In this paper, we propose a framework for fostering argumentative skills in a systematic way in Philosophy and Ethics classes. We start with a review of curricula and teaching materials from the German-speaking world to show that there is an urgent need for standards for the teaching and learning of argumentation. Against this backdrop, we present a framework for such standards that is intended to tackle these difficulties. The spiral-curricular model of argumentative competences we sketch helps teachers (...) introduce the relevant concepts and skills to students early on in their school career. The focus is on secondary schools, but the proposal can also be of use for learning and teaching in universities, especially in introductory classes. (shrink)

In defending the view that justice is the advantage of the stronger, Thrasymachus puzzlingly claims that rulers never err and that any practitioner of a skill or expertise (τέχνη) is infallible. In what follows, Socrates offers a number of arguments directed against Thrasymachus’ views concerning the nature of skill, ruling, and justice. Commentators typically take a dim view of both Thrasymachus’ claims about skill (which are dismissed as an ungrounded and purely ad hoc response to Socrates’ initial criticisms) and Socrates’ (...) latter arguments (which are deemed extremely weak). In this paper, I clarify Thrasymachus’ views (and those of several other ancients) concerning qua locutions and the nature of skill and ability and I reconstruct Socrates’ arguments against Thrasymachus’ views concerning skill and justice. I argue that Thrasymachus’ views are not ungrounded or ad hoc and that Socrates’ arguments are rather different (and significantly stronger) than often supposed. (shrink)

After determining one set of skills that we hoped our students were learning in the introductory philosophy class at Carnegie Mellon University, we performed an experiment twice over the course of two semesters to test whether they were actually learning these skills. In addition, there were four different lectures of this course in the first semester, and five in the second; in each semester students in some lectures were taught the material using argument diagrams as a tool to (...) aid understanding and critical evaluation, while the other students were taught using more traditional methods. In each lecture, the students were given a pre-test at the beginning of the semester, and a structurally identical post-test at the end. We determined that the students did develop the skills in which we were interested over the course of the semester. We also determined that the students who were taught argument diagramming gained significantly more than the students who were not. We conclude that learning how to construct argument diagrams significantly improves a student’s ability to analyze arguments. (shrink)

Argument-mapping software abounds, and one of the reasons is that using the software has been shown to teach/promote/improve critical thinking skills. These positive results are very encouraging, but they also raise the question of whether the computer tutorial environment is producing these results, or whether learning argument mapping, even with just paper and pencil, is sufficient. Based on the results of two empirical studies, I argue that the basic skill of being able to represent an argument diagrammatically plays an (...) important role in the improvement of critical-thinking skills. While these studies do not offer a direct comparison between the two methods, it is important for anyone wishing to employ argument mapping in the classroom to know that significant results can be obtained even with the most rudimentary of tools. (shrink)

The study presented here examines how interacting with a more capable interlocutor influences use of argumentation strategies in electronic discourse. To address this question, 54 young adolescents participating in an intervention centered on electronic peer dialogs were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control condition. In both conditions, pairs who held the same position on a social issue engaged in a series of electronic dialogs with pairs who held an opposing position. In the experimental condition, in some dialogs, unbeknownst (...) to them (because dialog took place electronically), the opponent was a more capable (“expert”) adult. Dialogs in the control condition were only with peers. Argumentation strategies of the experimental group who argued with the “expert” showed immediate strategy improvements in their subsequent peer dialogs, improvement absent in the control group (Cohen's d = 1.12). In particular, the experimental group showed greater use of counterargument in general and advanced forms of counterargument (undermining) that challenges the deeper premises or reasoning on which an argument is based. Implications with respect to mechanisms of change in the development of argumentation skills are considered. (shrink)

This paper deals with Daniel Dennett’s well-known charges against phenomenological philosophy as an endevour to restore the rights of introspection: that is, the attempt, albeit doomed to failure, to contribute to the science of the mind from a purported incorrigible, ineffable and ‘subjective’ (interpreted as ‘private’) first-person perspective. According to Dennett’s heterophenomenology, only a strict third-person method is possible when it comes to the scientific study of the mind. I will dispute Dennett’s method in order to do both: correct Dennett’s (...) caricaturization of phenomenological philosophy as naïve introspection and offer not only a clarification of phenomenology’s true aims and scope, but also a case in which phenomenology will stand as a crucial option in the new studies of the mind, under the sigh of fresh air that can be found in the new approaches to cognitive science (the so-called 4EA approaches: embodied, embedded, extended, enacted, affective). By way of introducing the concept of ‘phenomenological skillful-coping,’ an affirmative respond to Dennett’s own question shall be given: “Is there anything about experience that is not explorable by heterophenomenology? I’d like to know what.” The answer to Dennett should be firm: Yes there is! No less than the most basic non-theoretical, non-representational, embodied and embedded, human experience or coping. (shrink)

This commentary suggests that the general population has much less reasoning skill than is claimed by Mercier & Sperber (M&S). In particular, many studies suggest that the skills of understanding, evaluating, and producing arguments are generally poor in the population of people who have not had specific training.

