non-existent authority as a species of argument from authority, and ultimately show them to be reliant on arguments from analogy in their inferential force. Three sub-types of argument are discussed: from authorities as yet unborn, no longer living, or incapable of ever doing so. In each case it is shown that an element of arguing from analogy is required since there can be no direct evidence of any assertions of the (...) source. In conclusion, it is suggested that such steps of analogy are employed frequently in traditional arguments from authority. (shrink)

The appeal to expert opinion is an argument form that uses the verdict of an expert to support a position or hypothesis. A previous scheme-based treatment of the argument form is formalized within a Bayesian network that is able to capture the critical aspects of the argument form, including the central considerations of the expert's expertise and trustworthiness. We propose this as an appropriate normative framework for the argument form, enabling the development and testing of quantitative predictions as to how (...) people evaluate this argument, suggesting that such an approach might be beneficial to argumentation research generally. We subsequently present two experiments as an example of the potential for future research in this vein, demonstrating that participants' quantitative ratings of the convincingness of a proposition that has been supported with an appeal to expert opinion were broadly consistent with the predictions of the Bayesian model. (shrink)

Richard Whately’s views of arguments involving authority are very different in his Elements of Rhetoric and his Elements of Logic. This essay begins by documenting these differences and wondering why they are. It then proceeds to take a broader and more historical view of Whately’s discussions of authority and finds him occupying an important developmental ground between his predecessor Locke and contemporary views of the argument from authority. In fact, some of the things we now think are important in a (...) good argument from authority are anticipated by Whately. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that the most fruitful approach to developing normative models of argument quality is one that combines the argumentation scheme approach with Bayesian argumentation. Three sample argumentation schemes from the literature are discussed: the argument from sign, the argument from expert opinion, and the appeal to popular opinion. Limitations of the scheme-based treatment of these argument forms are identified and it is shown how a Bayesian perspective may help to overcome these. At the same time, (...) the contributions of the standard scheme-based approach are highlighted, and it is argued that only a combination of the insights of different traditions will yield a complete normative theory of argument quality. (shrink)

Work in Argumentation Studies (AS) and Studies in Expertise and Experience (SEE) has been proceeding on converging trajectories, moving from resistance to expert authority to a cautious acceptance of its legitimacy. The two projects are therefore also converging on the need to account for how, in the course of complex and confused civic deliberations, nonexpert citizens can figure out which statements from purported experts deserve their trust. Both projects recognize that nonexperts cannot assess expertise directly; instead, the nonexpert must judge (...) whether to trust the expert. But how is this social judgment accomplished? A normative pragmatic approach from AS can complement and extend the work from SEE on this question, showing that the expert’s putting forward of his view and “bonding” it with his reputation for expertise works to force or “blackmail” his audience of citizens into heeding what he says. Appeals to authority thus produce the visibility and accountability we want for expert views in civic deliberations. (shrink)

This paper begins a working through of Blair’s (2001) theoretical agenda concerning argumentation schemes and their attendant critical questions, in which we propose a number of solutions to some outstanding theoretical issues. We consider the classification of schemes, their ultimate nature, their role in argument reconstruction, their foundation as normative categories of argument, and the evaluative role of critical questions.We demonstrate the role of schemes in argument reconstruction, and defend a normative account of their nature against specific criticisms due to (...) Pinto (2001). Concerning critical questions, we propose an account on which they are founded in the R.S.A. cogency standard, and develop an account of the relationship between critical questions and burden of proof. Our ultimate aim is to initiate a reconciliation between dialectical and informal logic approaches to the schemes. (shrink)