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Sample records for irrational arguments radioaktivitaet

  1. RATIONAL-IRRATIONAL ELECTORAL PREFERENCES, ALTRUISM AND EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

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    Mihai Ungureanu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Caplan (2000, 2001, 2006 proposed the rational-irrationality model arguing that irrationality is a good as any other, whose consumption is maximized in relation to its costs and benefits. Applying this model to the problem of electoral behavior Caplan implies that voters ‘afford’ many irrational beliefs, because the lack of individual decisiveness renders vote as a consequenceless act. This paper contributes to the development of knowledge by analyzing the compatibility of rational irrationality with active electoral behavior. Two important arguments are being proposed: First, Wittman’s (2008 intuition that rational irrationality is incompatible with voting could be supported only about a particular type of altruism, which Caplan actually seems to reject. Second, rational irrationality seems to be compatible with expressive motivations, reinforcing the conclusion that rational-irrational individuals are active voters in mass elections.

  2. Irrational "Coefficients" in Renaissance Algebra.

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    Oaks, Jeffrey A

    2017-06-01

    Argument From the time of al-Khwārizmī in the ninth century to the beginning of the sixteenth century algebraists did not allow irrational numbers to serve as coefficients. To multiply by x, for instance, the result was expressed as the rhetorical equivalent of . The reason for this practice has to do with the premodern concept of a monomial. The coefficient, or "number," of a term was thought of as how many of that term are present, and not as the scalar multiple that we work with today. Then, in sixteenth-century Europe, a few algebraists began to allow for irrational coefficients in their notation. Christoff Rudolff (1525) was the first to admit them in special cases, and subsequently they appear more liberally in Cardano (1539), Scheubel (1550), Bombelli (1572), and others, though most algebraists continued to ban them. We survey this development by examining the texts that show irrational coefficients and those that argue against them. We show that the debate took place entirely in the conceptual context of premodern, "cossic" algebra, and persisted in the sixteenth century independent of the development of the new algebra of Viète, Decartes, and Fermat. This was a formal innovation violating prevailing concepts that we propose could only be introduced because of the growing autonomy of notation from rhetorical text.

  3. Argumentation in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Response to Haiman's "Farewell to Rational Discourse."

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    Grice, George L.; Schunk, John F.

    In a 1968 address, Franklyn S. Haiman stated that public discourse at that time was marked by irrationality because of emphases on emotional appeals, disorganization, and aggressive or abusive style and language. He also cited "body rhetoric" (lawful protests or marches) and civil disobedience (illegal actions) as examples of irrational arguments.…

  4. Hearing the irrational: music and the development of the modern concept of number.

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    Pesic, Peter

    2010-09-01

    Because the modern concept of number emerged within a quadrivium that included music alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, musical considerations affected mathematical developments. Michael Stifel embedded the then-paradoxical term "irrational numbers" (numerici irrationales) in a musical context (1544), though his philosophical aversion to the "cloud of infinity" surrounding such numbers finally outweighed his musical arguments in their favor. Girolamo Cardano gave the same status to irrational and rational quantities in his algebra (1545), for which his contemporaneous work on music suggested parallels and empirical examples. Nicola Vicentino's attempt to revive ancient "enharmonic" music (1555) required and hence defended the use of "irrational proportions" (proportiones inrationales) as if they were numbers. These developments emerged in richly interactive social and cultural milieus whose participants interwove musical and mathematical interests so closely that their intense controversies about ancient Greek music had repercussions for mathematics as well. The musical interests of Stifel, Cardano, and Vicentino influenced their respective treatments of "irrational numbers." Practical as well as theoretical music both invited and opened the way for the recognition of a radically new concept of number, even in the teeth of paradox.

  5. Irrationality: What, Why and How

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    Li, Zhihua

    2014-01-01

    markdownabstract__Abstract__ This thesis has made a special effort to explore some relevant issues on (ir)rationality. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 answer the question what is irrationality. Chapter 2 improves the methodology to measure irrationality by proposing a new incentive system on individual decision-making: the prior incentive system (Prince). Chapter 3 addresses the issue of irrationality in decisions under ambiguity. Chapter 4 answers the question of why we steer people away from irrati...

  6. Irrationality: What, Why and How

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Z. Li (Zhihua)

    2014-01-01

    markdownabstract__Abstract__ This thesis has made a special effort to explore some relevant issues on (ir)rationality. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 answer the question what is irrationality. Chapter 2 improves the methodology to measure irrationality by proposing a new incentive system on individual

  7. Irrational Square Roots

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    Misiurewicz, Michal

    2013-01-01

    If students are presented the standard proof of irrationality of [square root]2, can they generalize it to a proof of the irrationality of "[square root]p", "p" a prime if, instead of considering divisibility by "p", they cling to the notions of even and odd used in the standard proof?

  8. Irrational ideas. Older vs. younger inpatients.

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    Hyer, L A; Jacobsen, R; Harrison, W R

    1985-04-01

    The relationship to age of irrational beliefs among psychiatric inpatients has not been explored using the rational-emotive model. This study addressed the following two questions: 1) Do older and younger psychiatric inpatients differ in irrational beliefs? 2) Do older depressives differ from older nondepressives in irrational beliefs? Upon admission to a large medical center, 58 younger (less than 45 years old) and 54 older (greater than 55 years old) subjects were assessed on a battery of psychological tests, including the Idea Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory. Results showed that older and younger inpatients did not differ on irrational beliefs. Results also showed that older and younger groups of depressives did not differ on the irrationality scores. When a correlational analysis was used, depression was related to irrationality within the older group but not within the younger group.

  9. Management between Rationality and Irrationality

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    Cene Bavec

    2012-01-01

    In the paper, we discuss theoretical and practical aspects of management and its rational and irrational behavior in the light of traditional management theories and contemporary social theories and theories of complexity. We exposed differences between middle and top management, where rationality is ascribed mainly to middle management, while top management often acts on seemingly irrational way. For the part of this irrationality, we cannot blame management because it originates from the na...

  10. Irrational Human Behaviors

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    Orhan Şener

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Neo Classical economists used to posit that, since consumers are rational, they make decisions to maximize their pleasure (utility. Opposing to Neo Classical understanding, Behavioral Economists argue that, consumers are infect not rational, but prone to all sort of biases and habits that pull them being rational. For instance, there are too many irrational choices made by the Turkish consumers like; expensive wedding parties given by low income families; although riding bicycle is healthy and cheap, but people buy expensive cars; it is cheaper staying at a hotel or a timeshare, however people buy expensive summer houses, where they stayed only few weeks a year. These type of irrational behaviors adversely affect the decisions on savings, investments and economic growth. On the consumers irrationality, Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, wrote Prospect Theory. They developed a cognitive psychological model to explain divergences from neoclassical economics. They claimed that people take decisions under psychological, social, emotional and economic factors that affect market prices and resource allocation. In order to explain the irrational behaviors of Turkish consumers, I utilized some concepts such as conspicuous consumption (or keeping up with Johns, Veblen Effect, Bandwagon Effect, bounded rationality, 20 to 80 Law and ethical considerations developed by Behavioral Economists and Heterodox Economics. Thus, I came to conclusion that why the free market economic understanding fails in Turkey by giving some examples and economic reasons stated in the last section of this paper.

  11. Effect of rational and irrational statements on intensity and 'inappropriateness' of emotional distress and irrational beliefs in psychotherapy patients.

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    Cramer, D; Kupshik, G

    1993-09-01

    Ellis's rational-emotive theory postulates that since irrational statements augment emotional distress, replacing irrational with rational statements should lessen distress. This hypothesis was tested in the initial stages of psychotherapy by having 13 and 14 clinical out-patients respectively repeat for one minute either rational or irrational statements about their major presenting psychological problem. The distinction by Ellis & Harper (1975) that 'inappropriate' emotions differ qualitatively from 'appropriate' emotions was also examined. Although the experimental intervention had no effect on a post-test measure of irrational beliefs, patients repeating rational statements had significantly lower appropriate and inappropriate negative emotions at post-test, suggesting that inappropriate emotions do not differ qualitatively from appropriate emotions and that making rational statements may lower emotional distress in patients. Patients reiterating irrational statements showed no change in emotions, implying that these kinds of irrational cognitions may have already been present.

  12. Irrational beliefs at work and their implications for workaholism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Wijhe, Corine; Peeters, Maria; Schaufeli, Wilmar

    2013-09-01

    This study examined the associations between work-related irrational cognitions and workaholism. For this purpose, a 16-item work-related irrational beliefs questionnaire (WIB-Q) was developed. Employees (n = 913) completed an online survey that included, besides the irrational cognitions scale, measures of negative affect and workaholism. The results show that four factors could be distinguished, which represent irrational beliefs concerning (1) performance demands, (2) co-workers' approval (3) failure and (4) control. All scales showed good internal consistency. Furthermore, it was found that, after controlling for negative affect, performance demands were associated with workaholism, whereas the remaining types of irrationality were unrelated to workaholism. In other words, the findings suggest that interventions for workaholism should target irrational self-oriented performance demands and negative emotions. As Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy focuses on identifying and replacing irrational cognitions, it appears a useful intervention technique for the treatment of workaholics.

  13. Irrational Numbers Can "In-Spiral" You

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    Lewis, Leslie D.

    2007-01-01

    This article describes the instructional process of helping students visualize irrational numbers. Students learn to create a spiral, called "the wheel of Theodorus," which demonstrates irrational and rational lengths. Examples of student work help the reader appreciate the delightful possibilities of this project. (Contains 4 figures.)

  14. Collective irrationality and positive feedback.

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    Nicolis, Stamatios C; Zabzina, Natalia; Latty, Tanya; Sumpter, David J T

    2011-04-26

    Recent experiments on ants and slime moulds have assessed the degree to which they make rational decisions when presented with a number of alternative food sources or shelter. Ants and slime moulds are just two examples of a wide range of species and biological processes that use positive feedback mechanisms to reach decisions. Here we use a generic, experimentally validated model of positive feedback between group members to show that the probability of taking the best of options depends crucially on the strength of feedback. We show how the probability of choosing the best option can be maximized by applying an optimal feedback strength. Importantly, this optimal value depends on the number of options, so that when we change the number of options the preference of the group changes, producing apparent "irrationalities". We thus reinterpret the idea that collectives show "rational" or "irrational" preferences as being a necessary consequence of the use of positive feedback. We argue that positive feedback is a heuristic which often produces fast and accurate group decision-making, but is always susceptible to apparent irrationality when studied under particular experimental conditions.

  15. Collective irrationality and positive feedback.

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    Stamatios C Nicolis

    Full Text Available Recent experiments on ants and slime moulds have assessed the degree to which they make rational decisions when presented with a number of alternative food sources or shelter. Ants and slime moulds are just two examples of a wide range of species and biological processes that use positive feedback mechanisms to reach decisions. Here we use a generic, experimentally validated model of positive feedback between group members to show that the probability of taking the best of options depends crucially on the strength of feedback. We show how the probability of choosing the best option can be maximized by applying an optimal feedback strength. Importantly, this optimal value depends on the number of options, so that when we change the number of options the preference of the group changes, producing apparent "irrationalities". We thus reinterpret the idea that collectives show "rational" or "irrational" preferences as being a necessary consequence of the use of positive feedback. We argue that positive feedback is a heuristic which often produces fast and accurate group decision-making, but is always susceptible to apparent irrationality when studied under particular experimental conditions.

  16. The behavioural ecology of irrational behaviours.

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    Huneman, Philippe; Martens, Johannes

    2017-08-17

    Natural selection is often envisaged as the ultimate cause of the apparent rationality exhibited by organisms in their specific habitat. Given the equivalence between selection and rationality as maximizing processes, one would indeed expect organisms to implement rational decision-makers. Yet, many violations of the clauses of rationality have been witnessed in various species such as starlings, hummingbirds, amoebas and honeybees. This paper attempts to interpret such discrepancies between economic rationality (defined by the main axioms of rational choice theory) and biological rationality (defined by natural selection). After having distinguished two kinds of rationality we introduce irrationality as a negation of economic rationality by biologically rational decision-makers. Focusing mainly on those instances of irrationalities that can be understood as exhibiting inconsistency in making choices, i.e. as non-conformity of a given behaviour to axioms such as transitivity or independence of irrelevant alternatives, we propose two possible families of Darwinian explanations that may account for these apparent irrationalities. First, we consider cases where natural selection may have been an indirect cause of irrationality. Second, we consider putative cases where violations of rationality axioms may have been directly favored by natural selection. Though the latter cases (prima facie) seem to clearly contradict our intuitive representation of natural selection as a process that maximizes fitness, we argue that they are actually unproblematic; for often, they can be redescribed as cases where no rationality axiom is violated, or as situations where no adaptive solution exists in the first place.

  17. Individualized measurement of irrational beliefs in remitted depressives.

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    Solomon, Ari; Arnow, Bruce A; Gotlib, Ian H; Wind, Brian

    2003-04-01

    Recent reviews of cognitive theories of depression have noted that individualized assessment strategies might help to resolve mixed findings regarding the stability of depressotypic beliefs and attitudes. We describe encouraging results for an individualized measure of one such cognitive construct, irrational beliefs. Twenty depression-prone women (recurrent major depressives in full remission) and twenty closely matched never-depressed controls completed leading forced-choice measures of irrational beliefs (the Belief Scale; BS) and sociotropy-autonomy (The Revised Personal Style Inventory), as well as the Specific Demands on Self Scale (SDS). The BS requires participants to rate their agreement with twenty preselected statements of irrational beliefs, while the SDS focuses on whether participants harbor any strongly held irrational beliefs, even if uncommon or idiosyncratic. Consistent with previous research, there were no group differences on the traditional measure of irrational beliefs. In contrast, depression-prone participants strongly exceeded controls on the SDS, and this difference persisted after controlling for residual depression, anxiety symptoms, anxiety diagnoses, sociotropy, and autonomy. These findings provide some initial support for a key assumption of the rational-emotive model of depression, and, more broadly, suggest that individualized assessment strategies may help researchers capture the core negative beliefs of asymptomatic individuals, even in the absence of mood or cognitive priming. Copyright 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 59: 439-455, 2003.

  18. Self-Handicapping and Irrational Beliefs about Approval in a Sample of Teacher Candidates

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    Kaya, Çinar; Ugur, Erol; Sar, Ali Haydar; Ercengiz, Mustafa

    2017-01-01

    The main objective of the current study is to examine the relationships between self-handicapping, and irrational beliefs about approval, irrational beliefs about interpersonal relationships, irrational beliefs about self and the overall level of irrational beliefs by reference to the " ABC " framework. Participants of the study were 263…

  19. A validation study of the Brief Irrational Thoughts Inventory

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    Hoogsteder, L.M.; Wissink, I.B.; Stams, G.J.J.M.; van Horn, J.E.; Hendriks, J.

    2014-01-01

    This study examines the reliability and validity of the "Brief Irrational Thoughts Inventory" (BITI) in a sample of 256 justice-involved youths. The BITI is a questionnaire used to determine the nature and severity of irrational thoughts related to aggressive (externalizing), sub-assertive

  20. The Banality of Environmental Evil: From the Irrational Alienation Toward Democratic Deliberation in Environmental Law Formation

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    Leonardo da Rocha de Souza

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available This study discusses the emergence of environmental banal evil in the complex societies since the concept of the banality of evil developed by Hannah Arendt in the book "Eichmann in Jerusalem". From this, proposes to develop a proactive action towards environmental protection, away from society in a neutral position in this area, as this neutrality creates an irrational alienation. Will use the deductive method and the indirect documentation of research technique. As a result, we intend to demonstrate that individuals must be willing to consciously democratic participation by developing an ability to think and formulate rational arguments on this subject in the public sphere.

  1. An Examination of the Relationship between Irrational Beliefs and Communication Apprehension.

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    Ambler, Bob; Elkins, Mike

    A study of the relationship between irrational beliefs and communication apprehension (CA) sought to determine (1) if CA is related to a person's irrational beliefs as defined in research by Ellis; (2) to which, if any, of the CA contexts (group, meeting, dyadic, or public speaking) the irrational beliefs are most related; and (3) whether the…

  2. The Irrational Beliefs Inventory : cross cultural comparisons between American and Dutch samples

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    Bridges, K.Robert; Sanderman, Robbert

    2002-01-01

    The 50-item Irrational Beliefs Inventory (IBI) was developed in the Netherlands for the assessment of irrational thinking. The IBI was derived from the Rational Behavior Inventory (RBI) and the Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT). The present study was designed to assess the applicability of the IBI in a

  3. Assessment of Irrational Beliefs: The Question of Discriminant Validity.

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    Smith, Timothy W.; Zurawski, Raymond M.

    1983-01-01

    Evaluated discriminant validity in frequently used measures of irrational beliefs relative to measures of trait anxiety in college students (N=142). Results showed discriminant validity in the Rational Behavior Inventory but not in the Irrational Beliefs Test and correlated cognitive rather than somatic aspects of trait anxiety with both measures.…

  4. Systematic review on irrational use of medicines in China and Vietnam.

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    Mao, Wenhui; Vu, Huyen; Xie, Zening; Chen, Wen; Tang, Shenglan

    2015-01-01

    Irrational use of medicines has been an issue concerned all over the world and the outlooks in developing countries are more severe. This study aimed to assess the different patterns of irrational use of medicines and its influential factors in China and Vietnam. A systematic review was performed on both published and grey literatures in English, Chinese and Vietnamese languages between 1993 and 2013 based on the WHO framework. Quality assessment was conducted on the basis of the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. Key indicators were analyzed to compare the irrational use of medicines in two countries. A total of 67 published works about China and 29 about Vietnam were included, the majority of which were cross-sectional prescription studies in both China and Vietnam. Irrational use of medicines was found in both the countries but issues with polypharmacy as well as overuse of antibiotics were more severe in Vietnam while overuse of injections was unique to China. Various patterns of irrational use were also indicated between urban and rural areas, and among different levels of hospitals. Rarely does literature focus on the analysis of influential factors of irrational use of medicines. While lack of proper knowledge from both providers and patients were the most recognized influential factors in both countries, economic incentives from pharmaceutical companies in China, and weak control and regulation over prescriptions in Vietnam were the main factors attributed to this issue. Severe irrational use of medicines has been abundantly evidenced in both China and Vietnam, highlighting the importance of policy interventions on the issue. However, limited evidence on the appropriateness or its compliance (conformity) to guidelines of prescription has been found. In addition, convincing evidence on the underlying explanation of this issue is lacking, although economic incentives, health insurance coverage, and knowledge of service providers and users have been implied

  5. The Study and Comparison of Irrational Beliefs in Addicted and Normal People

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    Hasan Aminpoor

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Irrational beliefs have some destructive and serious effects on individuals’ behavior at home, work environment, and in social environment also implicate emotional deep effects (depression, grief, self teasing, self reproaching, and contrition. The main aim of present study was the comparison of irrational beliefs in addicted and normal people. Method: the research method was causal comparative research and taking into account the subject importance and its role in individuals tendency toward addiction a sample of 120 persons (60 addicted people and 60 normal ones was selected based on available samplingand similar in order of age and the Joens irrational beliefs questionnaire was administered among selected sample. In order to analyze data, independent samples t test, and ANOVA were run. Results: There was significant difference between the mean score of irrational beliefs with consideration of group (addicted and normal group, also, in addicted people there was significant difference between the mean score of irrational beliefs with consideration of education level, and economical status. Conclusion: The mean score of irrational beliefs in addicted people is more than normal ones. Taking into consideration that individuals can change their behaviors and feelings through changing their beliefs, so one must replace irrational beliefs with rational ones based on educational qualifications.

  6. Debunking the Monday Irrationality through the External Affection of Investors

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    Rayenda Brahmana

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to reveal the mechanism of the influences of the full moon and high temperatures on investors’ Monday irrationality. In contrast to other studies, this research was built under a retroductive approach by using a time series quasi experimental study. Investors were directly assessed for their irrationality by using an adapted psychometric test on 4 occasions. The results indicate that there were indeed effects of the full moon and high temperatures on investors’ irrationality. Because the full moon and high temperatures frequently occurred on Mondays, it is most probably those two variables that were the drivers of the Monday irrationality. In the end, we concluded that the rational behaviour assumption can no longer be held. Instead of rationality, the investors were quasi rational. The utility function of Von Neumann-Morgenstern in decision making has to be replaced by the hedonic utility.

  7. Systematic review on irrational use of medicines in China and Vietnam.

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    Wenhui Mao

    Full Text Available Irrational use of medicines has been an issue concerned all over the world and the outlooks in developing countries are more severe. This study aimed to assess the different patterns of irrational use of medicines and its influential factors in China and Vietnam.A systematic review was performed on both published and grey literatures in English, Chinese and Vietnamese languages between 1993 and 2013 based on the WHO framework. Quality assessment was conducted on the basis of the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. Key indicators were analyzed to compare the irrational use of medicines in two countries.A total of 67 published works about China and 29 about Vietnam were included, the majority of which were cross-sectional prescription studies in both China and Vietnam. Irrational use of medicines was found in both the countries but issues with polypharmacy as well as overuse of antibiotics were more severe in Vietnam while overuse of injections was unique to China. Various patterns of irrational use were also indicated between urban and rural areas, and among different levels of hospitals. Rarely does literature focus on the analysis of influential factors of irrational use of medicines. While lack of proper knowledge from both providers and patients were the most recognized influential factors in both countries, economic incentives from pharmaceutical companies in China, and weak control and regulation over prescriptions in Vietnam were the main factors attributed to this issue.Severe irrational use of medicines has been abundantly evidenced in both China and Vietnam, highlighting the importance of policy interventions on the issue. However, limited evidence on the appropriateness or its compliance (conformity to guidelines of prescription has been found. In addition, convincing evidence on the underlying explanation of this issue is lacking, although economic incentives, health insurance coverage, and knowledge of service providers and users

  8. The irrationals a story of the numbers you can't count on

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    Havil, Julian

    2012-01-01

    The ancient Greeks discovered them, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that irrational numbers were properly understood and rigorously defined, and even today not all their mysteries have been revealed. In The Irrationals, the first popular and comprehensive book on the subject, Julian Havil tells the story of irrational numbers and the mathematicians who have tackled their challenges, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. Along the way, he explains why irrational numbers are surprisingly difficult to define—and why so many questions still surround them. Fascinating and illuminating, this is a book for everyone who loves math and the history behind it.

  9. Scaling Irrational Beliefs in the General Attitude and Belief Scale

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    Lindsay R. Owings

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Accurate measurement of key constructs is essential to the continued development of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT. The General Attitude and Belief Scale (GABS, a contemporary inventory of rational and irrational beliefs based on current REBT theory, is one of the most valid and widely used instruments available, and recent research has continued to improve its psychometric standing. In this study of 544 students, item response theory (IRT methods were used (a to identify the most informative item in each irrational subscale of the GABS, (b to determine the level of irrationality represented by each of those items, and (c to suggest a condensed form of the GABS for further study with clinical populations. Administering only the most psychometrically informative items to clients could result in economies of time and effort. Further research based on the scaling of items could clarify the specific patterns of irrational beliefs associated with particular clinical syndromes.

  10. Collaborative Irrationality, Akrasia and Groupthink

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Szanto, Thomas

    2017-01-01

    by distinguishing mutual, communal and collaborative forms of akrasia. Such a taxonomy seems all the more needed as, rather surprisingly, in the face of huge philosophical interest in analysing the possibility, structure and mechanisms of individual practical irrationality, with very little exception...

  11. Rationality and irrationality in understanding human behaviour. An evaluation of the methodological consequences of conceptualising irrationality

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    Cosmin Toth

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Some of the most known and fertile models for understanding human behaviour are those which rest on the assumption of human rationality. These models have specific strategies for dealing with situations in which understanding human behaviour becomes difficult, i.e. cases of irrationality, and this, in turn, leads to particular methodological consequences. The aim of this article is to illustrate and systematize some of the typical theoretical approaches to the issues of rationality and irrationality and their methodological consequences, while warning, at the same time, against the risks of applying rationality models of a pronounced normative-evaluative nature. A number of important methodological consequences of applying the principle of charity to various degrees of strength are analysed and a taxonomic grid for the different ways of approaching rationality is presented.

  12. A test data compression scheme based on irrational numbers stored coding.

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    Wu, Hai-feng; Cheng, Yu-sheng; Zhan, Wen-fa; Cheng, Yi-fei; Wu, Qiong; Zhu, Shi-juan

    2014-01-01

    Test question has already become an important factor to restrict the development of integrated circuit industry. A new test data compression scheme, namely irrational numbers stored (INS), is presented. To achieve the goal of compress test data efficiently, test data is converted into floating-point numbers, stored in the form of irrational numbers. The algorithm of converting floating-point number to irrational number precisely is given. Experimental results for some ISCAS 89 benchmarks show that the compression effect of proposed scheme is better than the coding methods such as FDR, AARLC, INDC, FAVLC, and VRL.

  13. Irrational Guards are Sometimes Needed

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Abrahamsen, Mikkel; Adamaszek, Anna; Miltzow, Tillmann

    2017-01-01

    In this paper we study the art gallery problem, which is one of the fundamental problems in computational geometry. The objective is to place a minimum number of guards inside a simple polygon so that the guards together can see the whole polygon. We say that a guard at position x sees a point y...... if the line segment xy is contained in the polygon. Despite an extensive study of the art gallery problem, it remained an open question whether there are polygons given by integer coordinates that require guard positions with irrational coordinates in any optimal solution. We give a positive answer...... to this question by constructing a monotone polygon with integer coordinates that can be guarded by three guards only when we allow to place the guards at points with irrational coordinates. Otherwise, four guards are needed. By extending this example, we show that for every n, there is a polygon which can...

  14. Management med racionalnostjo in iracionalnostjo = Management between Rationality and Irrationality

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    Cene Bavec

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available In the paper, we discuss theoretical and practical aspects of managementand its rational and irrational behavior in the light of traditionalmanagement theories and contemporary social theories and theoriesof complexity. We exposed differences between middle and top management,where rationality is ascribed mainly to middle management,while top management often acts on seemingly irrational way. For thepart of this irrationality, we cannot blame management because it originatesfrom the nature of the complex dynamic systems, as human organizationsare. However, a significant part of an apparently irrationalbehavior of management should be attributed to its particular and personalgoals that deviate from the goals of organization in which topmanagement absconded to the control of owners and even social norms.

  15. A Test Data Compression Scheme Based on Irrational Numbers Stored Coding

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    Hai-feng Wu

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Test question has already become an important factor to restrict the development of integrated circuit industry. A new test data compression scheme, namely irrational numbers stored (INS, is presented. To achieve the goal of compress test data efficiently, test data is converted into floating-point numbers, stored in the form of irrational numbers. The algorithm of converting floating-point number to irrational number precisely is given. Experimental results for some ISCAS 89 benchmarks show that the compression effect of proposed scheme is better than the coding methods such as FDR, AARLC, INDC, FAVLC, and VRL.

  16. Natural selection can favour 'irrational' behaviour.

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    McNamara, J M; Trimmer, P C; Houston, A I

    2014-01-01

    Understanding decisions is the fundamental aim of the behavioural sciences. The theory of rational choice is based on axiomatic principles such as transitivity and independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA). Empirical studies have demonstrated that the behaviour of humans and other animals often seems irrational; there can be a lack of transitivity in choice and seemingly irrelevant alternatives can alter decisions. These violations of transitivity and IIA undermine rational choice theory. However, we show that an individual that is maximizing its rate of food gain can exhibit failure of transitivity and IIA. We show that such violations can be caused because a current option may disappear in the near future or a better option may reappear soon. Current food options can be indicative of food availability in the near future, and this key feature can result in apparently irrational behaviour.

  17. Perceived Influence of Parenting Styles over Irrational Belief in Romantic Relations

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    Sardogan, Mehmet Emin

    2014-01-01

    The aim of this study is to investigate if perceived parenting styles have any influence on irrational belief in romantic relations among university students. To determine the students' irrational belief in romantic relations "Belief Inventory in Relations" by Kalkan and to determine their perception for parenting styles "Scale of…

  18. Irrational use of antibiotics and the risk of diabetes in Ghana ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Epidemiological studies show clearly that Caesarean birth, perinatal or neonatal irrational antibiotic use is strongly associated with increased risk of obesity and diabetes in later life. Irrational use of antibiotics is a great global public health concern especially in developing economies like Ghana due to poor regulation on ...

  19. On the Relationship of Attitudes towards Substance Abuse with Irrational Beliefs and Academic Procrastination

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    abolghasem yaghoobi

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship of irrational beliefs and academic procrastination with attitudes towards drug abuse in students. Method: This was a correlational that was carried out on a sample of 254 senior high school students in Kermanshah. Students were selected via random cluster sampling and filled in Jones Irrational Beliefs Test (1968, Solomon & Rothblum's Academic Procrastination (1984 and Rahmati’s Attitude to Drug Use (2001. Results: The results showed that irrational beliefs and procrastination were positively correlated with attitudes towards drug use. In addition, regression analysis showed that irrational beliefs and academic procrastination could account for the total of 38.9 percent of variance pertaining to attitudes towards drug use. Conclusion: It can be argued that academic procrastination and irrational beliefs underlie addiction; therefore, they should be considered in the treatment and prevention of addiction.

  20. Genetic Correlates of Maladaptive Beliefs: COMT VAL(158)MET and Irrational Cognitions Linked Depending on Distress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Podina, Ioana; Popp, Radu; Pop, Ioan; David, Daniel

    2015-11-01

    Maladaptive/irrational beliefs are significant cognitive vulnerability mechanisms in psychopathology. They are more likely to be associated with a genetic vulnerability marker under conditions of emotional distress when irrational beliefs are more salient. Therefore, in the current study we investigated the COMT Val(158)Met gene variation in relation to irrational beliefs, assuming this relationship depended on the level of emotional distress. Two hundred and sixty-seven genotyped volunteers were assessed for core/general maladaptive beliefs, as well as trait emotional distress. We focused on context-independent measures of irrational beliefs and emotional distress in the absence of a stressor. As expected, the relationship between COMT Val(158)Met and irrational beliefs depended on the level of emotional distress (f(2)=.314). The COMT Val(158)Met-irrationality association was significant only when individuals fell in the average to above average range of emotional distress. Furthermore, within this range the Met allele seemed to relate to higher irrational beliefs. These results were significant for overall irrational beliefs and its subtypes, but not for rational beliefs, the functional counterpart of irrationality. In light of the study's limitations, the results should be considered as preliminary. If replicable, these findings have potential implications for therapygenetics, changing the view that COMT Val(158)Met might be of greater relevance when treatment modality does not rely on cognitive variables. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  1. Expression of irrationality in consumer behaviour: aspect of price perception

    OpenAIRE

    Banytė, Jūratė; Rutelionė, Aušra; Gadeikienė, Agnė; Belkevičiūtė, Justina

    2016-01-01

    Consumer decision-making and its determining factors have been analysed by a number of marketing researchers; however, the majority of studies concentrate on the rational approach. Although sporadic, recent theoretical and empirical studies reveal that researchers of consumer behaviour should also place considerable attention on the analysis of issues related to consumer irrationality. In order to disclose the expression of consumer irrationality in decision-making related to purchasing and c...

  2. Do warning signs on electronic gaming machines influence irrational cognitions?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monaghan, Sally; Blaszczynski, Alex; Nower, Lia

    2009-08-01

    Electronic gaming machines are popular among problem gamblers; in response, governments have introduced "responsible gaming" legislation incorporating the mandatory display of warning signs on or near electronic gaming machines. These signs are designed to correct irrational and erroneous beliefs through the provision of accurate information on probabilities of winning and the concept of randomness. There is minimal empirical data evaluating the effectiveness of such signs. In this study, 93 undergraduate students were randomly allocated to standard and informative messages displayed on an electronic gaming machine during play in a laboratory setting. Results revealed that a majority of participants incorrectly estimated gambling odds and reported irrational gambling-related cognitions prior to play. In addition, there were no significant between-group differences, and few participants recalled the content of messages or modified their gambling-related cognitions. Signs placed on electronic gaming machines may not modify irrational beliefs or alter gambling behaviour.

  3. A study on Irrational Beliefs and Emotions Associated with the Sexual Desire of Infertile Women

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    N Honarparvaran

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background & aim: The main aim of this study was to determine the irrational beliefs and emotions associated with the sexual desire of infertile women in Shiraz. Methods: one hundred infertile women were selected by simple random method and examined with Tangi’s test of self conscious affect, Jonse’s irrational beliefs, and Hulbert’s index sexual desire. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Results: Results showed that there was a linear relation between irrational beliefs and self conscious affect with rate of sexual desire and irrational beliefs had reversal impact on sexual desire. Two subscale perfectionism and high self had reversal affect on sexual desire in infertile women. Conclusions: This study showed that infertility threatens women’s mental health. Key words: Self Conscious Affect, Irrational Believes, Sexual Desire, Infertility Women

  4. Irrational evaluations and antisocial behavior of adolescents

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vukosavljević-Gvozden Tatjana

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available The principles of the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy point out to the role of irrational beliefs in the occurrence of aggressive and antisocial behavior. The goal of this research is to determine whether there are links between irrational beliefs and self-assessment of antisocial behavior and whether there are differences with respect to irrational beliefs between the young who were sentenced by juvenile court judges compared to the control group. The research was conducted on two subsamples - the first consisted of male adolescents (N=116, aged 16 to 19, and the second comprised male adolescents 50 out of whom were sentenced by juvenile court judges, aged averagely 17 and a half, and 50 members of the control group. The modified version of the General Attitude and Belief Scale (GABS (Marić, 2002, 2003 and Antisocial Behavior Scale (ABS (Opačić, 2010, in print were used. Multiple regression analysis showed that the best predictor of the score on antisocial behavior scale was “the demand for absolute correctness of others and their devaluation”, followed by the aspiration towards perfectionism and success which acts as the factor that reduces the probability of antisocial behavior. Almost identical results were obtained by group comparison. The obtained results provide guidelines for designing preventive programs (sketched in the discussion that would be able to reduce the frequency of aggressive and antisocial behavior at adolescent age.

  5. Infinite genus surfaces and irrational polygonal billiards

    OpenAIRE

    Valdez, Ferrán

    2009-01-01

    We prove that the natural invariant surface associated with the billiard game on an irrational polygonal table is homeomorphic to the Loch Ness monster, that is, the only orientable infinite genus topological real surface with exactly one end.

  6. A Collection of Numbers Whose Proof of Irrationality Is Like that of the Number "e"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osler, Thomas J.; Stugard, Nicholas

    2006-01-01

    In some elementary courses, it is shown that square root of 2 is irrational. It is also shown that the roots like square root of 3, cube root of 2, etc., are irrational. Much less often, it is shown that the number "e," the base of the natural logarithm, is irrational, even though a proof is available that uses only elementary calculus. In this…

  7. Defining and Confirming the Relationship between Irrational Beliefs and Communication Apprehension: An Extension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ambler, Bob; Elkins, Mike

    A study sought to affirm the previously established relationship between irrational beliefs and communication apprehension. Four hundred and fifty-four subjects completed an Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT) and all 24 questions of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) test. Results support the hypothesis that students high in…

  8. Assessing Irrational Beliefs and Emotional Distress: Evidence and Implications of Limited Discriminant Validity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zurawski, Raymond M.; Smith, Timothy W.

    1987-01-01

    Examined the disciminant validity of measures of irrational beliefs. The Irrational Beliefs Test and the Rational Behavior Inventory were highly correlated but were equally highly correlated with self-report measures of depression and anxiety. Thus, rather than assessing beliefs correlated with emotional distress, the measures may actually assess…

  9. Testing two mechanisms by which rational and irrational beliefs may affect the functionality of inferences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bond, F W; Dryden, W; Briscoe, R

    1999-12-01

    This article describes a role playing experiment that examined the sufficiency hypothesis of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT). This proposition states that it is sufficient for rational and irrational beliefs to refer to preferences and musts, respectively, if those beliefs are to affect the functionality of inferences (FI). Consistent with the REBT literature (e.g. Dryden, 1994; Dryden & Ellis, 1988; Palmer, Dryden, Ellis & Yapp, 1995) results from this experiment showed that rational and irrational beliefs, as defined by REBT, do affect FI. Specifically, results showed that people who hold a rational belief form inferences that are significantly more functional than those that are formed by people who hold an irrational belief. Contrary to REBT theory, the sufficiency hypothesis was not supported. Thus, results indicated that it is not sufficient for rational and irrational beliefs to refer to preferences and musts, respectively, if those beliefs are to affect the FI. It appears, then, that preferences and musts are not sufficient mechanisms by which rational and irrational beliefs, respectively, affect the FI. Psychotherapeutic implications of these findings are considered.

  10. Cost implication of irrational prescribing of chloroquine in Lagos State general hospitals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aina, Bolajoko A; Tayo, Fola; Taylor, Ogori

    2008-02-01

    A major share of the hospital budget is spent on drugs. Irrational use of these drugs is a waste of financial and human resources that could have been deployed for another use within the hospital setting especially in cases where such drugs are provided free to patients. Also there is increased morbidity and progression of severity with irrational use. The objective of this study was to determine the irrational use of chloroquine and the subsequent cost implications in Lagos State general hospitals. A retrospective study period of one year (January to December, 2000) was selected. A total of 18,781 prescription forms of "Free Eko Malaria" were sampled for children and adults from all the Lagos State general hospitals. Drug costs in each prescription form were identified. Cost effectiveness analysis of chloroquine tablet and intramuscular injection was undertaken. The average cost of medicine per prescription was 132.071 ($1.03) which should have been 94.22 ($0.73) if prescribed rationally. The total cost of prescriptions for malaria under study was 2,480,425.00 ($19,348.09). About 68% {(1,679,444.00) ($13,100.19)} of the total cost was lost to irrational prescribing. This is a waste of scarce resources. When the prescriptions were differentiated into the different dosage forms prescribed, the prescriptions containing intramuscular injections only had over 90% of the cost lost to irrational prescribing. Cost effectiveness analysis showed that chloroquine tablet was 17 times more cost effective than chloroquine injection (intramuscular) from a health care system perspective while it was 14 times more cost effective from a patient perspective. There is waste of scarce resources with irrational dispensing of drugs and these resources could have been deployed to other uses or areas within the hospitals. The tablet chloroquine was more cost effective than injection chloroquine (intramuscular). Increasing the cost of tablets, decreasing effectiveness of tablets

  11. Simulation and Irrationality | Galgut | Philosophical Papers

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    In this paper, I hope to show how a recent theory in the philosophy of mind concerning how we 'read' the minds of others—namely, Heal's version of simulation theory—is consistent with the view that the kind of understanding we bring to bear on the irrational is different in kind from the way we understand one another in the ...

  12. Confucius' Analysis of the Human Nature of Irrationality and His Quest for Moral Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiawei, Xing

    2015-01-01

    This study uses mainly Confucian classic Lunyu to explore Confucius' insightful thinking about humans' strong innate nature of irrationality out of their physical needs. Irrationality causes interpersonal disturbances and chaos, and as such moral education is indispensable. Confucius advocated humanity, the principles of conscientiousness and…

  13. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT, irrational and rational beliefs, and the mental health of athletes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martin James Turner

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training (PST for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957, the original cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1 the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2 the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3 the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as

  14. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, Martin J

    2016-01-01

    In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957), the original cognitive behavioral therapy, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one's beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3) the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as highlighting research

  15. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, Martin J.

    2016-01-01

    In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957), the original cognitive behavioral therapy, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3) the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as highlighting research

  16. Modelling and measuring the irrational behaviour of agents in financial markets: Discovering the psychological soliton

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dhesi, Gurjeet; Ausloos, Marcel

    2016-01-01

    Following a Geometrical Brownian Motion extension into an Irrational fractional Brownian Motion model, we re-examine agent behaviour reacting to time dependent news on the log-returns thereby modifying a financial market evolution. We specifically discuss the role of financial news or economic information positive or negative feedback of such irrational (or contrarian) agents upon the price evolution. We observe a kink-like effect reminiscent of soliton behaviour, suggesting how analysts' forecasts errors induce stock prices to adjust accordingly, thereby proposing a measure of the irrational force in a market.

  17. Information hiding technology and application analysis based on decimal expansion of irrational numbers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Xiaoyong; Lu, Pei; Shao, Jianxin; Cao, Haibin; Zhu, Zhenmin

    2017-10-01

    In this paper, an information hiding method using decimal expansion of irrational numbers to generate random phase mask is proposed. Firstly, the decimal expansion parts of irrational numbers generate pseudo-random sequences using a new coding schemed, the irrational number and start and end bit numbers were used as keys in image information hiding. Secondly, we apply the coding schemed to the double phase encoding system, the pseudo-random sequences are taken to generate random phase masks. The mean square error is used to calculate the quality of the recovered image information. Finally, two tests had been carried out to verify the security of our method; the experimental results demonstrate that the cipher image has such features, strong robustness, key sensitivity, and resistance to brute force attack.

  18. Stressful Life Events and Irrational Beliefs as Predictors of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Stressful Life Events and Irrational Beliefs as Predictors of Psychological Wellbeing ... characterized with negative indicators, such as, anxiety, depression. Does similar relationship is evident referring to positive indicators of Psychological ...

  19. Fermat's Last Theorem for Factional and Irrational Exponents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, Frank

    2010-01-01

    Fermat's Last Theorem says that for integers n greater than 2, there are no solutions to x[superscript n] + y[superscript n] = z[superscript n] among positive integers. What about rational exponents? Irrational n? Negative n? See what an undergraduate senior seminar discovered.

  20. Medicine, ethics and religion: rational or irrational?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orr, R D; Genesen, L B

    1998-12-01

    Savulescu maintains that our paper, which encourages clinicians to honour requests for "inappropriate treatment" is prejudicial to his atheistic beliefs, and therefore wrong. In this paper we clarify and expand on our ideas, and respond to his assertion that medicine, ethics and atheism are objective, rational and true, while religion is irrational and false.

  1. Proofs of certain properties of irrational roots

    OpenAIRE

    Belbas, S. A.

    2009-01-01

    We give two elementary proofs, at a level understandable by students with only pre-calculus knowledge of Algebra, of the well known fact that an irreducible irrational n-th root of a positive rational number cannot be solution of a polynomial of degree less than n with rational coefficients. We also state and prove a few simple consequences.