There is substantial evidence from many domains that visual representations aid various forms of cognition. We aimed to determine whether visual representations of argument structure enhanced the acquisition and development of critical thinking skills within the context of an introductory philosophy course. We found a significant effect of the use of argument diagrams, and this effect was stable even when multiple plausible correlates were controlled for. These results suggest that natural⎯and relatively minor⎯modifications to standard critical thinking courses could provide (...) substantial increases in student learning and performance. (shrink)

A commonly raised criticism against celebrity culture is that it celebrates people who become famous without any connection to their skills, talents or achievements. A culture in which people become famous simply for being famous is criticized for being shallow and inauthentic. In this paper we offer a defence of celebrity by arguing against this criticism. We begin by outlining what we call the Talent Argument: celebrity is a negative cultural phenomenon because it creates and sustains fame without any (...) connection to the accomplishments that arise from an expression of talent or skill. By appealing to the metaphysics of talent and skill, we argue against the Talent Argument and propose that being a celebrity requires the skills that are necessary to acquire and maintain one’s status as a celebrity. A celebrity is more likely to be talented and successful in their expression of these skills, and even celebrities who are ‘famous for being famous’ will often display talents and skills that give rise to their fame. This means that those who critique celebrity culture should not do so by appealing to the Talent Argument. We show how our account of celebrity, talent and skill works to reject both the strong version of the Talent Argument, as well as a weaker and more plausible version of the argument we call the Valuable Talents argument. We conclude by noting that our analysis has demonstrated the need to explore more closely the kinds of skills that are necessary to cultivate celebrity status. This allows for a more nuanced understanding of what a celebrity is, and the values that are attached to celebrity culture. (shrink)

The high prevalence of brain injury incidents in adolescence and adulthood demands effective models for re-learning lost cognitive abilities. Impairment in brain injury survivors’ higher-level cognitive functions is common and a negative predictor for long-term outcome. We conducted two small-scale interventions (N = 12; 33.33% female) with persons with acquired brain injuries in two municipalities in Sweden. Age ranged from 17 to 65 years (M = 51.17, SD = 14.53). The interventions were dialogic, inquiry-based, and inspired by the Philosophy for (...) Children Programme, a participatory thinking skills approach with documented higher-order cognitive outcomes, such as developed argumentation skills, in other target groups. Philosophical dialogues were conducted once a week in the two groups, totalling 12 dialogues per group. Group argumentation development was measured through compared scores from structured observations of filmed dialogues early and late in the intervention. Large positive changes in mean scores from early to late in the intervention, together with constantly high facilitator quality, suggest argumentation development in the sample due to the intervention. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to show that a study of Gilbert Ryle’s work has much to contribute to the current debate between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism with respect to skill and know-how. According to Ryle, knowing how and skill are distinctive from and do not reduce to knowing that. What is often overlooked is that for Ryle this point is connected to the idea that the distinction between skill and mere habit is a category distinction, or a distinction in form. (...) Criticizing the reading of Ryle presented by Jason Stanley, we argue that once the formal nature of Ryle’s investigation is recognized it becomes clear that his dispositional account is not an instance of reductionist behaviorism, and that his regress argument has a broader target than Stanley appears to recognize. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of perceptual experience claims that perception is constituted by bodily interaction with the environment, drawing on practical knowledge of the systematic ways that sensory inputs are disposed to change as a result of movement. Despite the theory’s associations with enactivism, it is sometimes claimed that the appeal to ‘knowledge’ means that the theory is committed to giving an essential theoretical role to internal representation, and therefore to a form of orthodox cognitive science. This paper defends the role (...) ascribed to knowledge by the theory, but argues that this knowledge can and should be identified with bodily skill rather than representation. Making the further argument that the notion of ‘representation hunger’ can be replaced with ‘prima facie representation hunger’, it concludes that although the theory could optionally be developed scientifically in part by reference to internal representation, it makes a strong and natural fit with anti-representationalist embodied or enactive cognitive science. (shrink)

Practical wisdom is the intellectual virtue that enables a person to make reliably good decisions about how, all-things-considered, to live. As such, it is a lofty and important ideal to strive for. It is precisely this loftiness and importance that gives rise to important questions about wisdom: Can real people develop it? If so, how? What is the nature of wisdom as it manifests itself in real people? I argue that we can make headway answering these questions by modeling wisdom (...) on expert skill. Presenting the main argument for this expert skill model of wisdom is the focus of this paper. More specifically, I’ll argue that wisdom is primarily the same kind of epistemic achievement as expert decision-making skill in areas such as firefighting. Acknowledging this helps us see that, and how, real people can develop wisdom. It also helps to resolve philosophical debates about the nature of wisdom. For example, philosophers, including those who think virtue should be modeled on skills, disagree about the extent to which wise people make decisions using intuitions or principled deliberation and reflection. The expert skill model resolves this debate by showing that wisdom includes substantial intuitive and deliberative and reflective abilities. (shrink)

I argue that moral skill is limited and precarious. It is limited because global moral skill—the capacity for morally excellent behaviour within an über action domain, such as the domain of living, or of all-things-considered decisions, or the same kind of capacity applied across a superset of more specific action domains—is not to be found in humans. It is precarious because relatively local moral skill, while possible, is prone to misfire. My arguments depend upon the diversity of practical structures confronting (...) human agents, the limitations of human skill learning and reason-sensitivity, and the failure of moral considerations to respect the social and institutional boundaries we develop to structure our practical lives. (shrink)

