This paper uses argument diagrams, argumentation schemes, and some tools from formal argumentation systems developed in artificial intelligence to build a graph-theoretic model of relevance shown to be applicable as a practical method for helping a third party judge issues of relevance or irrelevance of an argument in real examples. Examples used to illustrate how the method works are drawn from disputes about relevance in natural language discourse, including a criminal trial and a parliamentary debate.

John Searle's Speech Acts made a highly original contribution to work in the philosophy of language. Expression and Meaning is a direct successor, concerned to develop and refine the account presented in Searle's earlier work, and to extend its application to other modes of discourse such as metaphor, fiction, reference, and indirect speech arts. Searle also presents a rational taxonomy of types of speech acts and explores the relation between the meanings of sentences and the contexts of their utterance. The (...) book points forward to a larger theme implicit in these problems - the basis certain features of speech have in the intentionality of mind, and even more generally, the relation of the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In relation to the task of making an expedient selection from the available loci within the topical potential that strategic manoeuvring envisages for the argumentation stage, this paper proposes a version of topics, which is both inspired to the traditional doctrine of topics and consistent with the theoretical framing and the methodological tenets that are proper of modern semantics and current theory of argumentation. The argumentative relevance of communication context in its institutionalised and interpersonal components is brought to light. Three (...) main aspects are focussed on: the strong synergy of the topical and the endoxical components in argument construction, the use of topics in analysis and evaluation of arguments and the heuristic function of topics in the production process. (shrink)

This paper presents a formal account of how to determine the discourse relations between propositions introduced in a text, and the relations between the events they describe. The distinct natural interpretations of texts with similar syntax are explained in terms of defeasible rules. These characterise the effects of causal knowledge and knowledge of language use on interpretation. Patterns of defeasible entailment that are supported by the logic in which the theory is expressed are shown to underly temporal interpretation.

ABSTRACT: In this essay I characterize arguments by analogy, which have an impor- tant role both in philosophical and everyday reasoning. Arguments by analogy are dif- ferent from ordinary inductive or deductive arguments and have their own distinct features. I try to characterize the structure and function of these arguments. It is further discussed that some arguments, which are not explicit arguments by analogy, nevertheless should be interpreted as such and not as inductive or deductive arguments. The result is that (...) a presumed outcome of a philosophical dispute will have to be reconsidered. (shrink)

Coherence in conversations and in texts can be partially characterized by a set of coherence relations, motivated ultimately by the speaker's or writer's need to be understood. In this paper, formal definitions are given for several coherence relations, based on the operations of an inference system; that is, the relations between successive portions of a discourse are characterized in terms of the inferences that can be drawn from each. In analyzing a discourse, it is frequently the case that we would (...) recognize it as coherent, in that it would satisfy the formal definition of some coherence relation, if only we could assume certain noun phrases to be coreferential. In such cases, we will simply assume the identity of the entities referred to, in what might be called a “petty conversational implicature,” thereby solving the coherence and coreference problems simultaneously. Three examples of different kinds of reference problems are presented. In each, it is shown how the coherence of the discourse can be recognized, and how the reference problems are solved, almost as a by‐product, by means of these petty conversational implicatures. (shrink)

The unit of metaphor isn’t always a complete sentence; often it is a single word or phrase. In such a case, the word or phrase in question makes a nonstandard, metaphorically determined contribution to the propositional content of the sentence in which it appears, a content whose other ingredients are determined in routine ways by routine recursive procedures of truth-conditional semantics. In this respect, metaphor belongs to semantics. In other respects, it doesn’t belong to semantics at all. To identify what (...) Yeats contributed to the content of his own sentence when he wrote. (shrink)

Bruce Waller has defended a deductive reconstruction of the kinds of analogical arguments found in ethics, law, and metaphysics. This paper demonstrates the limits of such a reconstruction and argues for an alternative. non-deductive reconstruction. It will be shown that some analogical arguments do not fit Waller's deductive schema, and that such a schema does not allow for an adequate account of the strengths and weaknesses of an analogical argument. The similarities and differences between the account defended herein and the (...) Trudy Govier's account are discussed as well. (shrink)

Argument from analogy is a common and formidable form of reasoning in law and in everyday conversation. Although there is substantial literature on the subject, according to a recent survey ( Juthe 2005) there is little fundamental agreement on what form the argument should take, or on how it should be evaluated. Th e lack of conformity, no doubt, stems from the complexity and multiplicity of forms taken by arguments that fall under the umbrella of analogical reasoning in argumentation, dialectical (...) studies, and law. Modeling arguments with argumentation schemes has proven useful in attempts to refine the analyst’s understanding of not only the logical structures that shape the backbone of the argument itself, but also the logical underpinning of strategies for evaluating it, strategies based on the semantic categories of genus and relevance. By clarifying the distinction between argument from example and argument from analogy, it is possible to advance a useful proposal for the treatment of argument from analogy in law. (shrink)