  2. The precuneus may encode irrationality in human gambling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sacre, P; Kerr, M S D; Subramanian, S; Kahn, K; Gonzalez-Martinez, J; Johnson, M A; Sarma, S V; Gale, J T

    2016-08-01

    Humans often make irrational decisions, especially psychiatric patients who have dysfunctional cognitive and emotional circuitry. Understanding the neural basis of decision-making is therefore essential towards patient management, yet current studies suffer from several limitations. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in humans have dominated decision-making neuroscience, but have poor temporal resolution and the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal is only a proxy for neural activity. On the other hand, lesion studies in humans used to infer functionality in decision-making lack characterization of neural activity altogether. Using a combination of local field potential recordings in human subjects performing a financial decision-making task, spectral analyses, and non-parametric cluster statistics, we analyzed the activity in the precuneus. In nine subjects, the neural activity modulated significantly between rational and irrational trials in the precuneus (p decisions were made. Although preliminary, these results suggest suppression of gamma rhythms via electrical stimulation in the precuneus as a therapeutic intervention for pathological decision-making.

  3. 5. FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH IRRATIONAL DRUG USE AT A ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    RICHY

    prevalence of irrational drug use and factors associated with it were ... The selection process adapted a ... Cultural preferences and beliefs also influence. 5 ... drugs remain a major problem. .... accounting for 51.4% of the records surveyed.

  4. The moderating role of rational beliefs in the relationship between irrational beliefs and posttraumatic stress symptomology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hyland, Philip; Shevlin, Mark; Adamson, Gary; Boduszek, Daniel

    2014-05-01

    Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) assumes that rational beliefs act as cognitive protective factors against the development of psychopathology; however little empirical evidence exists regarding the nature of the possible protective effects that they offer. The current study investigates whether rational beliefs moderate the impact of irrational beliefs on posttraumatic stress symptomology (PTS). Three hundred and thirteen active law enforcement, military, and related emergency service personnel took part in the current study. Sequential moderated multiple regression analysis was employed to investigate: (i) the direct impact of irrational beliefs on PTS; (ii) the direct impact of rational beliefs on PTS; (iii) the moderating effects of rational beliefs in the relationship between irrational beliefs and PTS. The irrational beliefs predicted by REBT theory emerged as critical predictors of PTS symptomology, in particular Depreciation beliefs. Rational beliefs (Preferences, and Acceptance beliefs) had a direct, negative impact on levels of PTS, and Acceptance beliefs moderated the impact of Catastrophizing beliefs on PTS. Irrational beliefs are important cognitive vulnerability factors in symptoms of PTS, while rational beliefs (Acceptance) appear to have a protective role in the emergence of PTS symptoms, both directly and by moderating the impact of Catastrophizing beliefs.

  5. The Role of Herd Behaviour in Determining the Investor‘s Monday Irrationality

    OpenAIRE

    Rayenda Brahmana; Chee Wooi Hooy; Zamri Ahmad

    2012-01-01

    With regards to determining whether herding is spontaneous and irrational behavior causing the Day-of-the-week anomaly, this paper intersects the Christie and Huang (1995) herd behaviour model with French's (1980) Day-of-the-week model in several layers of tests. We use firm-level data and investigate the return dispersion of 846 Bursa Malaysia stocks during 1990–2010. This paper found the herd behaviour is the determinant for investor’s Monday irrationality, especially in small caps indu...

  6. Irrationality measures of $\\log 2$ and $\\pi/\\sqrt{3}$

    OpenAIRE

    Brisebarre, Nicolas

    2001-01-01

    Using a class of polynomials that generalizes Legendre polynomials, we unify previous works of E. A. Rukhadze, A. K. Dubitskas, M. Hata, D. V. and G. V. Chudnovsky about irrationality measures of $\\log 2$ and $\\pi/\\sqrt{3}$

  7. A Developmental Study of the Relationship Among Irrational Beliefs, Behavior Problems, and Neuroticism in Adolescent Boys.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spirito, Anthony; Erickson, Marilyn T.

    Rational-Emotive Therapy states that maladaptive behaviors and emotional problems are the result of certain irrational beliefs that people hold and a number of empirical investigations with adult subjects have supported this claim. To determine whether the relationship between irrationality and psychological adjustment holds for adolescents, one…

  8. Real numbers as infinite decimals and irrationality of $\\sqrt{2}$

    OpenAIRE

    Klazar, Martin

    2009-01-01

    In order to prove irrationality of \\sqrt{2} by using only decimal expansions (and not fractions), we develop in detail a model of real numbers based on infinite decimals and arithmetic operations with them.

  9. The Role of Irrational Beliefs, Self Efficacy and Social Support in Relapse of Abuse Disorder

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Toraj Hashemi

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Aim: This study aimed to determine the role of irrational beliefs system, self efficacy and social support network in predicting of relapse/non-relapse of drug misusing, and comparison of mentioned variables between these two groups. Method: For this purpose 100 persons who had repeated relapse and 100 persons who did not have relapse were selected by available sampling of Rehabilitation Organization of Tabriz city. Albert Alic’s irrational beliefs, Sherer’s self efficacy and Wax’s social support questionnaires administered among selected samples. Results: The results showed that, there were significant differences between two relapse and non-relapse groups on irrational beliefs, self-efficacy and social support. Conclusion: The results have applied implications in addiction treatment clinics.

  10. Adult Education and the Rational-Irrational Dimension of Prejudice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rhyne, Dwight C.

    1973-01-01

    Teachers and counselors in an eight-week institute on problems of school desegregation were used in this study to estimate the degree of change in ethnic attitudes on the rational-irrational and anti-pro minority dimensions of prejudice as related to participation in an intensive adult education experience. (DS)

  11. Irrational Beliefs in Employees with an Adjustment, a Depressive, or an Anxiety Disorder: a Prospective Cohort Study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nieuwenhuijsen, Karen; Verbeek, Jos H. A. M.; de Boer, Angela G. E. M.; Blonk, Roland W. B.; van Dijk, Frank J. H.

    2010-01-01

    It remains unclear if patients with different types of common mental disorders, such as adjustment, anxiety and depressive disorders, have the same irrational ideas. The aim of this prospective cohort study (n = 190) is to investigate differences in level and type of irrational beliefs among these

  12. Irrational beliefs in employees with an adjustment, a depressive, or an anxiety disorder: A prospective cohort study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nieuwenhuijsen, K.; Verbeek, J.H.A.M.; Boer, A.G.E.M. de; Blonk, R.W.B.; Dijk, F.J.H. van

    2010-01-01

    It remains unclear if patients with different types of common mental disorders, such as adjustment, anxiety and depressive disorders, have the same irrational ideas. The aim of this prospective cohort study (n = 190) is to investigate differences in level and type of irrational beliefs among these

  13. Comparison of Irrational Believes between Mothers of Severe or Profound Mentally Handicapped Children with Healthy Children Mothers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Behrouz Hivadi

    2007-10-01

    Full Text Available Objective: The purpose of present research was the comparison of mothers irrational believes with severe or profound mentally handicapped child and mothers with normal child from 6 to14 years old in Tehran city. Materials & Methods: This study was an analytical, cross – sectional and comparative (case – control research. From mothers with severe or profound mentally handicapped child who had refered to Tehran welfare services centers, 80 mothers were selected by regular randomized sampling from two rehabilitation centers and 80 mothers with normal child were selected for peering with the group of testimonial from schools areas of east, west, south, north and center of Tehran, through multi - stage cluster sampling in for variables of: age of mothers, educational levels, the location of living and the number of children. They answered to questionnaire of irrational believes of jons (IBT. Analysis of data was done by descriptive and infringing statistics methods (Independent T test, U Mann Whitney, Chi-square and fisher. Results: The findings showed that: there are significantly differences in total irrational believes and irrational believes of blame proneness, frustration reactive, anxious over concern, problem avoiding and dependency, perfectionism between two groups of mothers (P<0/05. There was no significant difference in irrational believes between mothers who had mental handicap daughter and mothers who had mental handicap son (P=0/314. There was no significantly difference between two groups of mothers in four believes of demand for approval (P=0/737, high-self expectation (P=0/126, emotional irresponsibility (P=0/727, helplessness for change (p=0/283. Conclusion: Irrational believes and many its sub scales. In mothers of severe or profound mental handicap children were more than mothers with normal child. But believes of demand for approval, high self expectation, emotional irresponsibility, helplessness for change in mothers with

  14. The Role of Trauma-Specific Irrational Beliefs and Sociodemographic Risk Factors in Posttraumatic Stress Responses

    OpenAIRE

    Hyland, Philip; Shevlin, Mark; Adamson, Gary; Boduszek, Daniel

    2013-01-01

    Posttraumatic stress responses have been linked to a range of social-cognitive and sociodemographic factors. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy suggests that responding to a traumatic life event with a set of irrational beliefs should play a crucial role in predicting the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD: Ellis, 2001). The current study assessed the role of trauma-specific irrational beliefs in the prediction of clinically relevant posttraumatic stress responses, while contr...

  15. Irrational Charge from Topological Order

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moessner, R.; Sondhi, S. L.

    2010-10-01

    Topological or deconfined phases of matter exhibit emergent gauge fields and quasiparticles that carry a corresponding gauge charge. In systems with an intrinsic conserved U(1) charge, such as all electronic systems where the Coulombic charge plays this role, these quasiparticles are also characterized by their intrinsic charge. We show that one can take advantage of the topological order fairly generally to produce periodic Hamiltonians which endow the quasiparticles with continuously variable, generically irrational, intrinsic charges. Examples include various topologically ordered lattice models, the three-dimensional resonating valence bond liquid on bipartite lattices as well as water and spin ice. By contrast, the gauge charges of the quasiparticles retain their quantized values.

  16. Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist

    OpenAIRE

    Ariely, Dan; Popescu, Beatrice

    2015-01-01

    The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann ‘disciple’, but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people’s lives easier and mo...

  17. A study on Irrational Beliefs and Emotions Associated with the Sexual Desire of Infertile Women

    OpenAIRE

    N Honarparvaran; Z Qudery; M Taghva; Z Zandi ghashghaee

    2013-01-01

    Abstract Background & aim: The main aim of this study was to determine the irrational beliefs and emotions associated with the sexual desire of infertile women in Shiraz. Methods: one hundred infertile women were selected by simple random method and examined with Tangi’s test of self conscious affect, Jonse’s irrational beliefs, and Hulbert’s index sexual desire. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Results: Results showed that there was a linear relation betwee...

  18. Safe discharge: an irrational, unhelpful and unachievable concept

    OpenAIRE

    Goodacre, S

    2006-01-01

    Emergency doctors often decide whether to advise hospital admission or discharge by assessing whether a decision to discharge home is considered safe. This implies that hospital admission may be recommended on the basis of exceeding an arbitrarily defined risk of adverse outcome, rather than weighing the potential benefits, risks and costs of hospital admission. This approach is likely to lead to irrational decision making, unnecessary hospitalisation and unrealistic expectations regarding ri...

  19. On argumentation schemes and the natural classification of arguments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Katzav, J.K.; Reed, C.

    2004-01-01

    We develop conceptions of arguments and of argument types that will, by serving as the basis for developing a natural classification of arguments, benefit work in artificial intelligence. Focusing only on arguments construed as the semantic entities that are the outcome of processes of reasoning, we

  20. On the incremental validity of irrational beliefs to predict subjective well-being while controlling for personality factors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spörrle, Matthias; Strobel, Maria; Tumasjan, Andranik

    2010-11-01

    This research examines the incremental validity of irrational thinking as conceptualized by Albert Ellis to predict diverse aspects of subjective well-being while controlling for the influence of personality factors. Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) argues that irrational beliefs result in maladaptive emotions leading to reduced well-being. Although there is some early scientific evidence for this relation, it has never been investigated whether this connection would still persist when statistically controlling for the Big Five personality factors, which were consistently found to be important determinants of well-being. Regression analyses revealed significant incremental validity of irrationality over personality factors when predicting life satisfaction, but not when predicting subjective happiness. Results are discussed with respect to conceptual differences between these two aspects of subjective well-being.

  1. On argumentation schemes and the natural classification of arguments

    OpenAIRE

    Katzav, K.; Reed, C.

    2004-01-01

    We develop conceptions of arguments and of argument types that will, by serving as the basis for developing a natural classification of arguments, benefit work in artificial intelligence. Focusing only on arguments construed as the semantic entities that are the outcome of processes of reasoning, we outline and clarify our view that an argument is a proposition that represents a fact as both conveying some other fact and as doing so wholly. Further, we outline our view that, with respect to a...

  2. The comparition of Personality Patterns, irrational beliefs and impulsivity in males with with drug abuse disorder under Treatment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    samere asadi

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Objective: the aim of this research was to determine the difference between personality Patterns, irrational beliefs and impulsivity in men with drug abuse disorder under Treatment. Method: in this casual- comparative research, 80 men ( 40 males with drug abuse under Treatment and 40 of normal males that were selected with available sampling .Groups were matched in terms of demoghraphy characteristics ( age, sexuality, education level and marital status and were valued with means of Eysenk Perceived Stress Inventory, Jonze Irrational Beliefs Scale and Baret Impulsivity Inventory. Results: The result of variance analysis showed that addicts compared to normal people, get more scores on extraversion, neuroticism and psychosis. Addicts group had Higher men scores in irrational beliefs compare of other group. There was significant difference between groups in impulsivity and impulsivity in addicts persons is the most. Conclussion: The traits of Personality, irrational beliefs and Unrealistic and high level impulsivity are factors that propel individuals toward more drug abuse and finally addict and aiming this factors in individuals with abuse disorder under Treatment can lead to prevent of Substance Abuse Relapse.

  3. Irrational Delay Revisited: Examining Five Procrastination Scales in a Global Sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Svartdal, Frode; Steel, Piers

    2017-01-01

    Scales attempting to measure procrastination focus on different facets of the phenomenon, yet they share a common understanding of procrastination as an unnecessary, unwanted, and disadvantageous delay. The present paper examines in a global sample ( N = 4,169) five different procrastination scales - Decisional Procrastination Scale (DPS), Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS), Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS), Adult Inventory of Procrastination Scale (AIP), and General Procrastination Scale (GPS), focusing on factor structures and item functioning using Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Item Response Theory. The results indicated that The PPS (12 items selected from DPS, AIP, and GPS) measures different facets of procrastination even better than the three scales it is based on. An even shorter version of the PPS (5 items focusing on irrational delay), corresponds well to the nine-item IPS. Both scales demonstrate good psychometric properties and appear to be superior measures of core procrastination attributes than alternative procrastination scales.

  4. Personality dimensions and emotional problems: the mediating role of irrational beliefs in Pakistani adult non-clinical sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jibeen, Tahira

    2015-03-01

    This study presents the first examination of the relation between the Big Five personality traits, irrational beliefs and emotional problems in Pakistan, which is an understudied country in the psychological distress literature. A total of 195 participants (aged 25-60 years), employees at COMSATS University, completed a demographic information sheet, the Big Five Personality Questionnaire, the Irrational Belief Inventory and two subscales of the Brief Symptom Inventory including depression and anxiety. Direct effects of neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness were also observed for depression and anxiety. Structural Equation Modelling demonstrated that irrational beliefs played a significant mediating role in the relationship between neuroticism and anxiety and neuroticism and depression. The results highlight the importance of cognitive beliefs in functionally linking personality traits and emotional problems. © 2014 International Union of Psychological Science.

  5. Types, typologies, arguments

    OpenAIRE

    Plantin, Christian

    2017-01-01

    The concept of arguments schemes is fundamental for argumentation studies; but its implementation is not obvious. The first section of this contribution briefly starts from the concepts of argument scheme, typology of arguments schemes, and the foundational catalogue of 28 topoi from Aristotle's Rhetoric. The application of the "topical method" is first based on the knowledge of typologies of arguments, and then on the precise features defining an argument type. The practical question that re...

  6. Environmental impact of irrational and wasteful use of natural resources

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tolba, M K

    1978-01-01

    The author defines irrational use of resources as actions that are not based on existing knowledge of resources and wasteful use as actions using more resources than necessary. The three basic environmental impacts of irrational and wasteful uses are encroachment, exhaustion, and distribution effects. Man's contamination of the planet, which increased with population growth and technological advances that enable him to divert resources, can be altered by improving information and setting better criteria for the use of resources. The demand for resources can be lowered if life styles, prices, and income distribution patterns are modified to make resources use less wasteful and living conditions more equitable. The author reviews the present means of managing resources through minimum safety and social standards and notes that this approach leads to ownership and control problems. He suggests that criteria should ensure that all costs and benefits of a project be considered and that the project should promise a net positive change for better resource use. Several questions are suggested for use in assessing the comprehensiveness and relevancy of criteria.

  7. Types of arguments in parents-children discussions:: an argumentative analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Bova, Antonio; Arcidiacono, Francesco

    2014-01-01

    This study aims to single out the argumentative strategies most frequently used by parents to convince their children to accept their rules and prescriptions at mealtimes. The results of thestudy show that parents mostly put forward arguments based on the quality and quantity of food to persuade their childern to eat. Less frequently, the parents put forward other types of arguments such as the appeal to consistency, the arguments from expert opinion, and the argument from analogy. Whi...

  8. Recent progress in irrational conformal field theory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Halpern, M.B.

    1993-09-01

    In this talk, I will review the foundations of irrational conformal field theory (ICFT), which includes rational conformal field theory as a small subspace. Highlights of the review include the Virasoro master equation, the Ward identities for the correlators of ICFT and solutions of the Ward identities. In particular, I will discuss the solutions for the correlators of the g/h coset construction and the correlators of the affine-Sugawara nests on g contains h 1 contains hor-ellipsis contains h n . Finally, I will discuss the recent global solution for the correlators of all the ICFT's in the master equation

  9. Opinion: In defence of rational AIDS activism: How the irrationality of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This article describes the irrational actions of Act Up-Paris and some other organisations in recent years. We have written it because their activities are threatening the development of new treatment and prevention technologies for people with HIV. They are also undermining scientific research programmes in developing ...

  10. Measuring Procrastination: Psychometric Properties of the Norwegian Versions of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS) and the Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Svartdal, Frode

    2017-01-01

    Procrastination has been defined in different ways. Two instruments--the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS) and the Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS)--focus on a core problem in procrastination--the irrational delay of intended behavior. The present paper examined the psychometric properties of the Norwegian translations of these scales. In…

  11. That’s No Argument! The Dialectic of Non-Argumentation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krabbe, Erik C. W.; van Laar, Jan Albert

    2015-01-01

    What if in discussion the critic refuses to recognize an emotionally expressed (alleged) argument of her interlocutor as an argument, accusing him of having presented no argument at all. In this paper, we shall deal with this reproach, which taken literally amounts to a charge of having committed a

  12. On the irrationality measure for a q-analogue of ζ(2)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zudilin, W V

    2002-01-01

    A Liouville-type estimate is proved for the irrationality measure of quantities. The proof is based on the application of a q-analogue of the arithmetic method developed by Chudnovsky, Rukhadze, and Hata and of the transformation group for hypergeometric series-the group-structure approach introduced by Rhin and Viola

  13. (Irrationalism: At the cross-roads of historical and systematic reflection

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Danie F.M. Strauss

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available This article is dedicated to Ponti Venter for his contribution to the historical roots and systematic implications of philosophical problems. A discussion with him about four decades ago prompted me to investigate the Greek roots of our distinction of thought and being. In the analysis below, a brief sketch was given of the initial identification of thought and being in the thought of Parmenides and the consequences it had for the rationalistic tradition since the Renaissance, particularly in connection with the view that the universe itself has a rational structure. Two options were pursued in our analysis of rationalism: (1 to contrast it with empiricism and (2 to relate it to universality and the problem of what is individual. By distinguishing between conceptual and concept-transcending knowledge, an alternative systematic characterisation of rationalism (and irrationalism is proposed, namely that it absolutises conceptual knowledge (whilst irrationalism deifies concepttranscending knowledge. This view allows for an acknowledgement of the ontic horizon of human experience, co-constituted by the dimensions of modal aspects and type laws, without elevating human understanding to become the law-giver of the world.

  14. Emotional Intelligence and its consequences for occupational and life satisfaction - Emotional Intelligence in the context of irrational beliefs

    OpenAIRE

    Welpe, Isabell; Tumasjan, Andranik; Stich, Jennifer; Spörrle, Matthias; Försterling, Friedrich

    2005-01-01

    According to Albert Ellis' theory of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy irrational beliefs (IB) lead to maladaptive emotions. A central component of irrationality is the denial of one's own possibilities to control important aspects of life. A specific IB is that one cannot control and thus cannot avoid certain emotion states. Emotion research considers regulative emotion control a pivotal component of the concept of emotional intelligence (EI). A negative association between IB and EI can thu...

  15. Irrational drug use in neuropathic pain treatment: a twoyear data ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Irrational drug use in neuropathic pain treatment: a twoyear data analysis. E Tan, A Akıncı, G Ayvaz, T Erbaş, M Ertaş, O Güç, S Hepgüler, S Kiraz, SZ Oşar, S Öztürk, NS Özyalçın, S Palaoğlu, M Uyar, S Ünal, S Yalçın ...

  16. The Formation of Rational and Irrational Behaviors in Risky Investment Decision Making: Laboratory Experiment of Coping Theory Implication in Investors’ Adaptation Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wendy Wendy

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available This study analyzes the stock investor's rational and irrational behavior formation through Investor's Adaptation model. Hypotheses testings were conducted by manipulating four market conditions using between-subject experimental design. The results supported the hypotheses proposed in this study. When given treatment one (opportunity-high control, investors tended to adapt the profit maximizing strategy (rational. Meanwhile, when given treatment two (opportunity-low control, three (threat-high control and four (threat-low control, they tended to adapt the profit satisfying strategy (rational-emotional, bad news handling strategy (emotional-rational, and self-preserving strategy (irrational respectively. The application of rational strategies are intended to obtain personal benefits and profit, while adapting irrational strategy is intended to recover emotional stability and reduce some other tensions. Another finding showed that for the investors, the relatively irrational decision formation was "harder" than that of rational.

  17. The role of irrational thought in medicine adherence: people with diabetic kidney disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Allison F; Manias, Elizabeth; Walker, Rowan

    2009-10-01

    This paper is a report of a study conducted to examine how irrational thinking affects people's adherence to multiple medicines prescribed to manage their diabetic kidney disease. Approximately 50% of people are non-adherent to their prescribed medicines and the risk of non-adherence escalates as the number of prescribed medicines increases. Adherence to prescribed medicines can slow disease progression in diabetic kidney disease. A descriptive exploratory design was used. In-depth interviews were conducted with 23 participants recruited from a nephrology outpatient clinic in Australia in 2007. Data were analysed using a 'framework' method. Participants' mean age was 59 years, they had approximately six chronic conditions in addition to their diabetic kidney disease and were prescribed a median of ten medicines daily. Two major themes of irrational thinking--heuristics and denial--and subthemes were identified. Heuristics contributed to inaccurate risk assessment and biases affecting rational judgement concerning medicines, whereas denial was used to enhance coping necessary to manage this complex health condition. Participants underestimated their health risks because they had been taking medicines for many years and preferred not to dwell on their ill health. A large amount of irrational thinking was related to maintaining the emotional strength necessary to manage their comorbid conditions as best they could. Regular assessment and support of medicine adherence throughout the disease course is necessary to avert the development of counterproductive heuristics and denial affecting medicine adherence.

  18. Thierry De Putter, a geologist faced to the ''irrational'' fear of radioactive wastes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Putter, Th. de; Pivot, A.

    2004-01-01

    The author analyses the origins of the irrational fear the public feels concerning the disposal of radioactive wastes in deep geological layers. This fear seems to be linked to the positive image of the earth that has been built for millenniums in all humane civilizations, according to it the earth appears as a universal, pure and prolific mother. The burial of radioactive wastes might be considered in an unconscious way as a direct and permanent threat to the integrity of the earth. In fact the earth is not so fragile, it has already undergone catastrophes worse than these that are looming like climate changing or extinction of species, but what is true is that humane civilizations settled on its surface are very fragile. Irrational fear might be an acute and unconscious awareness of this fragility. (A.C.)

  19. Radioactivity and environment. 3. Enl. Ed. Radioaktivitaet und Umwelt

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Weish, P; Gruber, E

    1986-01-01

    The nuclear catastrophe in the Soviet Union has made clear how immediately the hazards resulting from radioactivity affect man, and how little we really know about it. The third edition of this pocket book which has been enlarged by a topical chapter on Chernobyl, deals with radioactivity as an environmental factor at the bological, medical, economic and sociopolitical levels. It is concerned with the alarming development of nuclear energy production and nuclear armament just as well as with the late effects caused by radioactivity. The critical view the authors take of nuclear technology is presented in understandable language, offering the reader many scientifically corroborated arguments. With 60 figs., 23 tabs.

  20. A Textbook Argument: Definitions of Argument in Leading Composition Textbooks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knoblauch, A. Abby

    2011-01-01

    This essay examines the definitions and practices of argument perpetuated by popular composition textbooks, illustrating how even those texts that appear to forward expansive notions of argument ultimately limit it to an intent to persuade. In doing so, they help perpetuate constricted practices of argument within undergraduate composition…

  1. Psychometric properties of the Survey of Personal Beliefs: a rational-emotive measure of irrational thinking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demaria, T P; Kassinove, H; Dill, C A

    1989-01-01

    A test consistency and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on the Survey of Personal Beliefs, a new measure of irrational thinking based on rational-emotive personality theory. The survey, which was logically derived, includes a general rationality factor and subscales measuring five hypothesized core categories of irrational beliefs. Subjects included a nonclinical sample of 130 men and 150 women, with a mean age of 46. Results indicated that the Survey of Personal Beliefs had satisfactory total and scale reliability. The confirmatory analyses supported a higher order factor model including 5 first-order factors ( awfulizing, self-directed shoulds, other-directed shoulds, low frustration tolerance, and self-worth) and 1 second-order or general factor.

  2. Rational and irrational numbers from unit resistors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kasperski, Maciej; Kłobus, Waldemar

    2014-01-01

    We address the problem of constructing a network of unit resistors such that it enables the retrieval of an arbitrary value of equivalent resistance. In particular, we employ the notion of continued fractions to construct a ladder network by which we can easily obtain any fractional value resistance. In addition, since any irrational number is associated with an infinite continued fraction, we discuss the convergence of the equivalent resistance of an infinite resistive ladder and various aspects concerning the approximations of arbitrary numbers attained by adding additional resistors successively to the network. The presented methods can be easily implemented in an educational laboratory and offer an interesting addition to the topic of Ohm’s law. (paper)

  3. Effectiveness of Rational- Emotive- Behavior Group Counseling (REBT on Irrational Attitudes about Spouse Selection in Girls and Boys

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. Karami boldaji

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of present study was to determine the effectiveness of Rational- Emotional- Behavior therapy (REBT on irrational attitudes about Spouse Selection in girls and boys. Therefore, 32 girls and boys in city of Bandar Abbas were randomly selected and assigned to two experimental and control groups with 16 girls and boys in each group. The experimental group received 8 sessions in each week. Attitudes about Mate Selection Scale (ARMSS were used as the pretest and post-test. Results of analysis of covariate showed that the mean scores of irrational attitudes about romance and mate selection in the experimental group was significantly lower than the control group in the post test (p= 0/001. Also, mean scores of subscales of irrational attitudes about romance and mate selection (believe love, pivotal experience, idealization, opposite seeking, easy getting and optimistic view in experimental group was significantly lower than control group in the post test.

  4. The problem of the possible rationality of suicide and the ethics of physician-assisted suicide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wittwer, Héctor

    2013-01-01

    Opponents of the legalization of physician assisted suicide (PAS) often claim that physicians must not give a helping hand to suicidal patients because (i) it is morally forbidden to help somebody to carry out an action which is inherently irrational and which will probably cause him severe harm, and (ii) the act of self-killing is necessarily irrational and self-harming. The article focuses on the second premise of this paternalistic argument against the moral permissibility of PAS and its legalization. First, it is shown that this premise can be understood in two ways, depending on whether the predicate "irrational" is taken to refer to a human being's lack of the capacity to decide and act rationally or irrationally, or to the property of the decision to end one's life. Whereas the first variant of the premise stating that all suicidal individuals lack the capacity to act rationally can only be verified or falsified by empirical studies, the second assumption is a normative one which only philosophy can deal with. Restated in another way, it says that is always rationally forbidden to kill oneself because the decision to end one's own life is necessarily irrational. The five arguments which have been brought forward to justify this claim are analyzed and criticized. It is argued that there is no valid argument for the necessary irrationality of suicide. Hence, the claim that PAS is morally forbidden and, therefore, ought not to be legalized cannot rest on that premise. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Logically Incorrect Arguments

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Svoboda, Vladimír; Peregrin, Jaroslav

    2016-01-01

    Roč. 30, č. 3 (2016), s. 263-287 ISSN 0920-427X R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA13-21076S Institutional support: RVO:67985955 Keywords : argumentation * logical form * incorrect argument * correct arguments Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion Impact factor: 0.689, year: 2016

  6. Argument Complexity: Teaching Undergraduates to Make Better Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Matthew A.; West, Robert L.

    2017-01-01

    The task of turning undergrads into academics requires teaching them to reason about the world in a more complex way. We present the Argument Complexity Scale, a tool for analysing the complexity of argumentation, based on the Integrative Complexity and Conceptual Complexity Scales from, respectively, political psychology and personality theory.…

  7. Examining Elementary Students' Development of Oral and Written Argumentation Practices Through Argument-Based Inquiry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ying-Chih; Hand, Brian; Park, Soonhye

    2016-05-01

    Argumentation, and the production of scientific arguments are critical elements of inquiry that are necessary for helping students become scientifically literate through engaging them in constructing and critiquing ideas. This case study employed a mixed methods research design to examine the development in 5th grade students' practices of oral and written argumentation from one unit to another over 16 weeks utilizing the science writing heuristic approach. Data sources included five rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments that occurred over eleven class periods; students' group writings; interviews with six target students and the teacher; and the researcher's field notes. The results revealed five salient trends in students' development of oral and written argumentative practices over time: (1) Students came to use more critique components as they participated in more rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments; (2) by challenging each other's arguments, students came to focus on the coherence of the argument and the quality of evidence; (3) students came to use evidence to defend, support, and reject arguments; (4) the quality of students' writing continuously improved over time; and (5) students connected oral argument skills to written argument skills as they had opportunities to revise their writing after debating and developed awareness of the usefulness of critique from peers. Given the development in oral argumentative practices and the quality of written arguments over time, this study indicates that students' development of oral and written argumentative practices is positively related to each other. This study suggests that argumentative practices should be framed through both a social and epistemic understanding of argument-utilizing talk and writing as vehicles to create norms of these complex practices.

  8. Effectiveness of a Psycho-Education Program on Learned Helplessness and Irrational Beliefs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ulusoy, Yagmur; Duy, Baki

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a psycho-education program aimed at reducing learned helplessness and irrational beliefs of eight-grade elementary students. The study was an experimental study based on the pre-test-post-test model with control and placebo group. A total of 27 participants, 9 group members in each group,…

  9. The Ethics of Argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vasco Correia

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Normative theories of argumentation tend to assume that logical and dialectical rules suffice to ensure the rationality of argumentative discourse. Yet, in everyday debates people use arguments that seem valid in light of such rules but nonetheless biased and tendentious. This article seeks to show that the rationality of argumentation can only be fully promoted if we take into account its ethical dimension. To substantiate this claim, I review some of the empirical evidence indicating that people’s inferential reasoning is systematically affected by a variety of biases and heuristics. Insofar as these cognitive illusions are typically unintentional, it appears that arguers may be biased despite their well-intended efforts to follow the rules of critical argumentation. Nevertheless, I argue that people remain responsible for the rationality of their arguments, given that there are a number of measures that they can (and ought to take to avoid such distortions. I highlight the importance of argumentational virtues and critical thinking to rational debates, and describe a set of indirect strategies of “argumentative self-control”.

  10. Irrational Delay Revisited: Examining Five Procrastination Scales in a Global Sample

    OpenAIRE

    Frode Svartdal; Piers Steel

    2017-01-01

    Source at http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01927 Scales attempting to measure procrastination focus on different facets of the phenomenon, yet they share a common understanding of procrastination as an unnecessary, unwanted, and disadvantageous delay. The present paper examines in a global sample (N = 4,169) five different procrastination scales – Decisional Procrastination Scale (DPS), Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS), Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS), Adult Inventory of Procr...

  11. Modification of Irrational Ideas and Test Anxiety through Rational Stage Directed Hypnotherapy (RSDH).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boutin, Gerard E.; Tosi, Donald J.

    1983-01-01

    Examined the effects of four treatment conditions on the modification of irrational ideas and test anxiety in female nursing students (N=48). The Rational Stage Directed Hypnotherapy (RSDH) treatment group was significantly more effective than the hypnosis only group. The placebo and control groups showed no significant effects. (Author/JAC)

  12. Argumentation Schema and the Myside Bias in Written Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, Christopher R.; Britt, M. Anne; Butler, Jodie A.

    2009-01-01

    This article describes a cognitive argumentation schema for written arguments and presents three empirical studies on the "myside" bias--the tendency to ignore or exclude evidence against one's position. Study 1 examined the consequences of conceding, rebutting, and denying other-side information. Rebuttal led to higher ratings of…

  13. Argument Construction in Understanding Noncovalent Interactions: A Comparison of Two Argumentation Frameworks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cooper, A. Kat; Oliver-Hoyo, M. T.

    2016-01-01

    Argument construction is a valuable ability for explaining scientific phenomena and introducing argumentation skills as part of a curriculum can greatly enhance student understanding by promoting self-reflection on the topic under investigation. This article aims to use argument construction as a technique to support an activity designed to…

  14. Using the Cognitive Apprenticeship Web-Based Argumentation System to Improve Argumentation Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsai, Chun-Yen; Jack, Brady Michael; Huang, Tai-Chu; Yang, Jin-Tan

    2012-01-01

    This study investigated how the instruction of argumentation skills could be promoted by using an online argumentation system. This system entitled "Cognitive Apprenticeship Web-based Argumentation" (CAWA) system was based on cognitive apprenticeship model. One hundred eighty-nine fifth grade students took part in this study. A quasi-experimental…

  15. Do framing effects reveal irrational choice?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mandel, David R

    2014-06-01

    Framing effects have long been viewed as compelling evidence of irrationality in human decision making, yet that view rests on the questionable assumption that numeric quantifiers used to convey the expected values of choice options are uniformly interpreted as exact values. Two experiments show that when the exactness of such quantifiers is made explicit by the experimenter, framing effects vanish. However, when the same quantifiers are given a lower bound (at least) meaning, the typical framing effect is found. A 3rd experiment confirmed that most people spontaneously interpret the quantifiers in standard framing tests as lower bounded and that their interpretations strongly moderate the framing effect. Notably, in each experiment, a significant majority of participants made rational choices, either choosing the option that maximized expected value (i.e., lives saved) or choosing consistently across frames when the options were of equal expected value. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

  16. Three Arguments for Lotteries

    OpenAIRE

    STONE, PETER

    2010-01-01

    PUBLISHED Philosophers and social scientists have offered a variety of arguments for making certain types of decisions by lot. This paper examines three such arguments. These arguments identify indeterminacy, fairness and incentive effects as the major reasons for using lotteries to make decisions. These arguments are central to Jon Elster?s study of lottery use, Solomonic judgments (1989), and so the paper focuses upon their treatment in this work. Upon closer examination, all three argum...

  17. A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Improve the Argument Selection Effectiveness in Argumentation-based Negotiation

    OpenAIRE

    Amandi, Analia Adriana; Monteserin, Ariel José

    2016-01-01

    Argument selection is considered the essence of the strategy in argumentation-based negotiation. An agent, which is arguing during a negotiation, must decide what arguments are the best to persuade the opponent. In fact, in each negotiation step, the agent must select an argument from a set of candidate arguments by applying some selection policy. Following this policy, the agent observes some factors of the negotiation context, for instance: trust in the opponent and expected utility of the...

  18. Irrational Beliefs in Romantic Relationships as the Predictor of Aggression in Emerging Adulthood

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gündogdu, Rezzan; Yavuzer, Yasemin; Karatas, Zeynep

    2018-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to examine irrational beliefs in romantic relationships as the predictor of aggression in emerging adults. The study is a quantitative study done using the relational survey model. The study group is composed of 351 fourth-year students, 201 females and 150 males, who were attending three universities in Central…

  19. The Ethics of Argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Vasco Correia

    2012-01-01

    Normative theories of argumentation tend to assume that logical and dialectical rules suffice to ensure the rationality of argumentative discourse. Yet, in everyday debates people use arguments that seem valid in light of such rules but nonetheless biased and tendentious. This article seeks to show that the rationality of argumentation can only be fully promoted if we take into account its ethical dimension. To substantiate this claim, I review some of the empirical evidence indicating that p...

  20. Argumentation in undergraduate chemistry laboratories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Joi Phelps

    To address the need for reform in undergraduate science education a new instructional model called Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) was developed and then implemented in a undergraduate chemistry course at a community college in the southeastern United States (Sampson, Walker, & Grooms, 2009; Walker, Sampson, & Zimmerman, in press). The ADI instructional model is designed to give a more central place to argumentation and the role of argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge. This research investigated the growth in the quality of the student generated arguments and the scientific argumentation that took place over the course of a semester. Students enrolled in two sections of General Chemistry I laboratory at the community college participated in this study. The students worked in collaborative groups of three or four. The students were given a variation of the same performance task three times during the semester in order to measure individual ability to use evidence and justify their choice of evidence with appropriate rationale. Five ADI investigations took place during the semester and the laboratory reports for each were collected from each student and the argument section of each report was scored. All the student groups were video recorded five times during the semester as they generated and evaluated arguments and the quality of the group argumentation was assessed using an instrument called the Assessment of Scientific Argumentation in the Classroom (ASAC) observation protocol. As time was the independent variable in this study a repeated measure ANOVA was used to evaluate the significance of student improvement in each area (argumentation, written argument and performance task) over the course of the semester (Trochim, 1999). In addition, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to evaluate how well the ASAC scores predicted individual scores on both the performance task and the written arguments (Green & Salkind, 2005). There was

  1. Argumentativeness and Resistance to Persuasion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levine, Timothy R.; Badger, Eugenia E.

    1993-01-01

    Examines college students' level of argumentativeness in relation to persuasion. Finds that highly argumentative individuals experienced more attitude change than their less argumentative counterparts. Shows that topic had no effect upon attitude change and that topic did not interact with argumentativeness. (SR)

  2. On the irrationality measure for a q-analogue of \\zeta(2)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zudilin, W. V.

    2002-08-01

    A Liouville-type estimate is proved for the irrationality measure of the quantities \\displaystyle \\zeta_q(2)=\\sum_{n=1}^\\infty\\frac{q^n}{(1-q^n)^2}with q^{-1}\\in\\mathbb Z\\setminus\\{0,\\pm1\\}. The proof is based on the application of a q-analogue of the arithmetic method developed by Chudnovsky, Rukhadze, and Hata and of the transformation group for hypergeometric series-the group-structure approach introduced by Rhin and Viola.

  3. Argumentation Theory. [A Selected Annotated Bibliography].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    Materials dealing with aspects of argumentation theory are cited in this annotated bibliography. The 50 citations are organized by topic as follows: (1) argumentation; (2) the nature of argument; (3) traditional perspectives on argument; (4) argument diagrams; (5) Chaim Perelman's theory of rhetoric; (6) the evaluation of argument; (7) argument…

  4. The deconstruction of safety arguments through adversarial counter-argument

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Armstrong, James M.; Paynter, Stephen E.

    2007-01-01

    The project Deconstructive Evaluation of Risk In Dependability Arguments and Safety Cases (DERIDASC) has recently experimented with techniques borrowed from literary theory as safety case analysis techniques [Armstrong. Danger: Derrida at work. Interdiscipl Sci Rev 2003;28(2):83-94. ; Armstrong J, Paynter S. Safe systems: construction, destruction, and deconstruction. In: Redmill F, Anderson T, editors. Proceedings of the 11th safety critical systems symposium, Bristol, UK. Berlin: Springer; 2003. p. 62-76. ISBN:1-85233-696-X. ]. This paper introduces our high-level framework for 'deconstructing' safety arguments. Our approach is quite general and should be applicable to different types of safety argumentation framework. As one example, we outline how the approach would work in the context of the Goal Structure Notation (GSN)

  5. Acting Irrationally to Improve Performance in Stochastic Worlds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belavkin, Roman V.

    Despite many theories and algorithms for decision-making, after estimating the utility function the choice is usually made by maximising its expected value (the max EU principle). This traditional and 'rational' conclusion of the decision-making process is compared in this paper with several 'irrational' techniques that make choice in Monte-Carlo fashion. The comparison is made by evaluating the performance of simple decision-theoretic agents in stochastic environments. It is shown that not only the random choice strategies can achieve performance comparable to the max EU method, but under certain conditions the Monte-Carlo choice methods perform almost two times better than the max EU. The paper concludes by quoting evidence from recent cognitive modelling works as well as the famous decision-making paradoxes.

  6. Rich preference-based argumentation frameworks

    OpenAIRE

    Amgoud , Leila; Vesic , Srdjan

    2014-01-01

    International audience; An argumentation framework is seen as a directed graph whose nodes are arguments and arcs are attacks between the arguments. Acceptable sets of arguments, called extensions, are computed using a semantics. Existing semantics are solely based on the attacks and do not take into account other important criteria like the intrinsic strengths of arguments. The contribution of this paper is three fold. First, we study how preferences issued from differences in strengths of a...

  7. Argumentation and Game Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahwan, Iyad; Larson, Kate

    In a large class of multi-agent systems, agents are self-interested in the sense that each agent is interested only in furthering its individual goals, which may or may not coincide with others’ goals. When such agents engage in argument, they would be expected to argue strategically in such a way that makes it more likely for their argumentative goals to be achieved. What we mean by arguing strategically is that instead of making arbitrary arguments, an agent would carefully choose its argumentative moves in order to further its own objectives.

  8. Reversed mining and reversed-reversed mining: the irrational context of geological disposal of nuclear waste

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Loon, A. J.

    2000-06-01

    Man does not only extract material from the Earth but increasingly uses the underground for storage and disposal purposes. One of the materials that might be disposed of this way is high-level nuclear waste. The development of safe disposal procedures, the choice of suitable host rocks, and the design of underground facilities have taken much time and money, but commissions in several countries have presented reports showing that — and how — safe geological disposal will be possible in such a way that definite isolation from the biosphere is achieved. Political views have changed in the past few years, however, and there is a strong tendency now to require that the high-level waste disposed of will be retrievable. Considering the underlying arguments for isolation from the biosphere, and also considering waste policy in general, this provides an irrational context. The development of new procedures and the design of new disposal facilities that allow retrieval will take much time again. A consequence may be that the high-active, heat-generating nuclear waste will be stored temporarily for a much longer time than objectively desirable. The delay in disposal and the counterproductive requirement of retrievability are partly due to the fact that earth-science organisations have failed to communicate in the way they should, possibly fearing public (and financial) reactions if taking a position that is (was?) considered as politically incorrect. Such an attitude should not be maintained in modern society, which has the right to be informed reliably by the scientific community.

