In this paper, I will try to answer the question: How are we supposed to assess the expert’s opinion in an argument from the position of an outsider to the specialized field? by placing it in the larger context of the political status of epistemic authority. In order to do this I will first sketch the actual debate around the problem of expertise in a democracy and relate this to the issue of the status of science in society. Secondly, I (...) will review how Douglas Walton’s pragma-dialectical approach offers a practical procedure to assess the expert bias from a nonprofessional’s perspective. Thirdly, I will introduce the problem of group bias using insights from Bohman and Fischer and show how Walton’s solution does not address this specific type of bias. Lastly, I will try proposing a revision of Walton’s solution in order to address this problem. In order to make the explanation more easy to follow I will use a case study concerning the medical expertise in the public debate on second-hand smoke. (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)

I argue that there is no fallacy of argument from authority. I first show the weakness of the case for there being such a fallacy: text-book presentations are confused, alleged examples are not genuinely exemplary, reasons given for its alleged fallaciousness are not convincing. Then I analyse arguing from authority as a complex speech act. Rejecting the popular but unjustified category of the "part-time fallacy", I show that bad arguments which appeal to authority are defective through breach of some felicity (...) condition on argument as a speech act, not through employing a bad principle of inference. (shrink)

A general outline of a theory of reasoned dialogue is presented as an underlying basis of critical analysis of a text of argument discourse. This theory is applied to the analysis of informal fallacies by showing how textual evidence can be brought to bear in argument reconstruction. Several basic types of dialogue are identified and described, but the persuasive type of dialogue is emphasized as being of key importance to critical thinking theory.

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)

Authority arguments generate support for claims by appealing to an agent’s authority status, rather than to reasons independent of it. With few exceptions, the current literature on argument schemes acknowledges two basic authority types. The _epistemic_ type grounds in knowledge, the_ deontic_ type grounds in power. We review how historically earlier scholarship acknowledged an_ attractiveness-based_ and a _majority-based_ authority type as equally basic type. Crossing these with basic speech act types thus yields authority argument sub-schemes. Focusing on the_ epistemic-assertive_ sub-scheme (...) (‘an epistemic authority _A_ _E_ asserts a proposition _P_’), we apply a meta-level approach to specifying critical questions. Results improve the evaluation of this sub-scheme and show how similar improvements are obtainable for other schemes. (shrink)

This article evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of arguments based on appeals to expertise. The intersection of two areas is explored: (i) the traditional argumentum ad verecundiam (literally, “appeal to modesty,” but characteristically the appeal to the authority of expert judgment) in informal logic, and (ii) the uses of expert systems in artificial intelligence. The article identifies a model of practical reasoning that underlies the logic of expert systems and the model of argument appropriate for the informal logic of the (...) argumentum ad verecundiam. (shrink)

Argumentation schemes are forms of reasoning that are fallible but correctable within a self-correcting framework. Their use provides a basis for taking rational action or for reasonably accepting a conclusion as a tentative hypothesis, but they are not deductively valid. We argue that teleological reasoning can provide the basis for justifying the use of argument schemes both in monological and dialogical reasoning. We consider how such a teleological justification, besides being inspired by the aim of directing a bounded cognizer to (...) true belief and correct choices, needs to take into account the attitudes of dialogue partners as well as normative models of dialogue and communicative activity types, in particular social and cultural settings. (shrink)

It is a feature of scientific inquiry that it proceeds alongside a multitude of non-scientific interests. This statement is as true of the scientific inquiries of previous centuries, many of which brought scientists into conflict with institutionalised religious thinking, as it is true of the scientific inquiries of today, which are conducted increasingly within commercial and political contexts. However, while the fact of the coexistence of scientific and non-scientific interests has changed little over time, what has changed with time is (...) the effect of this coexistence on scientific inquiry itself. While scientists may no longer construct their theories with various religious dictates in mind, growing commercial and political interests in science have served to distort the interpretation of science. Using the U.K.’s recent crisis with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) as my context, I examine two ways in which this distortion has occurred – the interpretation of the science of BSE by politicians and by commercial parties for the purposes of justifying policy decisions and informing the public of risk, respectively. Fallacious reasoning, I contend, is the manifestation of this distortion in these contexts. In demonstration of this claim, I examine how politicians and commercial parties alike have employed two fallacies in their assessments of the science of BSE. These fallacies extend in novel ways the set of so-called traditional informal fallacies. The interpretation of science, I conclude, is a rich context in which to conduct a study of fallacious reasoning; moreover, such a study can contribute in significant ways, I argue, to the public understanding of science. (shrink)

In this paper we describe the impact that Walton’s conception of argumentation schemes had on AI and Law research. We will discuss developments in argumentation in AI and Law before Walton’s schemes became known in that community, and the issues that were current in that work. We will then show how Walton’s schemes provided a means of addressing all of those issues, and so supplied a unifying perspective from which to view argumentation in AI and Law.

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)

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)

Appeals to authority have a long tradition in the history of argumentation theory. During the Middle Age they were considered legitimate and sound arguments, but after Locke’s treatment in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding their legitimacy has come under question. Traditionally, arguments from authority were considered informal arguments, but since the important work of Charles Hamblin many attempts to provide a form for them have been done. The most convincing of them is the presumptive form developed by Douglas Walton and (...) John Woods that aims at taking into account the relevant contextual aspects in assessing the provisional validity of an appeal to authority. The soundness of an appeal depends on its meeting the adequacy conditions set to scrutinize all the relevant questions. I want to claim that this approach is compatible with the analysis of arguments in terms of relevance advanced by David Hitchcock. He claims that relevance is a triadic relation between two items and a context. The first item is relevant to the second one in a given context. Different types of relevance relation exist, namely causal relevance and epistemic relevance. “Something is [causally] relevant to an outcome in a given situation if it helps to cause that outcome in the situation”, whereas it is epistemically relevant when it helps to achieve an epistemic goal in a given situation. I claim that we can adapt this conception to Walton and Krabbe’s theory of dialogue type, seeing the items of a relevance relation as the argument and its consequence and the context as the type of dialogue in which these arguments are advanced. According to this perspective, an argument from authority that meets the adequacy conditions has to be considered legitimate because it is an epistemically relevant relation. Therefore, my conclusion is that an analysis of appeals to authority in terms of relevance can be a useful tool to establish fallaciousness or legitimacy of such a kind of argument even within the established paradigm of argumentation theory. (shrink)

A Bibliography of Douglas Walton’s Published Works, 1971-20.