We argue that legal argumentation, as the subject matter as well as a special subfield of Argumentation Studies (AS), has to be examined by making skilled use of the full panoply of tools such as argumentation and story schemes which are at the forefront of current work in AS. In reviewing the literature, we make explicit our own methodological choices (particularly regarding the place of normative deliberation in practical reasoning) and then illustrate the implications of such an approach through the (...) analysis of a case study in the English law of evidence. We argue that a clear distinction must be drawn between practical argumentation and stories. Because of the institutional separation between legal judgment and fact-finding in common-law jury trials, we argue for the combination of argument and story-based analysis. (shrink)

Doing Practical Ethics supports the deliberate practice of philosophical skills relevant to understanding, evaluating, and developing arguments in forms commonly used in the field of practical ethics. Each chapter includes an explanation of a specific moral reasoning skill, demonstration exercises with sample solutions that offer students immediate feedback on their initial practice attempts, and extensive sets of practice exercises. It is suitable for any ethics course that centrally features argument from principle, argument from analogy, or inference to the best (...) explanation. It may be used as a standalone text in a debate-focused course. Paired with an anthology in a readings-focused course, it will help students develop the skills they need to understand and evaluate the arguments in the assigned readings. (shrink)

In the last chapter of The Public and its Problems John Dewey outlines the alleged fallacy of "the democratic creed". According to him the fallacy is described as conflating emancipation with the capacity to rule, i.e. the capacity to make policy decisions. His point is that the power to make decisions does not entail a capacity to make good choices. Capable are those in the know, the experts who are "intellectually qualified". The answer to the fallacy is to propose epistocracy: (...) The rule of experts – as Walter Lippman had come close to arguing. But Dewey tries to refute the argument for epistocracy. He rehearses the old platonic wisdom that the harmonious state... (shrink)

The importance of teaching critical thinking skills at the college level cannot be overemphasized. Teaching a subcategory of these skills—argument analysis—we believe is especially important for first-year students with their college careers, as well as their lives, ahead of them. The struggle, however, is how to effectively teach argument analysis skills that will serve students in a broad range of disciplines.

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)

Many philosophers working on virtue theory have resisted the idea that the virtues are practical skills, apparently following Aristotle’s resistance to that idea. Bucking the trend, Matt Stichter defends a strong version of this idea in The Skillfulness of Virtue by marshaling a wide range of conceptual and empirical arguments to argue that the moral virtues are robust skills involving the cognitive-conative unification of Aristotelian phronêsis (‘practical intelligence’). Here I argue that Aristotle overlooks a more delimited kind of (...) practical intelligence, strongly analogous to his own account of phronêsis, that unifies complex forms of expertise such as medicine or even high-level sports. Insofar as the skill model of virtue is compelling, it must draw on a robust conception of practical expertise (technê) like the one developed here rather than the ordinary, anemic conception of practical skills. (shrink)

Research has shown that the construction of visual representations may have a positive effect on cognitive skills, including argumentation. In this paper we present a study on learning argumentation through computer-supported argument diagramming. We specifically focus on whether students, when provided with an argument-diagramming tool, create better diagrams, are more motivated, and learn more when working with other students or on their own. We use learning analytics to evaluate a variety of student activities: pre and post questionnaires to explore (...) motivational changes; the argument diagrams created by students to evaluate richness, complexity and completion; and pre and post knowledge tests to evaluate learning gains. (shrink)

I argue that Donald Davidson's rejection of the notion of language, as commonly understood in philosophy and linguistics, is justified. However, I argue that his position needs to be supplemented by an account of the development and nurture of pre-linguistic communicative skills. Davidson argues (in 'A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs' and elsewhere) that knowledge of a language (conceived of as a set of rules or conventions) is neither sufficient nor necessary for 'linguistic' communication. The strongest argument against the initial (...) formulation is that while Davidson may have shown that knowledge of a language is not sufficient, he failed to show that it is not necessary. Subsequently, Davidson has invoked his 'triangulation' thesis, to show that understanding can rest on the apprehension of mutuality in a shared objective world, and does not presuppose the sharing of rules or practices. I argue that the starting position arrived at from the triangulation thesis itself presupposes the possibility of communication. The triangulation thesis needs, therefore, to be supplemented by a (non-reductive) naturalistic account of non-linguistic communicative skills. In such an account we must posit shared practices (practices of mutual engagement with a shared world), but not an account of practices conceived on the model of rules or conventions. I note, finally, that by adopting such an approach we offer a way of explicating the formulation of passing theories, which in Davidson's account are the point at which communicative understanding occurs. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Donald Davidson's rejection of the notion of language, as commonly understood in philosophy and linguistics, is justified. However, I argue that his position needs to be supplemented by an account of the development and nurture of pre-linguistic communicative skills. Davidson argues (in ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs' and elsewhere) that knowledge of a language (conceived of as a set of rules or conventions) is neither sufficient nor necessary for 'linguistic' communication. The strongest argument (...) against the initial formulation is that while Davidson may have shown that knowledge of a language is not sufficient, he failed to show that it is not necessary. Subsequently, Davidson has invoked his Triangulation' thesis, to show that understanding can rest on the apprehension of mutuality in a shared objective world, and does not presuppose the sharing of rules or practices. I argue that the starting position arrived at from the triangulation thesis itself presupposes the possibility of communication. The triangulation thesis needs, therefore, to be supplemented by a (non-reductive) naturalistic account of non-linguistic communicative skills. In such an account we must posit shared practices (practices of mutual engagement with a shared world), but not an account of practices conceived on the model of rules or conventions. I note, finally, that by adopting such an approach we offer a way of explicating the formulation of passing theories, which in Davidson's account are the point at which communicative understanding occurs. (shrink)