  9. A garden of orchids: a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational frequencies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mestel, B D; Osbaldestin, A H

    2004-01-01

    We consider a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational flux, showing, in the strong coupling limit, the fluctuations of the exponentially decaying eigenfunctions are governed by the dynamics of a renormalization operator on a renormalization strange set. This work generalizes previous analyses which have considered only the golden mean case. Projections of the renormalization strange sets are illustrated analogous to the 'orchid' present in the golden mean case

  10. A garden of orchids: a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational frequencies

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mestel, B D [Department of Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA (United Kingdom); Osbaldestin, A H [Department of Mathematics, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3HE (United Kingdom)

    2004-10-01

    We consider a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational flux, showing, in the strong coupling limit, the fluctuations of the exponentially decaying eigenfunctions are governed by the dynamics of a renormalization operator on a renormalization strange set. This work generalizes previous analyses which have considered only the golden mean case. Projections of the renormalization strange sets are illustrated analogous to the 'orchid' present in the golden mean case.

  11. Den gode argumentations anatomi

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kock, Christian Erik J

    2013-01-01

    God argumentation har tre dimensioner: Den er faktuelt retvisende, den er relevant, og den er vægtig. Desværre slipper politikerne ofte af sted med mangelfuld argumentation fordi de forklæder den godt. Derfor får du her de vigtigste redskaber til at spotte uskikkene i politisk argumentation...

  12. Using Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping to develop effective argumentation skills in high school advanced placement physics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heglund, Brian

    Educators recognize the importance of reasoning ability for development of critical thinking skills, conceptual change, metacognition, and participation in 21st century society. There is a recognized need for students to improve their skills of argumentation, however, argumentation is not explicitly taught outside logic and philosophy---subjects that are not part of the K-12 curriculum. One potential way of supporting the development of argumentation skills in the K-12 context is through incorporating Computer-Assisted Argument Mapping to evaluate arguments. This quasi-experimental study tested the effects of such argument mapping software and was informed by the following two research questions: 1. To what extent does the collaborative use of Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping to evaluate competing theories influence the critical thinking skill of argument evaluation, metacognitive awareness, and conceptual knowledge acquisition in high school Advanced Placement physics, compared to the more traditional method of text tables that does not employ Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping? 2. What are the student perceptions of the pros and cons of argument evaluation in the high school Advanced Placement physics environment? This study examined changes in critical thinking skills, including argumentation evaluation skills, as well as metacognitive awareness and conceptual knowledge, in two groups: a treatment group using Computer-Assisted Argumentation Mapping to evaluate physics arguments, and a comparison group using text tables to evaluate physics arguments. Quantitative and qualitative methods for collecting and analyzing data were used to answer the research questions. Quantitative data indicated no significant difference between the experimental groups, and qualitative data suggested students perceived pros and cons of argument evaluation in the high school Advanced Placement physics environment, such as self-reported sense of improvement in argument

  13. Defining Rhetorical Argumentation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kock, Christian Erik J

    2013-01-01

    This article argues for a definition of rhetorical argumentation based on the theme of the argumentation, i.e., the issue in dispute - rather than its aim (e.g., to ‘win’) or its means (e.g., emotional appeals). The principal thinkers in the rhetorical tradition, from Aristotle onwards, saw...... rhetoric as practical reasoning, i.e., reasoning on proposals for action or choice, not on propositions that may be either true or false. Citing several contemporary philosophers, the article argues that such a definition acquits rhetorical argumentation of any culpable unconcern with truth and explains...

  14. Effects of a rational-emotive health education intervention on stress management and irrational beliefs among technical college teachers in Southeast Nigeria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ugwoke, Samuel C; Eseadi, Chiedu; Igbokwe, Chima C; Chiaha, Gertrude T U; Nwaubani, Okechukwu O; Orji, Chibueze Tobias; Ugwuanyi, Leonard T; Chukwuma, Ifeoma S; Edikpa, Edith C; Ogakwu, Vera N; Onu, Eucharia A; Agu, Patricia; Nwobi, Ujunwa A; Omeke, Faith; Okeke, Francisca C; Ezema, Rita N; Abugu, Lawretta I

    2017-08-01

    Stress is the product of how an individual reacts and adapts to the specific demands and threats they encounter while carrying out given tasks. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a rational-emotive health education intervention (REHEI) on stress management, and irrational beliefs in a sample of technical college teachers in Southeast Nigeria. The study design was a pretest-posttest control group. Repeated measures analysis of variance, paired t test and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to analyze the data collected. The REHEI significantly reduced teacher stress in those teaching staff exposed to the treatment intervention, relative to a waitlist control group. Furthermore, the REHEI program significantly decreased irrational beliefs about teaching in those teaching staff exposed to the treatment intervention compared to a waitlist control group. The REHEI program can be used to coach teachers on how to manage and cope with stress and overcome irrational beliefs in teaching.

  15. Towards an experimental account of argumentation: the case of the slippery slope and the ad hominem arguments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marco eLillo-Unglaube

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Argumentation is a crucial component of our lives. Although in the absence of rational debate our legal, political, and scientific systems would not be possible, there is still no integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation. Furthermore, classical theories of argumentation are normative (i.e. the acceptability of an argument is determined by a set of norms or logical rules, which sometimes creates a dissociation between the theories and people’s behavior. We think the current challenge for psychology is to bring together the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation. In this Perspective, we exemplify this point by analyzing two cases of argumentative structures experimentally studied in the context of cognitive psychology. Specifically, we focus on the slippery slope argument and the ad hominem argument under the frameworks of Bayesian and pragma-dialectics approaches, respectively. We think employing more descriptive and experimental accounts of argumentation would help Psychology to bring closer the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation with the final goal of establishing an integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation.

  16. Toward an experimental account of argumentation: the case of the slippery slope and the ad hominem arguments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lillo-Unglaube, Marco; Canales-Johnson, Andrés; Navarrete, Gorka; Bravo, Claudio Fuentes

    2014-01-01

    Argumentation is a crucial component of our lives. Although in the absence of rational debate our legal, political, and scientific systems would not be possible, there is still no integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation. Furthermore, classical theories of argumentation are normative (i.e., the acceptability of an argument is determined by a set of norms or logical rules), which sometimes creates a dissociation between the theories and people's behavior. We think the current challenge for psychology is to bring together the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation. In this article, we exemplify this point by analyzing two cases of argumentative structures experimentally studied in the context of cognitive psychology. Specifically, we focus on the slippery slope argument and the ad hominem argument under the frameworks of Bayesian and pragma-dialectics approaches, respectively. We think employing more descriptive and experimental accounts of argumentation would help Psychology to bring closer the cognitive and normative accounts of argumentation with the final goal of establishing an integrated area of research on the psychology of argumentation.

  17. Graduate Courses in Argumentation Theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.; Follert, Vincent F.

    1986-01-01

    Reports results of a survey of graduate courses in argumentation theory. Includes data on types of courses, theorists, historical and basic concepts in argument, everyday argument, resources (books and articles), etc. (PD)

  18. Latent structure of the social anxiety scale and relations between social anxiety and irrational beliefs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tovilović Snežana

    2004-01-01

    Full Text Available The research which was realized belongs to one of three research fields within framework of rational-emotional-behavioral therapy (REBT - to the theory of emotional disorders. It was undertaken with the aim to establish presence and nature of relations between social anxiety, treated as dimension and the construct of irrational beliefs from REBT theory. The research was carried out on the sample of 261 students of Novi Sad University, both genders, age 18 to 26. First of all, the latent structure of newly constructed Scale of Social Anxiety (SA of the author Tovilović S. was tested. SA scale was proved to be of satisfying reliability (α =0.92. Principal-component factor analysis was conducted under gathered data. Four factors of social anxiety, which explain 44,09% of total variance of the items of SA scale, were named: social-evaluation anxiety, inhibition in social-uncertain situations, low self-respect and hypersensitivity on rejection. The other test that was used is Scale of General Attitudes and Beliefs of the author Marić Z. Reliability of the sub-scale of irrational beliefs that was got on our sample is α =0.91 yet the subscale of rational beliefs is α =0.70. Canonical correlational analysis was conducted under manifest variables of both scales. Three pairs of statistically significant canonical factors were got, with correlations within the span between Rc=0.78 and Rc=0.64. We discussed nature of correlation between social anxiety and irrational beliefs in the light of REBT model of social phobia, REBT theory of emotional disorder, researches and model of social anxiety in wider, cognitive-behavioral framework.

  19. Modelling Imprecise Arguments in Description Logic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    LETIA, I. A.

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available Real arguments are a mixture of fuzzy linguistic variables and ontological knowledge. This paper focuses on modelling imprecise arguments in order to obtain a better interleaving of human and software agents argumentation, which might be proved useful for extending the number of real life argumentative-based applications. We propose Fuzzy Description Logic as the adequate technical instrumentation for filling the gap between human arguments and software agents arguments. A proof of concept scenario has been tested with the fuzzyDL reasoner.

  20. The great slippery-slope argument.

    OpenAIRE

    Burgess, J A

    1993-01-01

    Whenever some form of beneficent killing--for example, voluntary euthanasia--is advocated, the proposal is greeted with a flood of slippery-slope arguments warning of the dangers of a Nazi-style slide into genocide. This paper is an attempt systematically to evaluate arguments of this kind. Although there are slippery-slope arguments that are sound and convincing, typical formulations of the Nazi-invoking argument are found to be seriously deficient both in logical rigour and in the social hi...

  1. Characteristics of Effective Argumentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frana, Adrian W.

    1989-01-01

    Examines how the 1988 Presidential Debates provide a resource for effective instruction in public argument. Provides several examples of effective (and ineffective) argumentative speaking taken from the debates. (MM)

  2. Environmental Argumentation as Sociocultural Activity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oliveira, Alandeom W.; Akerson, Valarie L.; Oldfield, Martha

    2012-01-01

    While environmental argumentation has recently received much attention from science educators, little consideration has been given to how personal identities and social relationships can either support or constrain student argumentation. This study attends to this issue by examining environmental argumentation as a sociocultural activity (how…

  3. Arguments that take Counterconsiderations into Account

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jan Albert van Laar

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines arguments that take counter- considerations into account, and it does so from a dialogical point of view. According to my account, a counterconsideration is part of a critical reaction from a real or imagined opponent, and an arguer may take it into account in his argument in at least six fully responsive ways. Conductive arguments (or: pro and con arguments, balance of con-siderations arguments will be characterized as one of these types. In this manner, the paper aims to show how conducive, and related kinds of argument can be understood dialogically.

  4. Social argumentation in online synchronous communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angiono, Ivan

    In education, argumentation has an increasing importance because it can be used to foster learning in various fields including philosophy, history, sciences, and mathematics. Argumentation is also at the heart of scientific inquiry. Many educational technology researchers have been interested in finding out how technologies can be employed to improve students' learning of argumentation. Therefore, many computer-based tools or argumentation systems have been developed to assist students in their acquisition of argumentation skills. While the argumentation systems incorporating online debating tools present a good resource in formal settings, there is limited research revealing what argumentative skills students are portraying in informal online settings without the presence of a moderator. This dissertation investigates the nature of argumentative practices in a massively multiplayer online game where the system successfully incorporates the authentic use of online synchronous communication tools and the patterns that emerge from the interplay between a number of contextual variables including synchronicity, interest, authenticity, and topical knowledge.

  5. Argumentative Men: Expectations of Success.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schullery, Nancy M.

    1999-01-01

    Considers how argumentativeness is linked with several managerial qualities, such as group leadership, better decision-making, and enhanced credibility. Surveys nearly 300 full-time employed men. Shows that men at all levels exhibit the full range of argumentativeness. Finds the mean argumentativeness of supervisors at all levels is significantly…

  6. Renormalization of correlations in a quasiperiodically forced two-level system: quadratic irrationals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mestel, B D; Osbaldestin, A H

    2004-01-01

    Generalizing from the case of golden mean frequency to a wider class of quadratic irrationals, we extend our renormalization analysis of the self-similarity of correlation functions in a quasiperiodically forced two-level system. We give a description of all piecewise-constant periodic orbits of an additive functional recurrence generalizing that present in the golden mean case. We establish a criterion for periodic orbits to be globally bounded, and also calculate the asymptotic height of the main peaks in the correlation function

  7. The great slippery-slope argument.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burgess, J A

    1993-09-01

    Whenever some form of beneficent killing--for example, voluntary euthanasia--is advocated, the proposal is greeted with a flood of slippery-slope arguments warning of the dangers of a Nazi-style slide into genocide. This paper is an attempt systematically to evaluate arguments of this kind. Although there are slippery-slope arguments that are sound and convincing, typical formulations of the Nazi-invoking argument are found to be seriously deficient both in logical rigour and in the social history and psychology required as a scholarly underpinning. As an antidote, an attempt is made both to identify some of the likely causes of genocide and to isolate some of the more modest but legitimate fears that lie behind slippery-slope arguments of this kind.

  8. Argument z důsledku a jeho varianty (Argument from Consequences and its variants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martina Juříková

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The article examines the use and evaluation of the argument from consequences, its historical origins since Aristotle through Blaise Pascal, David Hume until the inclusion of this argument into the textbooks of modern logic. The article also recapitulates current evaluation of this argument by Douglas Walton and along with Walton presents its two variants and criteria for evaluating their validity.

  9. Moon Phase as the Cause of Monday Irrationality: Case of Asean Day of the Week Anomaly

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rayenda Khresna Brahmana

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Many Day-of-the week anomaly papers have suggested investor behaviour as the explanation of highly differentiated returns on Mondays; yet, rarely found a paper has empirically investigated it. Therefore, this paper proposes Moon-Induced mood as the determinant of that irrational behaviour. This proposition is based on our preliminary findings that the full moon phase occurred more often on Mondays compared to other days; an indication of a causal relationship. By taking Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines as samples during the period of 1999-2010, this paper found: (1 There is evidence of a Monday effect across all the ASEAN stock markets, (2 The moon phase and its interaction with Mondays has significantly influenced the Monday effect, and (3 A full moon on Monday has significant negative influenced on Monday returns. In conclusion, the stimulation by moon phase forms affection bias, and the resulting outcome is the irrational stock market behavior.

  10. Omitted Arguments and Complexity of Predication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Port, Martin

    2010-01-01

    This work focuses on the licensing conditions and logical structure of understood-argument constructions, or complement-drop constructions, in English. There are two main types of such arguments: Indefinite Understood Arguments (IUA) and Definite Understood Arguments (DUA). IUA readings occur in such cases in "He ate, He cooked". In such cases,…

  11. Argumentation in Miranda v. Arizona.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    1991-01-01

    Investigates the argumentation advanced in briefs, oral arguments, and the Supreme Court's opinion in the case of Miranda versus Arizona. Considers the background of the case, analyzes the argumentation and its influences on the court, and stresses the importance of viewing the Supreme Court as an active participant in the decision-making process.…

  12. Dialogical argumentation in elementary science classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Mijung; Roth, Wolff-Michael

    2018-02-01

    To understand students' argumentation abilities, there have been practices that focus on counting and analyzing argumentation schemes such as claim, evidence, warrant, backing, and rebuttal. This analytic approach does not address the dynamics of epistemic criteria of children's reasoning and decision-making in dialogical situations. The common approach also does not address the practice of argumentation in lower elementary grades (K-3) because these children do not master the structure of argumentation and, therefore, are considered not ready for processing argumentative discourse. There is thus little research focusing on lower elementary school students' argumentation in school science. This study, drawing on the societal-historical approach by L. S. Vygotsky, explored children's argumentation as social relations by investigating the genesis of evidence-related practices (especially burden of proof) in second- and third-grade children. The findings show (a) students' capacity for connecting claim and evidence/responding to the burden of proof and critical move varies and (b) that teachers play a significant role to emphasize the importance of evidence but experience difficulties removing children's favored ideas during the turn taking of argumentative dialogue. The findings on the nature of dialogical reasoning and teacher's role provide further insights about discussions on pedagogical approaches to children's reasoning and argumentation.

  13. Arguments from Developmental Order.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stöckle-Schobel, Richard

    2016-01-01

    In this article, I investigate a special type of argument regarding the role of development in theorizing about psychological processes and cognitive capacities. Among the issues that developmental psychologists study, discovering the ontogenetic trajectory of mechanisms or capacities underpinning our cognitive functions ranks highly. The order in which functions are developed or capacities are acquired is a matter of debate between competing psychological theories, and also philosophical conceptions of the mind - getting the role and the significance of the different steps in this order right could be seen as an important virtue of such theories. Thus, a special kind of strategy in arguments between competing philosophical or psychological theories is using developmental order in arguing for or against a given psychological claim. In this article, I will introduce an analysis of arguments from developmental order, which come in two general types: arguments emphasizing the importance of the early cognitive processes and arguments emphasizing the late cognitive processes. I will discuss their role in one of the central tools for evaluating scientific theories, namely in making inferences to the best explanation. I will argue that appeal to developmental order is, by itself, an insufficient criterion for theory choice and has to be part of an argument based on other core explanatory or empirical virtues. I will end by proposing a more concerted study of philosophical issues concerning (cognitive) development, and I will present some topics that also pertain to a full-fledged 'philosophy of development.'

  14. ERISTIC ARGUMENTATION IN ADVERTISING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Skirmantė Biržietienė

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Advertising may be examined as a particular form of rhetoric the aims of which are the same as of rhetoric, namely to affect mind, will, feelings, and to persuade. The theory of rhetoric, the main object of which is discourse not only in narrow meaning (as verbal expression of ideas (i.e. to say text, but also in broad meaning – as a communicative act between the addresser and the addressee since its interdisciplinary nature provides the right tools to explore the advertising discourse. The theory of rhetoric is successfully applied in development of advertising discourse, because it helps to foresee the communicative act between the addresser and the addressee. Advertising and rhetoric are combined by many common elements, but the same goal is the most important: both, rhetoric and advertising seek for persuasion through verbal and non-verbal measures. The paper deals with the analysis of the inventive level of advertising discourse, i.e., eristic arguments, spread of ways of proofing / persuasion. Eristic argumentation is a dominant argumentation type in advertising. This method of persuasion is a way to create truth visibility although it is just superficial. The most typical schemes of eristic argumentation used in advertising are as follows: argumentum ad vanitatem (appeal to the vanity of the addressee, argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to the authority, argumentum baculinum (method of “whip” argument, argumentum ad novitatem (appeal to novelty. The article shows the usage of eristic arguments in Lithuanian commercial ads.

  15. Perelman, argument ad hominem et ethos rhétorique Perelman, ad Hominem Argument, and Rhetorical Ethos

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Leff

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available La conception de Perelman sur le rôle des personnes dans l’argumentation est l’une des marques les plus caractéristiques de sa rupture avec les hypothèses cartésiennes sur le raisonnement. Alors que le paradigme rationaliste cherchait à minimiser ou à éliminer les considérations personnelles comme étant dilatoires et non pertinentes dans ce cadre, Perelman insiste sur le fait que l’argumentation met inévitablement l’accent sur les personnes spécifiques impliquées dans l’argumentation et que la relation entre le locuteur et ce qui est dit est toujours pertinente et importante. En adoptant cette position, Perelman ressuscite implicitement la conception classique de la preuve par le caractère (argument par l’ethos ou « ethotique ». Mais, bien que la Nouvelle Rhétorique consacre une large place au débat sur l’acte et la personne dans l’argumentation, elle n’accorde pas beaucoup de réflexion au concept classique et mélange différentes approches à l’intérieur de la tradition. Le résultat est que Perelman traite le rôle du locuteur dans l’argumentation uniquement en référence à des techniques abstraites et ne prend pas en compte l’importance de l’examen des cas particuliers pour éclairer la compréhension du fonctionnement de l’argument ethotique en situation dans le contexte complexe de son utilisation effective. Par conséquent, la prise en compte par Perelman du rôle de la personne dans l’argumentation doit être complétée par la référence à des études de cas et c’est dans ce but que j’étudie l’argument ethotique dans le célèbre essai de W. E. B. DuBois « Sur M. Booker T. Washington et autres ».Perelman’s view of the role of persons in argument is one of the most distinctive features of his break with Cartesian assumptions about reasoning. Whereas the Rationalist paradigm sought to minimize or eliminate personal considerations by dismissing them as distracting and

  16. The Social Nature of Argumentative Practices: The Philosophy of Argument and Audience Reception

    OpenAIRE

    Paula Olmos

    2018-01-01

    Abstract: This article reviews Christopher W. Tindale’s The Philosophy of Argument and Audience Reception (Cambridge, 2015). Résumé: Cet article est une critique de The Philosophy of Argument and Audience Reception (Cambridge, 2015) de Christopher W. Tindale.

  17. Arguments from Developmental Order

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard eStöckle-Schobel

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available In this article, I investigate a special type of argument regarding the role of development in theorising about psychological processes and cognitive capacities. Among the issues that developmental psychologists study, discovering the ontogenetic trajectory of mechanisms or capacities underpinning our cognitive functions ranks highly. The order in which functions are developed or capacities are acquired is a matter of debate between competing psychological theories, and also philosophical conceptions of the mind – getting the role and the significance of the different steps in this order right could be seen as an important virtue of such theories.Thus, a special kind of strategy in arguments between competing philosophical or psychological theories is using developmental order in arguing for or against a given psychological claim. In this article, I will introduce an analysis of arguments from developmental order, which come in two general types: arguments emphasising the importance of the early cognitive processes and arguments emphasising the late cognitive processes. I will discuss their role in one of the central tools for evaluating scientific theories, namely in making inferences to the best explanation. I will argue that appeal to developmental order is, by itself, an insufficient criterion for theory choice and has to be part of an argument based on other core explanatory or empirical virtues. I will end by proposing a more concerted study of philosophical issues concerning (cognitive development, and I will present some topics that also pertain to a full-fledged ‘philosophy of development’.

  18. The Connection and Distinction between the Design Argument with the Teleological Argument and the Best Creational System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Farah Ramin

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available The design argument faced with big different writings in its Western background so that these writings have essential difference with each others. The design argument is posteriori demonstration for the existence of God which by analogy or induction and partial or general instances of the order in nature tries to affirm the intelligent designer.  Since the concepts of design and end have firm connection with each other in the Western writings of this design but the concepts of purposiveness of divine acts, purposiveness of nature and its best system is assumed the same with each other and obvious confusion has been made between the design argument with the teleological argument and the best creational system. The aim of the article is to consider order in the world based upon the united components of a system (design argument, final cause (teleological argument and best system (best creational system argument and also to manifest the connection and distinction of these three reasoning. 

  19. Zero expression of arguments in Old Danish

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Heltoft, Lars

    2014-01-01

    arguments in Scanic are semantically different from pronouns, and therefore pronouns and zero arguments are not variants. At one level, zero arguments and pronouns are similar with respect to function, namely to supply means for establishing co-reference in text; however, they are not semantically...... equivalent. By reducing these two categories to one single underlying category, such as pro, one would miss this point. On the contrary, zero arguments are arguably full-bodied signs with their own content, thus corresponding to Melčuk’s Zero Sign Introduction Principle.......Old Scandinavian (represented here by Old Danish) allowed zero arguments (null-arguments) in any nominal (argument) position, that is: for NPs as subjects, objects and in PPs. In generative grammar, zero arguments are held to be variants of pronouns, but in this article, I shall claim that zero...

  20. Modeling non-monotonic properties under propositional argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Geng; Lin, Zuoquan

    2013-03-01

    In the field of knowledge representation, argumentation is usually considered as an abstract framework for nonclassical logic. In this paper, however, we'd like to present a propositional argumentation framework, which can be used to closer simulate a real-world argumentation. We thereby argue that under a dialectical argumentation game, we can allow non-monotonic reasoning even under classical logic. We introduce two methods together for gaining nonmonotonicity, one by giving plausibility for arguments, the other by adding "exceptions" which is similar to defaults. Furthermore, we will give out an alternative definition for propositional argumentation using argumentative models, which is highly related to the previous reasoning method, but with a simple algorithm for calculation.

  1. The Abuses of Argument: Understanding Fallacies on Toulmin’s Layout of Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrew Pineau

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper provides a preliminary account of fallacies on Toulmin’s model of argument, one that improves upon previous attempts to understand fallacies on this argument scheme. To do this Johnson and Blair’s (1983 taxonomy of three basic fallacies (irrelevant reason, hasty conclusion and problematic premise is examined using Toulmin’s layout.

  2. Nominalized clauses, clausal arguments and agreement

    OpenAIRE

    Picallo, M. Carme

    2001-01-01

    Strict minimalist assumptions require adopting the hypothesis that argument clauses and nominalized clauses are assigned Phi features. The data examined suggest that the interpretable Phi content of these arguments is specified as [-P, -N, -G]. We conclude that all arguments (of the clausal or of the nominal types) are subject to the operation Agree with a functional category. All arguments behave alike as far as abstract computational operations is concerned. The computational component is b...

  3. The Binomial Coefficient for Negative Arguments

    OpenAIRE

    Kronenburg, M. J.

    2011-01-01

    The definition of the binomial coefficient in terms of gamma functions also allows non-integer arguments. For nonnegative integer arguments the gamma functions reduce to factorials, leading to the well-known Pascal triangle. Using a symmetry formula for the gamma function, this definition is extended to negative integer arguments, making the symmetry identity for binomial coefficients valid for all integer arguments. The agreement of this definition with some other identities and with the bin...

  4. Rethinking the Argumentative Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneer, David

    2014-01-01

    This article investigates the construction of the argumentative essay as it is commonly presented in academic writing textbooks and classrooms for English language learners. The author first examines the traditional three-stage structure (thesis-argument-conclusion) and then problematizes it within a genre-based approach to academic writing. He…

  5. Deleting 'irrational' responses from discrete choice experiments: a case of investigating or imposing preferences?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lancsar, Emily; Louviere, Jordan

    2006-08-01

    Investigation of the 'rationality' of responses to discrete choice experiments (DCEs) has been a theme of research in health economics. Responses have been deleted from DCEs where they have been deemed by researchers to (a) be 'irrational', defined by such studies as failing tests for non-satiation, or (b) represent lexicographic preferences. This paper outlines a number of reasons why deleting responses from DCEs may be inappropriate after first reviewing the theory underpinning rationality, highlighting that the importance placed on rationality depends on the approach to consumer theory to which one ascribes. The aim of this paper is not to suggest that all preferences elicited via DCEs are rational. Instead, it is to suggest a number of reasons why it may not be the case that all preferences labelled as 'irrational' are indeed so. Hence, deleting responses may result in the removal of valid preferences; induce sample selection bias; and reduce the statistical efficiency and power of the estimated choice models. Further, evidence suggests random utility theory may be able to cope with such preferences. Finally, we discuss a number of implications for the design, implementation and interpretation of DCEs and recommend caution regarding the deletion of preferences from stated preference experiments. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  6. Non-Discriminating Arguments and Their Uses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christiansen, Henning; Gallagher, John Patrick

    2009-01-01

    We present a technique for identifying predicate arguments that play no role in determining the control flow of a logic program with respect to goals satisfying given mode and sharing restrictions.  We call such arguments non-discriminating arguments. We show that such arguments can be detected...... by an automatic analysis. Following this, we define a transformation procedure, called discriminator slicing, that removes the non-discriminating arguments, resulting in a program whose computation trees are isomorphic to those of the original program.  Finally, we show how the results of the original program can...... be reconstructed from trace of the transformed program with the original arguments.   Thus the overall result is a two-stage execution of a program, which can be applied usefully in several contexts;  we describe a case study in optimising computations in the probabilistic logic program language PRISM, and discuss...

  7. The argument from moral psychology

    OpenAIRE

    Milevski, Voin

    2015-01-01

    The argument from moral psychology is one of the strongest arguments that non-cognitivists use against cognitivism-the metaethical position according to which our moral judgements express beliefs. According to this argument, once we put together the Humean theory of motivation and motivational internalism, we yield the conclusion that cognitivism cannot represent the correct view about the semantic function of moral discourse. I will first attempt to show that a neurological syndrome, called ...

  8. Improving practical reasoning and argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Baumtrog, Michael David

    2015-01-01

    This thesis justifies the need for and develops a new integrated model of practical reasoning and argumentation. After framing the work in terms of what is reasonable rather than what is rational (chapter 1), I apply the model for practical argumentation analysis and evaluation provided by Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) to a paradigm case of unreasonable individual practical argumentation provided by mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik (chapter 2). The application shows that by following t...

  9. Social values as arguments: similar is convincing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maio, Gregory R.; Hahn, Ulrike; Frost, John-Mark; Kuppens, Toon; Rehman, Nadia; Kamble, Shanmukh

    2014-01-01

    Politicians, philosophers, and rhetors engage in co-value argumentation: appealing to one value in order to support another value (e.g., “equality leads to freedom”). Across four experiments in the United Kingdom and India, we found that the psychological relatedness of values affects the persuasiveness of the arguments that bind them. Experiment 1 found that participants were more persuaded by arguments citing values that fulfilled similar motives than by arguments citing opposing values. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this result using a wider variety of values, while finding that the effect is stronger among people higher in need for cognition and that the effect is mediated by the greater plausibility of co-value arguments that link motivationally compatible values. Experiment 4 extended the effect to real-world arguments taken from political propaganda and replicated the mediating effect of argument plausibility. The findings highlight the importance of value relatedness in argument persuasiveness. PMID:25147529

  10. Social Values as Arguments: Similar is Convincing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gregory R Maio

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Politicians, philosophers, and rhetors engage in co-value argumentation: appealing to one value in order to support another value (e.g., equality leads to freedom. Across four experiments in the United Kingdom and India, we found that the psychological relatedness of values affects the persuasiveness of the arguments that bind them. Experiment 1 found that participants were more persuaded by arguments citing values that fulfilled similar motives than by arguments citing opposing values. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this result using a wider variety of values, while finding that the effect is stronger among people higher in need for cognition and that the effect is mediated by the greater plausibility of co-value arguments that link motivationally compatible values. Experiment 4 extended the effect to real-world arguments taken from political propaganda and replicated the mediating effect of argument plausibility. The findings highlight the importance of value relatedness in argument persuasiveness.

  11. Reconsidering Kantian arguments against organ selling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alpinar-Şencan, Zümrüt

    2016-03-01

    Referring to Kant's arguments addressing the moral relationship between our bodies and ourselves is quite common in contemporary debate about organ selling, although he does not provide us with any specific arguments related to this debate. It is widely argued that the most promising way to show the moral impermissibility of organ selling is to mount an argument on Kantian grounds. This paper asks whether it is possible to argue coherently against organ selling in a Kantian framework. It will be shown that by mounting the argument on Kantian grounds no compelling argument can be given against sale of organs, either because the arguments apply to donation of organs, too, or the arguments are not convincing for other independent reasons. In the first section, it will be argued that donation and selling are not distinguishable in a Kantian framework, since the concern about commodification of the body and its parts shall be raised by both actions. In the second section, some contemporary accounts inspired by Kant will be presented and discussed separately. It will be argued that the reasons for promoting organ donation while arguing against selling clash with each other in an unconvincing way.

  12. Arguments from parallel reasoning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Laar, Jan Albert; Ribeiro, H.J.

    2014-01-01

    Argumentation is a co-production by a proponent and an opponent who engage in a critical examination of their difference of opinion, aiming to resolve it on the merits of both sides, or so I assume in this paper. I shall investigate the consequences of this view for a particular type of argument

  13. Irrational Rationality of Terrorism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert Nalbandov

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The present article deals with the ontological problem of applying the rational choice frameworks to the study of terrorism. It testing the application of the rational choice to the “old” (before the end of the Cold War and the “new” (after the end of the Cold War terrorisms. It starts with analyzing the fundamentals of rationality and applies it at two levels: the individual (actors and group (collective via two outlooks: tactical (short-term and strategic (long-term. The main argument of the article is that while the “old” terrorism can be explained by the rational choice theory its “new” version represents a substantial departure from rationality.

  14. The students’ mathematical argumentation in geometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sukirwan; Darhim; Herman, T.; Prahmana, R. C. I.

    2017-12-01

    The main objective of this research is to analyze the student's mathematical argumentation when dealing with geometry. The method is used qualitative method with grounded theory to know how the students provide an explanation or an answer against claims so that the quality of the vernacular students will be drawn up with clear from how students compose a series of arguments. The results showed that there were still many students basically experiencing constraints in argumentation, but the quality of the reasoning appears to be a variation of the argument appeared, include: inductive, algebra, visual and perceptual. In addition, the starting point of the students composes a series of arguments generally starts from claims that arise in a matter. Proof of claim further builds upon the relationship between the characteristics of data with mathematical objects that appear in the acquired mathematical knowledge from previous students. Relationship spelled out in a series of statements and reasons which support the claims through the fourth argument.

  15. The Illusion of Argument Justification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, Matthew; Keil, Frank

    2013-01-01

    Argumentation is an important way to reach new understanding. Strongly caring about an issue, which is often evident when dealing with controversial issues, has been shown to lead to biases in argumentation. We suggest that people are not well calibrated in assessing their ability to justify a position through argumentation, an effect we call the illusion of argument justification. Furthermore we find that caring about the issue further clouds this introspection. We first show this illusion by measuring the difference between ratings before and after producing an argument for one’s own position. The strength of the illusion is predicted by the strength of care for a given issue (Study 1). The tacit influences of framing and priming do not override the effects of emotional investment in a topic (Study 2). However, explicitly considering counterarguments removes the effect of care when initially assessing the ability to justify a position (Study 3). Finally, we consider our findings in light of other recent research and discuss the potential benefits of group reasoning. PMID:23506085

  16. Argumentation, rationality, and psychology of reasoning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Godden

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available This paper explicates an account of argumentative rationality by articulating the common, basic idea of its nature, and then identifying a collection of assumptions inherent in it. Argumentative rationality is then contrasted with dual-process theories of reasoning and rationality prevalent in the psychology of reasoning. It is argued that argumentative rationality properly corresponds only with system-2 reasoning in dual-process theories. This result challenges the prescriptive force of argumentative norms derives if they derive at all from their descriptive accuracy of our cognitive capacities. In response, I propose an activity-based account of reasoning which retains the assumptions of argumentative rationality while recontextualizing the relationship between reasoning as a justificatory activity and the psychological states and processes underlying that activity.

  17. Attorney Argumentation and Supreme Court Opinions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    1989-01-01

    Investigates the relationship between argumentation advanced by attorneys in four Supreme Court cases and the reasoning proffered by the Court in its decisions in those cases. Finds attorney argumentation sometimes irrelevant to the Court's reasoning and sometimes adopted by the Court. Offers a perspective on argumentation and decision making to…

  18. Revisiting the argument from fetal potential

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manninen Bertha

    2007-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract One of the most famous, and most derided, arguments against the morality of abortion is the argument from potential, which maintains that the fetus' potential to become a person and enjoy the valuable life common to persons, entails that its destruction is prima facie morally impermissible. In this paper, I will revisit and offer a defense of the argument from potential. First, I will criticize the classical arguments proffered against the importance of fetal potential, specifically the arguments put forth by philosophers Peter Singer and David Boonin, by carefully unpacking the claims made in these arguments and illustrating why they are flawed. Secondly, I will maintain that fetal potential is morally relevant when it comes to the morality of abortion, but that it must be accorded a proper place in the argument. This proper place, however, cannot be found until we first answer a very important and complex question: we must first address the issue of personal identity, and when the fetus becomes the type of being who is relevantly identical to a future person. I will illustrate why the question of fetal potential can only be meaningfully addressed after we have first answered the question of personal identity and how it relates to the human fetus.

  19. Social Argumentation in Online Synchronous Communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alagoz, Esra

    2013-01-01

    The ability to argue well is a valuable skill for students in both formal and informal learning environments. While many studies have explored the argumentative practices in formal environments and some researchers have developed tools to enhance the argumentative skills, the social argumentation that is occurring in informal spaces has yet to be…

  20. Irrational free field resolutions for W(sl(n)) and extended Sugawara construction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Niedermaier, M.

    1991-03-01

    The existence of Miura-type free field realizations is established for the extended conformal algebras W(sl(n)) at irrational values of the screening parameter. The problem of the 'closure' of the algebra is reduced to a finite dimensional quantum group problem. The structure of the Fock space resolution and the character formulae are obtained for the irreducible modules. They are shown to be isomorphic to the space of sl(n) singlets in sl(n) affine affine level 1 modules. The isomorphism is given by the Φβγ free field realization of sl(n). (orig.)

  1. Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dan Ariely

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann ‘disciple’, but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people’s lives easier and more comfortable, by creating awareness on a lot of topics otherwise neglected. Dan Ariely’s very agreeable personality and humor would not let you think of him as a burnt casualty who, in his youth struggled to survive a personal drama, so well-documented in his paper “Painful lessons” posted on the MIT website (http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf. I think reading his paper and also this transcribed interview with him would be also comforting for people who found out about Bucharest fire incident that rocked our society and also for people who are personally related to this tragedy.

  2. Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ariely, Dan; Popescu, Beatrice

    2015-01-01

    The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann ‘disciple’, but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people’s lives easier and more comfortable, by creating awareness on a lot of topics otherwise neglected. Dan Ariely’s very agreeable personality and humor would not let you think of him as a burnt casualty who, in his youth struggled to survive a personal drama, so well-documented in his paper “Painful lessons” posted on the MIT website (http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf). I think reading his paper and also this transcribed interview with him would be also comforting for people who found out about Bucharest fire incident that rocked our society and also for people who are personally related to this tragedy. PMID:27247678

  3. Are irrational reactions to unfairness truly emotionally-driven? Dissociated behavioural and emotional responses in the Ultimatum Game task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Civai, Claudia; Corradi-Dell'Acqua, Corrado; Gamer, Matthias; Rumiati, Raffaella I

    2010-01-01

    The "irrational" rejections of unfair offers by people playing the Ultimatum Game (UG), a widely used laboratory model of economical decision-making, have traditionally been associated with negative emotions, such as frustration, elicited by unfairness (Sanfey, Rilling, Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2003; van't Wout, Kahn, Sanfey, & Aleman, 2006). We recorded skin conductance responses as a measure of emotional activation while participants performed a modified version of the UG, in which they were asked to play both for themselves and on behalf of a third-party. Our findings show that even unfair offers are rejected when participants' payoff is not affected (third-party condition); however, they show an increase in the emotional activation specifically when they are rejecting offers directed towards themselves (myself condition). These results suggest that theories emphasizing negative emotions as the critical factor of "irrational" rejections (Pillutla & Murninghan, 1996) should be re-discussed. Psychological mechanisms other than emotions might be better candidates for explaining this behaviour.

  4. Argument Strength and the Persuasiveness of Stories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schreiner, Constanze; Appel, Markus; Isberner, Maj-Britt; Richter, Tobias

    2017-01-01

    ABSTRACT Stories are a powerful means to change people’s attitudes and beliefs. The aim of the current work was to shed light on the role of argument strength (argument quality) in narrative persuasion. The present study examined the influence of strong versus weak arguments on attitudes in a low or high narrative context. Moreover, baseline attitudes, interindividual differences in working memory capacity, and recipients’ transportation were examined. Stories with strong arguments were more persuasive than stories with weak arguments. This main effect was qualified by a two-way interaction with baseline attitude, revealing that argument strength had a greater impact on individuals who initially were particularly doubtful toward the story claim. Furthermore, we identified a three-way interaction showing that argument strength mattered most for recipients who were deeply transported into the story world in stories that followed a typical narrative structure. These findings provide an important specification of narrative persuasion theory. PMID:29805322

  5. L’argumentation dans le discours d’information médiatique Argumentation in Media Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wander Emediato

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available L’article présente quelques éléments de réflexion susceptibles de contribuer au développement d’une étude sur l’argumentation dans le discours d’information médiatique. Dans cette perspective, il poursuit deux objectifs complémentaires. L’un, d’ordre géneral, consiste à montrer comment les trois approches dominantes de l’argumentation (logique, linguistique et rhétorique sont à la fois différenciées, et étroitement imbriquées dans l’analyse du discours de presse. La seconde concerne le fonctionnement du discours d’information dans la presse et la façon dont il met en place, par des opérations de cadrage, d’effacement énonciatif, d’ellipses, etc. une « dimension argumentative » (Amossy 2000 : sans avoir une visée argumentative avouée, il se propose néanmoins d’agir sur les croyances et les représentations du lecteur. A titre d’exemple, l’étude traite d’un corpus de titres empruntés essentiellement à la presse brésilienne.This paper aims at contributing to the development of argumentation studies in the field of media discourse, and within this perspective, it presents two main complementary objectives. Firstly, it strives at showing how the three main approaches to argumentation (logical, linguistic and rhetoric are both distinct and closely interconnected in the analysis of media discourse. The second objective concerns the functioning of the selected genre of discourse: the paper examines how, through procedures of framing, obliteration of the enunciative modality, ellipses, etc., media discourse sets up an “argumentative dimension” (Amossy 2000. Although not overtly intended for persuasion, media discourse nevertheless sets out to act upon the reader’s beliefs and representations. These issues are tackled through the analysis of a sample of headlines mostly borrowed from the Brazilian press.

  6. L'argumentation dans la langue (Argumentation in Language)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anscombre, J. C.; Ducrot, O.

    1976-01-01

    Questions the current distinction between semantics and pragmatics, and develops a theory of "argumentative scales" (Ducrot 1973), as well as a semantic model with three components and a revision of the notion of "illocutionary." (Text is in French.) (CDSH/AM)

  7. Rhétorique et argumentation : approches croisées Current Approaches to Rhetoric and Argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roselyne Koren

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available 1. Considérations théoriques (Ruth AmossyL’intérêt croissant qui se manifeste aujourd’hui pour l’argumentation dans les études francophones n’est pas sans appeler quelques clarifications. Ducrot, qui a joué un rôle déterminant dans le regain des études argumentatives en France, s’y est récemment employé en différenciant nettement ce qu’il appelle « l’argumentation linguistique » et « l’argumentation rhétorique ». La première, dont il est l’un des promoteurs et le tenant, se définit contre « ...

  8. Improving the argumentative skills of high school students through teacher’s questioning techniques and argumentative assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kristianti, T. P.; Ramli, M.; Ariyanto, J.

    2018-05-01

    This research aims to know how students’ argumentative skills improved by applying teacher’s questioning techniques and argumentative assessment through collaborative action research between college student who did teaching practicum, biology teacher as tutor teacher, and lecturers. The action research was done in three cycles involving one class consisted of 36 eleventh graders. Lesson plans were developed collaboratively, and teaching practices were by the student teacher. In the reflective phase prior to the first cycle, learning processes were dominated by the teacher, hence students did not have sufficient opportunity to argue. Students were divided into two, 14 students were grouped as low achievement (LA) and 22 students were the high achievement (HA). Teacher questions and students’ responses were furtherly coded and interpreted following the validated rubric of level of argumentation. A divergent essay as an argumentative assessment was also tested to students at the end of each cycle. At the end of the third cycle, HA and LA students showed a significant change in argumentative skills responded the teacher’s questions. However, only four LA students who actively argued. Students from HA groups also showed the improvement on the level of argumentation, where they move from level 1 to 3.

