The nontechnical ability to identify or match argumentative structure seems to be an important reasoning skill. Instruments that have questions designed to measure this skill include major standardized tests for graduate school admission, for example, the United States-Canadian Law School Admission Test (LSAT), the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). Writers and reviewers of such tests need an appropriate foundation for developing such questions--they need a proper representation of phenomenological argumentative structure--for legitimacy, and because these (...) tests affect people's lives. This paper attempts to construct an adequate and appropriate representation of such structure, that is, the logical structure that an argument is perceived to have by mature reasoners, albeit ones who are untrained in logic. (shrink)

In their book EVALUATING CRITICAL THINKING Stephen Norris and Robert Ennis say: “Although it is tempting to think that certain [unstated] assumptions are logically necessary for an argument or position, they are not. So do not ask for them.” Numerous writers of introductory logic texts as well as various highly visible standardized tests (e.g., the LSAT and GRE) presume that the Norris/Ennis view is wrong; the presumption is that many arguments have (unstated) necessary assumptions and that readers and test takers (...) can reasonably be expected to identify such assumptions. This paper proposes and defends criteria for determining necessary assumptions of arguments. Both theoretical and empirical considerations are brought to bear. (shrink)

Virtue argumentation theory has been charged of being incomplete, given its alleged inability to account for argument cogency in virtue-theoretical terms. Instead of defending VAT against that challenge, I suggest it is misplaced, since it is based on a premise VAT does not endorse, and raises an issue that most versions of VAT need not consider problematic. This in turn allows distinguishing several varieties of VAT, and clarifying what really matters for them.

The implicit dimension of enthymemes is investigated from a pragmatic perspective to show why a premise can be left unexpressed, and how it can be used strategically. The relationship between the implicit act of taking for granted and the pattern of presumptive reasoning is shown to be the cornerstone of kairos and the fallacy of straw man. By taking a proposition for granted, the speaker shifts the burden of proving its un-acceptability onto the hearer. The resemblance of the tacit premise (...) with what is commonly acceptable or has been actually stated can be used as a rhetorical strategy. (shrink)

Criticisms of fallacy theory have been lodged from many different directions. In this paper, I consider the classic criticism of incompleteness by DeMorgan, Finocchiaro's claim that fallacies probably exist only in the mind of the interpreter, McPeck's claim that fallacies are at best context-dependent and Paul's complaints about the teaching of fallacies. I seek not merely to defend fallacy theory against unfair criticisms but also to learn from the criticisms what can be done in order to make fallacy theory a (...) viable theory of criticism. I argue that this will involve several changes: rethinking of the nature of fallacy; addressing some theoretical issues; and presenting fallacy theory in a more rigorous fashion. The paper concludes with reflections on how Quine's ontological advice about the resolution of ontological disputes might be applied to the issue of whether or not there are fallacies. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Sven Danielsson argued that the ‘original paradoxes' of deontic logic, in particular Ross's paradox and Prior's paradox of derived obligation, can be solved by restricting the modal inheritance rule. I argue that this does not solve the paradoxes.

I.T. Oakley claims that the cogency of invalid, but cogent, arguments is context independent. Robert Pargetter and John Bigelow claim that the apparent cogency of any cogent, but invalid, argument is to be explained by the existence of a corresponding valid argument. I argue that both claims are incorrect and provide my own account of the cogency of arguments.

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)

When someone presents an argument on a charged topic and it is alleged that the arguer has a strong personal interest and investment in the conclusion, the allegation, directed to the reception or evaluation of the argument, typically gives rise to two seemingly conflicting reactions:I. The allegation is an unwarranted diversion. The prejudices or biases of the arguer are irrelevant to the cogency of the argument. In particular, it is a distraction from the crucial judgment of whether the argument is (...) cogent to press the question of whether the arguer truly holds his conclusion on the grounds that he offers, or whether he believes it on some illicit or suspect basis. (shrink)

A critique of reflective equilibrium as an account of epistemic justification.

In this paper I challenge the currently fashionable view that we should assess the basic premises of an argument for acceptability rather than for truth, and argue in favour of recognizing premise-truth as a criterion of argument goodness in one important sense and premise-acceptability as a criterion of argument goodness in another important sense.