Computer-Assisted Argument Mapping (CAAM) is a new way of understanding arguments. While still embryonic in its development and application, CAAM is being used increasingly as a training and development tool in the professions and government. Inroads are also being made in its application within education. CAAM claims to be helpful in an educational context, as a tool for students in responding to assessment tasks. However, to date there is little evidence from students that this is the case. This paper outlines (...) the use of CAAM as an educational tool within an Economics and Commerce Faculty in a major Australian research university. Evaluation results are provided from students from a CAAM pilot within an upper-level Economics subject. Results indicate promising support for the use of CAAM and its potential for transferability within the disciplines. If shown to be valuable with further studies, CAAM could be included in capstone subjects, allowing computer technology to be utilised in the service of generic skill development. (shrink)

In recent years, academics and educators have begun to use software mapping tools for a number of education-related purposes. Typically, the tools are used to help impart critical and analytical skills to students, to enable students to see relationships between concepts, and also as a method of assessment. The common feature of all these tools is the use of diagrammatic relationships of various kinds in preference to written or verbal descriptions. Pictures and structured diagrams are thought to be more (...) comprehensible than just words, and a clearer way to illustrate understanding of complex topics. Variants of these tools are available under different names: “concept mapping”, “mind mapping” and “argument mapping”. Sometimes these terms are used synonymously. However, as this paper will demonstrate, there are clear differences in each of these mapping tools. This paper offers an outline of the various types of tool available and their advantages and disadvantages. It argues that the choice of mapping tool largely depends on the purpose or aim for which the tool is used and that the tools may well be converging to offer educators as yet unrealised and potentially complementary functions. (shrink)

Despite the effort educators put into developing in students the critical writing and thinking skills needed to compose effective arguments, undergraduate college students are often accused of churning out essays lacking in creative and critical thought, arguments too obviously formulated and with sides too sharply drawn. Theories abound as to why these deficiencies are rampant. Some blame students’ immature cognitive and emotional development for these lacks. Others put the blame of lackadaisical output on the assigning of shopworn writing subjects, (...) assigned topics such as on American laws and attitudes about capital punishment and abortion. Although these factors might contribute to faulty written output in some cases, the prevailing hindrance is our very pedagogy, a system in which students are rewarded for composing the very type of argument we wish to avoid — the eristic, in which the goal is not truth seeking, but successfully disputing another’s argument. Certainly the eristic argument is the intended solution in cases when a clear‑cut outcome is needed, such as in legal battles and political campaigns when there can only be one winner. However, teaching mainly or exclusively the eristic, as is done in most composition classrooms today, halts the advancement of these higher‑order inquiry skills we try developing in our students. (shrink)

As individuals we often face complex issues about which we must weigh evidence and come to conclusions. Corporations also have to make decisions on the basis of strong and compelling arguments. Legal practitioners, compelled by arguments for or against a proposition and underpinned by the weight of evidence, are often required to make judgments that affect the lives of others. Medical doctors face similar decisions. Governments make purchasing decisions—for example, for expensive military equipment—or decisions in the areas of public or (...) foreign policy. These issues involve many arguments on all sides of difficult debates. These issues involve understanding the arguments of others and being able to make objections and provide rebuttals to objections. Students in universities deal with arguments all the time. A major purpose of a university education—regardless of subject matter—is to teach students how to read, understand, and respond to complex arguments. The ability to do this makes for highly employable, adaptable, and reflectively critical individuals. We often call the skill of marshaling arguments and assessing them “critical thinking.” All universities claim to instill the skill of critical thinking in their graduates and routinely note this in their advertising and promotional documents. This short paper outlines one way this skill can be taught. (shrink)

An argument map visually represents the structure of an argument, outlining its informal logical connections and informing judgments as to its worthiness. Argument mapping can be augmented with dedicated software that aids the mapping process. Empirical evidence suggests that semester‐length subjects using argument mapping along with dedicated software can produce remarkable increases in students’ critical thinking abilities. Introducing such specialised subjects, however, is often practically and politically difficult. This study ascertains student perceptions of the use of argument mapping in two (...) large, regular, semester‐length classes in a Business and Economics Faculty at the University of Melbourne. Unlike the semester‐length expert‐led trials in prior research, in our study only one expert‐led session was conducted at the beginning of the semester and followed by class practice. Survey results conducted at the end of the semester, show that, with reservations, even this minimalist, ‘one‐shot inoculation’ of argument mapping is effective in terms of students’ perceptions of improvements in their critical thinking skills. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present an evidence-supported curriculum covering the fundamentals of logic, reasoning, and argumentation skills to address the emphasized basic knowledge, skills, and abilities required to be scientifically literate, which will prepare the public to understand and engage with science meaningfully. An analytic-synthetic approach toward understanding the notion of public is taken using a theoretical biomimetics framework that identifies naturally occurring objects or phenomena that descriptively captures the essence of a construct to facilitate (...) creative problem-solving. In the present case, the problem being solved is how to reconcile what is meant by public, how it ought to be interpreted, determining the diverse levels of confidence in science that exist, and various understandings of science all with one another. The results demonstrate there is an inherent denotative-connotative inconsistency in the traditional notion of public that can be explicated through the concept of a fractal allowing for comprehension of the relationship between public confidence in, and understanding of, science. (shrink)