  9. The biased use of argument evaluation criteria in motivated reasoning; Does argument quality depend on the evaluators' standpoint?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoeken, J.A.L.; Van Vugt, M.

    2016-01-01

    People without a background in argumentation theory possess several criteria to distinguish strong from weak arguments. The fact that people have these criteria does not imply that they will use them to objectively assess the quality of an argument. Research on motivated reasoning suggests that

  10. Conductive Arguments: Why is This Still a Thing?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kevin Possin

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Conductive arguments, as a separate category of reasoning, has experienced a revival.  In 2010, the University of Windsor’s Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric dedicated a two-day symposium to the topic and later published the proceedings.  In this article, I argue against the existence of conductive arguments as a usefully distinct type of argument.  Some of what are deemed conductive arguments are simply inductive arguments and some are best construed as subsets of the constituents of what is commonly called a position paper.

  11. Argumentation not emotion

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Koerber, H.

    1984-01-01

    The controversy about the introduction and extension of the peaceful use of nuclear energy has been going on in the Federal Republic of Germany and other countries for a number of years. The intensity with which it was conducted has changed frequently, varying topics were discussed, and shifting aims formed the object of resistance. Often emotion took the place of sober pro and con. There was increasing repression of points made, both on the part of the opponents of nuclear energy and its advocates. Endeavours to free the controversy from emotion are a prerequisite of sober analysis and a balanced judgement on questions of the energy supply of this country. The call for points is to be complied with by this book. To the emotional contentions and statements made in the course of the nuclear energy discussion the author opposes sober arguments. To corroborate the argumentation and make it verifiable a compilation of facts was appended, which corresponds to the main part of the book, provides further information and establishes connections to related problems. A register of important technical terms and their definitions and a bibliography round off the information and argumentation potential. The book is addressed to all - opponents and supporters alike - who want to deal unemotionally with the pro and con of nuclear energy. It provides useful aids for argumentation and the framing of opinions to anybody participating in the discussion at the level of politics, economy, education and society. Last not least it is helpful as a source of information and reference book on questions of energy supply. (orig.) [de

  12. 'You are inferior!' Revisiting the expressivist argument.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hofmann, Bjørn

    2017-09-01

    According to the expressivist argument the choice to use biotechnologies to prevent the birth of individuals with specific disabilities is an expression of disvalue for existing people with this disability. The argument has stirred a lively debate and has recently received renewed attention. This article starts with presenting the expressivist argument and its core elements. It then goes on to present and examine the counter-arguments before it addresses some aspects that have gained surprisingly little attention. The analysis demonstrates that the expressivist argument has a wide range of underpinnings and that counter-arguments tend to focus on only a few of these. It also reveals an important aspect that appears to have been ignored, i.e., that people do not select foetuses based on chromosomes or other biological traits, but based on characteristics of living persons with specific disabilities. This makes it more difficult to undermine the claim that negative selection of foetuses expresses a disvaluing of persons with such disabilities. It leaves the expressivist argument with a strong bite still. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  13. Family Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Spread the Word Shop AAP Find a Pediatrician Family Life Medical Home Family Dynamics Adoption & Foster Care ... Life Listen Español Text Size Email Print Share Family Arguments Page Content Article Body We seem to ...

  14. On the irrationality of Ramanujan's mock theta functions and other q-series at an infinite number of points

    OpenAIRE

    Mingarelli, Angelo B.

    2007-01-01

    We show that all of Ramanujan's mock theta functions of order 3, Watson's three additional mock theta functions of order 3, the Rogers-Ramanujan q-series, and 6 mock theta functions of order 5 take on irrational values at the points q=\\pm 1/2,\\pm 1/3,\\pm 1/4,...

  15. Rhetoric and Essentially Contested Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garver, Eugene

    1978-01-01

    Draws a connection between Gallie's essentially contested concepts and Aristotle's account of rhetorical argument by presenting a definition of Essentially Contested Argument which is used as the connecting term between rhetoric and essentially contested concepts and by demonstrating the value of making this connection. (JF)

  16. Argumentation skill profile using “Toulmin Argumentation Pattern” analysis of high school student at Subang on topic hydrostatic pressure

    Science.gov (United States)

    Syerliana, L.; Muslim; Setiawan, W.

    2018-05-01

    This study aims to know profile of argumentation skill high school student at Kabupaten Subang. To achieve this goal, researcher conducted a descriptive study to analysis student test results of argumentation skill of 35 students XII SMAN. Data collection using argumentation test which has validation by expert and then it is analyzed using TAP (Toulmin Argumentation Pattern) which consist of some components such a data, claim, warrant, backing, and rebuttal on the topic of hydrostatic pressure. The method used in this research is descriptive method. The result of this research show the student’s scientific argumentation skill is still low, this is proven by 54% average claim score, 38% data, 29% warrant, 35% backing and 35% rebuttal. These findings will serve as a basis for further research on innovative learning models that can improve students’ argumentation skill.

  17. Disentangling The Thick Concept Argument

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Blomberg, Olle

    2007-01-01

    Critics argue that non-cognitivism cannot adequately account for the existence and nature of some thick moral concepts. They use the existence of thick concepts as a lever in an argument against non-cognitivism, here called the Thick Concept Argument (TCA). While TCA is frequently invoked...

  18. Craig and Kalam Cosmological Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gholamhosein Tavacoly

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Among different arguments for the existence of God the Kalam cosmological argument is a very famous one which is elaborated by Professor William lane Craig. Craig claims that the universe began to exist , then he continues to say: everything that begins to exist has a cause and therefore the universe has a cause. But how do we know that the universe began to exist? This premise forms the most important part of Craig’s contention, and he bolsters it by four arguments, the first two are driven from philosophy and the other two, which he prefers to name them “confirmations from sciences” are driven from sciences the first one evokes to big bang theory and the seconds to the second principle of thermodynamic which are respectively adopted from cosmology and physics.   In this essay we are going to survey Craig’s arguments and estimate their value and weight.

  19. Craig and Kalam Cosmological Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gholamhosein Tavacoly

    2011-09-01

    Full Text Available   Among different arguments for the existence of God the Kalam cosmological argument is a very famous one which is elaborated by Professor William lane Craig. Craig claims that the universe began to exist , then he continues to say: everything that begins to exist has a cause and therefore the universe has a cause. But how do we know that the universe began to exist? This premise forms the most important part of Craig’s contention, and he bolsters it by four arguments, the first two are driven from philosophy and the other two, which he prefers to name them “confirmations from sciences” are driven from sciences the first one evokes to big bang theory and the seconds to the second principle of thermodynamic which are respectively adopted from cosmology and physics.   In this essay we are going to survey Craig’s arguments and estimate their value and weight.

  20. Craig and Kalam Cosmological Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tavacoli, Gh

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Among different arguments for the existence of God the Kalam cosmological argument is a very famous one which is elaborated by Professor William lane Craig. Craig claims that the universe began to exist, then he continues to say: everything that begins to exist has a cause and therefore the universe has a cause. But how do we know that the universe began to exist? This premise forms the most important part of Craig’s contention, and he bolsters it by four arguments, the first two are driven from philosophy and the other two, which he prefers to name them “confirmations from sciences” are driven from sciences; the first one evokes to big bang theory and the seconds to the second principle of thermodynamic which are respectively adopted from cosmology and physics.In this essay we are going to survey Craig’s arguments and estimate their value and weight.

  1. Analyzing Argumentation In Rich, Natural Contexts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anita Reznitskaya

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents the theoretical and methodological aspects of research on the development of argument- ation in elementary school children. It presents a theoretical framework detailing psychological mechanisms responsible for the acquisition and transfer of argumentative discourse and demonstrates several applications of the framework, described in sufficient detail to guide future empirical investigations of oral, written, individual, or group argumentation performance. Software programs capable of facilitating data analysis are identified and their uses illustrated. The analytic schemes can be used to analyze large amounts of verbal data with reasonable precision and efficiency. The conclusion addresses more generally the challenges for and possibilities of empirical study of the development of argumentation.

  2. Similarity Arguments in the Genetic Modification Debate

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christiansen, Andreas

    2017-01-01

    In the ethical debate on genetic modification (GM), it is common to encounter the claim that some anti-GM argument would also apply an established, ethically accepted technology, and that the anti-GM argument is therefore unsuccessful. The paper discusses whether this argumentative strategy, the ...

  3. Are Irrational Reactions to Unfairness Truly Emotionally-Driven? Dissociated Behavioural and Emotional Responses in the Ultimatum Game Task

    Science.gov (United States)

    Civai, Claudia; Corradi-Dell'Acqua, Corrado; Gamer, Matthias; Rumiati, Raffaella I.

    2010-01-01

    The "irrational" rejections of unfair offers by people playing the Ultimatum Game (UG), a widely used laboratory model of economical decision-making, have traditionally been associated with negative emotions, such as frustration, elicited by unfairness ([Sanfey et al., 2003] and [van't Wout et al., 2006]). We recorded skin conductance responses as…

  4. Humanist Principles Underlying Philosophy of Argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George Boger

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available This discussion reviews the thinking of some prominent philosophers of argument to extract principles common to their thinking. It shows that a growing concern with dialogical pragmatics is better appreciated as a part of applied ethics than of applied epistemology. The discussion concludes by indicating a possible consequence for philosophy of argument and invites further discussion by asking whether argumentation philosophy has an implicit, underlying moral, or even political, posture.

  5. Definitional Arguments in Children’s Speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rebecca Schar

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Based on the debate on children’s ability to produce argumentative discourse in different edu­cational settings, this paper provides further support for the fact that small children are able to support their opinions with arguments. In particular, the paper makes a case in point on children’s appeal to definitional loci, when supporting their standpoints. The analysis of their reasoning’s implicit components shows how children apply different definitional arguments.

  6. Modelling group decision simulation through argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Marreiros, Goreti; Novais, Paulo; Machado, José; Ramos, Carlos; Neves, José

    2007-01-01

    Group decision making plays an important role in today’s organisations. The impact of decision making is so high and complex, that rarely the decision making process is made individually. In Group Decision Argumentation, there is a set of participants, with different profiles and expertise levels, that exchange ideas or engage in a process of argumentation and counter-argumentation, negotiate, cooperate, collaborate or even discuss techniques and/or methodologies for problem solving. In this ...

  7. A Viewpoint Approach to Structured Argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Tamani, Nouredine; Croitoru, Madalina; Buche, Patrice

    2013-01-01

    We introduce in this paper a viewpoint-based argumentation approach in the context of the EcoBioCap project, which requirements are different actor arguments expressed over several criteria, describing the objects of a domain, to support/oppose contradictory goals. A viewpoint is an ASPIC+ argumentation system defined over a subset of rules corresponding to a single criterion. Concepts of conflict between viewpoints, independent viewpoints, and collection of independent viewpoints are the bas...

  8. Combining Paraconsistent Logic with Argumentation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Grooters, Diana; Prakken, Hendrik

    2014-01-01

    One tradition in the logical study of argumentation is to allow for arguments that combine strict and defeasible inference rules, and to derive the strict inference rules from a logic at least as strong as classical logic. An unsolved problem in this tradition is how the trivialising effect of the

  9. Modelling Mathematical Argumentation: The Importance of Qualification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Inglis, Matthew; Mejia-Ramos, Juan; Simpson, Adrian

    2007-01-01

    In recent years several mathematics education researchers have attempted to analyse students' arguments using a restricted form of Toulmina's ["The Uses of Argument," Cambridge University Press, UK, 1958] argumentation scheme. In this paper we report data from task-based interviews conducted with highly talented postgraduate mathematics students,…

  10. Toulmin's argument pattern as a "horizon of possibilities" in the study of argumentation in science education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erduran, Sibel

    2018-01-01

    Kim and Roth (this issue) purport to draw on the social-psychological theory of L. S. Vygotsky in order to investigate social relations in children's argumentation in science topics. The authors argue that the argumentation framework offered by Stephen Toulmin is limited in addressing social relations. The authors thus criticize Toulmin's Argument Pattern (TAP) as an analytical tool and propose to investigate the genesis of evidence-related practices (especially burden of proof) in second- and third-grade children by studying dialogical interactions. In this paper, I illustrate how Toulmin's framework can contribute to (a) the study of "social relations", and (b) provide an example utilizing a theoretical framework on social relations, namely Engeström's Activity Theory framework, and (c) describe how we have used the Activity Theory along with TAP in order to understand the development of argumentation in the practices of science educators. Overall, I will argue that TAP is not inherently incapable of addressing social relational aspects of argumentation in science education but rather that science education researchers can transform theoretical tools such as Toulmin's framework intended for other purposes for use in science education research.

  11. Prerequisites for Correctness in Legal Argumentation

    OpenAIRE

    Mackuvienė, Eglė

    2011-01-01

    A phenomenon called legal argumentation is analyzed in the dissertation. The aim of the thesis is to identify the prerequisites that allow to consider the legal argumentation to be correct, also to evaluate those prerequisites logically. Legal argumentation is analyzed as a phenomenon per se, without relating it to any particular arguing subject. Other dimensions of the process of making a legal decision, such as legal reasoning, legal discourse, interpretation of law and others are discu...

  12. Een Scotistisch argument voor dualisme

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Ridder, G.J.; van Woudenberg, R.

    2010-01-01

    In his recent book Waar geest is, is vrijheid [Where there is mind, there is freedom], Guus Labooy sets forth an original and intriguing argument, inspired by the work of John Duns Scotus, for substance dualism in the philosophy of mind. In this paper we argue that his argument, although worthy of

  13. What does respect for the patient's autonomy require?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, Kam-Yuen

    2013-11-01

    Personal autonomy presupposes the notion of rationality. What is not so clear is whether, and how, a compromise of rationality to various degrees will diminish a person's autonomy. In bioethical literature, three major types of threat to the rationality of a patient's medical decision are identified: insufficient information, irrational beliefs/desires, and influence of different framing effects. To overcome the first problem, it is suggested that patients be provided with information about their diseases and treatment choices according to the objective standard. I shall explain how this should be finessed. Regarding the negative impact of irrational beliefs/desires, some philosophers have argued that holding irrational beliefs can still be an expression of autonomy. I reject this argument because the degree of autonomy of a decision depends on the degree of rationality of the beliefs or desires on which the decision is based. Hence, to promote patient autonomy, we need to eliminate irrational beliefs by the provision of evidence and good arguments. Finally, I argue that the way to smooth out the framing effects is to present the same information in different perspectives: it is too often assumed that medical information can always be given in a complete and unadorned manner. This article concludes with a cautionary note that the protection of patient autonomy requires much more time and effort than the current practice usually allows. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  14. That’s No Argument! The Ultimate Criticism?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krabbe, Erik C. W.; van Laar, Jan Albert; Garssen, Bart J.; Godden, David; Mitchell, Gordon; Snoeck Henkemans, A. Francisca

    What if in discussion the critic refuses to recognize an emotionally expressed (alleged) argument of her interlocutor as an argument? In this paper, we shall deal with this reproach, which taken literally amounts to a charge of having committed a fallacy of non-argumentation. As such it is a very

  15. Incorporating Argumentation through Forensic Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wheeler, Lindsay B.; Maeng, Jennifer L.; Smetana, Lara K.

    2014-01-01

    This article outlines how to incorporate argumentation into a forensic science unit using a mock trial. Practical details of the mock trial include: (1) a method of scaffolding students' development of their argument for the trial, (2) a clearly outlined set of expectations for students during the planning and implementation of the mock…

  16. Peter Singer's argument for utilitarianism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buckle, Stephen

    2005-01-01

    The paper begins by situating Singer within the British meta-ethical tradition. It sets out the main steps in his argument for utilitarianism as the 'default setting' of ethical thought. It argues that Singer's argument depends on a hierarchy of reasons, such that the ethical viewpoint is understood to be an adaptation--an extension--of a fundamental self-interest. It concludes that the argument fails because it is impossible to get from this starting-point in self-interest to his conception of the ethical point of view. The fundamental problem is its mixing the immiscible: the Humean subordination of reason to interest with the Kantian conception of reason as universal and authoritative.

  17. Supporting middle school students' construction of evidence-based arguments: Impact of and student interactions with computer-based argumentation scaffolds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belland, Brian Robert

    Middle school students have difficulty creating evidence-based arguments (EBAs) during problem-based learning (PBL) units due to challenges (a) adequately representing the unit's central problem (Ge & Land, 2004; Liu & Bera, 2005), (b) determining and obtaining the most relevant evidence (Pedersen & Liu, 2002-2003), and (c) synthesizing gathered information to construct a sound argument (Cho & Jonassen, 2002). I designed and developed the Connection Log to support middle school students in this process. This study addressed (1) the Connection Log's impact on (a) argument evaluation ability, and (b) group argument quality and (2) how and why middle school science students used the Connection Log. Four sections of a 7th-grade science class participated. Student groups selected a stakeholder position related to the Human Genome Project (HGP) and needed to decide on and promote a plan to use $3 million to further their position as pertains to the HGP. I randomly assigned one higher-achieving and one lower-achieving class to Connection Log or no Connection Log conditions. Students completed an argument evaluation test, and impact on argument evaluation ability was determined using nested ANOVA. Two graduate students, blind to treatment conditions, rated group arguments, and impact on group argument quality was determined using nested MANOVA. To determine how and why students used the Connection Log, I videotaped and interviewed one small group from each class in the experimental condition. I coded transcripts and generated themes, triangulating the two data sources with informal observations during all class sessions and what students wrote in the Connection Log. I detected no significant differences on claim, evidence, or connection of claim to evidence ratings of debate performances. However, students used the Connection Log to counter different difficulties, and I found a significant main effect of the Connection Log on argument evaluation ability, as well as a

  18. Van Inwagen on the Cosmological Argument | Brueckner ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    In his book Metaphysics, Peter van Inwagen constructs a version of the Cosmological Argument which does not depend on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He goes on to reject the argument. In this paper, I construct an alternative version of the Cosmological Argument that uses some of van Inwagen's insights and yet is ...

  19. Another argument against fundamental scalars

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Joglekar, S.D.

    1990-01-01

    An argument, perhaps not as strong, which is based on the inclusion of interaction with external gravity into a theory describing strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions is presented. The argument is related to the basis of the common belief which favours a renormalizable action against a non-renormalizable action as a candidate for a fundamental theory. (author). 12 refs

  20. Three-loop massive tadpoles and polylogarithms through weight six

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kniehl, B.A.; Pikelner, Andrey F.; Veretin, Oleg L. [Hamburg Univ. (Germany). 2. Inst. fuer Theoretische Physik

    2017-05-15

    We evaluate the three-loop massive vacuum bubble diagrams in terms of polylogarithms up to weight six. We also construct the basis of irrational constants being harmonic polylogarithms of arguments e{sup kiπ/3}.

  1. Two Forms of Philosophical Argument or Critique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marshall, James D.

    2004-01-01

    In this paper the author looks at two forms of philosophical argument or critique. These are derived by himself from the work of the late Kantian scholar, Stephan Korner who, in his book "What is Philosophy?" (1969), draws a number of distinctions between different forms of "philosophical" argument or critique. The two forms of derived argument,…

  2. Irrational beliefs, optimism, pessimism, and psychological distress: a preliminary examination of differential effects in a college population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, E C; Bridewell, W B

    1998-02-01

    The present study compared the effects of irrational beliefs measured by the Survey of Personal Beliefs (SPB) and optimism and pessimism as measured by the revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) on depressive and anxious symptoms 6 weeks later. Results of analysis of variances for both measures of psychological distress indicated a significant main effect for pessimism only. Implications for Ellis Rational Emotive Therapy are discussed.

  3. Reasons of the heart: emotion, rationality, and the "wisdom of repugnance".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaebnick, Gregory E

    2008-01-01

    Much work in bioethics tries to sidestep bedrock questions about moral values. This is fine if we agree on our values; arguments about human enhancement suggest we do not. One bedrock question underlying these arguments concerns the role of emotion in morality: worries about enhancement are derided as emotional and thus irrational. In fact, both emotion and reason are integral to all moral judgment.

  4. Argumentative Bluff in Eristic Discussion : An Analysis and Evaluation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Laar, Jan Albert

    How does the analysis and evaluation of argumentation depend on the dialogue type in which the argumentation has been put forward? This paper focuses on argumentative bluff in eristic discussion. Argumentation cannot be presented without conveying the pretence that it is dialectically reasonable, as

  5. Evaluating arguments during instigations of defence motivation and accuracy motivation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Cheng-Hong

    2017-05-01

    When people evaluate the strength of an argument, their motivations are likely to influence the evaluation. However, few studies have specifically investigated the influences of motivational factors on argument evaluation. This study examined the effects of defence and accuracy motivations on argument evaluation. According to the compatibility between the advocated positions of arguments and participants' prior beliefs and the objective strength of arguments, participants evaluated four types of arguments: compatible-strong, compatible-weak, incompatible-strong, and incompatible-weak arguments. Experiment 1 revealed that participants possessing a high defence motivation rated compatible-weak arguments as stronger and incompatible-strong ones as weaker than participants possessing a low defence motivation. However, the strength ratings between the high and low defence groups regarding both compatible-strong and incompatible-weak arguments were similar. Experiment 2 revealed that when participants possessed a high accuracy motivation, they rated compatible-weak arguments as weaker and incompatible-strong ones as stronger than when they possessed a low accuracy motivation. However, participants' ratings on both compatible-strong and incompatible-weak arguments were similar when comparing high and low accuracy conditions. The results suggest that defence and accuracy motivations are two major motives influencing argument evaluation. However, they primarily influence the evaluation results for compatible-weak and incompatible-strong arguments, but not for compatible-strong and incompatible-weak arguments. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

  6. Design Argumentation in Academic Design Education

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dalsgaard, Peter; Dindler, Christian; Fritsch, Jonas

    2013-01-01

    We explore design argumentation as a resource when teaching interaction design in a university setting. We propose that design argumentation can help bridge between practice-based design education and theoretical issues from university curricula. In this paper, we outline the idea of design...

  7. Modelling Scientific Argumentation in the Classroom : Teachers perception and practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Probosari, R. M.; Sajidan; Suranto; Prayitno, B. A.; Widyastuti, F.

    2017-02-01

    The purposes of this study were to investigate teacher’s perception about scientific argumentation and how they practice it in their classroom. Thirty biology teachers in high school participated in this study and illustrated their perception of scientific argumentation through a questionnaire. This survey research was developed to measure teachers’ understanding of scientific argumentation, what they know about scientific argumentation, the differentiation between argument and reasoning, how they plan teaching strategies in order to make students’ scientific argumentation better and the obstacles in teaching scientific argumentation. The result conclude that generally, teachers modified various representation to accommodate student’s active participation, but most of them assume that argument and reasoning are similar. Less motivation, tools and limited science’s knowledge were considered as obstacles in teaching argumentation. The findings can be helpful to improving students’ abilities of doing scientific argumentation as a part of inquiry.

  8. The Optimum Level of Argumentativeness for Employed Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schullery, Nancy M.

    1998-01-01

    Examines the relationship between argumentativeness and women's supervisory level in organizations. Finds no simple relationship between supervisory level and argumentativeness for women, but indicates that moderation in argumentativeness increases with supervisory level. Notes implications for pedagogy: would-be female executives should be…

  9. Seemingly irrational driving behavior model: The effect of habit strength and anticipated affective reactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, Yi-Shih

    2015-09-01

    An increasing amount of evidence suggests that aberrant driving behaviors are not entirely rational. On the basis of the dual-process theory, this study postulates that drivers may learn to perform irrational aberrant driving behaviors, and these behaviors could be derived either from a deliberate or an intuitive decision-making approach. Accordingly, a seemingly irrational driving behavior model is proposed; in this model, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was adopted to represent the deliberate decision-making mechanism, and habit strength was incorporated to reflect the intuitive decision process. A multiple trivariate mediation structure was designed to reflect the process through which driving behaviors are learned. Anticipated affective reactions (AARs) were further included to examine the effect of affect on aberrant driving behaviors. Considering the example of speeding behaviors, this study developed scales and conducted a two-wave survey of students in two departments at a university in Northern Taiwan. The analysis results show that habit strength consists of multiple aspects, and frequency of past behavior cannot be a complete repository for accumulating habit strength. Habit strength appeared to be a crucial mediator between intention antecedents (e.g., attitude) and the intention itself. Including habit strength in the TPB model enhanced the explained variance of speeding intention by 26.7%. In addition, AARs were different from attitudes; particularly, young drivers tended to perform speeding behaviors to reduce negative feelings such as regret. The proposed model provides an effective alternative approach for investigating aberrant driving behaviors; corresponding countermeasures are discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Critique of Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stuart Farrand

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available Bryan Caplan’s 2007 book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, created some controversy by stating that voters make irrational political decisions. While it has commonly been accepted in public choice discourse that citizens are ignorant of the complexities of politics, Caplan takes the argument one step further and states that citizens hold extreme anti-economic biases that invoke certain irrational demands of politicians. Caplan also asserts that democratic failure is thoroughly a result of the these irrational biases, and that citizens deserve the primary blame for problems within the American political system. This critique analyzes several inconsistencies in Caplan’s assessment of the political condition, which include his doctrine of rational irrationality, his skepticism towards democratic failure, and his apologetic attitude towards politicians. Under closer scrutiny, one can see that Caplan’s main thesis, the concept of rational irrationality, is largely unfounded. Furthermore, the theoretical model he constructs is largely incomplete, since he focuses primarily on the failures of citizens, but does not take into account numerous other factors within the political process that can lead to democratic failure.

  11. Analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Eemeren, F.H.; Garssen, B.; van Eemeren, F.H.

    2015-01-01

    Although Renkema’s Introduction to Discourse Studies (2004: Chap. 12) provides a useful introduction to the study of argumentation, this brief account does not provide a full characterization of the field. Among the dominant approaches to argumentative discourse a general distinction can be made

  12. The Determinants of Money Arguments between Spouses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dorothy B. Durband

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available A commonly held view is that arguments about money are associated with marital problems, but relatively little is known about the nature of arguing about money within marriage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79, this study uses a collective bargaining approach to examine the role of money arguments in marriage. The sample (N = 1,371 consists of married women. A collective bargaining framework provides a context for understanding money arguments within the marital relationship. Results indicate that costly communication is the dominant predictor of money arguments, followed by level and proportion of wife’s income, and household net worth. Because results suggest that both communication and financial resources are important components to understanding money arguments within marriage, a combination of professionals trained in marital therapy and/or financial planning is required for couples interested in seeking assistance to increase their satisfaction and/or avoid divorce.

  13. Argumentation Ethics and The Philosophy of Freedom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Frank van Dun

    2009-03-01

    Full Text Available When H.-H. Hoppe claimed (in A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, 1989 that the principles of libertarianism were argumentatively irrefutable, both the logical coherence and the relevance of his “argument from argumentation” were criticized. While occasionally some of these criticisms still crop up, this paper defends Hoppe’s claim against them from the vantage point of the author’s own work (in Dutch on the ethics of dialogue in the nineteen-seventies. It presents a more detailed and systematic presentation of the “argument from argumentation” than Hoppe had need for in the particular context of his book. It makes a distinction between arguments about principles and arguments about particular cases in which these principles may be invoked; and between the normative validity (as a matter of principle of certain presumptions and the fact that in particular cases these presumptions hold only in principle and can be refuted by the evidence pertaining to the cases.

  14. A Comparative Study of Argument from Primordial Nature and Argument from General Consensus on the Demonstration of Existence of God

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hamidreza Abdoli Mehrjardi

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Historical evidences suggest that human beings have been always in search of God in some form. Some believe that man is born with this divine sense. This ubiquitous quality of human beings is called primordial nature (fitrah. Many scholars have tried to demonstrate the existence of God through this shared quality of human individuals. In Islamic thought this latter intellectual effort has been designated as "argument from primordial nature" and in western theological and philosophical thought it is known as "argument from general consensus". Although these arguments have some differences in their general settings and attitudes; but they both resort to human general divine attitude to demonstrate the existence of God. In this essay we have sought to propound the views of those scholars who have dealt with this argument at length. Reflecting on the general form of the expositions shows that the expositions of argument from primordial nature and argument from general consensus cannot demonstrate the existence of God without basing themselves on the principle of causation or human existential poverty. Via comparative assessment of these two arguments we have turned to the critiques which have been leveled against them and laid bare their similarities and differences. Of course there are some differences between the argument from primordial nature in Islam and the argument from general consensus in west. This essay seeks to assay the key expositions which have been offered of these arguments in Islamic and western philosophies. It seems that among Moslem philosophers, Mulla Sadra from the early generation, Allameh Tabtabaei, Imam Khomeini, Jawadi Amuli and Mutahari from later generation, have paid more attention to this argument. Among western scholars one can mention William James, Charles Hodge, James Joyce, Paul Tillich and Seneca who have made more direct remarks on this argument. John Locke is also against this argument. This is why we have

  15. Fallacies in ethical argumentation on abortion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simona Mazilu

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper represents a case study of the types of fallacies that may occur in the argumentation stage of an ethical dispute over abortion. The theoretical framework I use is the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 2004 which conceives of fallacies as violations of the rules for critical discussion. I will focus on the fallacies resulting from the violation of the relevance rule in two fragments of argumentative texts illustrating opposing positions on abortion. I claim that these fallacies function as winning strategies in the ethical dispute in case.

  16. A Canonical Approach to the Argument/Adjunct Distinction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diana Forker

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper provides an account of the argument/adjunct distinction implementing the 'canonical approach'. I identify five criteria (obligatoriness, latency, co-occurrence restrictions, grammatical relations, and iterability and seven diagnostic tendencies that can be used to distinguish canonical arguments from canonical adjuncts. I then apply the criteria and tendencies to data from the Nakh-Daghestanian language Hinuq. Hinuq makes extensive use of spatial cases for marking adjunct-like and argument-like NPs. By means of the criteria and tendencies it is possible to distinguish spatial NPs that come close to canonical arguments from those that are canonical adjuncts, and to place the remaining NPs bearing spatial cases within the argument-adjunct continuum.

  17. Generate an Argument: An Instructional Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sampson, Victor; Grooms, Jonathon

    2010-01-01

    The Generate an Argument instructional model was designed to engage students in scientific argumentation. By using this model, students develop complex reasoning and critical-thinking skills, understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge, and improve their communication skills (Duschl and Osborne 2002). This article describes the…

  18. Argumentation and indigenous knowledge: socio-historical influences in contextualizing an argumentation model in South African schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallard Martínez, Alejandro J.

    2011-09-01

    This forum considers argumentation as a means of science teaching in South African schools, through the integration of indigenous knowledge (IK). It addresses issues raised in Mariana G. Hewson and Meshach B. Ogunniyi's paper entitled: Argumentation-teaching as a method to introduce indigenous knowledge into science classrooms: opportunities and challenges. As well as Peter Easton's: Hawks and baby chickens: cultivating the sources of indigenous science education; and, Femi S. Otulaja, Ann Cameron and Audrey Msimanga's: Rethinking argumentation-teaching strategies and indigenous knowledge in South African science classrooms. The first topic addressed is that implementation of argumentation in the science classroom becomes a complex endeavor when the tensions between students' IK, the educational infrastructure (allowance for teacher professional development, etc.) and local belief systems are made explicit. Secondly, western styles of debate become mitigating factors because they do not always adequately translate to South African culture. For example, in many instances it is more culturally acceptable in South Africa to build consensus than to be confrontational. Thirdly, the tension between what is "authentic science" and what is not becomes an influencing factor when a tension is created between IK and western science. Finally, I argue that the thrust of argumentation is to set students up as "scientist-students" who will be considered through a deficit model by judging their habitus and cultural capital. Explicitly, a "scientist-student" is a student who has "learned," modeled and thoroughly assimilated the habits of western scientists, evidently—and who will be judged by and held accountable for their demonstration of explicit related behaviors in the science classroom. I propose that science teaching, to include argumentation, should consist of "listening carefully" (radical listening) to students and valuing their language, culture, and learning as a model

  19. The Impact of Argumentativeness on Resistance to Persuasion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kazoleas, Dean

    1993-01-01

    Examines the impact of argumentativeness on cognitive responses and attitude change of undergraduate college students. Finds that argumentative individuals generate greater numbers of counterarguments and are more resistant to persuasion. Indicates that attitude change for the highly argumentative individual is a function of both positive and…

  20. Friendly Alternatives to the Argumentative Essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Costanzo, William V.

    Many teachers would like to counter what Deborah Tannen calls "The Argument Culture." They recognize that teaching students traditional principles of argument may perpetuate the kind of adversarial thinking that erupts all too often: in aggressive newspaper headlines, on confrontational television shows, in court rooms, and in school…

  1. Argument and Credibility Appeals in Persuasion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benoit, William L.

    1987-01-01

    Indicated that (1) arguments perceived as strong by receivers generated both more favorable, supportive cognitive responses and attitude change than weak message arguments; and (2) perceived source expertise and attractiveness influenced cognitive responses, but not in a coherent fashion or to the extent that they effect attitude change. (JD)

  2. (Non-)Arguments in Long-Distance Extractions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nyvad, Anne Mette; Kizach, Johannes; Christensen, Ken Ramshøj

    2015-10-01

    Previous research has shown that in fully grammatical sentences, response time increases and acceptability decreases when the filler in a long-distance extraction is incompatible with the matrix verb. This effect could potentially be due to a difference between argument and adjunct extraction. In this paper we investigate the effect of long extraction of arguments and adjuncts where incompatibility is kept constant. Based on the results from two offline surveys and an online experiment, we argue that the argument/adjunct asymmetry in terms of acceptability is due to differences in processing difficulty, but that both types of extraction involve the same intermediate attachment sites in the online processing.

  3. Argumentation in elementary science education: addressing methodological issues and conceptual understanding

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaya, Ebru

    2017-11-01

    In this review essay I respond to issues raised in Mijung Kim and Wolff-Michael Roth's paper titled "Dialogical argumentation in elementary science classrooms", which presents a study dealing with dialogical argumentation in early elementary school classrooms. Since there is very limited research on lower primary school students' argumentation in school science, their paper makes a contribution to research on children's argumentation skills. In this response, I focus on two main issues to extend the discussion in Kim and Roth's paper: (a) methodological issues including conducting a quantitative study on children's argumentation levels and focusing on children's written argumentation in addition to their dialogical argumentation, and (b) investigating children's conceptual understanding along with their argumentation levels. Kim and Roth emphasize the difficulty in determining the level of children's argumentation through the Toulmin's Argument Pattern and lack of high level arguments by children due to their difficulties in writing texts. Regarding these methodological issues, I suggest designing quantitative research on coding children's argument levels because such research could potentially provide important findings on children's argumentation. Furthermore, I discuss alternative written products including posters, figures, or pictures generated by children in order to trace children's arguments, and finally articulating argumentation and conceptual understanding of children.

  4. Arguments that take counterconsiderations into account

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Laar, Jan Albert

    2014-01-01

    This paper examines arguments that take counterconsiderations into account, and it does so from a dialogical point of view. According to this account, a counterconsideration is part of a critical reaction from a real or imagined opponent, and an arguer may take it into account in his argument in at

  5. We have yet to see the "visual argument"

    OpenAIRE

    Popa, O.E.

    2016-01-01

    In this paper, I defend two skeptical claims regarding current research on visual arguments and I explain how these claims reflect upon past and future research. The first claim is that qualifying an argument as being visual amounts to a category mistake; the second claim is that past analyses of visual arguments fault on both end of the “production line” in that the input is not visual and the output is not an argument. Based on the developed critique, I discuss how the study of images in co...

  6. Understanding a High School Physics Teacher's Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jianlan; Buck, Gayle A.

    2016-08-01

    Scientific argumentation is an important learning objective in science education. It is also an effective instructional approach to constructivist science learning. The implementation of argumentation in school settings requires science teachers, who are pivotal agents of transforming classroom practices, to develop sophisticated knowledge of argumentation. However, there is a lack of understanding about science teachers' knowledge of argumentation, especially the dialogic meaning of argumentation. In this case study, we closely examine a high school physics teacher's argumentation-related pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) in the context of dialogic argumentation. We synthesize the teacher's performed PCK from his argumentation practices and narrated PCK from his reflection on the argumentation practices, from which we summarize his PCK of argumentation from the perspectives of orientation, instructional strategies, students, curriculum, and assessment. Finally, we describe the teacher's perception and adaption of argumentation in his class. We also identity the barriers to argumentation implementation in this particular case and suggest solutions to overcome these barriers.

  7. Reasoning by Argumentation. Social Studies Learning Milestone 4.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Voss, James F.

    This paper is concerned with the importance of argumentation in the classroom, especially in relation to the social sciences. Issues of argument and argument evaluation are considered. The paper analyzes the nature of such reasoning and indicates its importance in subject matter learning. Three situations are described in the paper in which…

  8. Consciousness regained? Philosophical arguments for and against reductive physicalism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sturm, Thomas

    2012-03-01

    This paper is an overview of recent discussions concerning the mind-body problem, which is being addressed at the interface between philosophy and neuroscience. It focuses on phenomenal features of consciousness or "qualia," which are distinguished from various related issues. Then follows a discussion of various influential skeptical arguments that question the possibility of reductive explanations of qualia in physicalist terms: knowledge arguments, conceivability arguments, the argument of multiple realizability, and the explanatory gap argument. None of the arguments is found to be very convincing. It does not necessarily follow that reductive physicalism is the only option, but it is defensible. However, constant conceptual and methodological reflection is required, alongside ongoing research, to keep such a view free from dogmatism and naivety.

  9. Argumentation in the Chemistry Laboratory: Inquiry and Confirmatory Experiments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katchevich, Dvora; Hofstein, Avi; Mamlok-Naaman, Rachel

    2013-02-01

    One of the goals of science education is to provide students with the ability to construct arguments—reasoning and thinking critically in a scientific context. Over the years, many studies have been conducted on constructing arguments in science teaching, but only few of them have dealt with studying argumentation in the laboratory. Our research focuses on the process in which students construct arguments in the chemistry laboratory while conducting various types of experiments. It was found that inquiry experiments have the potential to serve as an effective platform for formulating arguments, owing to the features of this learning environment. The discourse during inquiry-type experiments was found to be rich in arguments, whereas that during confirmatory-type experiments was found to be sparse in arguments. The arguments, which were developed during the discourse of an open inquiry experiment, focus on the hypothesis-building stage, analysis of the results, and drawing appropriate conclusions.

  10. Revisiting Strawsonian Arguments from Inescapability

    OpenAIRE

    Szigeti, Andras

    2012-01-01

    Peter Strawson defends the thesis that determinism is irrelevant to the justifiability of responsibility-attributions. In this paper, I want to examine various arguments advanced by Strawson in support of this thesis. These arguments all draw on the thought that the practice of responsibility is inescapable. My main focus is not so much the metaphysical details of Strawsonian compatibilism, but rather the more fundamental idea that x being inescapable may be reason for us to regard x as justi...

  11. Efficient computation of argumentation semantics

    CERN Document Server

    Liao, Beishui

    2013-01-01

    Efficient Computation of Argumentation Semantics addresses argumentation semantics and systems, introducing readers to cutting-edge decomposition methods that drive increasingly efficient logic computation in AI and intelligent systems. Such complex and distributed systems are increasingly used in the automation and transportation systems field, and particularly autonomous systems, as well as more generic intelligent computation research. The Series in Intelligent Systems publishes titles that cover state-of-the-art knowledge and the latest advances in research and development in intelligen

  12. Public perceptions of arguments supporting and opposing recreational marijuana legalization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGinty, Emma E; Niederdeppe, Jeff; Heley, Kathryn; Barry, Colleen L

    2017-06-01

    In debates about recreational marijuana legalization, pro-legalization arguments highlighting economic and other potential policy benefits compete with anti-legalization arguments emphasizing public health risks. In 2016, we conducted a national survey using an online panel (N=979) designed to answer two main research questions: (1) How do Americans perceive the relative strength of competing arguments about recreational marijuana legalization? (2) How are perceptions of argument strength associated with public support for recreational marijuana legalization? We examined differences in attitudes among individuals living in states that have/have not legalized recreational marijuana and among Democrats/Independents/Republicans. Ordered logit regression assessed the relationship between perceived argument strength and public support for recreational marijuana legalization. Respondents rated pro-legalization arguments highlighting beneficial economic and criminal justice consequences as more persuasive than anti-legalization arguments emphasizing adverse public health effects. Respondents were more likely to agree with arguments highlighting legalization's potential to increase tax revenue (63.9%) and reduce prison overcrowding (62.8%) than arguments emphasizing negative consequences on motor vehicle crashes (51.8%) and youth health (49.6%). The highest rated anti-legalization arguments highlighted the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws (63.0%) and asserted that legalization will fail to eliminate the black market (57.2%). Respondents who endorsed pro-legalization economic and criminal justice arguments were more likely than other respondents to support legalization. Our findings indicate that, on both side of the recreational marijuana legalization debate, there are arguments that resonate with the American public. However, public health risk messages were viewed as less compelling than pro-legalization economic and criminal justice-oriented arguments

  13. Argument from Design in Richard Baxter's Natural Theology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Igor Koshelev

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the teleological argument, or argument from design, as expounded by a famous English Protestant theologian Richard Baxter, one of the leading 17-th century English Puritans, in his work “The Reasons of the Christian Religion”. Natural theology, providing arguments for the existence of God based on reason and without appeal to the Revelation, has always played a vital role throughout the entire history of theological thought. The most popular was the so called teleological argument, or the argument from design, which stands out among all rational arguments for the existence of the Creator. It is mostly known from the “Fifth Way” of the medieval Scholastic philosopher Thomas Aquinas and a famous work “Natural Theology” by an English 19-th century theologian William Paley. The foundation for the modern research in the area was laid during the age of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century English nature philosophers and theologians, especially Robert Boyle, who believed the teleological argument to be the key element of Natural Theology. His friend and confessor, Richard Baxter, a prominent representative of the Puritan Natural Theology, mostly known by his theological works, paved the way for Natural Theology both in his own time and the following centuries. His work was thought to be the best collection of the evidences for Christianity.