John Searle's Speech Acts made a highly original contribution to work in the philosophy of language. Expression and Meaning is a direct successor, concerned to develop and refine the account presented in Searle's earlier work, and to extend its application to other modes of discourse such as metaphor, fiction, reference, and indirect speech arts. Searle also presents a rational taxonomy of types of speech acts and explores the relation between the meanings of sentences and the contexts of their utterance. The (...) book points forward to a larger theme implicit in these problems - the basis certain features of speech have in the intentionality of mind, and even more generally, the relation of the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This fresh look at the philosophy of language focuses on the interface between a theory of literal meaning and pragmatics--a philosophical examination of the relationship between meaning and language use and its contexts. Here, Atlas develops the contrast between verbal ambiguity and verbal generality, works out a detailed theory of conversational inference using the work of Paul Grice on Implicature as a starting point, and gives an account of their interface as an example of the relationship between Chomsky's Internalist Semantics (...) and Language Performance. Atlas then discusses consequences of his theory of the Interface for the distinction between metaphorical and literal language, for Grice's account of meaning, for the Analytic/Synthetic distinction, for Meaning Holism, and for Formal Semantics of Natural Language. This book makes an important contribution to the philosophy of language and will appeal to philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

By Parallel Reasoning is the first comprehensive philosophical examination of analogical reasoning in more than forty years designed to formulate and justify standards for the critical evaluation of analogical arguments. It proposes a normative theory with special focus on the use of analogies in mathematics and science. In recent decades, research on analogy has been dominated by computational theories whose objective has been to model analogical reasoning as a psychological process. These theories have devoted little attention to normative questions. In (...) this book Bartha proposes that a good analogical argument must articulate a clear relationship that is capable of generalization. This idea leads to a set of distinct models for the critical analysis of prominent forms of analogical argument. The same core principle makes it possible to relate analogical reasoning to norms and values of scientific practice. Reasoning by analogy is justified because it strikes an optimal balance between conservative values, such as simplicity and coherence, and progressive values, such as fruitfulness and theoretical unification. Analogical arguments are also justified by appeal to symmetry--like cases are to be treated alike. In elaborating the connection between analogy and these broad epistemic principles, By Parallel Reasoning offers a novel contribution to explaining how analogies can play an important role in the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined (...) in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

This fresh look at the philosophy of language focuses on the interface between a theory of literal meaning and pragmatics--a philosophical examination of the relationship between meaning and language use and its contexts. Here, Atlas develops the contrast between verbal ambiguity and verbal generality, works out a detailed theory of conversational inference using the work of Paul Grice on Implicature as a starting point, and gives an account of their interface as an example of the relationship between Chomsky's Internalist Semantics (...) and Language Performance. Atlas then discusses consequences of his theory of the Interface for the distinction between metaphorical and literal language, for Grice's account of meaning, for the Analytic/Synthetic distinction, for Meaning Holism, and for Formal Semantics of Natural Language. This book makes an important contribution to the philosophy of language and will appeal to philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

In this work, Paul Bartha proposes a normative theory of analogical arguments and raises questions and proposes answers regarding the criteria for evaluating analogical arguments, the philosophical justification for analogical reasoning, and the place of scientific analogies in the context of theoretical confirmation.

"The book's major parts, one on polarity and the other on analogy, introduce the reader to the patterns of thinking that are fundamental not only to Greek philosophy but also to classical civilization as a whole. As a leading classicist in his own right, Lloyd is an impeccable guide. His sophistication in adducing anthropological parallels to Greek models of polarity and analogy broadens his perspective, making him a forerunner in the study of what we are now used to calling semiotics. (...) A striking example of Lloyd's approach is his re-examination of the dichotomy of Olympian and chthonian gods in ancient Greek world view, which surpasses the reductionist and pseudo-historical models of sky-gods and earth-goddesses that are still commonly invoked to account for polarities in Greek pantheon. "In the second part, dealing with analogy, three crucial metaphorical models for the universe turn out to be basis for a dazzlingly wide variety of scientific and philosophical perspectives. Each model is tested in the whole spectrum of Greek artistic, philosophical and scientific thought. This work is a treasure-house of insights for experts and non experts alike." --Gregory Nagy, Harvard University. (shrink)

_Thoughts and Utterances_ is the first sustained investigation of two distinctions which are fundamental to all theories of utterance understanding: the semantics/pragmatics distinction and the distinction between what is explicitly communicated and what is implicitly communicated.

When we speak, we mean more than we say. In this book Stephen C. Levinson explains some general processes that underlie presumptions in communication.