Given the explanatory stalemate between ‘embedded’ (EMB) and ‘extended’ (EXT) cognition, various authors have proposed normative and moral arguments in favour of EXT. According to what we call the “extended cognition moral narrative” (EXT-MN) (Cassinadri, 2022), we should embrace EXT and dismiss EMB, because the former leads to morally preferable consequences with respect to the latter. In this article we argue that two arguments following the EXT moral narrative are flawed. In Sect. 2.1 and 2.2, we present respectively King (2016) (...) and Vold’s (2018) ‘argument from assessment of capacities’ (AAC) and Clowes (2013), Farina and Lavazza’s (2022a) ‘cognitive diminishment argument’ (CDA). The AAC states that we should embrace EXT over EMB since the former is better at attributing cognitive credit to individuals with learning disabilities who use assistive tools to complete their learning tasks, thus avoiding their marginalisation. The CDA states that EMB implies a morally undesirable picture of the agent in terms of cognitive diminishment. In Sect. 3, we clarify and criticise the underlying assumptions of the AAC and CDA: the “cognitive credit assumption”, the “marginalisation assumption” and, more generally, an ableist conception of disabled agency. In Sect. 3.1, we discuss the role of moto-perceptual skills and metacognitive credit involved in complex cases of tool-use, to demonstrate that the EXT-MN is uninformative in addressing these cases. To conclude, in Sect. 4 we argue that AAC and CDA fail to present EXT as descriptively and normatively superior to EMB. (shrink)

Common sense suggests that visual consciousness is essential to skilled motor action, but Andy Clark—inspired by Milner and Goodale's dual visual systems theory—has appealed to a wide range of experimental dissociations to argue that such an assumption is false. Critics of Clark's argument contend that the content driving motor action is actually within subjects' experience, just not easily discovered. In this article, I argue that even if such content exists, it cannot be guiding motor action, since a review of current (...) visual neuroscience indicates that the visual brain areas producing conscious representations are distinct from those driving motor action. (shrink)

Contemporary critical instincts, in early modern studies as elsewhere in literary theory, often dismiss invocations of mind and cognition as inevitably ahistorical, as performing a retrograde version of anachronism. Arguing that our experience of time is inherently anachronistic and polytemporal, we draw on the frameworks of distributed cognition and extended mind to theorize cognition as itself distributed, cultural, and temporal. Intelligent, embodied action is a hybrid process, involving the coordination of disparate neural, affective, cognitive, interpersonal, ecological, technological, and cultural resources. (...) Because the diverse elements of such coupled systems each have their own histories and dynamics, many distinctive or competing times are built in to the very mechanisms of remembering and reasoning. We make this argument by means of two distinct case histories: a reading of the site-specific audio walk of Canadian artist Janet Cardiff; and an extended discussion of a famously anachronistic moment in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. These readings reveal the inherent polytemporalities of human mental and social life. (shrink)

Persons with aphasia suffer from a loss of communication ability as a consequence of a brain injury. A small strand of research indicates effec- tiveness of dialogic interventions for communication development for persons with aphasia, but a vast amount of research studies shows its effectiveness for other target groups. In this paper, we describe the main parts of the hitherto technological development of an application named Dialogica that is (i) aimed at facilitating increased communicative participation in dialogic settings for persons (...) with aphasia and other communication disorders, (ii) based on comput- er game technology as well as on theory in dialogic education and argumenta- tion theory, and (iii) designed for mobile devices with larger screens. (shrink)

The chapter presents the prototyping of a thinking routine designed to foster good inference habits in children ages 6 to 11. The prototyping was developed at Ninho, an educational project for children from underprivileged households in Brazil. The thinking routines by Ritchhart and colleagues (2006) served as our starting point. Following a Virtue Education (VE) approach, we supposed that the repeated application would conduce to habituation. In addition, to increase peer-to-peer interactions, the teacher applying the routines worked as a facilitator (...) in a Community of Inquiry (CI). After six months of application, the results were partially successful. We identified that the repeated exposition to the magic question “What makes you say that?” made children more aware of the evidence supporting their assumptions. Furthermore, the interactions between peers made them recognize different perspectives. However, we also identified some shortcomings. Most of them seemed to arise from cognitive biases. At the individual level, belief perseverance kept children too attached to their first assumptions. They preferred self-serving rationalizations instead of accepting a counter-argument. At the group level, we identified problems of social contagion such as information cascades. The effects of a first opinion rhetorically voiced were hard to efface. Since none of the steps on the previous routines addressed these biases, we prototyped a routine to start filling this gap. Following Critical Thinking (CT) theorists, we added a step of structured instruction concerning one specific reasoning technique - the inference to the best explanation. Moreover, the recommendation of cognitive psychologists motivated the inclusion of some extra features to avoid groupthink biases. For instance, a visual table that juxtaposes contrasting arguments should facilitate comparative evaluations. Also, a star-based evaluation scale should help different individuals to discuss their assessments based on a common ground. As described in the end, the prototype with elements from VE, CI and CT presented promising results. (shrink)

There is substantial evidence from many domains that visual representations aid various forms of cognition. We aimed to determine whether learning to construct visual representations of argument structure enhanced the acquisition and development of argumentative writing skills within the context of first-year college writing course. We found a significant effect of the use of argument diagrams, and this effect was stable even when multiple plausible correlates were controlled for. These results suggest that natural⎯and relatively minor⎯modifications to standard first-year (...) composition courses could provide substantial increases in student writing ability. (shrink)