  14. Crazy for bargains: inventing the irrational female shopper in modernizing English Canada.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belisle, Donica

    2011-01-01

    Between the 1890s and 1930s, anglophone politicians, journalists, novelists, and other commentators living in western, central, and eastern Canada drew upon established connections among greed, luxury, hysteria, and femininity to describe women who went shopping as irrational. Their motivations for doing so included their desires to assuage feelings of guilt about increased abundance; articulate anger caused by spousal conflicts over money; assert the legitimacy of male authority; and assign blame for the decline of small communities’ sustainability, the degradation of labour standards, and the erosion of independent shopkeeping. By calling upon stock stereotypes of femininity, and by repositioning them to fit the current capitalist moment, English-Canadian commentators constructed disempowering representations of women to alleviate their anxieties about what they perceived as the ills of modernization.

  15. Socioscientific Argumentation of Pre-Service Teachers about Genetically Modified Organisms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herawati, D.; Ardianto, D.

    2017-09-01

    This study aims to investigate socioscientific argumentation of pre-service teachers of science and non-science major regarding Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) issue. We used descriptive study and involved second-year pre-service teachers from two major, 28 pre-service science teachers (PSTs) and 28 pre-service non-science teachers (PNSTs) as participants. Paper and pencil test was administered in order to obtain the data of PSTs’ and PNSTs’ argument about GMOs. All of the data were analyzed by descriptive analysis. We applied Toulmin Argumentation Pattern (TAP) as a basic framework to identify the argumentation component. The result showed that both PSTs and PNSTs were able to propose an argument with a claim, data, and/or warrant.. Most of their argument contain data which provided in the text, without any further reasoning or relevant scientific knowledge. So, the coherency between argumentation component in both PSTs and PNSTs was limited. However, PSTs are more able to propose coherent arguments than PNSTs. These findings indicated that educational background and learning experiences may influence to pre-service teacher argumentation in the context of GMOs. Beside that, teaching and learning process which focused on the socioscientific issues is necessary to develop pre-service teachers’ argumentation

  16. Locative-Related Roles and the Argument-Adjunct Distinction in Balinese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I Wayan Arka

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper uses the realisation of locative-related roles in Balinese to show that there is no clear-cut distinction between arguments and adjuncts, supporting the gradient nature of grammatical functions (cf. Croft 2001; Langacker 1987; Aarts 2007. It argues that argumenthood is not wholly a property of a lexical head predicate and that a purely lexically based projectionist approach to syntactic argument structures cannot be maintained. It also explores the effect that the interplay between relevant properties of locatives has on their recruitability as arguments, and a novel argument-index analysis is proposed as a means to distinguish adjuncts from arguments. The analysis makes use of both general and language-specific morphosyntactic and morphosemantic tests. Investigation of locative-related roles reveals that certain properties determine their status in the argument-adjunct continuum: thematic, individuated and animate locatives are more argument-like than non-thematic, inanimate and general deictic locatives (in line with Kittila 2007, 2008; Peterson 2007. Interplay between these properties is shown to affect argument recruitment in Balinese, based on the value of the argument index for a given locative-related role. More generally, there also is evidence that languages vary in whether they allow true adjuncts to be recruited as arguments at all.

  17. Support for argument structures review and assessment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cyra, Lukasz; Gorski, Janusz

    2011-01-01

    Argument structures are commonly used to develop and present cases for safety, security and for other properties of systems. Such structures tend to grow excessively, which causes problems with their review and assessment. Two issues are of particular interest: (1) systematic and explicit assessment of the compelling power of an argument, and (2) communication of the result of such an assessment to relevant recipients. The paper presents a solution to these problems. The method of Visual Assessment of Arguments (VAA), being this solution, is based on the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence applied to the assessment of the strength of arguments, and a visual mechanism of issuing and presenting assessments, supported by the so-called opinion triangle. In the paper we explain theoretical grounding for the method and provide guidance on its application. The results of some validation experiments are also presented.

  18. Children's responses in argumentative discussions relating to parental rules and prescriptions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Bova

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This study sets out to investigate the types of responses by children aged between 3 and 7 years in argumentative discussions relating to parental rules and prescriptions. The data corpus is composed of 132 argumentative discussions selected from 30 video-recorded meals of 10 middle to upper-middle-class Swiss and Italian families. Data are presented through discursive excerpts of argumentative discussions and analysed by the pragma-dialectical ideal model of critical discussion. The findings show that when parents advance context-bound arguments such as the arguments of quality (e.g., very good, salty, or not good and quantity (e.g., too little, quite enough, or too much of food, the arguments advanced by children mirror the same types of arguments previously used by parents. On the other hand, when parents advance more complex, elaborated, and context-unbound arguments such as the appeal to consistency's argument, the argument from authority and the argument from analogy, the children typically did not advance any argument, but their response is an expression of further doubt or a mere opposition without providing any argument. Overall, the results of this study indicate that the types of children's responses are strictly connected to the type of argument previously advanced by their parents. This aspect is particularly relevant in terms of children's capacities to engage in argumentative exchanges and to react in rational ways during the confrontation with the parents. Further research in this direction is needed in order to better understand specific potentialities of language in the everyday process of socialization within the family context.

  19. Prior knowledge in recalling arguments in bioethical dilemmas

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hiemke Katharina Schmidt

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Prior knowledge is known to facilitate learning new information. Normally in studies confirming this outcome the relationship between prior knowledge and the topic to be learned is obvious: the information to be acquired is part of the domain or topic to which the prior knowledge belongs. This raises the question as to whether prior knowledge of various domains facilitates recalling information. In this study 79 eleventh-grade students completed a questionnaire on their prior knowledge of seven different domains related to the bioethical dilemma of prenatal diagnostics. The students read a text containing arguments for and arguments against prenatal diagnostics. After one week and again 12 weeks later they were asked to write down all the arguments they remembered. Prior knowledge helped them recall the arguments one week (r = .350 and 12 weeks (r = .316 later. Prior knowledge of three of the seven domains significantly helped them recall the arguments one week later (correlations between r = .194 to r = .394. Partial correlations with interest as a control item revealed that interest did not explain the relationship between prior knowledge and recall. Prior knowledge of different domains jointly supports the recall of arguments related to bioethical topics.

  20. Argumentation Key to Communicating Climate Change to the Public

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bleicher, R. E.; Lambert, J. L.

    2012-12-01

    Argumentation plays an important role in how we communicate climate change science to the public and is a key component integrated throughout the Next Generation Science Standards. A scientific argument can be described as a disagreement between explanations with data being used to justify each position. Argumentation is social process where two or more individuals construct and critique arguments (Kuhn & Udell, 2003; Nussbaum, 1997). Sampson, Grooms, and Walker's (2011) developed a framework for understanding the components of a scientific argument. The three components start with a claim (a conjecture, conclusion, explanation, or an answer to a research question). This claim must fit the evidence (observations that show trends over time, relationships between variables or difference between groups). The evidence must be justified with reasoning (explains how the evidence supports the explanation and whey it should count as support). In a scientific argument, or debate, the controversy focuses on how data were collected, what data can or should be included, and what inferences can be made based on a set of evidence. Toulmin's model (1969) also includes rebutting or presenting an alternative explanation supported by counter evidence and reasoning of why the alternative is not the appropriate explanation for the question of the problem. The process of scientific argumentation should involve the construction and critique of scientific arguments, one that involves the consideration of alternative hypotheses (Lawson, 2003). Scientific literacy depends as much on the ability to refute and recognize poor scientific arguments as much as it does on the ability to present an effective argument based on good scientific data (Osborne, 2010). Argument is, therefore, a core feature of science. When students learn to construct a sound scientific argument, they demonstrate critical thinking and a mastery of the science being taught. To present a convincing argument in support of

  1. Concepts and Contexts – Argumentative Forms of Framing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gabrielsen, Jonas; Nørholm Just, Sine; Bengtsson, Mette

    2011-01-01

    this argument we combine theories of framing with the classical rhetorical theory of the stases, more precisely status definitio and status translatio. Our focus is primarily theoretical, but we illustrate our points by means of examples taken from public debates on the value of real estate.......The notion of framing has become central in the field of argumentation. The question is, however, what we gain from studying the process of argumentation through framing, since framing is itself a broad concept in need of specification. Different traditions understand the term differently......, and it is necessary to determine what argumentative forms the concept of framing actually covers. In this paper we argue that framing refers to at least two different argumentative forms. One is an internal definition of the concepts in question; the other is an external shift in the context of the case. In making...

  2. Den argumentative teksttype i reklamer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Anne Ellerup

    1998-01-01

    - and macropropositions, it is a multicriterial model which takes into account both the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of texts. However, the model seems to offer some problems in establishing the limits between the argumentative and the descriptive text type. This imprecision is apparently due to the lack...... of distinction between the discourse potential of evaluative and referential propositions. This problem will be demonstrated on examples from the genre of advertising material which, because of its persuasive purpose, is particularly rich in argumentative features....

  3. Argumentative Bluff in Eristic Discussion: An Analysis and Evaluation

    OpenAIRE

    van Laar, Jan Albert

    2010-01-01

    How does the analysis and evaluation of argumentation depend on the dialogue type in which the argumentation has been put forward? This paper focuses on argumentative bluff in eristic discussion. Argumentation cannot be presented without conveying the pretence that it is dialectically reasonable, as well as, at least to some degree, rhetorically effective. Within eristic discussion it can be profitable to engage in bluff with respect to such claims. However, it will be argued that such bluffi...

  4. A survey on the factors influencing the pattern of medicine's use: Concerns on irrational use of drugs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soleymani, Fatemeh; Ahmadizar, Fariba; Meysamie, Alipasha; Abdollahi, Mohammad

    2013-04-01

    Pharmacists have a remarkable role in rational use of drugs by dissemination of drug information to guide patients, physicians, and policy makers. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the pharmacists' view point about the main factors affecting current drug use pattern regarding rational drug use and the most effective strategies for improving and promoting rational drug use among pharmacists. In a cross-sectional survey, pre-designed questionnaires were filled in convenient sampling by pharmacists who had attended the congress of rational drug use in Tehran, Iran. A total of 144 pharmacists with the average age of 40.78 years old were enrolled to the study. Data indicated that the most priorities in irrational use of drugs from pharmacists' view point were lack of appropriate cooperation and communication between physicians and pharmacists (39%), pharmacists' low tariff and economic issues (34%), lack of public knowledge about drug usage (45%), and lack of supervisory regulations on pharmacy practice (15.8%). In this study, lack of public knowledge and awareness about appropriate use of medicines was the most important element from pharmacists' viewpoint in occurrence of irrational drug use. Dissemination of information and compiling of diverse strategies in education, management, regulation, and finance can be very efficient due to a strong relationship between drug policies and performance of regulations and supervisions as well as drug services.

  5. Enunciation and argumentation: proposals for the analysis of personal forms as argumentative resources in orality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Federico Testoni

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available As part of an investigation about strategies and resources for the construction of social representations (Raiter, 2016 on orality, we propose to articulate an analysis of linguistic forms with the argumentative dimension of utterances. The aim of this paper is to review the methodology proposed by Lavandera (1984 for the analysis of the tension between the personal and the impersonal, interpreting the use of this dimension as an argumentative resource (Ducrot, 1984. From our interdiscursive perspective, we seek to show how the characterization of the enunciative roles can facilitate analysis of the positions of enunciation from which the meaning of statements is oriented (Guimarães, 1998. To this end, we will analyse three fragments of an interview by applying the study of the distribution of pronominal forms (Lavandera, 1984 and the argumentative chains (Ducrot, 1984. We believe that analysis as described from the perspective of discourse analysis will mean a contribution for future work on strategies for building social representations.

  6. Risk and Argument: A Risk-based Argumentation Method for Practical Security

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nunes Leal Franqueira, V.; Tun, Thein Tan; Yu, Yijun; Wieringa, Roelf J.; Nuseibeh, Bashar

    When showing that a software system meets certain security requirements, it is often necessary to work with formal and informal descriptions of the system behavior, vulnerabilities, and threats from potential attackers. In earlier work, Haley et al. [1] showed structured argumentation could deal

  7. Strategic Use of Multiple Texts for the Evaluation of Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kobayashi, Keiichi

    2010-01-01

    Two experiments were conducted to examine whether students use arguments with refutation in one text for evaluating the opposite arguments without refutation in another text. Undergraduate students read two conflicting texts in either of the two orders: pro arguments text first and con arguments text first. After reading each text, they evaluated…

  8. Scaring the Public: Fear Appeal Arguments in Public Health Reasoning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Louise Cummings

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available The study of threat and fear appeal arguments has given rise to a sizeable literature. Even within a public health context, much is now known about how these arguments work to gain the public’s compliance with health recommendations. Notwithstanding this level of interest in, and examination of, these arguments, there is one aspect of these arguments that still remains unexplored. That aspect concerns the heuristic function of these arguments within our thinking about public health problems. Specifically, it is argued that threat and fear appeal arguments serve as valuable shortcuts in our reasoning, particularly when that reasoning is subject to biases that are likely to diminish the effectiveness of public health messages. To this extent, they are rationally warranted argument forms rather than fallacies, as has been their dominant characterization in logic.

  9. Teaching Critical Questions about Argumentation through the Revising Process: Effects of Strategy Instruction on College Students' Argumentative Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Yi; Ferretti, Ralph P.

    2013-01-01

    The effects of self-regulated strategy development revising instruction for college students that targeted the use of argumentation schemes and critical questions were assessed in three conditions. In the first condition, students were taught to revise their essays by asking and answering critical questions about the "argument from consequences"…

  10. Understanding and Detecting Supporting Arguments of Diverse Types

    OpenAIRE

    Hua, Xinyu; Wang, Lu

    2017-01-01

    We investigate the problem of sentence-level supporting argument detection from relevant documents for user-specified claims. A dataset containing claims and associated citation articles is collected from online debate website idebate.org. We then manually label sentence-level supporting arguments from the documents along with their types as study, factual, opinion, or reasoning. We further characterize arguments of different types, and explore whether leveraging type information can facilita...

  11. The Peierls argument for higher dimensional Ising models

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bonati, Claudio

    2014-01-01

    The Peierls argument is a mathematically rigorous and intuitive method to show the presence of a non-vanishing spontaneous magnetization in some lattice models. This argument is typically explained for the D = 2 Ising model in a way which cannot be easily generalized to higher dimensions. The aim of this paper is to present an elementary discussion of the Peierls argument for the general D-dimensional Ising model. (paper)

  12. Extension-based semantics of argumentation frameworks for agent interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gratie, C.

    2012-01-01

    Argumentation plays an important part in human interaction, whether it is used for persuasion, negotiation or simply for sharing one's point of view on a certain topic. Even at the abstract level, choosing the acceptable arguments from a given set of conflicting arguments is a challenging problem,

  13. The supervision of radioactivity in Switzerland by KUER

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Voelkle, H.; Huber, O.

    1985-01-01

    The work of the Swiss Commission for Supervision of Radioactivity (Eidgenoessische Kommission zur Ueberwachung der Radioaktivitaet) is outlined. The methods employed to detect various radioisotopes in nuclear power plants, industry and hospitals are discussed. (G.T.H.)

  14. Computer-Supported Argumentative Writer : An authoring tool with built-in scaffolding and self-regulation for novice writers of argumentative texts

    OpenAIRE

    Benetos, Kalliopi

    2006-01-01

    Argumentative writing is a valued genre in a range of disciplines and curricula because it requires that writers develop relationships between ideas and build a deep and multifaceted understanding of the topic. Due to the multifaceted demands, and inherent structure and conventions of argumentative writing, it is also among the most difficult to master. The aim of this masters thesis is to create a prototype of an authoring tool that can help novices (13-19 years old) of argumentative essay w...

  15. Nursing and euthanasia: a review of argument-based ethics literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quaghebeur, Toon; Dierckx de Casterlé, Bernadette; Gastmans, Chris

    2009-07-01

    This article gives an overview of the nursing ethics arguments on euthanasia in general, and on nurses' involvement in euthanasia in particular, through an argument-based literature review. An in-depth study of these arguments in this literature will enable nurses to engage in the euthanasia debate. We critically appraised 41 publications published between January 1987 and June 2007. Nursing ethics arguments on (nurses' involvement in) euthanasia are guided primarily by the principles of respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice. Ethical arguments related to the nursing profession are described. From a care perspective, we discuss arguments that evaluate to what degree euthanasia can be considered positively or negatively as a form of good nursing care. Most arguments in the principle-, profession- and care-orientated approaches to nursing ethics are used both pro and contra euthanasia in general, and nurses' involvement in euthanasia in particular.

  16. Trying and the Arguments from Total Failure

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Grünbaum, Thor

    2008-01-01

    New Volitionalism is a name for certain widespread conception of the nature of intentional action. Some of the standard arguments for New Volitionalism, the so-called arguments from total failure, have even acquired the status of basic assumptions for many other kinds of philosophers. It is there...

  17. The assessment of argumentation from expert opinion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wagemans, J.H.M.

    2011-01-01

    In this contribution, I will develop a comprehensive tool for the reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation from expert opinion. This is done by analyzing and then combining two dialectical accounts of this type of argumentation. Walton’s account of the ‘appeal to expert opinion’ provides a

  18. Collective Acceptance and the Is-Ought Argument

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hindriks, Frank

    According to John Searle's well-known Is-Ought Argument, it is possible to derive an ought-statement from is-statements only. This argument concerns obligations involved in institutions such as promising, and it relies on the idea that institutions can be conceptualized in terms of constitutive

  19. Influence of crystallography and bonding on the structure and migration of irrational interphase boundaries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aaronson, H. I.

    2006-03-01

    Interphase boundary structure developed during precipitation from solid solution and during massive transformations is considered in diverse alloy systems in the presence of differences in stacking sequence across interphase boundaries. Linear misfit compensating defects, including misfit dislocations, structural disconnections, and misfit disconnections, are present over a wide range of crystallographie when both phases have metallic bonding. Misfit dislocations have also been observed when both phases have covalent bonding ( e.g., US: β US2 by Sole and van der Walt). These defects are also found when one phase is ionic and the other is metallic (Nb∶Al2O3 by Rühle et al.), albeit when the latter is formed by vapor deposition. However, when bonding is metallic in one phase but significantly covalent in the other, the structure of the interphase boundary appears to depend upon the strength of the covalent bonding relative to that in the metallically bonded phase. When this difference is large, growth can take place as if it were occurring at a free surface, resulting in orientation relationships that are irrational and conjugate habit planes that are ill matched ( e.g., ZrN: α Zr-N by Li et al. and Xe(solid):Al-Xe by Kishida and Yamaguchi). At lower levels of bonding directionality and strength, crystallography is again irrational, but now edge-to-edge-based low-energy structures can replace linear misfit compensating defects (γm:TiAl:αTi-Al by Reynolds et al.). In the perhaps still smaller difference case of Widmanstätten cementite precipitated from austenite, one orientation relationship yields plates with linear misfit compensating defects at their broad faces whereas another (presumably nucleated at different types of site) produces laths with poorly defined shapes and interfacial structures. Hence, Hume-Rothery-type bonding considerations can markedly affect interphase boundary structure and thus the mechanisms, kinetics, and morphology of growth.

  20. La modalité au service de l’argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra Cuniță

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Communication sometimes consists for the speaker of putting forward an endorsed opinion in a given situation and in attempting to provide the audience with the best reasons in order for them to concur with this opinion, while granting them the liberty of espousing or not the thesis in question at the end of the reasoning. In other words, the subject that the speaker is going to debate, a subject which falls within the whole set of ideas and opinions shared by his/her possible or real interlocutors at the moment Ti will take the form of an argumentation. A special relationship is established between the speaker and the message recipient, as well as between the former – also called argument providing subject (‘sujet argumentant’ by certain researchers – and his/her words, of whose validity he/she must convince the latter, the target audience. In order for the argumentation to succeed, the speaker must carefully mark his/her position regarding the words he/she employs, as well as regarding the value of the arguments mobilized. It is precisely on these levels that the importance of modality becomes manifest, thus contributing to the success of argument phrasing (‘mise en argumentation’. How can modality prove useful for argument phrasing? On what levels is it involved in the process of argumentation and how is it achieved? Such is the subject we attempt to develop starting from a message of a particular type: a revealing fragment, in our opinion, taken from a literary text.

  1. Economic irrationality is optimal during noisy decision making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsetsos, Konstantinos; Moran, Rani; Moreland, James; Chater, Nick; Usher, Marius; Summerfield, Christopher

    2016-03-15

    According to normative theories, reward-maximizing agents should have consistent preferences. Thus, when faced with alternatives A, B, and C, an individual preferring A to B and B to C should prefer A to C. However, it has been widely argued that humans can incur losses by violating this axiom of transitivity, despite strong evolutionary pressure for reward-maximizing choices. Here, adopting a biologically plausible computational framework, we show that intransitive (and thus economically irrational) choices paradoxically improve accuracy (and subsequent economic rewards) when decision formation is corrupted by internal neural noise. Over three experiments, we show that humans accumulate evidence over time using a "selective integration" policy that discards information about alternatives with momentarily lower value. This policy predicts violations of the axiom of transitivity when three equally valued alternatives differ circularly in their number of winning samples. We confirm this prediction in a fourth experiment reporting significant violations of weak stochastic transitivity in human observers. Crucially, we show that relying on selective integration protects choices against "late" noise that otherwise corrupts decision formation beyond the sensory stage. Indeed, we report that individuals with higher late noise relied more strongly on selective integration. These findings suggest that violations of rational choice theory reflect adaptive computations that have evolved in response to irreducible noise during neural information processing.

  2. Kunnen wij elke machine verslaan? Beschouwingen rondom Lucas’ argument

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Visser, A.

    1986-01-01

    In dit artikel wil ik niet Anselmus' Argument bespreken maar dat van Lucas -J.R.Lucas om precies to zijn. Lucas' Argument is gericht tegen de dwaas die in zijn hart zei: de mens is een machine. Het argument is kort, maakt gebruik van eenvoudige, maar diepe wiskundige stellingen -de

  3. Slippery Slope Arguments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Burg, W.; Chadwick, R.F.

    1998-01-01

    Slippery slope arguments hold that one should not take some action (which in itself may be innocuous or even laudable) in order to prevent one from being dragged down a slope towards some clearly undesirable situation. Their typical purpose is to prevent changes in the status quo and, therefore,

  4. Formalising arguments about the burden of persuasion.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Prakken, H.; Sartor, G.

    2007-01-01

    This paper presents an argument-based logic for reasoning about allocations of the burden of persuasion. The logic extends the system of Prakken (2001), which in turn modified the system of Prakken & Sartor (1996) with the possibility to distribute the burden of proof over both sides in an argument

  5. An Argument Approach to Observation Protocol Validity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bell, Courtney A.; Gitomer, Drew H.; McCaffrey, Daniel F.; Hamre, Bridget K.; Pianta, Robert C.; Qi, Yi

    2012-01-01

    This article develops a validity argument approach for use on observation protocols currently used to assess teacher quality for high-stakes personnel and professional development decisions. After defining the teaching quality domain, we articulate an interpretive argument for observation protocols. To illustrate the types of evidence that might…

  6. Identifying Kinds of Reasoning in Collective Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conner, AnnaMarie; Singletary, Laura M.; Smith, Ryan C.; Wagner, Patty Anne; Francisco, Richard T.

    2014-01-01

    We combine Peirce's rule, case, and result with Toulmin's data, claim, and warrant to differentiate between deductive, inductive, abductive, and analogical reasoning within collective argumentation. In this theoretical article, we illustrate these kinds of reasoning in episodes of collective argumentation using examples from one…

  7. [Textual pragmatics in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: argument].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallardo-Paúls, B; Gimeno-Martínez, M; Moreno-Campos, V

    2010-03-03

    Clinical linguistics involves a study of linguistic deficits which focuses on a series of aspects that range from strictly formal, grammatical points to the effective and contextualised use of language. Thus, it is also inevitably concerned with the cognitive, i.e. mental, correlate of such language use, whose basic textual dimensions are narration and argument. To describe the argumentative skills in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to examine their relationship with academic achievement and sociability. We analysed 79 argumentative texts written by adolescents with ADHD, using a methodology from cognitive linguistics and from theories of argumentation with a dialogical foundation. Adolescents with ADHD provided a greater number of arguments than those in the control group, but with a higher predominance of emotional and negative sanction strategies compared with a greater use of fallacious or circular arguments in those in the control group; the difference between the use of rational arguments in the two groups is not significant.

  8. Argument Structure in Arabic and English: Re-assessing Purity and Redeeming Hybridity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Faisal Said Al-Maamari

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This study presents a contrastive rhetorical analysis of 20 argumentative Arabic and English editorials in argument structure. Samples were selected from two daily newspapers with equally wide distribution, and articles were written by their respective native writers. Both graphical and textual analyses captured the argument structure in terms of macro and micro arguments. A core finding is that the argument structure in the sampled editorials did not conform to the current predominant model of argument structure, which tended to polarize argument structure in terms of through or counter argumentation. The study contributes to the existing literature by defying the polarized traditional purity typology of argument structure frequently cited in the literature, and emphasizes a more dynamic hybrid model to understanding and analyzing arguments in general and in Arabic and English specifically. Additionally, the study of the professional genre of editorails has implications for academic writing and second language writing pedagogy by sensitizing foreign language learners to existing models of argument structure and possible ways to structure their arguments in the target language.

  9. Legal argumentation and judicial decision making: Empirical evidence from Ecuador

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Luis Castro-Montero

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Legal scholars often analyze argumentation from a formal perspective, mostly applied to judicial decision making. This article presents an alternative approach, as it empirically evaluates the quality of petitioners’ legal argumentation within the context of abstract constitutional review proceedings. The quality of legal argumentation is herein defined as the ability of the petitioner to (i identify the challenged norm and the potentially infringed constitutional norm, (ii present clear and coherent arguments, and (iii justify its arguments upon legal sources, such as jurisprudential precedents or legal doctrine. Original data on forty lawsuits presented before the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court between 2008 and 2016 is used to test whether legal argumentation determines the outcome of a decision. A novel measure of the overall quality of argumentation and strength of cases brought before the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court by both public and private parties is also developed in the form of an expert survey. The main findings suggest that plaintiffs’ legal argumentation quality does not determine the outcome of the final decision of the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court, but rather the type of plaintiff (public or private does.

  10. Argumentation as rational persuasion in doctor-patient communication

    OpenAIRE

    Rubinelli Sara

    2013-01-01

    This paper discusses the value of argumentation as an instrument for rational persuasion in doctor patient (and general health professional patient) communication. Argumentation can be used to influence those beliefs that form the basis of an individual's attitudes and decision making process. In the medical context argumentation can be used to legitimize the points of view of the doctor and the patient; to correct add to or modify a patient's set of beliefs; and to enhance the patient's cent...

  11. Pupils' evaluation and generation of evidence and explanation in argumentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glassner, Amnon; Weinstock, Michael; Neuman, Yair

    2005-03-01

    Studies on argument have found that participants tend to prefer explanations to evidence. This apparent bias toward explanation has been qualified recently by research that has found it to diminish with the availability of evidence. This study examines the use of explanation versus evidence in the context of argumentation with reference to the goals of particular argument situations. Seventy-nine eighth-grade pupils at a regular, urban middle school. The pupils read argumentation scenarios, each having the stated goal of either explaining or proving a claim. The pupils rated the degree to which each of two provided assertions (one a theoretical explanation, and the other evidence-based) helped achieve the goal of the argument. On a second task, the pupils chose which of the two assertions should be more effective in achieving the argument goal. On the third task, the pupils generated either an explanation or evidence for each of the argumentation scenarios. Pupils demonstrated sensitivity to the relative epistemic strength of explanation and evidence. They rated explanations as more advantageous in achieving the explanation goal, and evidence as more advantageous in achieving the proof goal. Conversely, however, when asked to generate or recall an explanation or evidence, pupils produced more explanations than evidence independent of the argumentation goal. The study refines the definition of argumentation context to include specific goals. Pupils were sensitive to the context of the argumentation situation (e.g.goals, availability of evidence). However, they appeared to have a disposition toward explanation when asked to produce an explanation or evidence-based justification.

  12. Communication of geo-scientific safety arguments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Flavelle, P.; Goodwin, B.; Jensen, M.; Linden, R.; Mazurek, M.; Srivastave, M.; Strom, A.; Sudicky, E.; Voinis, S.

    2007-01-01

    Working Group B addressed the communication of geo-scientific safety arguments through a discussion of practical experience as it related to the methods, types of information and specific arguments found to best communicate geo-scientific concepts and notions of safety with broad audiences including, colleagues, authorities and regulators, political decision makers, academics, and the general public. The following questions were suggested by the programme committee of the AMIGO-2 workshop for discussion by Working Group B with respect to the communication of geo-scientific information and safety arguments: - What is the place of geo-scientific arguments in relation to quantitative and qualitative topics like scenario and FEPs (features, events, processes) assessment, simulated repository evolution, calculated dose or risk impacts, engineering tests of materials, etc., when presenting a safety case to different audiences and with respect to the various stages of the repository programme? (see section 3). - Would we be better off focusing messages to the public on time scales of a few hundred years or a few generations? (see section 4). - How do you handle the fact that geoscience interpretations seldom are unique and data often are open to various interpretations? (see section 5). - How do you handle expert controversy on a specific topic? (see section 6). (authors)

  13. Starkweather and Smith: Using "Contact Zones" to Teach Argument.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schutt, Robin Muksian

    1998-01-01

    Describes how a professor teaching a "Writing Arguments" course focused on two cases involving the death penalty to show students how arguments are constructed, and how students can form strong arguments of their own. Notes that this approach does not force students to choose sides when they stand somewhere in the middle. Describes four…

  14. A study in three districts of Ankara of behaviors associated with irrational use of drugs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mustafa Necmi İlhan

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Objective:To avoid the irrational use of medicines studies have to be conducted to evaluate the habits related to drug use. This study investigated the characteristics of individuals aged above 18 in using of medicines among in Family Health Care Centers in the city center of Ankara. Methods: This is a descriptive study. A questionnaire was applied to 1990 individuals aged above 18 in several Family Health Care Centers in the city center of Ankara. Results: Less than half of the applicants stated that they attended a health care institution for a health problem; 78.6% stated that they keep medicine at home that 40.3% of those medicines were painkillers. 60.9% of the applicants claimed they read the instructions provided with the medicine; 57.0% of the applicants claimed to use the prescribed medicine exactly as instructed. 68.9% of those aged 55 and above of the applicants, 63.0% of the women, 63.3% of the married women, 71.2% of illiterates, 70.6% of housewives, 68.9% of those having monthly income between 1001-1500 TL, and 68.8% of those who had someone with chronic disease at home claimed that they would ask the doctor to prescribe the medicines they wanted (p<0.05. Conclusion: Almost half of the participants did not apply to a health care institution and a substantial portion of them used home remedies in case of a health problem. In order to reduce irrational drug use, public education for rational use of medicines needs to be implemented.Keywords: Rational use of medicine, prescription, descriptive

  15. Argumentation and Decision Making in Professional Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gainsburg, Julie; Fox, John; Solan, Lawrence M.

    2016-01-01

    How is argumentation used in professional practice? As schools aim to ensure that students are college-and-career ready, classroom practices might be informed by argumentation in the professions. An analysis of evidence-based reasoning in 3 professions--engineering, law, and medicine--offers out-of-school perspectives on the practices and purposes…

  16. Learning about Plate Tectonics through Argument-Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, Perry D.; Samuels, Boba

    2010-01-01

    In a quasi-experimental study (N = 60), grade 7/8 teachers students were taught to write arguments in content-area subjects. After instruction, students drew on document portfolios to write on a new topic: "Do the continents drift?" In a MANCOVA, students who participated in argument instruction scored significantly higher than a control…

  17. The argument of mathematics

    CERN Document Server

    Aberdein, Andrew

    2014-01-01

    This book presents a comprehensive investigation into the relationship between argumentation theory and the philosophy of mathematical practice. It offers large array of examples ranging from the history of mathematics to formal proof verification.

  18. A concept of a new undulator that will generate irrational higher harmonics in synchrotron radiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hashimoto, Shinya; Sasaki, Shigemi

    1994-03-01

    A preliminary consideration has been made on an undulator with magnetic poles quasi-periodically aligned along the path of electron beams to discriminate the rational higher harmonics of radiation that are harmful in some synchrotron radiation experiments. The harmonics with irrational ratios in energy generated by the undulator is never simultaneously reflected by a crystal monochromator in the same orientation. A combination of the new undulator and high-resolution crystal monochromator is expected to be very useful on beamlines of high energy radiation in which X-ray mirrors are useless because of too small critical angles of total reflection. Further, a possibility of manufacturing the new undulator has been discussed. (author)

  19. The pedagogy of argumentation in science education: science teachers' instructional practices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Özdem Yilmaz, Yasemin; Cakiroglu, Jale; Ertepinar, Hamide; Erduran, Sibel

    2017-07-01

    Argumentation has been a prominent concern in science education research and a common goal in science curriculum in many countries over the past decade. With reference to this goal, policy documents burden responsibilities on science teachers, such as involving students in dialogues and being guides in students' spoken or written argumentation. Consequently, teachers' pedagogical practices regarding argumentation gain importance due to their impact on how they incorporate this practice into their classrooms. In this study, therefore, we investigated the instructional strategies adopted by science teachers for their argumentation-based science teaching. Participants were one elementary science teacher, two chemistry teachers, and four graduate students, who have a background in science education. The study took place during a graduate course, which was aimed at developing science teachers' theory and pedagogy of argumentation. Data sources included the participants' video-recorded classroom practices, audio-recorded reflections, post-interviews, and participants' written materials. The findings revealed three typologies of instructional strategies towards argumentation. They are named as Basic Instructional Strategies for Argumentation, Meta-level Instructional ‌St‌‌rategies for ‌Argumentation, and Meta-strategic Instructional ‌St‌‌rategies for ‌Argumentation. In conclusion, the study provided a detailed coding framework for the exploration of science teachers' instructional practices while they are implementing argumentation-based lessons.

  20. Epistemic Purposes to Prompt Argumentation in inquiry-based classes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arthur Tadeu Ferraz

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Considering the growth in interest on argumentation in research on science education, in this paper our goal is to propose an overview of actions taken by a teacher that made possible to establish and mediate production of arguments by the students in classroom. For this purpose, we analyze a physics lesson where discussions were about light duality, through a planned inquiry-based sequence teaching. We developed a set of codes called Epistemic Purposes for Promotion of Argumentation that allow understanding teacher's purposes as well his actions to promote argumentation among students during inquiry-based lessons. According to theoretical proposition and empirical analysis, it was revealed that the construction of arguments by students has a high dependence on how ideas are problematized by teacher. The construction of understanding  by students requires teacher actions that result in contributions of different kinds.

  1. Individual Differences in the "Myside Bias" in Reasoning and Written Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolfe, Christopher R.

    2012-01-01

    Three studies examined the "myside bias" in reasoning, evaluating written arguments, and writing argumentative essays. Previous research suggests that some people possess a fact-based argumentation schema and some people have a balanced argumentation schema. I developed reliable Likert scale instruments (1-7 rating) for these constructs…

  2. On Emotion and Rationality: A Response to Barrett.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steutel, Jan; Dam, Ellis van

    1996-01-01

    Maintains that recent criticism of cognitive psychologists' conception of irrational emotions as marginal and ephemeral is misguided and inaccurate. Argues that this interpretation is a misstatement of the psychologists' position and analyzes the process resulting in this misinterpretation. Discusses the implications of these arguments for moral…

  3. Problem-Based Learning and Argumentation: Testing a Scaffolding Framework to Support Middle School Students' Creation of Evidence-Based Arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belland, Brian R.; Glazewski, Krista D.; Richardson, Jennifer C.

    2011-01-01

    Students engaged in problem-based learning (PBL) units solve ill-structured problems in small groups, and then present arguments in support of their solution. However, middle school students often struggle developing evidence-based arguments (Krajcik et al., "J Learn Sci" 7:313-350, 1998). Using a mixed method design, the researchers examined the…

  4. A Framework for Argumentation-Based Negotiation

    OpenAIRE

    Sierra, C.; Jennings, N. R.; Noriega, P.; Parsons, S.

    1997-01-01

    Many autonomous agents operate in domains in which the cooperation of their fellow agents cannot be guaranteed. In such domains negotiation is essential to persuade others of the value of co-operation. This paper describes a general framework for negotiation in which agents exchange proposals backed by arguments which summarise the reasons why the proposals should be accepted.The argumentation is persuasive because the exchanges are able to alter the mental state of the agents involved. The f...

  5. The sensitivity argument against child euthanasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keeling, Geoff

    2018-02-01

    Is there a moral difference between euthanasia for terminally ill adults and euthanasia for terminally ill children? Luc Bovens considers five arguments to this effect, and argues that each is unsuccessful. In this paper, I argue that Bovens' dismissal of the sensitivity argument is unconvincing. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

  6. Conference "The Cultural Alchemy of the Exact Sciences : Revisiting the Forman Thesis"

    CERN Document Server

    Kojevnikov, Alexei; Trischler, Helmuth; Weimar culture and quantum mechanics : selected papers by Paul Forman and contemporary perspectives on the Forman thesis

    2011-01-01

    This volume reprints Paul Forman's classic papers on the history of physics in post-World War I Germany and the invention of quantum mechanics. The Forman thesis has become famous as the first argument in favor of the cultural conditioning of scientific knowledge, in particular for its demonstration of the historical connection between the culture of Weimar Germany - known for its irrationality and antiscientism - and the emerging concept of quantum acausality.This volume reprints Paul Forman's classic papers on the history of physics in post-World War I Germany and the invention of quantum mechanics. The Forman thesis has become famous as the first argument in favor of the cultural conditioning of scientific knowledge, in particular for its demonstration of the historical connection between the culture of Weimar Germany - known for its irrationality and antiscientism - and the emerging concept of quantum acausality. At the 2007 international conference in Vancouver, Canada, leading historians of physics disc...

  7. Un lieu pour les figures dans la théorie de l’argumentation A Place for Rhetorical Figures in Argumentation Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Plantin

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available A partir du traitement des figures dans le Traité de l’Argumentation (TA de Perelman et Olbrechts-Tyteca, cet article porte sur la question de la place des figures dans la théorie de l’argumentation. La première partie revient brièvement sur différentes formes de rhétorique, dont une rhétorique de l’ornement ayant pour instrument principal les figures. Une théorie moderne de l’argumentation orientée vers la recherche des fallacies établit une coupure radicale entre argumentation, instrument de recherche de la vérité et rhétorique ornée, que Locke caractérise comme « a powerful instrument of error and deceit ». Cette conception suppose l’usage d’un langage qu’on peut rapidement caractériser comme « artificiel », qui n’est pas celui de l’argumentation ordinaire. Avant d’être des « decorations » les figures sont des « instruments » de structuration de la parole ; et les topoi, instruments de l’argumentation, n’obéissent pas à d’autres mécanismes que les tropes, qui semblent toujours parler à côté et manquer leur objet. La seconde partie s’intéresse à une partie quelque peu délaissée du TA, l’usage qu’il fait des figures et la vision théorique, à la fois cavalière et décisive, qu’il en propose. Le TA ouvre la voie à une conception des figures non pas comme « vain ornement » mais comme une première sémantique du discours argumentatif ; c’est ce qu’on peut montrer sur le cas des « figures du choix, de la présence et de la communion ». En conséquence, la pensée des figures peut et doit être intégrée à une théorie de l’argumentation qui prend en compte le langage dans la parole, avec ses stratégies de construction des objets, du locuteur, de l’interlocuteur et de leurs émotions.This paper deals with the treatment of figures of speech in Perelman’s and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s Treatise on Argumentation (TA, and, more broadly, with the place of

  8. Socioscientific Argumentation: The effects of content knowledge and morality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadler, Troy D.; Donnelly, Lisa A.

    2006-10-01

    Broad support exists within the science education community for the incorporation of socioscientific issues (SSI) and argumentation in the science curriculum. This study investigates how content knowledge and morality contribute to the quality of SSI argumentation among high school students. We employed a mixed-methods approach: 56 participants completed tests of content knowledge and moral reasoning as well as interviews, related to SSI topics, which were scored based on a rubric for argumentation quality. Multiple regression analyses revealed no statistically significant relationships among content knowledge, moral reasoning, and argumentation quality. Qualitative analyses of the interview transcripts supported the quantitative results in that participants very infrequently revealed patterns of content knowledge application. However, most of the participants did perceive the SSI as moral problems. We propose a “Threshold Model of Knowledge Transfer” to account for the relationship between content knowledge and argumentation quality. Implications for science education are discussed.

  9. Examining Science Teachers' Argumentation in a Teacher Workshop on Earthquake Engineering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cavlazoglu, Baki; Stuessy, Carol

    2018-02-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine changes in the quality of science teachers' argumentation as a result of their engagement in a teacher workshop on earthquake engineering emphasizing distributed learning approaches, which included concept mapping, collaborative game playing, and group lesson planning. The participants were ten high school science teachers from US high schools who elected to attend the workshop. To begin and end the teacher workshop, teachers in small groups engaged in concept mapping exercises with other teachers. Researchers audio-recorded individual teachers' argumentative statements about the inclusion of earthquake engineering concepts in their concept maps, which were then analyzed to reveal the quality of teachers' argumentation. Toulmin's argumentation model formed the framework for designing a classification schema to analyze the quality of participants' argumentative statements. While the analysis of differences in pre- and post-workshop concept mapping exercises revealed that the number of argumentative statements did not change significantly, the quality of participants' argumentation did increase significantly. As these differences occurred concurrently with distributed learning approaches used throughout the workshop, these results provide evidence to support distributed learning approaches in professional development workshop activities to increase the quality of science teachers' argumentation. Additionally, these results support the use of concept mapping as a cognitive scaffold to organize participants' knowledge, facilitate the presentation of argumentation, and as a research tool for providing evidence of teachers' argumentation skills.

  10. Institutional Boundaries on the Evaluation of Argumentation in Legislative Discussions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Plug, H.J.

    2010-01-01

    In order to be able to evaluate argumentation supporting judicial decisions, certain norms of reasonableness will have to be agreed upon. These norms will enable us to decide on the soundness of the argumentation. Various publications demonstrated that the pragma-dialectical argumentation theory, in

  11. Explanation can cause Forgetting: Memory Dynamics in the Generation of New Arguments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soares, Julia S; Storm, Benjamin C

    2017-10-01

    Retrieval-induced forgetting is observed when the retrieval of target information causes the forgetting of nontarget information. The present study investigated whether similar dynamics occur in the context of generating arguments in the process of explanation. Participants studied arguments associated with several issues before attempting to think of new arguments pertaining to a subset of those issues. When given a later memory test, participants were less likely to recall the studied arguments if they had attempted to think of new arguments than if they had not. This argument-induced forgetting effect was observed regardless of whether participants attempted to generate arguments that either agreed or disagreed with the position of the arguments they studied. The effect was significantly reduced, however, and even numerically reversed, when participants generated arguments that were highly related to the studied arguments. This finding fits well with previous research on retrieval-induced forgetting, which has shown that the retrieval or generation of new information fails to cause the forgetting of old information when the two types of information are well integrated or semantically associated.

