Dialog Theory for Critical Argumentation (Controversies)

328 Pages·2007·1.91 MB·English

by  Douglas Walton

Dialog Theory for Critical Argumentation
Controversies (CVS)
Controversies includes studies in the theory of controversy or any of its salient
aspects, studies of the history of controversy forms and their evolution, case-
studies of particular historical or current controversies in any field or period,
edited collections of documents of a given controversy or a family of related
controversies, etc. The series will also act as a forum for ‘agenda-setting’
debates, where prominent discussants of current controversial issues will take
part. Since controversy involves necessarily dialogue, manuscripts focusing
exclusively on one position will not be considered.
Editor
Marcelo Dascal
Tel Aviv University
Advisory Board
Harry Collins Kuno Lorenz
University of Cardiff University of Saarbrücken
Frans H. van Eemeren Everett Mendelssohn
University of Amsterdam Harvard University
Gerd Fritz Quintín Racionero
University of Giessen UNED, Madrid
Fernando Gil † Yaron Senderowicz
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Tel Aviv University
Sociales, Paris
Stephen Toulmin
Thomas Gloning University of Southern California
University of Marburg
Ruth Wodak
Alan G. Gross University of Vienna
University of Minnesota
Geoffrey Lloyd
Cambridge University
Volume 5
Dialog Theory for Critical Argumentation
Douglas Walton
Dialog Theory
for Critical Argumentation
Douglas Walton
University of Winnipeg
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Walton, Douglas N.
Dialog theory for critical argumentation / Douglas Walton.
p. cm. (Controversies, issn 1574-1583 ; v. 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Dialectic. 2. Logic. 3. Reasoning. I. Title.
B809.7.W355 2007
160--dc22 2007025817
isbn 978 90 272 1885 8 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2007 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
For Karen with love

Table of contents
Acknowledgements xi
Acronyms xiii
Introduction: Dialog theory for critical argumentation xv
chapter 1
The place of dialog theory 1
1 The rebirth of dialog theory 2
2 Dialog theory in computing 1 0
3 Agent communication 15
4 Fundamental concepts of dialog theory 20
5 The critical discussion as a type of dialog 25
6 Plan recognition and deliberation 29
7 The BDI model and the commitment model 34
8 The problem of retraction 36
9 Communication and information 40
10 The future and past of dialog theory 43
chapter 2
The history of dialectic 47
1 Origins of dialectic in ancient philosophy 48
2 The dialectic of Socrates and Plato 51
3 Aristotelian dialectic 56
4 Aristotle’s classification of types of dialog 62
5 Medieval dialectic 65
6 Dialectic in modern philosophy 68
7 The re-appearance of dialectic 71
8 Eight characteristics of dialectic 74
9 Hamblin’s dialog rules 79
10 Functions of questioning and asserting 82
11 The future of dialectic as a subject 86
 Dialog Theory for Critical Argumentation
chapter 3
Persuasion dialog 89
1 Persuasion in rhetoric and dialectic 90
2 Characteristics of persuasion dialog 95
3 Defeasibility and acceptance 101
4 Evidence, testing, and burden of proof 106
5 Dialogs, truth and relativism 110
6 The charge of pernicious relativism 112
7 Judging the maieutic depth of a persuasion dialog 116
8 Aiming at the truth 121
9 Truth, evidence and acceptance 124
10 Conclusions 127
chapter 4
Mutlti-agent dialog systems 131
1 Agent communication systems 132
2 Speech acts 137
3 Interrogative messages in ACL’s 140
4 Conversation policies 143
5 Sincerity conditions 145
6 Understanding of messages 148
7 Rational effects of a message 151
8 Future multi-agent systems and dialog theory 153
chapter 5
Agents in critical argumentation 159
1 The case of the critical discussion on euthanasia 160
2 Fallacy and deception 164
3 Current systems of formal dialectic 167
4 Implicit commitment and Gricean implicature 173
5 Adding speech acts and agents to formal dialectic 176
6 What characteristics of an agent are needed? 180
7 Expectations and plausible inference 185
8 Plans, strategies and chaining forward 187
9 Strategies in formal dialectic 191
10 Qualities of character for agents in formal dialectic 200
Table of contents 
chapter 6
Dialectical shifts and embeddings 205
1 Dialectical shifts and fallacies 206
2 The problem of shifts and embeddings 212
3 Cases of shifts based on embeddings 216
4 Cases of shifts not based on embeddings 221
5 Argumentation schemes 226
6 Analysis of the cases based on embeddings 230
7 Analysis of the cases not based on embeddings 233
8 Fitting dialogs together at global and local levels 235
9 Metadialogs 239
10 Solving the embedding problem 241
chapter 7
Criticizing a natural language argument 247
1 Explanation, clarification and interpretation 248
2 The three stages of critical assessment 253
3 Plan recognition and incomplete arguments 256
4 New tools for argument diagramming 261
5 The problem of enthymemes 265
6 Three bases for the enthymeme 268
7 Textual interpretation as an abductive process 274
8 Textual interpretation as simulative 277
9 Anticipating an arguer’s future moves 281
10 The problem of diffuse dialog 284
Bibliography 289
Index 303