Scientific literacy is built on critical thinking. The postbaccalaureate workforce enhances our economies and societies by contributing a wealth of knowledge and skill sets to local communities, respective industries, and beyond as our world becomes increasingly interconnected. Education in scientific literacy should teach students how to learn about science and how to cultivate and communicate a positive attitude about science. Learners in a 200-level nonmajors biotechnology course engaged with a series of ethical dilemmas after mastering the basic elements of argument (...) structure and advanced tools in argument evaluation. To introduce collaboration as a constructive process in undergraduate education, student interactions with peers require guidance, flexibility, and compassion to learn from each other. Students gain critical thinking mastery from two modules addressing how we argue and evaluate claims. Students apply these critical thinking skills to various ethical arguments involving responsible conduct of research training. Using our structured and interdisciplinary approach, new scholars learn through practice how to read, analyze, and evaluate research scenarios and respond to potential ethical situations. This strategy allows students to develop important scholarly skills, including a systematic approach to evaluating credibility and applying generosity to theirs and others' understanding of their circumstances. (shrink)

This paper presents a passage from Peter Singer on the pond analogy and comments on its content and use in the classroom, especially with respect to the development of the learners' argumentative skills.

Erarbeitet von Dominik Balg, Anne Burkard, Henning Franzen, Aenna Frottier, David Lanius, David Löwenstein, Hanna Lucks, Kirsten Meyer, Donata Romizi, Katharina Schulz, Stefanie Thiele und Annett Wienmeister. -/- Die Entwicklung argumentativer Fähigkeiten ist ein zentrales Ziel des Ethik- und Philosophieunterrichts, ja überhaupt ein zentrales Bildungsziel. Wie aber kann das gelingen? In vielen verfügbaren Unterrichtsmaterialien werden argumentative Fähigkeiten eher vorausgesetzt als systematisch gefördert. Auch curriculare Vorgaben bleiben zumeist sehr unspezifisch. Lehrpersonen werden so weitgehend allein gelassen mit der Aufgabe, Lernende beim (...) Erwerb argumentativer Fähigkeiten zu fördern. Die vorliegende Aufgabensammlung soll dazu beitragen, diese Lücke zu schließen. Sie bietet Lehrpersonen reichhaltige Materialien für die spiralcurricular angelegte, systematische Förderung argumentativer Fähigkeit anhand exemplarischer Inhalte. Orientiert an klaren fachlichen Standards finden sich hier Aufgaben auf vier Niveaustufen, jeweils in Verbindung mit übersichtlichen Merkblättern. Die Aufgaben der beiden unteren Niveaustufen lassen sich bereits für jüngere Lernende der Sekundarstufe einsetzen, Aufgaben der obersten Niveaustufe richten sich an Lernende von Abschlussklassen oder der Studieneingangsphase. Für die Hand der Lehrpersonen werden die Aufgaben und Merkblätter durch fachliche und didaktische Kommentare sowie Lösungshinweise ergänzt. (shrink)

Universities seeking to provide modern education face a constant need to update their courses. This study was conducted to collect and analyze empirical data to help philosophy course designers consider the views of Ukrainian students about effective ways to learn this subject. A survey was conducted among 40 humanities students and 34 social science students to determine participants’ views on a number of key issues related to the organization of the learning process in the Philosophy course. Most of the students (...) surveyed said that of the types of skills and knowledge that can be acquired during the course, they will find critical thinking skills and the skills needed to build and argue their own positions on ethical, social and worldview issues most valuable in their future professional activities. The majority of respondents named traditional lectures and discussions of lecture videos as their preferred forms of learning philosophy. Their preferred forms of assessment of students’ knowledge and skills in philosophy were essays, as well as reports and participation in the discussion during practical lessons. The study also identified three significant differences in the responses of the surveyed humanities and social science students. First, socio-scientific students valued the opportunity to develop their communication skills in the framework of the Philosophy course significantly more than humanities students. Second, humanities students included thought experiments among the most desirable ways of learning philosophy, unlike social science students, who included case studies. Third, in contrast to humanities students, social science students considered quizzes to be one of the best forms of assessment for the course. In addition to the above, this study also compared the data on the opinions of social sciences and humanities students with the results of the previous survey of 60 STEM students about their thoughts on the course. The comparative analysis revealed five common features and two significant differences in the responses of students from these three fields of knowledge. The common belief among surveyed students in all three groups is that learning philosophy can provide them with the skills and knowledge they will need in their professional activities after graduation from university. Moreover, they prefer skills to knowledge. In all three groups of respondents, a large number of students named critical thinking and argumentation skills as the ultimate achievements in the learning of philosophy. Another finding was that surveyed students from all three groups do not give priority to learning the concepts of modern philosophers over learning the ideas of ancient philosophers. In addition, respondents from all three fields showed the least interest in those forms of knowledge and skills that are difficult to use outside of highly specialized philosophical activities. As for the differences, the study showed that STEM students are significantly less likely to believe that they will need the historico-philosophical components of the Philosophy course in their further professional activities than students in the humanities and social sciences. They are also more interested in developing communicative skills in the process of learning philosophy than the surveyed humanities students. (shrink)