  12. Psychometric evaluation of the Swedish version of the pure procrastination scale, the irrational procrastination scale, and the susceptibility to temptation scale in a clinical population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rozental, Alexander; Forsell, Erik; Svensson, Andreas; Forsström, David; Andersson, Gerhard; Carlbring, Per

    2014-01-01

    Procrastination is a prevalent self-regulatory failure associated with stress and anxiety, decreased well-being, and poorer performance in school as well as work. One-fifth of the adult population and half of the student population describe themselves as chronic and severe procrastinators. However, despite the fact that it can become a debilitating condition, valid and reliable self-report measures for assessing the occurrence and severity of procrastination are lacking, particularly for use in a clinical context. The current study explored the usefulness of the Swedish version of three Internet-administered self-report measures for evaluating procrastination; the Pure Procrastination Scale, the Irrational Procrastination Scale, and the Susceptibility to Temptation Scale, all having good psychometric properties in English. In total, 710 participants were recruited for a clinical trial of Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy for procrastination. All of the participants completed the scales as well as self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and quality of life. Principal Component Analysis was performed to assess the factor validity of the scales, and internal consistency and correlations between the scales were also determined. Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, Minimal Detectable Change, and Standard Error of Measurement were calculated for the Irrational Procrastination Scale. The Swedish version of the scales have a similar factor structure as the English version, generated good internal consistencies, with Cronbach's α ranging between .76 to .87, and were moderately to highly intercorrelated. The Irrational Procrastination Scale had an Intraclass Correlation Coefficient of .83, indicating excellent reliability. Furthermore, Standard Error of Measurement was 1.61, and Minimal Detectable Change was 4.47, suggesting that a change of almost five points on the scale is necessary to determine a reliable change in self-reported procrastination severity. The

  13. Why and how to be a Dialetheist

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuel Bremer

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available In the first part the paper rehearses the main arguments why to be a dialetheist (i.e. why to assume that some contradictions are true. Dialetheism, however, has been criticised as irrational or self-refutating. Therefore the second part of the paper outlines one way to make dialetheism rational assertable. True contradictions turn out to be both believable and assertable. The argument proceeds by setting out basic principles of assertion and denial, and employing bivalent truth value operators.

  14. Reconciling Educational Adequacy and Equity Arguments through a Rawlsian Lens

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pijanowski, John

    2015-01-01

    A theory of educational opportunity that combines adequacy and equity arguments is informed by examining two popular philosophies of resource distribution. Amy Gutmann's democratic threshold theory provides an adequacy argument that mirrors in several ways arguments that have held favor in educational policy. Similarly, the distributive justice…

  15. International Law as an Argumentative Practice: On Wohlrapp’s Concept of Argument

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Venzke, I.

    2016-01-01

    It has become a commonplace to view international law as an argumentative practice. This commonplace, it is argued, clouds strong differences that re-emerge with closer scrutiny. What, specifically, is the place of reason, rhetoric or violence in the practice of arguing? The present article explores

  16. Analysis of the Relation between Academic Procrastination, Academic Rational/Irrational Beliefs, Time Preferences to Study for Exams, and Academic Achievement: A Structural Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balkis, Murat; Duru, Erdinc; Bulus, Mustafa

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between academic rational/irrational beliefs, academic procrastination, and time preferences to study for exams and academic achievement by using the structural equation model. The sample consisted of 281 undergraduate students who filled in questionnaires at the 7-week-long summer course.…

  17. Argumentation Within Language as Subsidy for the Evaluation of Reading Practices and Production of Argumentative Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lauro Gomes

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to present an evaluation proposal of the performance in reading and writing dissertative-argumentative texts, based on principles and concepts from the theory of Argumentation in Language – created by Jean-Claude Anscombre and Oswald Ducrot, especially the version of the Theory of the Semantic Blocks and the works inspired by it. The goal is to create criteria which are capable of being less intuitive in judging the performance in reading and wrinting dissertative-argumentative texts. The analysis of the corpora – the Enem 2011’s composition proposal and 50 (fifty texts written by the students – and the test of the criteria of reading and writing evaluation in this work revealed practice funcionality and efficiency of criteria. The results allow these criteria to be applied in any evaluation processes of dissertative-argumenative texts. Finally, this paper offers theoretical and methodological subisdies which can help teachers and professors to qualify their teaching of reading and writing and the evaluation of student’s texts.

  18. The features of argumentation skills formation problem in Higher Educational Establishment students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tamozhska I. V.

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Deals with argumentation skill formation in future specialist's professional preparation: kinds and ways of argumentation, influence of communicative co-operation means on compromise zones defining and general decision making, strategy choice in communicators' behavior at argumentation phase in a dialogue, defining of effective factors of convincing argumentation influence in communicators. The work suggests the system of methodological research means for argumentation skill formation in Higher Educational Establishment students, which helps professional language problem solving in composition with theoretical questions argumentation basis.

  19. Methods for solving reasoning problems in abstract argumentation – A survey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charwat, Günther; Dvořák, Wolfgang; Gaggl, Sarah A.; Wallner, Johannes P.; Woltran, Stefan

    2015-01-01

    Within the last decade, abstract argumentation has emerged as a central field in Artificial Intelligence. Besides providing a core formalism for many advanced argumentation systems, abstract argumentation has also served to capture several non-monotonic logics and other AI related principles. Although the idea of abstract argumentation is appealingly simple, several reasoning problems in this formalism exhibit high computational complexity. This calls for advanced techniques when it comes to implementation issues, a challenge which has been recently faced from different angles. In this survey, we give an overview on different methods for solving reasoning problems in abstract argumentation and compare their particular features. Moreover, we highlight available state-of-the-art systems for abstract argumentation, which put these methods to practice. PMID:25737590

  20. The Effect of Toulmin’s Model of Argumentation Within TWPS Strategy on Students’ Critical Thinking on Argumentative Essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eko Suhartoyo

    2015-12-01

    Key Words: critical thinking, Toulmin’s model of argumentation, argumentative essay, Think-Write-Pair-Share strategy Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki efektivitas model argumentasi Toulmin dalam strategi TWPS pada kemampuan berpikir kritis esai argumentative mahasiswa. Desain kuasi-eksperi-mental digunakan dengan pretest-posttest dan nonrandomized control group. Subjek dari penelitian ini adalah 38 mahasiswa semester IV di Jurusan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Negeri Malang. Kelompok eksperimen diteliti dengan menggunakan model argumentasi dalam strategi TWPS sedangkan kelom-pok kontrol diteliti tanpa strategi TWPS. Kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa diukur dengan menggunakan uji esai argumentatif. ANCOVA digunakan untuk menguji hipotesis. Temuan menunjukkan tidak ada perbedaan yang signifikan pada kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa. Namun, model argumentasi Toulmin dalam strategi TWPS terbukti meningkatkan berpikir kritis siswa seperti yang ditunjukkan oleh nilai rata-rata. Kata kunci: berpikir kritis, model argumentasi toulmin, esai argumentatif, Think-Pair-Share Write- strategy

  1. The features of argumentation skills formation problem in Higher Educational Establishment students

    OpenAIRE

    Tamozhska I. V.

    2010-01-01

    Deals with argumentation skill formation in future specialist's professional preparation: kinds and ways of argumentation, influence of communicative co-operation means on compromise zones defining and general decision making, strategy choice in communicators' behavior at argumentation phase in a dialogue, defining of effective factors of convincing argumentation influence in communicators. The work suggests the system of methodological research means for argumentation skill formation in High...

  2. Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist: Interview With Dan Ariely.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ariely, Dan; Popescu, Beatrice

    2015-11-01

    The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann 'disciple', but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people's lives easier and more comfortable, by creating awareness on a lot of topics otherwise neglected. Dan Ariely's very agreeable personality and humor would not let you think of him as a burnt casualty who, in his youth struggled to survive a personal drama, so well-documented in his paper "Painful lessons" posted on the MIT website (http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf). I think reading his paper and also this transcribed interview with him would be also comforting for people who found out about Bucharest fire incident that rocked our society and also for people who are personally related to this tragedy.

  3. Hardy's argument and successive spin-s measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahanj, Ali

    2010-01-01

    We consider a hidden-variable theoretic description of successive measurements of noncommuting spin observables on an input spin-s state. In this scenario, the hidden-variable theory leads to a Hardy-type argument that quantum predictions violate it. We show that the maximum probability of success of Hardy's argument in quantum theory is ((1/2)) 4s , which is more than in the spatial case.

  4. Investigating the Effect of Argument-Driven Inquiry in Laboratory Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demircioglu, Tuba; Ucar, Sedat

    2015-01-01

    The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of argument-driven inquiry (ADI) based laboratory instruction on the academic achievement, argumentativeness, science process skills, and argumentation levels of pre-service science teachers in the General Physics Laboratory III class. The study was conducted with 79 pre-service science teachers.…

  5. On Evidence and Argument in Phenomenological Research | Walsh ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Set against a background of calls for evidence-based practice, this paper explores the role of evidence and argument in phenomenological research. Drawing on Smith's (1998) analysis of original argument, the author considers how evidence can be discerned, understood, and communicated, and the resulting kinds and ...

  6. Cross-Linguistic Evidence and the Licensing of Implicit Arguments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eva Kardos

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses the occurrence and the licensing of implicit object arguments, also referred to in the literature as null complements or understood arguments. Functionalist accounts (such as those by Groefsema and Németh T. which are couched in a relevance-theoretic framework have repeatedly claimed that this phenomenon is fundamentally dependent on dis-course-interpretational factors. In particular, it has been stated that implicit arguments can be used in Hungarian in a rather unrestricted way, and their occurrence is only limited by considerations of interpretability. We argue against both of these positions and try to show that cross-linguistic data can assist in revealing the circular nature and ultimate inadequacy of existing functional accounts of implicit argument licensing.

  7. A computer simulation of the argument from disagreement

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gustafsson, J.E.; Peterson, M.B.

    2012-01-01

    In this paper we shed new light on the Argument from Disagreement by putting it to test in a computer simulation. According to this argument widespread and persistent disagreement on ethical issues indicates that our moral opinions are not influenced by any moral facts, either because no such facts

  8. Arguments densos

    OpenAIRE

    Lopez de la Vieja, Mª Teresa

    1999-01-01

    Aquest article tracta de l'ús cognitiu dels textos literaris. Seguint els suggeriments d'una Novel·la, Der Vater eines Mörders, d'A Andersch, tractem d'elucidar la funció cognitiva, fins i tot argumentativa, de la literatura. Alguns arguments poden donar soportea aquest model: a) En la majoria dels casos, la filosofia moral no té a la seva disposició informació sobre situacions extremes i, d'altra banda, la filosofia no hauria de negligir aquestes experiències; b) La possibilitat de re...

  9. We have yet to see the "visual argument"

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Popa, O.E.

    2016-01-01

    In this paper, I defend two skeptical claims regarding current research on visual arguments and I explain how these claims reflect upon past and future research. The first claim is that qualifying an argument as being visual amounts to a category mistake; the second claim is that past analyses of

  10. Introducing Argumentation About Climate Change Socioscientific Issues in a Disadvantaged School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dawson, Vaille; Carson, Katherine

    2018-03-01

    Improving the ability of young people to construct arguments about controversial science topics is a desired outcome of science education. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of an argumentation intervention on the socioscientific issue of climate change with Year 10 students in a disadvantaged Australian school. After participation in a professional development workshop on climate change science, socioscientific issues and argumentation, an early career teacher explicitly taught argumentation over four non-consecutive lessons as part of a 4 week (16 lesson) topic on Earth science. Thirty students completed a pre- and post-test questionnaire to determine their understanding of climate change science and their ability to construct an argument about a climate change socioscientific issue. Students' understanding of climate change improved significantly (p size. There was also a significant increase (p Qualitative data, comprising classroom observation field notes, lesson transcripts, work samples, and teacher and student interviews, were analysed for the extent to which the students' argumentation skills improved. At the end of the intervention, students became aware of the need to justify their decisions with scientific evidence. It is concluded that introducing argumentation about climate change socioscientific issues to students in a disadvantaged school can improve their argumentation skills.

  11. Predicting Immediate Belief Change and Adherence to Argument Claims.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hample, Dale

    1978-01-01

    Discusses the probative potential of evidence in argument, and evaluates the importance of evidence in predicting belief change. Predicts adherence to argument claims and confirms the traditionally recognized importance of evidence to persuasion. (JMF)

  12. Towards Real-Time Argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vicente JULIÁN

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we deal with the problem of real-time coordination with the more general approach of reaching real-time agreements in MAS. Concretely, this work proposes a real-time argumentation framework in an attempt to provide agents with the ability of engaging in argumentative dialogues and come with a solution for their underlying agreement process within a bounded period of time. The framework has been implemented and evaluated in the domain of a customer support application. Concretely, we consider a society of agents that act on behalf of a group of technicians that must solve problems in a Technology Management Centre (TMC within a bounded time. This centre controls every process implicated in the provision of technological and customer support services to private or public organisations by means of a call centre. The contract signed between the TCM and the customer establishes penalties if the specified time is exceeded.

  13. Analysis of scientific argumentation in two physical chemistry classrooms using the POGIL approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moon, Alena C.

    The benefits of facilitating argumentation in science education have been well reported (Jimenez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007). Engaging in argumentation has shown to model authentic scientific inquiry as well as promote development of content knowledge. However, less emphasis has been placed on facilitating argumentation in upper level undergraduate courses, though it is important for evaluating undergraduate curricula to characterize upper level students' scientific reasoning. This work considers two implementations of the POGIL physical chemistry curriculum and evaluates the classroom argumentation. The researchers aimed to consider the content of the arguments and dialectical features characteristic of socially constructed arguments (Nielson, 2013). To do this, whole class sessions were videotaped and Toulmin's Argument Pattern (TAP) was used to identify the arguments generated during the class (Erduran, Simon, & Osborne, 2004). A learning progression on chemical thinking (Sevian & Talanquer, 2014) was used as a domain-specific measure of argument quality. Results show differences in argumentation between and across both classrooms that can be explained by analysis of instructor facilitation and the POGIL curriculum. The results from this work will be used to make recommendations for instructor facilitation of argumentation and reform of the POGIL curriculum.

  14. The Slippery Slope Argument in the Ethical Debate on Genetic Engineering of Humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walton, Douglas

    2017-12-01

    This article applies tools from argumentation theory to slippery slope arguments used in current ethical debates on genetic engineering. Among the tools used are argumentation schemes, value-based argumentation, critical questions, and burden of proof. It is argued that so-called drivers such as social acceptance and rapid technological development are also important factors that need to be taken into account alongside the argumentation scheme. It is shown that the slippery slope argument is basically a reasonable (but defeasible) form of argument, but is often flawed when used in ethical debates because of failures to meet the requirements of its scheme.

  15. Memory, Critical Theory and the Argument from History.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cox, J. Robert

    1990-01-01

    Explores the function of memory in critical theory, particularly in the work of Herbert Marcuse, as the basis for a critical argumentation. Argues that Marcuse's view suggests that argument is a "re-membering" of what had been split asunder--reason, imagination, and the capacity of action. Discusses other implications of Marcuse's…

  16. (Batı Felsefesi Çerçevesinde Epistemolojik ve Etik Açıdan İnanç

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdullatif Tüzer

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Epistemology and ethics of belief is one of the most important and serious problems in philosophy and philosophy of religion. Is there, for belief, any standard or criteion to be rational and, if any, what are? Is true and valid belief equivalent to rational belief? Is there any rational basis of religious belief and especially God-belief? Or are those irrational? What is the nature of relation between belief, knowledge and ethics? Such questions as these quoted above have been vehemently discussed and answered from different philosophical aspects and several point of views. Chief among them rationalism, pragmatism, intuitionism and fideism can be listed as remarkable and noteworthy. In this paper we have considered, of these, only two, namely rationalism and fideism. In particular, the challenging and severe argument of William K. Clifford against belief in anything upon insufficient evidence, who is a strong and radical rationalist, was explained and then we seized on four conter-argument which can be taken out of philosophical writings of some thinkers. Wittgensteinian fideism, Kierkegaard’s irrationalism, Pascal’s argument of wager and moral evidence of Kant are those. And occasionally we criticised all the views and drew some conclusion and finally evaluated them

  17. The case against libertarian arguments for compulsory vaccination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernstein, Justin

    2017-11-01

    In a recent paper in this journal, Jason Brennan correctly notes that libertarians struggle to justify a policy of compulsory vaccination. The most straightforward argument that justifies compulsory vaccination is that such a policy promotes welfare. But libertarians cannot make this argument because they claim that the state is justified only in protecting negative rights, not in promoting welfare. I consider two representative libertarian attempts to justify compulsory vaccination, and I argue that such arguments are unsuccessful. They either fail to show that the state is justified in implementing the policy or overgeneralise. I suggest that Brennan's solution is especially well motivated insofar as it addresses the shortcomings of these arguments. Brennan argues that we violate the rights of others by participating in an activity that imposes an unacceptable collective risk of harm. Going unvaccinated is an activity that imposes an unacceptable collective risk of harm, and thus amounts to a rights violation. So, the state can implement a policy of compulsory vaccination I object, however, that Brennan's delineation of acceptable and unacceptable risk implicitly rests on classical liberal rather than libertarian principles; he justifies compulsory vaccination on the grounds that it promotes welfare. I also object that Brennan's argument would entail significant departures from libertarian institutional arrangements. This leaves libertarians with a choice: they can develop new arguments to demonstrate that their position is compatible with compulsory vaccination, or they can accept that their view entails the impermissibility of compulsory vaccination, and argue that this is not an unpalatable implication of their view. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

  18. Fallacious Argumentation in Student Reasoning: Are There Benefits?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueller, Mary; Yankelewitz, Dina

    2014-01-01

    This article reports on an analysis of episodes of invalid or controversial arguments that occurred while two different groups of students worked on similar fraction tasks and examine the role that these types of arguments played in the development of students' reasoning. One group consisted of suburban, middle-class, fourth graders who worked on…

  19. The Formation of Rational and Irrational Behaviors in Risky Investment Decision Making: Laboratory Experiment of Coping Theory Implication in Investors' Adaptation Model

    OpenAIRE

    Wendy Wendy; Marwan Asri; Jogiyanto Hartono

    2012-01-01

    This study analyzes the stock investor's rational and irrational behavior formation through Investor's Adaptation model. Hypotheses testings were conducted by manipulating four market conditions using between-subject experimental design. The results supported the hypotheses proposed in this study. When given treatment one (opportunity-high control), investors tended to adapt the profit maximizing strategy (rational). Meanwhile, when given treatment two (opportunity-low control), three (threat-...

  20. Examining the Value of a Scaffolded Critique Framework to Promote Argumentative and Explanatory Writings Within an Argument-Based Inquiry Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jang, Jeong-yoon; Hand, Brian

    2017-12-01

    This study investigated the value of using a scaffolded critique framework to promote two different types of writing—argumentative writing and explanatory writing—with different purposes within an argument-based inquiry approach known as the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach. A quasi-experimental design with sixth and seventh grade students taught by two teachers was used. A total of 170 students participated in the study, with 87 in the control group (four classes) and 83 in the treatment group (four classes). All students used the SWH templates as an argumentative writing to guide their written work and completed these templates during the SWH investigations of each unit. After completing the SWH investigations, both groups of students were asked to complete the summary writing task as an explanatory writing at the end of each unit. All students' writing samples were scored using analytical frameworks developed for the study. The results indicated that the treatment group performed significantly better on the explanatory writing task than the control group. In addition, the results of the partial correlation suggested that there is a very strong significantly positive relationship between the argumentative writing and the explanatory writing.

  1. Enhancing and Evaluating Scientific Argumentation in the Inquiryoriented College Chemistry Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    D'Souza, Annabel Nica

    The research presented in chapters 2, 3, and 4 in this dissertation uses a sociocultural and sociohistorical lens, particularly around power, authority of knowledge and identity formation, to investigate the complexity of engaging in, supporting, and evaluating high-quality argumentation within a college biochemistry inquiry-oriented classroom. Argumentation skills are essential to college and career (National Research Council, 2010) and for a democratic citizenry. It is central to science teaching and learning (Osborne et al., 2004a) and can deepen content knowledge (Jimenez-Aleixandre et al., 2000; Jimenez-Aleixandre & Pereiro-Munhoz, 2002). When students have opportunities to make claims and support it with evidence and reasoning they may also increase their problem-solving and critical thinking capacity (Case, 2005; Willingham, 2007). Overall, this has implications in supporting students to become increasingly literate in scientific ideas, language, and practices. However, supporting argumentation can be challenging for instructors, particularly in designing leaning environments that facilitate and evaluate both the process and the product during student discussions (Duschl & Osborne, 2002). Fostering argumentation is complex and requires explicit modeling and multiple opportunities for dialogic interactions. This dissertation will examine how several facets influence argumentation in order to support instructors in implementing and improving argumentation in their inquiry-oriented classrooms. These facets include access to language and use of discursive moves, classroom design, curriculum and instructional activities, and interactional dynamics and power negotiation. The data set for this dissertation is a transcript generated from the audio- and video capture of a 7-minute student discussion around a mechanism in the TCA (TriCarboxylic Acid) cycle, as well as student writing, and course documents from student portfolios. This dissertation, organized using the

  2. A complete characterisation of All-versus-Nothing arguments for stabiliser states

    OpenAIRE

    Abramsky, Samson; Barbosa, Rui Soares; Carù, Giovanni; Perdrix, Simon

    2017-01-01

    An important class of contextuality arguments in quantum foundations are the All-versus-Nothing (AvN) proofs, generalising a construction originally due to Mermin. We present a general formulation of All-versus-Nothing arguments, and a complete characterisation of all such arguments which arise from stabiliser states. We show that every AvN argument for an n-qubit stabiliser state can be reduced to an AvN proof for a three-qubit state which is local Clifford-equivalent to the tripartite GHZ s...

  3. Conjunctions in Argumentative Writing of Libyan Tertiary Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamed, Muftah

    2014-01-01

    The aim of this study was an attempt to investigate the use of conjunctions in argumentative essays written by English as a Foreign Language fourth-year undergraduate Libyan students majoring in English at Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Libya. A corpus of 32 argumentative essays was collected from a sample of 16 students in order to be investigated…

  4. Advancing teacher knowledge of effective argumentation pedagogy

    OpenAIRE

    Simon,Shirley; Davies,Paul; Trevethan,Jillian

    2012-01-01

    This paper provides a discussion of the methodological approach to a research project that builds on previous studies of effective argumentation pedagogy undertaken by one of the authors. In this study, teachers from six schools in a city location are taking part in a one-year project to use new web-based professional development materials to advance their practice in using group discussion and argumentation in science. The teachers attend workshops on planning and organising effective group-...

  5. State of the art of the KFUE and IfR radioactivity measurement systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Faleschini, H.; Mozer, W.

    1992-01-01

    A brief account is given of the KFUe and IfR measurement systems (Kernreaktor-FernUeberwachungssystem - nuclear reactor telemonitoring system/Immissionsmessnetz fuer Radioaktivitaet - radioactive-contamination monitoring system) operated by Bayerisches Landesamt fuer Umweltschutz (LfU). The corresponding measuring instruments and measuring points are described. (BBR) [de

  6. The harm argument against surrogacy revisited: two versions not to forget.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agnafors, Marcus

    2014-08-01

    It has been a common claim that surrogacy is morally problematic since it involves harm to the child or the surrogate-the harm argument. Due to a growing body of empirical research, the harm argument has seen a decrease in popularity, as there seems to be little evidence of harmful consequences of surrogacy. In this article, two revised versions of the harm argument are developed. It is argued that the two suggested versions of the harm argument survive the current criticism against the standard harm argument. The first version argues that the child is harmed by being separated from the gestational mother. The second version directs attention to the fact that surrogacy involves great incentives to keep the gestational mother's level of maternal-fetal attachment low, which tend to increase the risk of harm to the child. While neither of the two arguments is conclusive regarding the moral status of surrogacy, both constitute important considerations that are often ignored.

  7. A complete characterization of all-versus-nothing arguments for stabilizer states

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abramsky, Samson; Barbosa, Rui Soares; Carù, Giovanni; Perdrix, Simon

    2017-10-01

    An important class of contextuality arguments in quantum foundations are the all-versus-nothing (AvN) proofs, generalizing a construction originally due to Mermin. We present a general formulation of AvN arguments and a complete characterization of all such arguments that arise from stabilizer states. We show that every AvN argument for an n-qubit stabilizer state can be reduced to an AvN proof for a three-qubit state that is local Clifford-equivalent to the tripartite Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state. This is achieved through a combinatorial characterization of AvN arguments, the AvN triple theorem, whose proof makes use of the theory of graph states. This result enables the development of a computational method to generate all the AvN arguments in on n-qubit stabilizer states. We also present new insights into the stabilizer formalism and its connections with logic. This article is part of the themed issue `Second quantum revolution: foundational questions'.

  8. Blandford's argument: The strongest continuous gravitational wave signal

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Knispel, Benjamin; Allen, Bruce

    2008-01-01

    For a uniform population of neutron stars whose spin-down is dominated by the emission of gravitational radiation, an old argument of Blandford states that the expected gravitational-wave amplitude of the nearest source is independent of the deformation and rotation frequency of the objects. Recent work has improved and extended this argument to set upper limits on the expected amplitude from neutron stars that also emit electromagnetic radiation. We restate these arguments in a more general framework, and simulate the evolution of such a population of stars in the gravitational potential of our galaxy. The simulations allow us to test the assumptions of Blandford's argument on a realistic model of our galaxy. We show that the two key assumptions of the argument (two dimensionality of the spatial distribution and a steady-state frequency distribution) are in general not fulfilled. The effective scaling dimension D of the spatial distribution of neutron stars is significantly larger than two, and for frequencies detectable by terrestrial instruments the frequency distribution is not in a steady state unless the ellipticity is unrealistically large. Thus, in the cases of most interest, the maximum expected gravitational-wave amplitude does have a strong dependence on the deformation and rotation frequency of the population. The results strengthen the previous upper limits on the expected gravitational-wave amplitude from neutron stars by a factor of 6 for realistic values of ellipticity.

  9. Architecture-based regulatory compliance argumentation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mihaylov, Boyan; Onea, Lucian; Hansen, Klaus Marius

    2016-01-01

    Standards and regulations are difficult to understand and map to software, which makes compliance with them challenging to argue for software products and development process. This is problematic since lack of compliance may lead to issues with security, safety, and even to economic sanctions....... An increasing number of applications (for example in healthcare) are expected to have to live up to regulatory requirements in the future, which will lead to more software development projects having to deal with such requirements. We present an approach that models regulations such that compliance arguments...... the approach on the migration of the telemedicine platform Net4Care to the cloud, where certain regulations (for example privacy) should be concerned. The approach has the potential to support simpler compliance argumentation with the eventual promise of safer and more secure applications....

  10. Argumentation, confrontation et violence verbale fulgurante Argumentative Processes, Confrontation and Acute Verbal Abuse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claudine Moïse

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available Si nous avons défini la violence verbale fulgurante comme une montée en tension caractérisée par des actes menaçants directs (provocation, menace, insultes… et la violence polémique comme un discours à visée argumentative mobilisant des procédés discursifs indirects (implicites, ironie…, on ne peut considérer ces deux types de discours comme hermétiques. À travers des scènes de violences verbales quotidiennes dans l’espace public et institutionnel (contrôles, convocations, verbalisations…, constituées pour un DVD pédagogique, il s’agit de montrer comment dans des interactions caractérisées par la violence fulgurante, certains procédés argumentatifs particuliers et que nous décrirons, sont utilisés, avec force efficacité, à des fins de déstabilisation et de prise de pouvoir sur l’autre. Our research has defined severe verbal abuse as built up tension characterized by directly threatening acts (such as provocation, threats, insults, and polemical violence as argumentative discourse which mobilizes indirect discursive devices, such as implicit discourse relations and irony. Yet, neither type of discourse can be considered to be impervious to mutual influence. Based on the content of an educational DVD featuring acted out scenes of daily verbal abuse taking place in public and institutional spaces (i.e., checks, summons, fines, we will show how specific argumentative devices, which we will describe, are very efficiently used within interactions that are characterised by severe abuse, with the aim of destabilizing and taking control over somebody.

  11. Critical Thinking in Moral Argumentation Contexts: A Virtue Ethical Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michelle Ciurria

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available In traditional analytic philosophy, critical thinking is defined along Cartesian lines as rational and linear reasoning preclusive of intuitions, emotions and lived experience. According to Michael Gilbert, this view – which he calls the Natural Light Theory (NLT – fails because it arbitrarily excludes standard feminist forms of argumentation and neglects the essentially social nature of argumentation. In this paper, I argue that while Gilbert’s criticism is correct for argumentation in general, NLT fails in a distinctive and particularly problematic manner in moral argumentation contexts. This is because NLT calls for disputants to adopt an impartial attitude, which overlooks the fact that moral disputants qua moral agents are necessarily partial to their own values and interests. Adopting the impartial perspective would therefore alienate them from their values and interests, causing a kind of “moral schizophrenia.” Finally, I urge a re-valuation of epistemic virtue in argumentation.

  12. Improving Argumentation through Goal Instructions in Asynchronous Online Discussions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prudchenko, Yekaterina

    2014-01-01

    Argumentation incorporated into class discussions can improve students' problem solving skills and enhance their epistemic and conceptual understanding. Research indicates students sometimes need scaffolding such as goal instructions to improve their argumentation skills. This study examined the effectiveness of different types of goal…

  13. Pascal’s wager: tracking an intended reader in the structure of the argument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iva SVAČINOVÁ

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Pascal’s wager is the name of an argument in favor of belief in God presented by Blaise Pascal in §233 of Thoughts. Ian Hacking (1972 pointed out that Pascal’s text involves three different versions of the argument. This paper proceeds from this identification, but it concerns an examination of the rhetorical strategy realized by Pascal’s argumentation. The final form of Pascal’s argument is considered as a product that could be established only through a specific process of persuasion led with respect to an intended reader with a particular set of initial beliefs. The text uses insights from the pragma‑dialectical approach to argumentation, especially the concept of rhetorical effectiveness of particular choices from the topical potential. The argumentation structure of Pascal’s wager is considered to be a reflection of the anticipated course of dialogue with the reader critically testing the sustainability of Pascal’s standpoint “You should believe in God”. Based on the argumentation reconstruction of three versions of the argument, Pascal’s idea of opponent/audience is identified. A rhetorical analysis of the effects of his argumentative strategy is proposed. The analysis is based on two perspectives on Pascal’s argument: it examines the strategy implemented consistently by all arguments and the strategy of a formulation of different versions of the wager.

  14. Argumentation and Inference: A Unified Approach

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    Christophe Fouqueré

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available We propose in this paper to use Ludics as a unified framework for the analysis of dialogue and the reasoning system. Not only is Ludics a logical theory, but it may also be built by means of concepts of game theory. We first present the main concepts of Ludics. A design is an abstraction and a generalization of the concept of proof. Interaction between designs is equivalent to cut elimination or modus ponens in logical theories. It appears to be a natural means for representing dialogues and also for reasoning. A design is a set of sequences of alternate actions, similar to a move in game theory. We apply Ludics to argumentative dialogues. We discuss how to model the speech acts of argumentative dialogues in terms of dialogue acts. A dialogue act is given by a Ludics action together with the expression that reveals the action in a turn of speech. We show also how arguments may be stored in a commitment state used for reasoning. Finally we revisit an example of juridical dialogue that has been analyzed by Prakken in a different framework.

  15. Argumentative Polylogues: Beyond Dialectical Understanding of Fallacies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lewiński Marcin

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Dialectical fallacies are typically defined as breaches of the rules of a regulated discussion between two participants (di-logue. What if discussions become more complex and involve multiple parties with distinct positions to argue for (poly-logues? Are there distinct argumentation norms of polylogues? If so, can their violations be conceptualized as polylogical fallacies? I will argue for such an approach and analyze two candidates for argumentative breaches of multi-party rationality: false dilemma and collateral straw man.

  16. Negotiation and argumentation in multi-agent systems

    CERN Document Server

    Lopes, Fernando

    2014-01-01

    Multi-agent systems (MAS) composed of autonomous agents representing individuals or organizations and capable of reaching mutually beneficial agreements through negotiation and argumentation are becoming increasingly important and pervasive.Research on both automated negotiation and argumentation in MAS has a vigorous, exciting tradition. However, efforts to integrate both areas have received only selective attention in the academia and the practitioner literature. A symbiotic relationship could significantly strengthen each area's progress and trigger new R&D challenges and prospects toward t

  17. The inextricable entanglement of argumentation and interpretation in law

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    Marković Miloš

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available At the basis of tireless efforts to explain the nature of law lies the question of how judges should decide cases. Therefrom arises a need for a theory that would clarify the role of the courts and, moreover, provide guidance to them on reaching judgments. The history of legal theory abounds with various attempts to offer a generally acceptable answer to the question raised. The fervor of debate and the perpetual dissatisfaction with offered solutions prompted the thought of untamable arbitrariness of judges. In the contemporary debate the significance of argumentation is particularly emphasized as a link of the court procedure which provides reasonableness and therewith justification and persuasiveness of the decision. Before going into the matter, I will indicate in broad strokes which areas of legal theory do argumentation and interpretation belong to. The purpose of setting a conceptual framework is to prevent losing sight of the whole as well as to limit the scope of discourse to a certain section of legal issues. The second part deals with the concept of argumentation in general and some specific features of the argumentation in law. The third part examines the role of legal interpretation and draws a clear distinction between the interpretation as a process and the interpretation as a result. At the end of the discussion I shall put forward a thesis that the interpretation as a process is argumentation, while the interpretation as a result is an argument in the justification of judgment.

  18. Social Media Argumentation Mining: The Quest for Deliberateness in Raucousness

    OpenAIRE

    Šnajder, Jan

    2016-01-01

    Argumentation mining from social media content has attracted increasing attention. The task is both challenging and rewarding. The informal nature of user-generated content makes the task dauntingly difficult. On the other hand, the insights that could be gained by a large-scale analysis of social media argumentation make it a very worthwhile task. In this position paper I discuss the motivation for social media argumentation mining, as well as the tasks and challenges involved.

  19. Validation of the Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Georgina Guilera

    Full Text Available The present study is centered in adapting and validating a Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS. The sample consists of 365 adults aged 18-77 years (M = 37.70, SD = 12.64. Participants were administered two measures of procrastination, the IPS and the Decisional Procrastination Questionnaire, as well as the Big Five Inventory, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. First, the factor and replication analysis revealed that the internal structure of the scale is clearly one-dimensional, supporting the idea that IPS seems to measure general procrastination as a single trait. Second, the internal consistency is satisfactory as is the temporal stability of the IPS scores. Third, the correlations encountered between the IPS scores and other measures of procrastination, personality traits and satisfaction with life are all in the expected direction and magnitude. Finally, consistent with previous research, procrastination is related to age, with the youngest being the most procrastinating group. This study represents the first attempt in adapting and validating the IPS measure of procrastination into Spanish. Results suggest that the Spanish version of the IPS offers valid and reliable scores when applied to adult population.

  20. Validation of the Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guilera, Georgina; Penelo, Eva; Morin, Christopher; Steel, Piers; Gómez-Benito, Juana

    2018-01-01

    The present study is centered in adapting and validating a Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS). The sample consists of 365 adults aged 18–77 years (M = 37.70, SD = 12.64). Participants were administered two measures of procrastination, the IPS and the Decisional Procrastination Questionnaire, as well as the Big Five Inventory, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. First, the factor and replication analysis revealed that the internal structure of the scale is clearly one-dimensional, supporting the idea that IPS seems to measure general procrastination as a single trait. Second, the internal consistency is satisfactory as is the temporal stability of the IPS scores. Third, the correlations encountered between the IPS scores and other measures of procrastination, personality traits and satisfaction with life are all in the expected direction and magnitude. Finally, consistent with previous research, procrastination is related to age, with the youngest being the most procrastinating group. This study represents the first attempt in adapting and validating the IPS measure of procrastination into Spanish. Results suggest that the Spanish version of the IPS offers valid and reliable scores when applied to adult population. PMID:29304119

  1. Validation of the Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guilera, Georgina; Barrios, Maite; Penelo, Eva; Morin, Christopher; Steel, Piers; Gómez-Benito, Juana

    2018-01-01

    The present study is centered in adapting and validating a Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS). The sample consists of 365 adults aged 18-77 years (M = 37.70, SD = 12.64). Participants were administered two measures of procrastination, the IPS and the Decisional Procrastination Questionnaire, as well as the Big Five Inventory, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. First, the factor and replication analysis revealed that the internal structure of the scale is clearly one-dimensional, supporting the idea that IPS seems to measure general procrastination as a single trait. Second, the internal consistency is satisfactory as is the temporal stability of the IPS scores. Third, the correlations encountered between the IPS scores and other measures of procrastination, personality traits and satisfaction with life are all in the expected direction and magnitude. Finally, consistent with previous research, procrastination is related to age, with the youngest being the most procrastinating group. This study represents the first attempt in adapting and validating the IPS measure of procrastination into Spanish. Results suggest that the Spanish version of the IPS offers valid and reliable scores when applied to adult population.

  2. Exploring Science Teachers' Argumentation and Personal Epistemology About Global Climate Change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Shiyu; Roehrig, Gillian

    2017-06-01

    This case study investigated the nature of in-service science teachers' argumentation and personal epistemology about global climate change during a 3-year professional development program on climate change education. Qualitative analysis of data from interviews and written assessments revealed that while these teachers grounded their arguments on climate issues in evidence, the evidence was often insufficient to justify their causal claims. Compared with generating arguments for their own views, teachers had more difficulties in constructing evidence-based arguments for alternative perspectives. Moreover, while these teachers shared some similarities in their epistemology about climate science, they varied in their beliefs about specific aspects such as scientists' expertise and the credibility of scientific evidence. Such similarities and distinctions were shown to relate to how teachers used evidence to justify claims in their arguments. The findings also suggested a mismatch between teachers' personal epistemology about science in general and climate science, which was revealed through their argumentation. This work helps to further the ongoing discussions in environmental education about what knowledge and skills teachers need in order to teach climate issues and prepare students for future decision making. It constitutes first steps to facilitate reasoning and argumentation in climate change education and provides important implications for future design of professional development programs.

  3. Four arguments in favour of nuclear power

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pearce, D.

    1994-01-01

    The first argument in favour of nuclear power is scarcity of energy supplies. In about 40 years time, the world will face shortages of natural gas, oil and uranium. Recoverable reserves of coal are very great, but coal creates the highest environmental damage. A balanced portfolio is the second argument. If all energy sources are potentially scarce, then all energy sources must be developed, subject to environmental impact. This leads to the third argument in support of nuclear power, its expansion would contribute to combating the risk of global warming as indeed would the expansion of renewable sources and other low carbon technologies. Fourthly, nuclear power can make a significant contribution to the control of acidic emissions. While nuclear power is not without its own problems of risk, liability and public acceptance, it has some clear advantages over other fuels. It has, at the very least, to be a substantial part of the transitional phase towards a renewable energy world. (UK)

  4. An integrated theory of causal scenarios and evidential arguments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bex, F.J.

    2015-01-01

    In the process of proof alternative stories that explain 'what happened' in a case are tested using arguments based on evidence. Building on the author's earlier hybrid theory, this paper presents a formal theory that combines causal stories and evidential arguments, further integrating the

  5. Do medical students generate sound arguments during small group discussions in problem-based learning?: an analysis of preclinical medical students' argumentation according to a framework of hypothetico-deductive reasoning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ju, Hyunjung; Choi, Ikseon; Yoon, Bo Young

    2017-06-01

    Hypothetico-deductive reasoning (HDR) is an essential learning activity and a learning outcome in problem-based learning (PBL). It is important for medical students to engage in the HDR process through argumentation during their small group discussions in PBL. This study aimed to analyze the quality of preclinical medical students' argumentation according to each phase of HDR in PBL. Participants were 15 first-year preclinical students divided into two small groups. A set of three 2-hour discussion sessions from each of the two groups during a 1-week-long PBL unit on the cardiovascular system was audio-recorded. The arguments constructed by the students were analyzed using a coding scheme, which included four types of argumentation (Type 0: incomplete, Type 1: claim only, Type 2: claim with data, and Type 3: claim with data and warrant). The mean frequency of each type of argumentation according to each HDR phase across the two small groups was calculated. During small group discussions, Type 1 arguments were generated most often (frequency=120.5, 43%), whereas the least common were Type 3 arguments (frequency=24.5, 8.7%) among the four types of arguments. The results of this study revealed that the students predominantly made claims without proper justifications; they often omitted data for supporting their claims or did not provide warrants to connect the claims and data. The findings suggest instructional interventions to enhance the quality of medical students' arguments in PBL, including promoting students' comprehension of the structure of argumentation for HDR processes and questioning.

  6. RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF ARGUMENTATIVE ANSWER

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juliano Desiderato ANTONIO

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to describe the rhetorical structure of the argumentative answer genre in a corpus formed by 15 compositions of the winter vestibular of Universidade Estadual de Maringá. The instrument of analysis used in the investigation was RST (Rhetorical Structure Theory. The initial statement was considered the central unit of the argumentative answer. Most of the writers held evidence relation between the central unit (nucleus and the expansion (satellite. Evidence relation is interpersonal and the aim of the writers is to convince their addressees (in this case the compositions evaluation committee that their point is correct. Within the initial statement, the relation with higher frequency was contrast. Our hypothesis is that the selection of texts of the test influenced the applicants to present positive and negative aspects of the internet. In the higher level of the expansion text span, list is the most frequent relation because the applicants present various arguments with the same status. Contrast was the second relation with highest frequency in this same level. Our hypothesis is that the selection of texts of the test influenced the applicants to present positive and negative aspects of the internet as it happened in the initial statement. Within the 15 compositions, 12 had a conclusion. This part was considered a satellite of the span formed by the initial statement and its expansion. The relation held was homonymous.

  7. Modification of irrational ideas and test anxiety through rational stage directed hypnotherapy [RSDH].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boutin, G E; Tosi, D J

    1983-05-01

    Examined the effects of four treatment conditions on the modification of Irrational Ideas and test anxiety in female nursing students. The treatments were Rational Stage Directed Hypnotherapy, a cognitive behavioral approach that utilized hypnosis and vivid-emotive-imagery, a hypnosis-only treatment, a placebo condition, and a no-treatment control. The 48 Ss were assigned randomly to one of these treatment groups, which met for 1 hour per week for 6 consecutive weeks with in-vivo homework assignments also utilized. Statistically significant treatment effects on cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological measures were noted for both the RSDH and hypnosis group at the posttest and at a 2-month follow-up. Post-hoc analyses revealed the RSDH treatment group to be significantly more effective than the hypnosis only group on both the post- and follow-up tests. The placebo and control groups showed no significant effects either at post-treatment or at follow-up.

  8. Essay: A Complicated Relationship: Right-Wing Populism, Media Representation and Journalism Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Hafez

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The current upswing of right-wing populism in the United States and in Europe is a challenge not only for policy makers, but also for journalism theory. If and how to report on right-wing politicians, movements and issues is a delicate question that various strands of theory answer differently. Functionalist systems theory is in favor of large-scale coverage due to the stimulating news values of populist debates, although the precise character of the political integration remains unclear. In contrast, rational democratic deliberation theory is to be interpreted as a complete rebuttal of the irrational character of populism. The argument here would be that we must not allow the media be dominated by irrational debates. At the same time, democratic media theory is all but uniform in dealing with the phenomenon. While traditional rational public sphere theory is clearly anti-populist, paradoxically left-liberal and postmodern public sphere theory, anti-elitist and radically post-modern as it is, can be used as an argument for better representation of marginalized voices, including right-wing populists.

  9. Measurement of Kr-85 and Xe-133 as undisturbed tracers for the representing of atmospheric transport after disposal of radioactivity from nuclear facilities; Messungen von Kr-85 und Xe-133 als ungestoerte Tracer zur Darstellung atmosphaerischer Transportvorgaenge nach Freisetzung von Radioaktivitaet aus kerntechnischen Anlagen

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Frank, G.; Steinkopff, T. [Deutscher Wetterdienst (Germany); Salvamoser, J. [Institut fuer Angewandte Isotopen-, Gas- und Umweltuntersuchungen (IGU), Woerthsee (Germany)

    2016-07-01

    The Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD, German Meteorological Service) operates since 1996 a sampling and measurement device for the radioactive rare gases Kr-85 and Xe-133 in Offenbach. These measurements are embedded in the German Measurement and Information System for Monitoring Environmental Radioactivity (Integriertes Mess- und Informationssystem zur Ueberwachung der Radioaktivitaet in der Umwelt, IMIS) [1]. In addition to these measurements the DWD is sampling rare gases in Potsdam and since 2014 in Trier in cooperation with the Bundesamt fuer Strahlenschutz (Federal Office for Radiation Protection, BfS). In the frame of the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW)-program of the WMO the DWD operated a sampling station at the Zugspitze (Schneefernerhaus) from 1999 to 2005. This location at the Zugspitze is well suited for the observation of long distance transport of Kr-85 in the higher atmosphere. The DWD in Offenbach operates a complex analytical system for the measurement of Kr-85 and Xe-133 since 1998. This system consists of sampling with first enrichment, second enrichment, gas chromatographic separation and preparation of Krypton and Xenon and measurement of Kr-85 and Xe-133. Using the example Fukushima, it is shown, that the radioactive rare gases Kr-85 and Xe-133 are well undisturbed tracers for atmospheric transport in case of a nuclear accident or routine nuclear reprocessing plants. Measurements of Xe-133, I-131, Cs-137 and Kr-85 are correlated with source and atmospheric transport to the sampling sites at Offenbach and Potsdam.

  10. Argumentation in Science Class: Its Planning, Practice, and Effect on Student Motivation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taneja, Anju

    Studies have shown an association between argumentative discourse in science class, better understanding of science concepts, and improved academic performance. However, there is lack of research on how argumentation can increase student motivation. This mixed methods concurrent nested study uses Bandura's construct of motivation and concepts of argumentation and formative feedback to understand how teachers orchestrate argumentation in science class and how it affects motivation. Qualitative data was collected through interviews of 4 grade-9 science teachers and through observing teacher-directed classroom discourse. Classroom observations allowed the researcher to record the rhythm of discourse by characterizing teacher and student speech as teacher presentation (TP), teacher guided authoritative discussion (AD), teacher guided dialogic discussion (DD), and student initiation (SI). The Student Motivation Towards Science Learning survey was administered to 67 students before and after a class in which argumentation was used. Analysis of interviews showed teachers collaborated to plan argumentation. Analysis of discourse identified the characteristics of argumentation and provided evidence of students' engagement in argumentation in a range of contexts. Student motivation scores were tested using Wilcoxon signed rank tests and Mann-Whitney U-tests, which showed no significant change. However, one construct of motivation---active learning strategy---significantly increased. Quantitative findings also indicate that teachers' use of multiple methods in teaching science can affect various constructs of students' motivation. This study promotes social change by providing teachers with insight about how to engage all students in argumentation.

  11. Evidence and argument in policymaking: development of workplace smoking legislation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bero Lisa A

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background We sought to identify factors that affect the passage of public health legislation by examining the use of arguments, particularly arguments presenting research evidence, in legislative debates regarding workplace smoking restrictions. Methods We conducted a case-study based content analysis of legislative materials used in the development of six state workplace smoking laws, including written and spoken testimony and the text of proposed and passed bills and amendments. We coded testimony given before legislators for arguments used, and identified the institutional affiliations of presenters and their position on the legislation. We compared patterns in the arguments made in testimony to the relative strength of each state's final legislation. Results Greater discussion of scientific evidence within testimony given was associated with the passage of workplace smoking legislation that provided greater protection for public health, regardless of whether supporters outnumbered opponents or vice versa. Conclusion Our findings suggest that an emphasis on scientific discourse, relative to other arguments made in legislative testimony, might help produce political outcomes that favor public health.

  12. Citation Behaviors Observed in Japanese EFL Students' Argumentative Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamimura, Taeko

    2014-01-01

    Effective use of outside source texts is one of the key components of successful academic writing. This study aims at clarifying Japanese university EFL students' citation behaviors in producing argumentative writing. Twenty-six Japanese university EFL students wrote an argumentative essay. Their essays were analyzed quantitatively by six…

  13. Two Studies Examining Argumentation in Asynchronous Computer Mediated Communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joiner, Richard; Jones, Sarah; Doherty, John

    2008-01-01

    Asynchronous computer mediated communication (CMC) would seem to be an ideal medium for supporting development in student argumentation. This paper investigates this assumption through two studies. The first study compared asynchronous CMC with face-to-face discussions. The transactional and strategic level of the argumentation (i.e. measures of…

  14. Semiotic and Theoretic Control in Argumentation and Proof Activities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arzarello, Ferdinando; Sabena, Cristina

    2011-01-01

    We present a model to analyze the students' activities of argumentation and proof in the graphical context of Elementary Calculus. The theoretical background is provided by the integration of Toulmin's structural description of arguments, Peirce's notions of sign, diagrammatic reasoning and abduction, and Habermas' model for rational behavior.…

  15. Implementation of a Curriculum-Integrated Computer Game for Introducing Scientific Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallon, Robert C.; Jasti, Chandana; Lauren, Hillary Z. G.; Hug, Barbara

    2017-11-01

    Argumentation has been emphasized in recent US science education reform efforts (NGSS Lead States 2013; NRC 2012), and while existing studies have investigated approaches to introducing and supporting argumentation (e.g., McNeill and Krajcik in Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 45(1), 53-78, 2008; Kang et al. in Science Education, 98(4), 674-704, 2014), few studies have investigated how game-based approaches may be used to introduce argumentation to students. In this paper, we report findings from a design-based study of a teacher's use of a computer game intended to introduce the claim, evidence, reasoning (CER) framework (McNeill and Krajcik 2012) for scientific argumentation. We studied the implementation of the game over two iterations of development in a high school biology teacher's classes. The results of this study include aspects of enactment of the activities and student argument scores. We found the teacher used the game in aspects of explicit instruction of argumentation during both iterations, although the ways in which the game was used differed. Also, students' scores in the second iteration were significantly higher than the first iteration. These findings support the notion that students can learn argumentation through a game, especially when used in conjunction with explicit instruction and support in student materials. These findings also highlight the importance of analyzing classroom implementation in studies of game-based learning.

  16. Arguments Whose Strength Depends on Continuous Variation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James Franklin

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available Both the traditional Aristotelian and modern symbolic approaches to logic have seen logic in terms of discrete symbol processing. Yet there are several kinds of argument whose validity depends on some topological notion of continuous variation, which is not well captured by discrete symbols. Examples include extrapolation and slippery slope arguments, sorites, fuzzy logic, and those involving closeness of possible worlds. It is argued that the natural first attempts to analyze these notions and explain their relation to reasoning fail, so that ignorance of their nature is profound.

  17. A Robust Geometric Model for Argument Classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giannone, Cristina; Croce, Danilo; Basili, Roberto; de Cao, Diego

    Argument classification is the task of assigning semantic roles to syntactic structures in natural language sentences. Supervised learning techniques for frame semantics have been recently shown to benefit from rich sets of syntactic features. However argument classification is also highly dependent on the semantics of the involved lexicals. Empirical studies have shown that domain dependence of lexical information causes large performance drops in outside domain tests. In this paper a distributional approach is proposed to improve the robustness of the learning model against out-of-domain lexical phenomena.

  18. Method to translate human feelings into arguments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hans, Arnold

    1995-01-01

    Taking as an example the status of nuclear power in Netherlands, it was shown that there is an emotional approach on the part of supporters and opponents, not open to rational argument, objective information of no avail, lack of public support (80% against), Government undecided. It was concluded that nuclear energy is a deep-rooted emotional conflict, and that the prospects of altering the situation are bleak. Proposed arguments for changeover in favor of nuclear energy are: electricity is a necessity, it is economical, safety is guaranteed, it protects the environment and conserves other resources

  19. Moral Philosophy, Moral Expertise, and the Argument from Disagreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cross, Ben

    2016-03-01

    Several recent articles have weighed in on the question of whether moral philosophers can be counted as moral experts. One argument denying this has been rejected by both sides of the debate. According to this argument, the extent of disagreement in modern moral philosophy prevents moral philosophers from being classified as moral experts. Call this the Argument From Disagreement (AD). In this article, I defend a version of AD. Insofar as practical issues in moral philosophy are characterized by disagreement between moral philosophers who are more or less equally well credentialed on the issue, non-philosophers have no good reasons to defer to their views. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  20. Improving Undergraduates' Argumentative Group Essay Writing through Self-Assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fung, Yong Mei; Mei, Hooi Chee

    2015-01-01

    When writing an argumentative essay, writers develop and evaluate arguments to embody, initiate, or simulate various kinds of interpersonal and textual interaction for reader consideration (Wu & Allison, 2003). This is quite challenging for English as a second language (ESL) learners. To improve the quality of their writing, students need to…

  1. "Argument!" Helping Students Understand What Essay Writing Is About

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wingate, Ursula

    2012-01-01

    Argumentation is a key requirement of the essay, which is the most common genre that students have to write. However, how argumentation is realised in disciplinary writing is often poorly understood by academic tutors, and therefore not adequately taught to students. This paper presents research into undergraduate students' concepts of argument…

  2. Climate change and sustainable welfare: an argument for the centrality of human needs

    OpenAIRE

    Ian Gough

    2014-01-01

    Since climate change threatens human wellbeing across the globe and into the future, we require a concept of wellbeing that encompasses an equivalent ambit. This paper argues that only a concept of human need can do the work required. It compares need theory with three alternative approaches. Preference satisfaction theory is criticised on the grounds of subjectivity, epistemic irrationality, endogenous and adaptive preferences, the limitlessness of wants, the absence of moral evaluation, and...

  3. Climate Change and Sustainable Welfare: An Argument for the Centrality of Human Needs

    OpenAIRE

    Ian Gough

    2014-01-01

    Since climate change threatens human wellbeing across the globe and into the future, we require a concept of wellbeing that encompasses an equivalent ambit. This paper argues that only a concept of human need can do the work required. It compares need theory with three alternative approaches. Preference satisfaction theory is criticised on the grounds of subjectivity, epistemic irrationality, endogenous and adaptive preferences, the limitlessness of wants, the absence of moral evaluation, and...

  4. Negotiation as a form of persuasion: arguments in first offers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maaravi, Yossi; Ganzach, Yoav; Pazy, Asya

    2011-08-01

    In this article we examined aspects of negotiation within a persuasion framework. Specifically, we investigated how the provision of arguments that justified the first offer in a negotiation affected the behavior of the parties, namely, how it influenced counteroffers and settlement prices. In a series of 4 experiments and 2 pilot studies, we demonstrated that when the generation of counterarguments was easy, negotiators who did not add arguments to their first offers achieved superior results compared with negotiators who used arguments to justify their first offer. We hypothesized and provided evidence that adding arguments to a first offer was likely to cause the responding party to search for counterarguments, and this, in turn, led him or her to present counteroffers that were further away from the first offer.

  5. Interaction patterns in crisis negotiations: persuasive arguments and cultural differences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Giebels, Ellen; Taylor, Paul J

    2009-01-01

    This research examines cultural differences in negotiators' responses to persuasive arguments in crisis (hostage) negotiations over time. Using a new method of examining cue-response patterns, the authors examined 25 crisis negotiations in which police negotiators interacted with perpetrators from low-context (LC) or high-context (HC) cultures. Compared with HC perpetrators, LC perpetrators were found to use more persuasive arguments, to reciprocate persuasive arguments in the second half of negotiations, and to respond to persuasive arguments in a compromising way. Further analyses found that LC perpetrators were more likely to communicate threats, especially in the first half of the negotiations, but that HC perpetrators were more likely to reciprocate them. The implications of these findings for our understanding of intercultural interaction are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

  6. The exploitation argument against commercial surrogacy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilkinson, Stephen

    2003-04-01

    This paper discusses the exploitation argument against commercial surrogacy: the claim that commercial surrogacy is morally objectionable because it is exploitative. The following questions are addressed. First, what exactly does the exploitation argument amount to? Second, is commercial surrogacy in fact exploitative? Third, if it were exploitative, would this provide a sufficient reason to prohibit (or otherwise legislatively discourage) it? The focus throughout is on the exploitation of paid surrogates, although it is noted that other parties (e.g. 'commissioning parents') may also be the victims of exploitation. It is argued that there are good reasons for believing that commercial surrogacy is often exploitative. However, even if we accept this, the exploitation argument for prohibiting (or otherwise legislatively discouraging) commercial surrogacy remains quite weak. One reason for this is that prohibition may well 'backfire' and lead to potential surrogates having to do other things that are more exploitative and/or more harmful than paid surrogacy. It is concluded therefore that those who oppose exploitation should (rather than attempting to stop particular practices like commercial surrogacy) concentrate on: (a) improving the conditions under which paid surrogates 'work'; and (b) changing the background conditions (in particular, the unequal distribution of power and wealth) which generate exploitative relationships.

  7. Information and motivation as instruments of dealing with risk

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Heilmann, K.

    1986-01-01

    The structure of society is largely determined by technology and progress. Doubt and scepticism, fear of the risks are widespread in mankind. One of the tasks to be fulfilled by communication science is to contribute to developing corrective strategies that lead to balance weighting of arguments, and prevent emotions from leading to irrational behaviour. (DG) [de

  8. Mentoring and Argumentation in a Game-Infused Science Curriculum

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gould, Deena L.; Parekh, Priyanka

    2018-04-01

    Engaging in argumentation from evidence is challenging for most middle school students. We report the design of a media-based mentoring system to support middle school students in engaging in argumentation in the context of a game-infused science curriculum. Our design emphasizes learners apprenticing with college student mentors around the socio-scientific inquiry of a designed video game. We report the results of a mixed-methods study examining the use of this media-based mentoring system with students ages 11 through 14. We observed that the discourse of groups of students that engaged with the game-infused science curriculum while interacting with college student mentors via a social media platform demonstrated statistically significant higher ratings of cognitive, epistemic, and social aspects of argumentation than groups of students that engaged with the social media platform and game-infused science curriculum without mentors. We further explored the differences between the Discourses of the mentored and non-mentored groups. This analysis showed that students in the mentored groups were invited, guided, and socialized into roles of greater agency than students in the non-mentored groups. This increased agency might explain why mentored groups demonstrated higher levels of scientific argumentation than non-mentored groups. Based on our analyses, we argue that media-based mentoring may be designed around a video game to support middle school students in engaging in argumentation from evidence.

  9. Les visées de l’argumentation et leurs corrélats langagiers : une approche discursive The Aims of Argumentation and their Linguistic Correlates: A Discursive Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raphaël Micheli

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Le présent article a pour objectif de contribuer au débat théorique et méthodologique portant sur la définition qu’il convient d’octroyer à la notion d’« argumentation » et sur les conditions qui président à l’observabilité des processus argumentatifs dans les discours. On tente de montrer comment une approche discursive peut traiter deux problèmes souvent débattus dans le champ des études argumentatives. (1 Peut-on, sur le plan pragmatique, identifier une (ou plusieurs visée(s permettant de saisir ce que l’argumentation, en tant que « fait de discours », a de spécifique par rapport à d’autres faits de discours ? (2 Peut-on corréler les visées identifiées sur le plan pragmatique avec des formes relativement stables qui assurent le caractère « reconnaissable » de l’argumentation dans la matérialité langagière ? C’est ainsi la double question des visées de l’argumentation et de leurs corrélats langagiers qui est au centre du propos : l’enjeu est de formuler une série de propositions méthodologiques, en discutant quelques contributions récentes qui ont marqué l’approche discursive de l’argumentation dans l’espace francophone.This paper aims at contributing to the theoretical and methodological debate bearing on the definition of “argumentation” and the observation of argumentative processes in linguistic data. It shows how a discursiveapproach can deal with two issues that are often discussed in the field of argumentation studies. (1 On a pragmatic level, is it possible to identify one (or several aim(s allowing to understand what is specific to the verbal activity of argumentation, as opposed to other verbal activities? (2 Is it possible to correlate such pragmatic aims with forms, so as to account for argumentation in the materiality of language? The paper thus deals both with the aims of argumentation, and with their linguistic correlates: its objective is to put forward a

  10. Training verb argument structure production in agrammatic aphasia: Behavioral and neural recovery patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Cynthia K.; Riley, Ellyn A.; den Ouden, Dirk-Bart; Meltzer-Asscher, Aya; Lukic, Sladjana

    2013-01-01

    Introduction Neuroimaging and lesion studies indicate a left hemisphere network for verb and verb argument structure processing, involving both frontal and temporoparietal brain regions. Although their verb comprehension is generally unimpaired, it is well known that individuals with agrammatic aphasia often present with verb production deficits, characterized by an argument structure complexity hierarchy, indicating faulty access to argument structure representations for production and integration into syntactic contexts. Recovery of verb processing in agrammatism, however, has received little attention and no studies have examined the neural mechanisms associated with improved verb and argument structure processing. In the present study we trained agrammatic individuals on verbs with complex argument structure in sentence contexts and examined generalization to verbs with less complex argument structure. The neural substrates of improved verb production were examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods Eight individuals with chronic agrammatic aphasia participated in the study (four experimental and four control participants). Production of three-argument verbs in active sentences was trained using a sentence generation task emphasizing the verb’s argument structure and the thematic roles of sentential noun phrases. Before and after training, production of trained and untrained verbs was tested in naming and sentence production and fMRI scans were obtained, using an action naming task. Results Significant pre- to post-training improvement in trained and untrained (one- and two-argument) verbs was found for treated, but not control, participants, with between-group differences found for verb naming, production of verbs in sentences, and production of argument structure. fMRI activation derived from post-treatment compared to pre-treatment scans revealed upregulation in cortical regions implicated for verb and argument structure processing

  11. Function and Argument in Begriffsschrift

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Badesa, C.; Bertran-San Millán, Joan

    2017-01-01

    Roč. 38, č. 4 (2017), s. 316-341 ISSN 0144-5340 Institutional support: RVO:67985955 Keywords : identity * Frege * logic * function * argument Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion OBOR OECD: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology Impact factor: 0.286, year: 2016

  12. A Davidsonian Argument Against Incommensurability

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Douven, I.; de Regt, H.W.

    2002-01-01

    The writings of Kuhn and Feyerabend on incommensurability challenged the idea that science progresses towards the truth. Davidson famously criticized the notion of incommensurability, arguing that it is incoherent. Davidson's argument was in turn criticized by Kuhn and others. This article argues

  13. The principle of procreative beneficence: old arguments and a new challenge.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hotke, Andrew

    2014-06-01

    In the last ten years, there have been a number of attempts to refute Julian Savulescu's Principle of Procreative Beneficence; a principle which claims that parents have a moral obligation to have the best child that they can possibly have. So far, no arguments against this principle have succeeded at refuting it. This paper tries to explain the shortcomings of some of the more notable arguments against this principle. I attempt to break down the argument for the principle and in doing so, I explain what is needed to properly refute it. This helps me show how and why the arguments of Rebecca Bennett, Sarah Stoller and others fail to refute the principle. Afterwards, I offer a new challenge to the principle. I attack what I understand to be a fundamental premise of the argument, a premise which has been overlooked in the literature written about this principle. I argue that there is no reason to suppose, as Savulescu does, that morality requires us to do what we have most reason to do. If we reject this premise, as I believe we have reason to do, the argument for Procreative Beneficence fails. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  14. Early Experiences with Family Conflict: Implications for Arguments with a Close Friend.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herrera, Carla; Dunn, Judy

    1997-01-01

    Examined associations between children's early experiences in family disputes and later conflict management with close friends. Found that argument used by mothers and siblings that considered children's needs was positively associated with children's later constructive argument and resolution techniques. Mothers' use of argument predicted…

  15. Reinterpreting arguments in dialogue : an application to evidential reasoning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bex, F.J.; Prakken, H.; Gordon, T.F.

    2004-01-01

    This paper presents a formalisation of two typical legal dialogue moves in a formal dialogue game for argumentation. The moves concern two ways of reinterpreting a general rule used in an argument, viz. by 'unpacking' and 'refining' the rule. The moves can be made not only by the user but also by

  16. Argumentation as a Strategy for Conceptual Learning of Dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eskin, Handan; Ogan-Bekiroglu, Feral

    2013-01-01

    Researchers have emphasized the importance of promoting argumentation in science classrooms for various reasons. However, the study of argumentation is still a young field and more research needs to be carried out on the tools and pedagogical strategies that can assist teachers and students in both the construction and evaluation of scientific…

  17. Who to Blame: Irrational Decision-Makers or Stupid Modelers? (Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists Lecture)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madani, Kaveh

    2016-04-01

    Water management benefits from a suite of modelling tools and techniques that help simplifying and understanding the complexities involved in managing water resource systems. Early water management models were mainly concerned with optimizing a single objective, related to the design, operations or management of water resource systems (e.g. economic cost, hydroelectricity production, reliability of water deliveries). Significant improvements in methodologies, computational capacity, and data availability over the last decades have resulted in developing more complex water management models that can now incorporate multiple objectives, various uncertainties, and big data. These models provide an improved understanding of complex water resource systems and provide opportunities for making positive impacts. Nevertheless, there remains an alarming mismatch between the optimal solutions developed by these models and the decisions made by managers and stakeholders of water resource systems. Modelers continue to consider decision makers as irrational agents who fail to implement the optimal solutions developed by sophisticated and mathematically rigours water management models. On the other hand, decision makers and stakeholders accuse modelers of being idealist, lacking a perfect understanding of reality, and developing 'smart' solutions that are not practical (stable). In this talk I will have a closer look at the mismatch between the optimality and stability of solutions and argue that conventional water resources management models suffer inherently from a full-cooperation assumption. According to this assumption, water resources management decisions are based on group rationality where in practice decisions are often based on individual rationality, making the group's optimal solution unstable for individually rational decision makers. I discuss how game theory can be used as an appropriate framework for addressing the irrational "rationality assumption" of water

  18. Construction of Argumentative Discourse in Foucaltian Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Isabel Cristina Michelan de Azevedo

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This article draws upon the argumentative scheme described by New Rhetoric in order to discuss how the organization of reasonings by association and dissociation can be analyzed in Foucault’s studies (2008 [1969], 2004 [1971] on the constitution of discourse in society, aiming to promote a reflection about the possibilities of analysis of high school students productions and about the organization of argument teaching in basic education. Through an interpretative methodology (ERICKSON, 1986, we seek to understand the discursive movements gathered from productions made during the National Secondary Education Examination in 2004 and to indicate alternatives to develop pedagogical practices committed to the formation of a critical subject. Illustrative analyzes indicate that students prepare reflections authorized by certain discursive formation, task that requires the definition of an identity and the preparing of arguments aligned to the political choices discursively adopted. Thus, it becomes evident the need to diversify the teaching and learning processes when one want to expand the possibilities of the subject to take any stance relative to other positions.

  19. [Evaluation of arguments in research reports].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Botes, A

    1999-06-01

    Some authors on research methodology are of opinion that research reports are based on the logic of reasoning and that such reports communicate with the reader by presenting logical, coherent arguments (Böhme, 1975:206; Mouton, 1996:69). This view implies that researchers draw specific conclusions and that such conclusions are justified by way of reasoning (Doppelt, 1998:105; Giere, 1984:26; Harre, 1965:11; Leherer & Wagner, 1983 & Pitt, 1988:7). The structure of a research report thus consists mainly of conclusions and reasons for such conclusions (Booth, Colomb & Williams, 1995:97). From this it appears that justification by means of reasoning is a standard procedure in research and research reports. Despite the fact that the logic of research is based on reasoning, that the justification of research findings by way of reasoning appears to be standard procedure and that the structure of a research report comprises arguments, the evaluation or assessment of research, as described in most textbooks on research methodology (Burns & Grove, 1993:647; Creswell, 1994:193; LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 1994:441/481) does not focus on the arguments of research. The evaluation criteria for research reports which are set in these textbooks are related to the way in which the research process is carried out and focus on the measures for internal, external, theoretical, measurement and inferential validity. This means that criteria for the evaluation of research are comprehensive and they should be very specific in respect of each type of research (for example quantitative or qualitative). When the evaluation of research reports is focused on arguments and logic, there could probably be one set of universal standards against which all types of human science research reports can be assessed. Such a universal set of standards could possibly simplify the evaluation of research reports in the human sciences since they can be used to assess all the critical aspects of research reports

  20. Teaching the Academic Argument in a University EFL Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bacha, Nahla Nola

    2010-01-01

    An educational challenge that many university EFL students face is the production of written academic arguments as part of their required essays. Although the importance of argumentative writing in education is uncontested, and research shows that EFL students find difficulties in producing such texts, it is not adequately dealt with for the L1…

  1. Synthetic Biology and the Argument from Continuity with Established Technologies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christiansen, Andreas

    2015-01-01

    ) that it ignores the distinction between what reasons we have and what we should do all things considered. I then illustrate the Continuity Argument and its problems in the case where human manipulation of organisms’ genetic makeup is a suggested reason for finding synthetic biology problematic. Finally, I suggest......Defenders of synthetic biology commonly make reference to the fact that established technologies, such as domestication or selective breeding, share some of the features of synthetic biology that critics argue make it ethically problematic. In this chapter, I reconstruct such references...... as instances of a type of argument which I dub the Continuity Argument. Roughly, the Continuity Argument seeks to show that if we are not disposed to reject the established technology, then features that this technology share with synthetic biology cannot provide reasons to find it ethically problematic. I...

  2. Putting the Pieces Together: Online Argumentation Vee Diagrams Enhance Thinking during Discussions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nussbaum, E. Michael; Winsor, Denise L.; Aqui, Yvette M.; Poliquin, Anne M.

    2007-01-01

    We examine the effect of online Argumentation Vee Diagrams (AVDs) on the quality of students' argumentation during asynchronous, online discussions. With AVDs, students develop arguments on both sides of a controversial issue and then develop an integrated, overall final conclusion. In this study, students used AVDs individually before composing…

  3. Theoretical Proposal for Pragmatic-Rhetorical Analysis of Argument in the Tourist Guide

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MSc. Iliana Rosabal-Pérez

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of the article is to present a useful theoretical proposal for the analysis of argumentation within the guidebook genre. The study perspective is supported on the rhetorical-pragmatic perspective of argumentation provided by some authors as well as the theoretical models applied to the study of persuasion in guidebooks suggested by Adam/Bonhomme (1997, Hernández-Santaolalla and Cobo-Durán (2010. The analysis of argumentation in this kind of text must consider a tactical and strategic view of  the rhetorical actions; that is to say, not to abstain from the elocution traditional examination since argumentation is an essential devise obtainable in the whole test. Keywords: rhetorical, argumentation, guidebook, rhetorical operations, topical.

  4. The acceptability of arguments in favour of and against the Iraq War

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juan LaLlave

    2005-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper reports on research based on an experimental questionnaire designed using the logic and the basic structure of the Moral Judgment Test (MJT by Lind (1982. The study aims at understanding how respondents' acceptance of political arguments may have contributed to the lack of international support for the Iraq war and/or to the failure to prevent a preemptive attack. It examines factors, which respondents may have relied on in their acceptance of the arguments. The instrument consisted of three components: (1 A brief vignette on the declared beginning (March 19, 2003 and ending (May 1, 2003 of major operations in Iraq. (2 Respondents' own agreement with the need for the war. (3 Twelve arguments from political speeches: Six arguments by Bush and Blair "in favor of" (pro, and six arguments by Chirac and Schroeder "against" (con the need for the Iraq war. We scored each argument using Kohlberg's (1984 stage theory and Commons' Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System (HCSS (Commons et al., 2004, which identifies hierarchical features in the structure. Using Kempf's (2003 Cognitive Escalation and De-Escalation Model (CEDM we scored each argument sentence for details. Our sample consists of (N = 397 respondents of which were 56.4% women, 24.2% men, and 19.4% did not specify. The largest groups consisted of 71% Germans, 37.2% Catholics, 74.3% between the ages of 18-20 with high school education. Another group consisted of 8.6% Americans with a broader spectrum in age and higher educational level. Using 7 point Likert scales, respondents rated whether they would have rejected or accepted the main point of each argument, whether the main point of the argument seemed illusory or realistic, and whether the emotion evoked by the argument was destructive or constructive. The analysis of the data aimed at determining which within subject and between subject design factors were relevant in predicting respondents' acceptance of arguments and the

  5. Argumentative processes on a opinion article of the Portuguese Language Olympics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gilton Sampaio de Souza

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to analyze the different types of arguments, considering them central parts of argumentative processes, in opinion articles of the Portuguese Language Olympiad written on the topic “Where I live.” To analyze the arguments in the selected articles we adopted the assumptions of the New Rhetoric (PERELMAN; OLBRECHTS-TYTECA, 2005, associated with the studies of Bakhtin (2003, 2010 and of Souza (2003, 2008, 2009, among others. We selected five articles awarded in different competitions (2008, 2010, 2012, which are in public domain, available on the official site of the Olympics. Most of the articles have their theses made by the arguments that support the actual structure, highlighting the relations of cause/effect and fact/consequence. Based on the established connection between the facts, speakers/ writers seek to understand these relationships and at the same time, explain and justify arguments and controversies involving issues related to their experience in the community.

  6. Argupolis: a doctoral program on argumentation practices in different contexts

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Eemeren, F.H.; Greco Morasso, S.; Grossen, M.; Perret-Clermont, A.-N.; Rigotti, E.

    2009-01-01

    Argumentation is a form of communicative interaction by means of which social realities - institutions, groups and relationships - are construed and managed. People develop argumentation in numerous purposeful activities: to make sound and well-thought decisions, to critically found their opinions,

  7. The Integration of Vocabulary and Effective Sentence Mastery towards Students’ Argumentative Writing Skills

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tien Rafida

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The aims of this result to reveal the integrated of vocabulary and effective sentence mastery against the argumentation writing skill students’ PBI-SU FITK UIN the hypothesis proposed in this results are : (1 vocabulary mastery contribute to the argument to the arguments writing skill of students; (2 effective sentence mastery contribute to the argument writing skill of student; (3 vocabulary mastery and effective sentence mastery together contribute to the argument writing skill of students. This result uses a quantitative approach. The population in this study is PBI UIN-SU as many as 6 classes. As for the samples in this result are students of class II. By using cluster random sampling, obtained a sample of 140 students. The instrument used is a test. These results indicate that: (1 vocabulary mastery contributed positively and significantly to the argument essay writing skills of students. The amount of contribution is 18.4%; (2 Effective sentence mastery contribute positively and significantly to the argument essay writing skills of students. The amount of contribution is 11.7%; (3 mastery of vocabulary and mastery of effective sentences together contributed positively and significantly to the argument essay writing skills of students. The major contribution is 26.5%; (4 mastering vocabulary to effectively contribute by 16.39% against the argument essay writing skills of students; (5 Mastery effective sentence effectively contribute 13.11% against the argument essay writing skills of students. Based on the results of this study, it was concluded that the vocabulary and mastery of effective sentences are the two factors that influence the argument essay writing skills of students in addition to other factors. Therefore, the researchers suggest to all parties concerned to pay more attention to these two factors so that students' skills in essay writing can be further improved.

  8. Teaching science as argument: Prospective elementary teachers' knowledge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barreto-Espino, Reizelie

    For the past two decades there has been increasing emphasis on argumentation in school science. In 2007, the National Research Council published a synthesis report that emphasizes the centrality of constructing, evaluating, and using scientific explanations. Participating in argumentation is seen as fundamental to children's science learning experiences. These new expectations increase challenges for elementary teachers since their understanding of and experiences with science are overwhelmingly inconsistent with teaching science as argument. These challenges are further amplified when dealing with prospective elementary teachers. The current study was guided by the following research questions: (1) What are the ways in which preservice elementary teachers appropriate components of "teaching science as argument" during their student teaching experience? (2) To what extent do components from prospective elementary teachers' reflections influence planning for science teaching? (3) What elements from the context influence preservice elementary teachers' attention to teaching science as argument? This study followed a multi-participant case study approach and analyses were informed by grounded theory. Three participants were selected from a larger cohort of prospective elementary teachers enrolled in an innovative Elementary Professional Development School (PDS) partnership at a large Northeast University. Cross-case analysis allowed for the development of five key assertions: (1) The presence of opportunities for interacting with phenomena and collecting first hand data helped participants increase their emphasis on evidence-based explanations. (2) Participants viewed science talks as an essential mechanism for engaging students in the construction of evidence-based explanations and as being fundamental to meaning-making. (3) Participants demonstrated attention to scientific subject matter during instruction rather than merely focusing on activities and/or inquiry

  9. Simulating irrational human behavior to prevent resource depletion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sircova, Anna; Karimi, Fariba; Osin, Evgeny N; Lee, Sungmin; Holme, Petter; Strömbom, Daniel

    2015-01-01

    In a situation with a limited common resource, cooperation between individuals sharing the resource is essential. However, people often act upon self-interest in irrational ways that threaten the long-term survival of the whole group. A lack of sustainable or environmentally responsible behavior is often observed. In this study, we examine how the maximization of benefits principle works in a wider social interactive context of personality preferences in order to gain a more realistic insight into the evolution of cooperation. We used time perspective (TP), a concept reflecting individual differences in orientation towards past, present, or future, and relevant for making sustainable choices. We developed a personality-driven agent-based model that explores the role of personality in the outcomes of social dilemmas and includes multiple facets of diversity: (1) The agents have different behavior strategies: individual differences derived by applying cluster analysis to survey data from 22 countries (N = 10,940) and resulting in 7 cross-cultural profiles of TP; (2) The non-uniform distribution of the types of agents across countries; (3) The diverse interactions between the agents; and (4) diverse responses to those interactions in a well-mixed population. As one of the results, we introduced an index of overall cooperation for each of the 22 countries, which was validated against cultural, economic, and sustainability indicators (HDI, dimensions of national culture, and Environment Performance Index). It was associated with higher human development, higher individualism, lower power distance, and better environmental performance. The findings illustrate how individual differences in TP can be simulated to predict the ways people in different countries solve the personal vs. common gain dilemma in the global limited-resource situation. This interdisciplinary approach to social simulation can be adopted to explain the possible causes of global environmental issues

  10. Simulating irrational human behavior to prevent resource depletion.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Sircova

    Full Text Available In a situation with a limited common resource, cooperation between individuals sharing the resource is essential. However, people often act upon self-interest in irrational ways that threaten the long-term survival of the whole group. A lack of sustainable or environmentally responsible behavior is often observed. In this study, we examine how the maximization of benefits principle works in a wider social interactive context of personality preferences in order to gain a more realistic insight into the evolution of cooperation. We used time perspective (TP, a concept reflecting individual differences in orientation towards past, present, or future, and relevant for making sustainable choices. We developed a personality-driven agent-based model that explores the role of personality in the outcomes of social dilemmas and includes multiple facets of diversity: (1 The agents have different behavior strategies: individual differences derived by applying cluster analysis to survey data from 22 countries (N = 10,940 and resulting in 7 cross-cultural profiles of TP; (2 The non-uniform distribution of the types of agents across countries; (3 The diverse interactions between the agents; and (4 diverse responses to those interactions in a well-mixed population. As one of the results, we introduced an index of overall cooperation for each of the 22 countries, which was validated against cultural, economic, and sustainability indicators (HDI, dimensions of national culture, and Environment Performance Index. It was associated with higher human development, higher individualism, lower power distance, and better environmental performance. The findings illustrate how individual differences in TP can be simulated to predict the ways people in different countries solve the personal vs. common gain dilemma in the global limited-resource situation. This interdisciplinary approach to social simulation can be adopted to explain the possible causes of global

  11. Common errors in the treatment of intra-abdominal infections: the irrational use of antimicrobial agents

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Belinda De Simone

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Antimicrobial resistance (AR is a global, emergent problem because an increasing numbers of serious community acquired and nosocomial infections are caused by resistant bacterial pathogens. It is a direct consequence of the excessive and irrational use of antibiotics. The use of antimicrobial agents – aimed to decrease morbidity and mortality rate related to intra-abdominal infections – is very high, often improper, in the Departments of General and Emergency Surgery and Intensive Cure Units. Source control and empiric antibiotic therapy have to be administrated as early as possible to decrease high mortality rates in patients with severe sepsis or septic shock and, in this, the general surgeon has a crucial role. Proper antimicrobial stewardship in selecting an appropriate antibiotic and optimizing its dose and duration to cure intraabdominal infections may prevent the emergence of AR and decrease costs for antibiotics.

  12. Refining a Heuristic for Constructing Bayesian Networks from Structured Arguments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wieten, G.M.; Bex, F.J.; van der Gaag, L.C.; Prakken, H.; Renooij, S.

    2018-01-01

    Recently, a heuristic was proposed for constructing Bayesian networks (BNs) from structured arguments. This heuristic helps domain experts who are accustomed to argumentation to transform their reasoning into a BN and subsequently weigh their case evidence in a probabilistic manner. While the

  13. Does Rhetoric Have a Place in Wohlrapp’s Theory of Argument?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katharina Stevens

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available When a new theory of argumentation becomes available on the English-speaking market, such as it is happening now through the translation of Harald Wohlrapp’s The Concept of Argument, it is always interesting to work out how the new input will interact with the work that has otherwise been done in the field. (Wohlrapp, 2014 This comment aims to determine whether rhetoric has a place in Wohlrapp’s account of argumentation.

  14. The shortest argument for the existence of God in Islamic philosophy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Halilović Seid

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The first cognitive frameworks of the undoubtedly most famous argument for the existence of God in Islamic philosophy were set by the notable Ibn Sina. Having proved the existence of God by considering existence itself, in his famous philosophical book al-Isharat he wrote that in that way he offered the 'argument of the veracious'. In the following stages of the development of this argument this syntagm will become one of the most popular scientific names in the history of philosophical and rational thought in Muslims. Numerous representatives of various schools of philosophy, dogmatic theology and doctrinal gnosis in Islam thoroughly analyzed the text of this part of the al-Isharat book and sometimes formulated new versions of the 'argument of the veracious'. In this paper we will focus on the basic cognitive milestones in the development of this argument and with a view to acquiring this we will use the method of detailed content analysis of the works of those Muslim philosophers who contributed significantly to that intellectual process. Given that scientific destiny of the 'argument of the veracious' quite attractively illustrates the various stages of the development of entire Islamic philosophy, we will try to show that in each new period Islamic philosophical heritage grew a more vital and dominant scientific discipline. On the other hand, we will conclude that throughout history Islamic philosophy and 'arguments of the veracious' have become more reminiscent of subtle intuition of Muslim gnostics and innermost spheres of the original understanding of the sacred Islamic texts and traditions.

  15. Argumentation and Multi-Agent Decision Making

    OpenAIRE

    Parsons, S.; Jennings, N. R.

    1998-01-01

    This paper summarises our on-going work on mixed- initiative decision making which extends both classical decision theory and a symbolic theory of decision making based on argumentation to a multi-agent domain.

  16. Eight Arguments against Double Effect

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Di Nucci, Ezio

    I offer eight arguments against the Doctrine of Double Effect, a normative principle according to which in pursuing the good it is sometimes morally permissible to bring about some evil as a side-effect or merely foreseen consequence: the same evil would not be morally justified as an intended...

  17. The changing of oral argumentation process of grade XI students through Socratic dialogue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I W Pangestika

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Arguments are one of the important purposes in the modern era of learning because it is the basic step to promote student’s critical thinking process and science literacy. Argumentation process can be trained through interactive dialogue that provides opportunities for students to argue. This research aims to change oral argumentation process in biology class of high school through the application of the Socratic Dialogue. The participants were students of grade XI science in one high school located in Surakarta, selected purposively. A classroom action research was done collaboratively between student teacher, lecturers, and teacher, follow the spiral cycles of research by Stephen Kemmis. During the implementation of research, the audio recorder has prepared to record the dialogue and arguments of the students. Next, data recorded that was converted to a dialogue transcript analyzed qualitatively using the Toulmin Argumentation Patterns (TAP. Another data source is teacher’s reflective diaries that contained notes during the learning process. The result shows that student’s oral argumentation process found were only claiming supported by weak warrants. Implementation of the Socratic Dialogue brings positive changes in oral argumentation process of the students, proven by the complete argumentation pattern include claims, data, warrants, backings, and rebuttals at the end of the research cycle. A classroom action research which is developed collaboratively and implement interactive dialogue also inquiry learning is highly recommended to change student’s oral argumentation process.

  18. A LIBRARIAN’S ARGUMENT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brigita Miloš

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Cognitive linguistics/stylistics enable specific insights into the sex / gender identity issues, primarily by their basic theoretical postulate – mind embodiment. The aim of this paper is to analyze how the concept of rape functions in one particular statement/argument. Noted controversies and disputes, stemming from critical reading, also function as a version of ‘other’ embodied understandings of the term in question – rape.