In dem vorliegenden Beitrag möchte ich an aktuelle argumentationsdidaktische Überlegungen anknüpfen und einen spezifischen Aspekt genauer untersuchen, der von der philosophiedidaktischen Forschung bisher ein Stück weit vernachlässigt worden ist. Dieser Aspekt betrifft die Vermittlung sogenannter argumentativer Metakompetenzen, worunter ich grob gesprochen Fähigkeiten des angemessenen Gebrauchs bzw. der verantwortungsvollen Regulation von argumentativen Kompetenzen verstehe. Die grundlegende Idee ist in diesem Zusammenhang, dass die Ausbildung basaler argumentativer Fähigkeiten zwar grundsätzlich durchaus wichtig und wünschenswert ist, dass aber gleichzeitig ein Einsatz dieser Fähigkeiten in (...) unterschiedlichen Situationen ganz unterschiedliche Funktionen erfüllt. Dementsprechend müssen Lernende nicht nur mit argumentativen Kompetenzen ausgestattet, sondern darüber hinaus auch zu einem reflektierten und situativ angemessenen Gebrauch dieser Kompetenzen befähigt werden. (shrink)

The argument diagramming method developed by Monroe C. Beardsley in his (1950) book Practical Logic, which has since become the gold standard for diagramming arguments in informal logic, makes it possible to map the relation between premises and conclusions of a chain of reasoning in relatively complex ways. The method has since been adapted and developed in a number of directions by many contemporary informal logicians and argumentation theorists. It has proved useful in practical applications and especially pedagogically in teaching (...) basic logic and critical reasoning skills at all levels of scientific education. I propose in this essay to build on Beardsley diagramming techniques to refine and supplement their structural tools for visualizing logical relationships in a number of categories not originally accommodated by Beardsley diagramming, including circular reasoning, reductio ad absurdum arguments, and efforts to dispute and contradict arguments, with applications and analysis. (shrink)

From artistic performances in the visual arts and in music to motor control in gymnastics, from tool use to chess and language, humans excel in a variety of skills. On the plausible assumption that skillful behavior is a visible manifestation of intelligence, a theory of intelligence—whether human or not—should be informed by a theory of skills. More controversial is the question as to whether, in order to theorize about intelligence, we should study certain skills in particular. My (...) target is the view that only a particular class/kind of skill (i.e., ‘theoretical’, or ‘intellectual’ skills, versus ‘practical’, or ‘embodied’ skills) manifests intelligence, or especially does so. I call this view ‘Intelligence Elitism’. Intelligence Elitism is pervasive in popular culture, in academic culture, as well as in psychometrics. It has, arguably, a long pedigree in philosophy (though explicit arguments for it are rare). But it is a substantive view which, if false, can promote unfairness. In this article, I defend Intelligence Socialism—the claim that intelligent behavior is everywhere skillful behavior is. I go on to isolate the best case for the further Elitist claim that, even if all skillful behavior is intelligent in some modest sense of ‘intelligence’, there is a principled difference in intelligence between theoretical, or intellectual, skills, on one side, and practical, or embodied skills, on the other, and I show it wanting. (shrink)

According to Dreyfusian anti-intellectualism, know-how or expertise cannot be explained in terms of know-that and its cognates but only in terms of intuition. Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus do not exclude know-that and its cognates in explaining skilled action. However, they think that know-that and its cognates (such as calculative deliberation and perspectival deliberation) only operate either below or above the level of expertise. In agreement with some critics of Dreyfus and Dreyfus, in this paper, I argue that know-that and (...) its cognates are constitutive of rather than external to know-how and expertise. However, unlike those critics, who argue for this point only from a phenomenological point of view, my argument adopts a (telic) normative point of view. (shrink)

Can we think of a task in a distinctively practical way? Can there be practical concepts? In recent years, epistemologists, philosophers of mind, as well as philosophers of psychology have appealed to practical concepts in characterizing the content of know-how or in explaining certain features of skilled action. However, reasons for positing practical concepts are rarely discussed in a systematic fashion. This paper advances a novel argument for the psychological reality of practical concepts that relies on evidence for a distinctively (...) productive kind of reasoning. (shrink)

Early Chinese argumentative texts are full of historical anecdotes. These short accounts of events in Chinese history enhance the appeal of the text, but they also have an important rhetorical function in helping the reader understand, accept, and remember the arguments propounded in the text. In this paper I examine the rhetorical function of historical anecdotes in two argumentative texts of the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE): Han’s Illustrations of the Odes for Outsiders and The Master of (...) Huainan. These two texts found creative use for anecdotes, namely as illustrations of quotations from canonical sources. Through case studies of several combinations of anecdotes and quotations, I argue that the combinations serve to present the creators of these texts as beacons of knowledge with profound understanding of historical events and canonical literature, and with the necessary skills to fruitfully combine the two. (shrink)

Simon Høffding’s book A Phenomenology of Musical Absorption (2019) contributes to a growing field of research focusing on the artist’s and performer’s experience, as significant for philosophical understanding of on the one hand expertise and skill-formation, on the other art and artistic practice. Høffding’s work is based on a qualitative study of the world-famous ensemble The Danish String Quartet, and has two purposes according to the author: first, to answer a question that arises when confronted with expert musicians’ descriptions of (...) their experiences: “Who is playing?” While deeply concentrated – absorbed – during rehearsal or performance, musicians have described the feeling of something else taking over: the body, the fingers, the instrument, the music. What kind of self is present in this experience and what kind of consciousness does the musician have of her own performance and of the musical work that is performed? Second, Høffding presents a phenomenological account of the experiences at issue, that is based on thorough empirical work and analysed with tools from phenomenology and cognitive science. While not mainly concerned with philosophical aesthetics, the musical work itself has an important role to play in answering these two questions. In the book, Høffding shows with wonderful clarity the value of listening to and analysing performers’ depiction of their experience, not only in order to provide a theoretical framework that can account for the particular experiences associated with expertise but also to prompt philosophical understanding of artistic/aesthetic experience, art and creativity. There are, however, certain problems with his account. One is the internal conflict between the idea that absorption can be experienced at any level of music making, and the claim that only professional experts can experience absorption in its stronger form, without giving a clear argument for this differentiation. Another is Høffding’s desire to present his work as a “paradigmatic case”, resulting in a certain lack of generosity vis-à-vis precursors and other scholars, and interpretations that are not always backed up by the interview material. In general, there are a number of unclear references and loose ends, that this reader would have wished to be worked out in detail. This being said, Høffding has uncovered a thought-provoking path that I hope will be continued. (shrink)

Practical wisdom (hereafter simply “wisdom”) is the intellectual virtue that enables a person to make reliably good decisions about how, all-things-considered, to live and conduct herself. Because wisdom is such an important and high-level achievement, we should wonder: what is the nature of wisdom? What kinds of skills, habits and capacities does it involve? Can real people actually develop it? If so, how? I argue that we can answer these questions by modeling wisdom on expert decision-making skill in complex (...) areas like firefighting. I develop this expert skill model of wisdom using philosophical argument informed by relevant empirical research. I begin in Chapter 1 by examining the historical roots of analogies between wisdom and practical skills in order to motivate the expert skill model. In Chapter 2, I provide the core argument for the expert skill model. I then use the remaining chapters to pull out the implications of the expert skill model. In Chapter 3, I show that the expert skill model yields practical guidance about how to develop wisdom. In Chapter 4, I address the objection, due to Daniel Jacobson, that wisdom is not a skill that humans could actually develop, since skill development requires a kind of feedback in practice that is not available for all-things-considered decisions about how to live. Finally, in Chapter 5, I apply the expert skill model to the question, much discussed by virtue ethicists, of whether a wise person deliberates using a comprehensive and systematic conception of the good life. (shrink)

A central task of schooling is to cultivate reasonableness in students. In this chapter we show how the teaching of reasonableness can be practiced successfully in secondary schools, using materials from the Western Australian curriculum. The discussion proceeds in four stages. We first defend the claim that the teaching of reasonable is a key aim of schooling. Here we offer an account of reasonableness, which we take to be both a skill and a disposition. Students learn reasonableness through the practice (...) of specific skills such as open and curious questioning, clarifying, and categorizing, and evaluating the merits of each contribution toward the problem or question under consideration. Reasonableness comes about as a joint commitment between the individual and the group to be honest in their views, to take care of those views, and for everyone to recognize that each member is a partial bearer of truth. Secondly, we discuss the pedagogies that cultivate reasonableness. The Philosophical Community of Inquiry is a natural pedagogy for this purpose. This can be supplemented with the thinking tools approach of Cam’s Twenty Thinking Tools or Harvard Project Zero’s Thinking Routines. In addition, we introduce our own two skill-building exercises, the Reasoning Game and the Argument Game. Thirdly, we show how this approach can be applied not just in Philosophy classes, but in the Humanities and Social Sciences. We argue that our approach brings these subjects to life, it develops understanding and reasonableness, and it bumps up student engagement. Fourthly, we discuss the assessment of reasonableness. In this type of learning environment, the way students perform in the philosophical community of inquiry is the focus of assessment. The desirable qualities of being reasonable become the assessment criteria for an on-balanced judgment about the student. (shrink)

In the present article we attempt to show that Aristotle's syllogistic is an underlying logiC which includes a natural deductive system and that it isn't an axiomatic theory as had previously been thought. We construct a mathematical model which reflects certain structural aspects of Aristotle's logic. We examine the relation of the model to the system of logic envisaged in scattered parts of Prior and Posterior Analytics. Our interpretation restores Aristotle's reputation as a logician of consummate imagination and skill. Several (...) attributions of shortcomings and logical errors to Aristotle are shown to be without merit. Aristotle's logic is found to be self-sufficient in several senses: his theory of deduction is logically sound in every detail. (His indirect deductions have been criticized, but incorrectly on our account.) Aristotle's logic presupposes no other logical concepts, not even those of propositional logic. The Aristotelian system is seen to be complete in the sense that every valid argument expressible in his system admits of a deduction within his deductive system: every semantically valid argument is deducible. (shrink)

An introductory text describing the author’s approach to epistemology in terms of self-referential argumentation and self-validating proofs. The text emphasizes a skill-based, rather than content-based, approach to the study of epistemology. The book is a simply stated, basic text whose purpose is to introduce students to the technical approach to epistemology developed by the author in other publications. ●●●●● -/- 2022 UPDATE: The approach of this book has been updated and developed further in the author’s 2021 book _Critique of Impure (...) Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning_. The book is available both in a printed edition (under ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6 from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other booksellers) and an Open Access eBook edition (available through Philpapers under the book’s title and other philosophy online archives). (shrink)