  19. Discounting future health benefits: the poverty of consistency arguments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nord, Erik

    2011-01-01

    In economic evaluation of health care, main stream practice is to discount benefits at the same rate as costs. But main papers in which this practice is advocated have missed a distinction between two quite different evaluation problems: (1) How much does the time of program occurrence matter for value and (2) how much do delays in health benefits from programs implemented at a given time matter? The papers have furthermore focused on logical and arithmetic arguments rather than on real value considerations. These 'consistency arguments' are at best trivial, at worst logically flawed. At the end of the day, there is a sensible argument for equal discounting of costs and benefits rooted in microeconomic theory of rational, utility maximising consumers' saving behaviour. But even this argument is problematic, first because the model is not clearly supported by empirical observations of individuals' time preferences for health, second because it relates only to evaluation in terms of overall individual utility. It does not provide grounds for claiming that decision makers with a wider societal perspective, which may include concerns for fair distribution, need to discount Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  20. Analysis of an epigenetic argument against human reproductive cloning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nordgren, Anders

    2006-08-01

    Human reproductive cloning is a much disputed ethical issue. This technology is often condemned as being contrary to human dignity. However, there are also risk arguments. An ethical argument that is often put forward by scientists but seldom developed in more detail focuses on health risks in animal cloning. There is a high risk that animal clones exhibit abnormalities and these are increasingly believed to be due to errors in epigenetic reprogramming. The argument is that human reproductive cloning should not be carried out because human clones are also likely to exhibit abnormalities due to inappropriate epigenetic reprogramming. Different versions of this epigenetic argument are analysed, a categorical version and a non-categorical. The non-categorical version is suggested to be more well-considered. With regard to policy making on human reproductive cloning, the categorical version can be used to prescribe a permanent ban, while the non-categorical version can be used to prescribe a temporary ban. The implications of the precautionary principle--as interpreted in the European Union--are investigated. The conclusion is that it seems possible to support a temporary ban by reference to this principle.

  1. Semantic types of some generic relation arguments: Detection and evaluation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Katrenko, S.; Adriaans, P.

    2008-01-01

    This paper presents an approach to detection of the semantic types of relation arguments employing the WordNet hierarchy. Using the SemEval-2007 data, we show that the method allows to generalize relation arguments with high precision for such generic relations as Origin-Entity, Content-Container,

  2. Analogy and Intersubjectivity: Political Oratory, Scholarly Argument and Scientific Reports.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gross, Alan G.

    1983-01-01

    Focuses on the different ways political oratory, scholarly argument, and scientific reports use analogy. Specifically, analyzes intersubjective agreement in Franklin D. Roosevelt's First Inaugural address, the scholarly argument between Sir Karl Popper and Thomas S. Kuhn, and the scientific reports of various mathematicians and scientists. (PD)

  3. Non-faith-based arguments against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sulmasy, Daniel P; Travaline, John M; Mitchell, Louise A; Ely, E Wesley

    2016-08-01

    This article is a complement to "A Template for Non-Religious-Based Discussions Against Euthanasia" by Melissa Harintho, Nathaniel Bloodworth, and E. Wesley Ely which appeared in the February 2015 Linacre Quarterly . Herein we build upon Daniel Sulmasy's opening and closing arguments from the 2014 Intelligence Squared debate on legalizing assisted suicide, supplemented by other non-faith-based arguments and thoughts, providing four nontheistic arguments against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: (1) "it offends me"; (2) slippery slope; (3) "pain can be alleviated"; (4) physician integrity and patient trust. Lay Summary: Presented here are four non-religious, reasonable arguments against physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: (1) "it offends me," suicide devalues human life; (2) slippery slope, the limits on euthanasia gradually erode; (3) "pain can be alleviated," palliative care and modern therapeutics more and more adequately manage pain; (4) physician integrity and patient trust, participating in suicide violates the integrity of the physician and undermines the trust patients place in physicians to heal and not to harm.

  4. When Irrational Biases Are Smart: A Fuzzy-Trace Theory of Complex Decision Making

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valerie Reyna

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available I take a decision-making approach to consider ways of addressing the “unresolved and dramatic problems in the world”. Traditional approaches to good decision-making are reviewed. These approaches reduce complex decisions to tradeoffs between magnitudes of probabilities, and outcomes in which the quantity and precision of information are key to making good decisions. I discuss a contrasting framework, called “fuzzy-trace theory”, which emphasizes understanding the simple gist of options and applying core social and moral values. Importantly, the tendency to rely on meaningful but simple gist increases from childhood to adulthood (or, in adulthood, as people gain experience in a domain, so that specific irrational biases grow with knowledge and experience. As predicted theoretically, these violations of rationality in the traditional sense are associated empirically with healthier and more adaptive outcomes. Thus, interventions that help decision makers understand the essential gist of their options and how it connects to core values are practical approaches to reducing “unresolved and dramatic problems in the world” one decision at a time.

  5. Big Argumentation?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Faltesek

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Big Data is nothing new. Public concern regarding the mass diffusion of data has appeared repeatedly with computing innovations, in the formation before Big Data it was most recently referred to as the information explosion. In this essay, I argue that the appeal of Big Data is not a function of computational power, but of a synergistic relationship between aesthetic order and a politics evacuated of a meaningful public deliberation. Understanding, and challenging, Big Data requires an attention to the aesthetics of data visualization and the ways in which those aesthetics would seem to depoliticize information. The conclusion proposes an alternative argumentative aesthetic as the appropriate response to the depoliticization posed by the popular imaginary of Big Data.

  6. Advancing Competencies in Argumentation at Schools using the Example of "Culture-Environment Interaction"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Budke, A.; Schaebitz, F.; Dittrich, S.

    2016-12-01

    According to the German national education standards communication is one of the six areas in which competencies shall be conveyed in Geography classes. Special significance is given to the training of the competence to solve problems through argumentation. Argumentation has a great significance in the learning process in schools, because here the students' knowledge pools are individually linked and understood. According to modern theories of learning, learning is a constructive process. Linking existing pools of knowledge to new insights is usually triggered by communication and argumentation in the classroom. Furthermore, argumentation helps with the individual's formation of opinion as well as their identification with certain values. Argumentation is one of the central social and cultural techniques to solve conflicts peacefully, to conduct negotiations, and to act in one's own interests. Thus conveying competence in argumentation is to be seen as an interdisciplinary task in education. Recently a hypothetical model of competence in geographical argumentation was proposed, a methodical instrument for measuring competence in geographical argumentation was developed, and by analyzing textbooks it was shown that this topic is only marginally targeted by exercises. The Collaborative Research Center 806 "Our Way to Europe" (www.sfb806.uni-koeln.de), with its cross disciplinary research in the sciences as well as humanities offers an outstanding basis for developing and evaluating teaching material and concepts. The use of these diverse topics, complex systems, and the various research problems as well as findings of the CRC-806 allowed developing study units designed to promote problem solving and argumentation skills in the sciences and humanities. Here we will present the results of this study based on special teaching materials, which was tested and evaluated to support students in formulating scientific problems and promote their argumentation skills.

  7. Feminist Responses to Rogerian Argument.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lassner, Phyllis

    1990-01-01

    Discusses a course in which female students were instructed to compose argumentative compositions in the empathic style of Carl Rogers. Reports that students disliked the style, believing it pretended to accept minority opinions while making women feel as if they had to change their views to belong to the majority culture. (SG)

  8. Tracing the Rationale Behind UML Model Change Through Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jureta, Ivan J.; Faulkner, Stéphane

    Neglecting traceability—i.e., the ability to describe and follow the life of a requirement—is known to entail misunderstanding and miscommunication, leading to the engineering of poor quality systems. Following the simple principles that (a) changes to UML model instances ought be justified to the stakeholders, (b) justification should proceed in a structured manner to ensure rigor in discussions, critique, and revisions of model instances, and (c) the concept of argument instantiated in a justification process ought to be well defined and understood, the present paper introduces the UML Traceability through Argumentation Method (UML-TAM) to enable the traceability of design rationale in UML while allowing the appropriateness of model changes to be checked by analysis of the structure of the arguments provided to justify such changes.

  9. Analogical Arguments in Ethics and Law: A Defence of Deductivism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fábio Perin Shecaira

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The paper provides a qualified defence of Bruce Waller’s deductivist schema for a priori analogical arguments in ethics and law. One crucial qualification is that the schema represents analogical arguments as complexes composed of one deductive inference (hence “deductivism” but also of one non-deductive subargument. Another important qualification is that the schema is informed by normative assumptions regarding the conditions that an analogical argument must satisfy in order for it to count as an optimal instance of its kind. Waller’s schema (in qualified form is defended from criticisms formulated by Trudy Govier, Marcello Guarini and Lilian Bermejo-Luque.

  10. The adventures of climate science in the sweet land of idle arguments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winsberg, Eric; Goodwin, William Mark

    2016-05-01

    In a recent series of papers Roman Frigg, Leonard Smith, and several coauthors have developed a general epistemological argument designed to cast doubt on the capacity of a broad range of mathematical models to generate "decision relevant predictions." The presumptive targets of their argument are at least some of the modeling projects undertaken in contemporary climate science. In this paper, we trace and contrast two very different readings of the scope of their argument. We do this by considering the very different implications for climate science that these interpretations would have. Then, we lay out the structure of their argument-an argument by analogy-with an eye to identifying points at which certain epistemically significant distinctions might limit the force of the analogy. Finally, some of these epistemically significant distinctions are introduced and defended as relevant to a great many of the predictive mathematical modeling projects employed in contemporary climate science.

  11. Quine's Double Standard: Undermining the Indispensability Argument via the Indeterminacy of Reference

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Otávio Bueno

    2003-12-01

    Full Text Available Quine has famously put forward the indispensability argument to force belief in the existence of mathematical objects (such as classes due to their indispensability to our best theories of the world (Quine 1960. Quine has also advocated the indeterminacy of reference argument, according to which reference is dramatically indeterminate: given a language, there’s no unique reference relation for that language (see Quine 1969a. In this paper, I argue that these two arguments are in conflict with each other. Whereas the indispensability argument supports realism about mathematics, the indeterminacy of reference argument, when applied to mathematics, provides a powerful strategy in support of mathematical anti-realism. I conclude the paper by indicating why the indeterminacy of reference phenomenon should be preferred over the considerations regarding indispensability. In the end, even the Quinean shouldn’t be a realist (platonist about mathematics.

  12. Guidelines for writing an argumentative essay

    OpenAIRE

    Aleksandra Egurnova

    2014-01-01

    The guidelines below are intended for teachers, professors, students, and the public at large who are interested in the issues of English writing culture. They provide a detailed plan for completing the writing task–writing an argumentative essay.

  13. The Types of Argument Structure Used by Hillary Clinton in the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anggie Angeline

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This qualitative research was conducted to examine the types of argument structure by Hillary Clinton in part one of the CNN Democratic Presidential Debate since Hillary, who had a great deal of experiences in political parties, was supposed to be able to construct convincing arguments that had good argument structures. The theories used to analyze were Bierman and Assali’s (1996, King’s (n.d. and Stanlick’s (2003. The findings showed that there were five types of argument structure used: serial, linked, convergent, divergent, and hybrid argument structures. The linked argument structure was the argument structure used the most frequently in Hillary’s utterances in the debate, while the divergent was the least one. Thus, it could be concluded that Hillary’s speech in the Presidential Debate was quite interesting since she could combine all the five types of argument structure, though the frequency of using them was not the same and it seems that linked argument structure was the most effective strategy for her in arguing about the politic, economy, and social issues.

  14. Oral genres, argumentation and teaching

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zilda G. O. Aquino

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims at dealing with issues related to language spoken in the classroom, focusing on discursive practices that highlight argumentation. We believe that the discussions that were made around genres, especially guided by the studies of Bakhtin and Text Linguistics, have been providing a breakthrough towards the necessity for the school to promote language teaching through the discursive genre approach. That is what we expect to be happening since both writing and spoken modalities deserve space in learning. We believe that oral genres demand that teachers acquire specific knowledge of the features of spoken language interaction that arise from its use in practical situations. Because these studies are recent among our researchers (not longer than three decades, they should still be very present in our discussions. In this paper, we focus on a specific genre of oral tradition – the debate. It is ideal for knowledge building and taking a stand at issues that arise in society, all of which is particularly important to the school. Besides contributing to the development of skills required by certain sociodiscursive practices, it is proposed that the teaching of argumentation in oral genres concentrate on the observation of selected strategies in interactions. We are particularly interested in interactions that emerge when one interaction party is trying to persuade the other. The corpus consists of the transcriptions of debates which occurred both in the classroom and in other contexts, such as the media. The methodological approach is done by identifying the arguments and their strategic use in specific situations. The theoretical discussion rests on the works of Orecchioni (2010, Marcuschi (2004, Dolz and Schneuwly (2004, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1996 [1958], among others.

  15. Semantic types of some generic relation arguments: Detection and evaluation

    OpenAIRE

    Katrenko, S.; Adriaans, P.

    2008-01-01

    This paper presents an approach to detection of the semantic types of relation arguments employing the WordNet hierarchy. Using the SemEval-2007 data, we show that the method allows to generalize relation arguments with high precision for such generic relations as Origin-Entity, Content-Container, Instrument-Agency and some other.

  16. Overcoming state within the Friedrich Nietzsche’s irrational approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. F. Zakharchuk

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available The article analyzes the views of Nietzsche on the nature and significance of the state in the context of socio-political issues. Examines how the criticism of Nietzsche for the state’s phenomenon is related to his irrational approach to the socio-political sphere, and therefore also raises the question of the possibility of attracting these Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas regarding the institution of the state to understanding contemporary socio-political processes. For the disclosure of the above tasks in the work undertaken analysis of the Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas in terms of their correlation with some general philosophical ideas of the German philosopher. In particular understanding of Nietzsche role of the state has been analyzed in the context of ideas like the idea of a hierarchical society, the idea of the superman, the idea of true morality. These ideas go beyond the purely social and philosophical beliefs of the thinker, but they are essential for understanding the logic and purposes of the consideration of the Nietzschean idea of the state. These ideas have been analyzed in the study mainly critically, in particular given the Nietzsche’s controversial assessment of state as a negative phenomenon and situational positive assessment of the state’s role. It is noted that this duality of Nietzsche in this issue is just due to the formulation of more general philosophical problems then was stated above. At the same time, the work focuses on the possibility of positive reading Nietzsche’s position on the state, which is associated with the idea of the free will of the individual opposed to the dictates of the enslaved majority.

  17. Arguing collaboratively: Argumentative discourse types and their potential for knowledge building.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Felton, Mark; Garcia-Mila, Merce; Villarroel, Constanza; Gilabert, Sandra

    2015-09-01

    There is growing interest in using argumentative discourse in educational settings. However, in a previous study, we found that discourse goals (persuasion vs. consensus) while arguing can affect student outcomes in both content learning and reasoning. In this study, we look at argumentative discourse data from a previous study to ask how differences in discourse might account for the differences we observed in learning and reasoning outcomes. One hundred and five dialogues (57 disputative, 48 consensus) between 7th grade science students attending a public high school near Tarragona, Spain. Participants were randomly assigned to conditions and paired with peers who disagreed with them on three topics related to renewable energy sources. After instruction on each topic, they were asked to either 'argue to convince' (persuasion condition) or 'argue to reach consensus' (consensus condition) on that topic. Conversations were audio-recorded and transcribed for analysis. Students in the persuasion condition engaged in shorter conversational exchanges around argumentative claims and were more likely to use moves that foreclosed discussion, whereas students in the consensus condition were more likely to use moves that elicited, elaborated on, and integrated their partners' ideas. When arguing to reach - rather than defend - a conclusion, students are more likely to coconstruct knowledge by exchanging and integrating arguments. These findings are consistent with predictions about the potential of argumentation for knowledge building and suggest that teachers must attend to discourse goals when using argumentation to support learning and reasoning. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

  18. Perceptions of the Nature and 'Goodness' of Argument among College Students, Science Teachers, and Scientists

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abi-El-Mona, Issam; Abd-El-Khalick, Fouad

    2011-03-01

    This study aimed to elucidate college freshmen science students, secondary science teachers, and scientists' perceptions of 'scientific' argument; to compare participants' perceptions with Stephen Toulmin's analytical framework of argument; and to characterize the criteria that participants deployed when assessing the 'quality' or 'goodness' of arguments. Thirty students, teachers, and scientists-with 10 members in each group-participated in two semi-structured individual interviews. During the first interview, participants generated an argument in response to a socioscientific issue. In the second interview, each participant 'evaluated' three arguments generated by a member from each participant group without being privy to the arguer's group membership. Interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed. The findings point to both similarities and differences between participants' conceptions of argument and those based on Toulmin's analytical framework. Participants used an array of common and idiosyncratic criteria to judge the quality or goodness of argument. Finally, contrary to expectations, participants independently agreed that the 'best' arguments were those generated by participant science teachers.

  19. Graphical Argument in the Essayist Prose of the Pesquisa FAPESP Journal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irene Machado

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available This article investigates the concept of graphical argumentation as an exercise of essayistic prose developed in the process of writing expansion in printed texts. It is understood that by expanding the scope of the word in the context of visual graphics processes such as drawings, photography and infographics, arguments are achievements much more of diagrammatic reasoning than of rhetorical elaboration. Proof of that are graphic arguments, which have become an inalienable modeling from texts of scientific communication, such as the ones produced in the Pesquisa FAPESP journal.

  20. Argumentative Writing in Pre-Adolescents: The Role of Verbal Reasoning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nippold, Marilyn A.; Ward-Lonergan, Jeannene M.

    2010-01-01

    Argumentative writing is a challenging communication task that calls upon sophisticated cognitive and linguistic abilities. Pre-adolescents (n = 80; mean age = 11;10; range = 10;6-13:5) were asked to write an argumentative essay on the controversial topic of training animals to perform in circuses. Additionally, they were asked to solve a set of…

  1. Argument Graph as a Tool for Promoting Collaborative Online Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiili, Carita

    2013-01-01

    This study explored how the construction of an argument graph promotes students' collaborative online reading compared to note-taking. Upper secondary school students ("n"?=?76) worked in pairs. The pairs were asked to search for and read source material on the Web for a joint essay and either construct an argument graph or take notes…

  2. Argument-Counterargument Structure in Indonesian EFL Learners' English Argumentative Essays: A Dialogic Concept of Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rusfandi

    2015-01-01

    This study investigates the potential use of the argument-counterargument structure in English L2 essays written by Indonesian EFL learners. It examines whether L2 proficiency affects the use of opposing views in their essays, and measures whether there is a correlation between the use of the rhetorical structure and the participants' overall…

  3. Discounting Testimony with the Argument Ad Hominem and a Bayesian Congruent Prior Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhatia, Jaydeep-Singh; Oaksford, Mike

    2015-01-01

    When directed to ignore evidence of a witness's previous bad character because of a violation of the rules of evidence, are jurors' beliefs still affected? The intuition is that they will be because in everyday argumentation, fallacies, like the ad hominem, are effective argumentative strategies. An ad hominem argument (against the person)…

  4. When Arguments and Sounds of Words Begin to Speak - About Learning rhetorics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatjana Zidar

    1995-12-01

    Full Text Available There has been a growing awareness as to the need of knowledge to improvc public speaking and interpersonal communication. When limiting our consideration to two essential elements contributing to efficient public speakiog, i.e. the strength of argumcntation and voice modulation of the text, one becomes aware of how important argumentation is. It is necessary for a speaker to fonn efficient arguments by taking into account his or her ethical features. Further, there are at least five types of argumentation (deduction, induction, analogous, causative and referential concluding. There is a need, on the other hand, to avoid sly and dishonest argumentation (evasion, dangerous speculations, ... etc.. Nevertheless, the argumentation alone does not suffice. Speakers should develop a feeling enabling them to teli when the speech is good, i e. how to catch attention of the audience, how to conclude efficiently, how to be dramatic, how to order arguments, what language to use. To this purpose three basic elements of persuasion are used: etos, patos and logos. Other elements can help forwarding the message, such as: intonation, language register, colour and intensity of speech, tempo and pronunciation. To enhance public speaking the content and the speech form are to be linked.

  5. Using History and Philosophy of Science to Promote Students' Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Archila, Pablo Antonio

    2015-01-01

    This article describes the effect of a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) based on the discovery of oxygen in promoting students' argumentation. It examines the written and oral arguments produced by 63 high school students (24 females and 39 males, 16-17 years old) in France during a complete TLS supervised by the same teacher. The data used in…

  6. Swiss residents' arguments for and against a career in medicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buddeberg-Fischer, Barbara; Dietz, Claudia; Klaghofer, Richard; Buddeberg, Claus

    2006-08-14

    In some Western countries, the medical profession is continuously losing prestige, doctors are claiming of high demands, low rewards, and difficult structural working conditions. This study aimed to investigate the arguments given by Swiss residents for and against a career in medicine. As part of a prospective cohort study of Swiss medical school graduates on career development, 567 fourth-year residents were asked to answer the free-response item of what arguments there still were in favour of or against a career in medicine. They also indicated whether they would choose the medical profession all over again (yes/no). The statements were transcribed, content categories inductively formulated, and their descriptions written down in a code manual. Arguments were encoded according to the code manual and assigned to eight content categories (Mayring's content analysis). Frequency distributions were given for categories and tested with Chi2-tests for differences in gender, speciality fields, and whether or not the respondent would again choose a career in medicine. The 567 participants made 1,640 statements in favour of and 1,703 statements against a career in medicine. The content analysis of the residents' answers yielded eight categories with arguments both for and against a career in medicine. Of all "statements for" responses, 70% fell into the two top-ranking categories of Personal experiences in day-to-day working life (41.2%) and Interpersonal experiences in professional relationships (28.8%). The top-ranking category of the "statements against" arguments was General work-related structural conditions (32%), followed by Social prestige and health-policy aspects (21%). Main arguments in favour of a career in medicine were interdisciplinary challenge, combination of basic sciences and interpersonal concerns, helping suffering people, guarantee of a secure job; arguments against comprised high workload, time pressure, emotional stress, poorly structured

  7. Swiss residents' arguments for and against a career in medicine

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buddeberg-Fischer, Barbara; Dietz, Claudia; Klaghofer, Richard; Buddeberg, Claus

    2006-01-01

    Background In some Western countries, the medical profession is continuously losing prestige, doctors are claiming of high demands, low rewards, and difficult structural working conditions. This study aimed to investigate the arguments given by Swiss residents for and against a career in medicine. Methods As part of a prospective cohort study of Swiss medical school graduates on career development, 567 fourth-year residents were asked to answer the free-response item of what arguments there still were in favour of or against a career in medicine. They also indicated whether they would choose the medical profession all over again (yes/no). The statements were transcribed, content categories inductively formulated, and their descriptions written down in a code manual. Arguments were encoded according to the code manual and assigned to eight content categories (Mayring's content analysis). Frequency distributions were given for categories and tested with Chi2-tests for differences in gender, speciality fields, and whether or not the respondent would again choose a career in medicine. Results The 567 participants made 1,640 statements in favour of and 1,703 statements against a career in medicine. The content analysis of the residents' answers yielded eight categories with arguments both for and against a career in medicine. Of all "statements for" responses, 70% fell into the two top-ranking categories of Personal experiences in day-to-day working life (41.2%) and Interpersonal experiences in professional relationships (28.8%). The top-ranking category of the "statements against" arguments was General work-related structural conditions (32%), followed by Social prestige and health-policy aspects (21%). Main arguments in favour of a career in medicine were interdisciplinary challenge, combination of basic sciences and interpersonal concerns, helping suffering people, guarantee of a secure job; arguments against comprised high workload, time pressure, emotional stress

  8. The Effect of Task Instructions on Students' Use of Repetition in Argumentative Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilabert, Sandra; Garcia-Mila, Merce; Felton, Mark K.

    2013-11-01

    The reasoning belief of argumentum ad nauseam assumes that when someone repeats something often enough, he or she becomes more convincing. The present paper analyses the use of this strategy by seventh-grade students in an argumentation task. Sixty-five students (mean age: 12.2, SD = 0.4) from a public school in a mid-sized urban environment took part in the study. The students were asked to either argue to convince an opposing partner or argue to reach consensus with an opposing partner on three dilemmas that dealt with energy sources. Data were gathered according to a between-groups design that included one independent variable (argumentative goal: to convince vs. to reach consensus) and one dependent variable (the degree of argumentative repetitions). We predicted that in the condition to convince their partner, the students would use the repetition strategy more often in their attempts to be persuasive. Our findings show that the mean number of argumentative repetitions was significantly higher for the persuasion group for both of the most frequent argumentative structures (claim and claim data). The mean percentage of repeated claims for the persuasion condition was 86.2 vs. 69.0 for the consensus condition. For the claim data, the mean percentage for the persuasion group was 35.2 vs. 24.3 for the consensus group. Also, students in the persuasion group tended to repeat one idea many times rather than repeating many ideas a few times within the same argumentative structure. The results of our study support the hypothesis that the goal of the argumentative task mediates argumentative discourse and, more concretely, the rate of repetitions and the conceptual diversity of the statements. These differences in rates of repetition and conceptual diversity are related to the amount of learning produced by the instructional goal. We apply Mercer's idea that not all classroom argumentation tasks promote learning equally.

  9. TV Fights: Women and Men in Interpersonal Arguments on Prime-Time Television Dramas.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brinson, Susan L.

    1992-01-01

    Studies the behaviors of women and men represented in interpersonal arguments in prime-time television dramas. Finds a weak link between actual argument behaviors and those on television, thereby socializing viewers in a manner inconsistent with reality. Suggests that television arguments are guided more by the needs of the medium that a need to…

  10. Scaffolding norms of argumentation-based inquiry in a primary mathematics classroom

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Makar, Katie; Bakker, Arthur; Ben-Zvi, Dani

    2015-01-01

    Developing argumentation-based inquiry practices requires teachers and students to be explicit about classroom norms that support these practices. In this study, we asked: How can a teacher scaffold the development of argumentation-based inquiry norms and practices in a mathematics classroom? A

  11. Two Millian Arguments: Using Helen Longino’s Approach to Solve the Problems Philip Kitcher Targeted with His Argument on Freedom of Inquiry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaana Eigi

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Philip Kitcher argued that the freedom to pursue one's version of the good life is the main aim of Mill's argument for freedom of expression. According to Kitcher, in certain scientific fields, political and epistemological asymmetries bias research toward conclusions that threaten this most important freedom of underprivileged groups. Accordingly, Kitcher claimed that there are Millian grounds for limiting freedom of inquiry in these fields to protect the freedom of the underprivileged.I explore Kitcher's argument in light of the interpretation Helen Longino gave to Mill's argument. She argued that free critical dialogue in the community allows bias to be overcome, through intersubjective criticism of hypotheses and the background assumptions that frame them.I suggest that Longino's approach allows for the identification of the fundamental problems of the research programs Kitcher targeted, and for the rejection of their claims to knowledge. Thus it is possible to address Kitcher's problem without limiting freedom of speech.

  12. GSN - The Goal Structuring Notation A Structured Approach to Presenting Arguments

    CERN Document Server

    Spriggs, John

    2012-01-01

    Goal Structuring Notation (GSN)  is becoming increasing popular; practitioners use it in the railway, air traffic management and nuclear industries, amongst others.  Originally developed to present safety assurance arguments, GSN need not be restricted to safety assurances only; in principle, you can use it to present (and test) any argument.  Anyone wishing to support, or refute, a claim can use GSN. Written by an experienced practitioner, The Goal Structuring Notation is both for those who wish to prepare and present compelling arguments using the notation, and for those who wish to review such arguments critically and effectively. To emphasise the versatility of this approach The Goal Structuring Notation presents examples and questions based on diverse subject areas including Business Management, Drama, Engineering, Politics and Astrobiology. Simple examples introduce each symbol of the notation before introducing more complex structures which illustrate how the symbols work together in practical scena...

  13. Modal Arguments against Physicalism in View of Scientific Findings Concerning Pain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maja Malec

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available I analyse Kripke's modal argument against the mind-brain identity theories. Specifically, he argues against the identity between pain and C-fibres simulation by pointing out the difference between this identity claim and the theoretical identifications, such as 'Water is H2O' and 'Lightning is a motion of electric charges'. Kripke's argument relies on the assumption that the experience of pains is a simple and homogenous phenomenon, but scientific research shows that it is in fact a quite complex one. We can distinguish at least three components: sensory-discriminative, motivational-affective and cognitive. This discovery makes it possible to reject Kripke's argument, but it also uncovers a major flaw that is common to all modal arguments against physicalism. They proclaim to answer the fundamental question about the nature of our world by relying on our powers of imagination and without having the relevant factual knowledge.

  14. The effects of online peer feedback and epistemic beliefs on students’ argumentation-based learning

    OpenAIRE

    Noroozi, Omid; Hatami, Javad

    2018-01-01

    Although the importance of students’ argumentative peer feedback for learning is undeniable, there is a need for further empirical evidence on whether and how it is related to various aspects of argumentation-based learning namely argumentative essay writing, domain-specific learning, and attitudinal change while considering their epistemic beliefs which are known to be related to argumentation. In this study, a pre-test–post-test design was conducted with 42 higher education students who wer...

  15. Faut-il intégrer l’argumentation dans l’analyse du discours ? Problématiques et enjeux Should Argumentation be Integrated into Discourse Analysis?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ruth Amossy

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Cet article justifie la nécessité pour l’analyse du discours d’intégrer pleinement en son sein l’argumentation comme élément constitutif du discours. Une présentation synthétique de la théorie de l’argumentation dans le discours, à la croisée de la Nouvelle Rhétorique et de l’analyse du discours développée en France, montre cependant en quoi elle diffère de la nouvelle version de la Critical Discourse Analysis qui se nourrit de l’approche normative de la pragma-dialectique. En même temps, elle tente de résoudre les tensions théoriques entre les conceptions de l’argumentation inspirées d’Aristote et de Perelman, et les courants de l’analyse du discours qui reposent sur une vision contemporaine du sujet et des contraintes sociales et institutionnelles qui modèlent le discours. La synthèse théorique est suivie d’une exemplification concrète : une micro-analyse d’un post électronique sur le port de la burqa en France. L’article débouche sur une discussion concernant les modalités selon lesquelles l’analyse qui traite des discours sociaux et des problèmes de société autorise ou exclut l’engagement politique ou éthique des chercheurs.This paper accounts for the necessity of integrating argumentation as a constitutive element of discourse into Discourse Analysis. A synthetic presentation of the theory of argumentation in discourse drawing on New Rhetoric and (French Discourse Analysis shows how it differs from the new version of CDA that is derived from a normative approach to argumentation based on pragma-dialectics. It also endeavors to resolve the theoretical tensions between theories of argumentation borrowed from Aristotle, and trends of Discourse Analysis that rely on contemporary conceptions of the subject and on the social constraints imposed upon discourse. The theoretical synthesis is followed by a concrete exemplification – the micro-analysis of a polemical poston the burqa in

  16. Transfer Mispricing as an Argument for Corporate Social Responsibility

    OpenAIRE

    Asongu, Simplice; Nwachukwu, Jacinta C.

    2016-01-01

    This article presents a case for transfer mispricing as an argument for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The argument builds on the position that in order to compensate for potential loss of brand image and reputation, Multinational Companies (MNCs) would be more socially responsible when they are operating in countries where the legislation and laws in place are not effective at identifying and sanctioning transfer mispricing. We first discuss the dark side of transfer pricing (TP), ne...

  17. Denying the Antecedent: Its Effective Use in Argumentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mark A. Stone

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Denying the antecedent is an invalid form of reasoning that is typically identified and frowned upon as a formal fallacy. Contrary to arguments that it does not or at least should not occur, denying the antecedent is a legitimate and effective strategy for undermining a position. Since it is not a valid form of argument, it cannot prove that the position is false. But it can provide inductive evidence that this position is probably false. In this role, it is neither defective nor deceptive. Denying the antecedent provides inductive support for rejecting a claim as improbable.

  18. Understanding a High School Physics Teacher's Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Argumentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jianlan; Buck, Gayle A.

    2016-01-01

    Scientific argumentation is an important learning objective in science education. It is also an effective instructional approach to constructivist science learning. The implementation of argumentation in school settings requires science teachers, who are pivotal agents of transforming classroom practices, to develop sophisticated knowledge of…

  19. (Non-)Arguments in Long-Distance Extractions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nyvad, Anne Mette; Kizach, Johannes; Christensen, Ken Ramshøj

    2015-01-01

    Previous research has shown that in fully grammatical sentences, response time increases and acceptability decreases when the filler in a long-distance extraction is incom- patible with the matrix verb. This effect could potentially be due to a difference between argument and adjunct extraction. ...

  20. Process of Argumentation in High School Biology Class: A Qualitative Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramli, M.; Rakhmawati, E.; Hendarto, P.; Winarni

    2017-02-01

    Argumentation skill can be nurtured by designing a lesson in which students are provided with the opportunity to argue. This research aims to analyse argumentation process in biology class. The participants were students of three biology classes from different high schools in Surakarta Indonesia. One of the classroom was taught by a student teacher, and the rest were instructed by the assigned teachers. Through a classroom observation, oral activities were noted, audio-recorded and video-taped. Coding was done based on the existence of claiming-reasoning-evidence (CRE) process by McNeill and Krajcik. Data was analysed qualitatively focusing on the role of teachers to initiate questioning to support argumentation process. The lesson design of three were also analysed. The result shows that pedagogical skill of teachers to support argumentation process, such as skill to ask, answer, and respond to students’ question and statements need to be trained intensively. Most of the argumentation found were only claiming, without reasoning and evidence. Teachers have to change the routine of mostly posing open-ended questions to students, and giving directly a correct answer to students’ questions. Knowledge and skills to encourage student to follow inquiry-based learning have to be acquired by teachers.

  1. The effects of online peer feedback and epistemic beliefs on students’ argumentation-based learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Noroozi, Omid; Hatami, Javad

    2018-01-01

    Although the importance of students’ argumentative peer feedback for learning is undeniable, there is a need for further empirical evidence on whether and how it is related to various aspects of argumentation-based learning namely argumentative essay writing, domain-specific learning, and

  2. Rationalising the 'irrational': a think aloud study of discrete choice experiment responses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ryan, Mandy; Watson, Verity; Entwistle, Vikki

    2009-03-01

    Stated preference methods assume respondents' preferences are consistent with utility theory, but many empirical studies report evidence of preferences that violate utility theory. This evidence is often derived from quantitative tests that occur naturally within, or are added to, stated preference tasks. In this study, we use qualitative methods to explore three axioms of utility theory: completeness, monotonicity, and continuity. We take a novel approach, adopting a 'think aloud' technique to identify violations of the axioms of utility theory and to consider how well the quantitative tests incorporated within a discrete choice experiment are able to detect these. Results indicate that quantitative tests classify respondents as being 'irrational' when qualitative statements would indicate they are 'rational'. In particular, 'non-monotonic' responses can often be explained by respondents inferring additional information beyond what is presented in the task, and individuals who appear to adopt non-compensatory decision-making strategies do so because they rate particular attributes very highly (they are not attempting to simplify the task). The results also provide evidence of 'cost-based responses': respondents assumed tests with higher costs would be of higher quality. The value of including in-depth qualitative validation techniques in the development of stated preference tasks is shown.

  3. SECRETARIAT AND TEXTUAL PRODUCTION: ARGUMENTATION IN THE TEXTUAL GENRE LETTER OF DECLARATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erivaldo Pereira do Nascimento

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available This article aims at describing the semantic argumentative structure of the textual/discursive genre Letter of Declaration, one of the documents with which the executive secretary frequently deals. This investigation is based on the Argumention Theory in the Language proposed by Ducrot (1988,1987. We also used the studies about Discursive Modalization proposed by Koch (2002, Castilho e Castilho (1993, Nascimento (2005, among others. Modalization is considered here as a semantic argumentative strategy, as it enables the speaker to make a statement or to express a point of view about the content of his/her enunciation, according to the interlocution. This study about the previously mentioned gender is qualitative, quantitative and descriptive. The corpus used is composed of 20 (twenty Letters of Declaration issued by different organizations or private and public institutions. We perceived that in the Letters of Declaration analysed argumentation is achieved by the use of modalizers and argumentative operators, used by the speaker to produce different effects of meaning in the texts.

  4. Focus, accent, and argument structure: effects on language comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birch, S; Clifton, C

    1995-01-01

    Four experiments investigated the effect of syntactic argument structure on the evaluation and comprehension of utterances with different patterns of pitch accents. Linguistic analyses of the relation between focus and prosody note that it is possible for certain accented constituents within a broadly focused phrase to project focus to the entire phrase. We manipulated focus requirements and accent in recorded question-answer pairs and asked listeners to make linguistic judgments of prosodic appropriateness (Experiments 1 and 3) or to make judgments based on meaningful comprehension (Experiments 2 and 4). Naive judgments of prosodic appropriateness were generally consistent with the linguistic analyses, showing preferences for utterances in which contextually new noun phrases received accent and old noun phrases did not, but suggested that an accented new argument NP was not fully effective in projecting broad focus to the entire VP. However, the comprehension experiments did demonstrate that comprehension of a sentence with broad VP focus was as efficient when only a lexical argument NP received accent as when both NP and verb received accent. Such focus projection did not occur when the argument NP was an "independent quantifier" such as nobody or everything. The results extend existing demonstrations that the ease of understanding spoken discourse depends on appropriate intonational marking of focus to cases where certain structurally-defined words can project focus-marking to an entire phrase.

  5. Crenças irracionais, ajustamento psicológico e satisfação de vida em estudantes universitários Irrational beliefs, psychological adjustment and life satisfaction in college students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adriana da Matta

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Crenças irracionais (CIs são interpretações ilógicas da realidade que colaboram para o desenvolvimento de perturbações emocionais. A premissa deste estudo é que as CIs podem estar relacionadas ao ajustamento emocional e à satisfação de vida. Estudantes universitários (n=157, responderam ao Questionário de Crenças Irracionais, à Escala de Crenças Irracionais, à Escala Fatorial de Neuroticismo e à Escala de Satisfação de Vida. As CIs apresentaram correlações positivas com dois fatores da Escala Fatorial de Neuroticismo (Vulnerabilidade e Ansiedade e negativa com idade e com satisfação de vida. Os resultados levam a reflexões importantes sobre a efetividade da Terapia Cognitiva, em especial da Terapia Racional Emotivo-Comportamental, para o ajustamento emocional e para a satisfação de vida dos clientes, que poderiam ser medidas indiretas de sucesso terapêutico.Irrational beliefs (IB are illogical interpretations of reality that contribute to the development of emotional problems. This study aims to show that irrational beliefs in college students (n=157 might be related to emotional adjustment and life satisfaction. The participants have completed Irrational Beliefs Questionnaire, Neuroticism Factorial Scale and Life Satisfaction Scale. The IB showed positive correlation with two factors of the Neuroticism Factorial Scale (Vulnerability and Anxiety, and negative correlation with age and life satisfaction. The results suggest important considerations on the effectiveness of Cognitive Therapy, especially of Rational Emotive Therapy, for the emotional adjustment and life satisfaction of the clients, which could be an indirect measure of the therapeutic success.

  6. A Synthesis of Grice-Strawson‟s, and Putnam‟s Arguments in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ... the strength and weaknesses and then come out with a synthesis of the arguments. In other words, the paper intends to attempt an alternative defence of the analytic-synthetic distinction from the synthesis of the arguments. Keywords: Semantical rule, Satisfactory explanation, Analyticity, Formal language, Web of belief.

  7. Perspective Taking and Synchronous Argumentation for Learning the Day/Night Cycle

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwarz, Baruch B.; Schur, Yaron; Pensso, Haim; Tayer, Naama

    2011-01-01

    Changing practices in schools is a very complex endeavor. This paper is about new practices we prompted to foster collaboration and critical reasoning in science classrooms: the presentation of pictures representing different perspectives, small group synchronous argumentation, and moderation of synchronous argumentation. A CSCL tool helped in…

  8. Reaching Agreement: The Structure & Pragmatics of Critical Care Nurses' Informal Argument

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hagler, Debra A.; Brem, Sarah K.

    2008-01-01

    The hospital critical care unit provides an authentic, high-stakes setting for studying reasoning, argumentation, and discourse. In particular, it allows examination of structural and pragmatic features of informal collaborative argument created while participants are engaged in familiar, meaningful activities central to their work. The nursing…

  9. Refuting the "Nimble Fingers" Argument [and] Working Together against Child Labour.

    Science.gov (United States)

    World of Work, 1996

    1996-01-01

    An International Labour Organization study refutes one of the most common arguments of apologists for child labor in the hand-woven carpet industry--the so-called nimble fingers argument. Excerpts from presentations at an International Labour Organization meeting highlight the commitment to eradicating child labor. (JOW)

  10. Rhetorical Use of Inscriptions in Students' Written Arguments About Socioscientific Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, Sihan

    2018-05-01

    Educators expect that students be able to make informed decisions about science-related problems in their everyday lives. Engaging science in such problems often entails evaluating available evidence for given arguments. This study explores how students use inscriptions as evidence to argue about socioscientific issues. Fifth- and sixth-grade students (N = 102) in two intact classrooms completed written argument tasks in which they were asked to cite given inscriptions to support their decisions about energy use or genetically modified organisms. Qualitative content analyses of these written arguments, which focused on the coordination between inscriptions and claims, show three patterns of rhetorical use of inscriptions: seeing is believing, believing is seeing, and asserting is inferring. What counts as evidence was not the inscriptions per se, but the rhetorical functions they performed in particular arguments. These findings suggest that justifying socioscientific decisions is functionally different from explaining scientific phenomena. Linking these two activities in school may help students more productively engage with science in their everyday lives.

  11. Effects of a Training Intervention to Foster Argumentation Skills While Processing Conflicting Scientific Positions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hefter, Markus H.; Berthold, Kirsten; Renkl, Alexander; Riess, Werner; Schmid, Sebastian; Fries, Stefan

    2014-01-01

    Argumentation skills play a crucial role in science education and in preparing school students to act as informed citizens. While processing conflicting scientific positions regarding topics such as sustainable development in the domain of ecology, argumentation skills such as evaluating arguments or supporting theories with evidence are…

  12. Implementation of Web-Based Argumentation in Facilitating Elementary School Students to Learn Environmental Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, T. H.

    2014-01-01

    This research develops a Web-based argumentation system named the Web-based Interactive Argumentation System (WIAS). WIAS can provide teachers with the scaffolding for argumentation instruction. Students can propose their statements, collect supporting evidence and share and discuss with peers online. This research adopts a quasi-experimental…

  13. Preservice teachers' discursive approaches to constructing scientific arguments from evidence to claim

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilles, Brent David

    Scientific argumentation has recently become required in K-12 classrooms, but preservice teachers often do not have prior experiences with this practice. The lack of prior experiences has made engaging in argumentation during inquiry-based content courses a priority for science teacher educators because of its importance in science education. Previous research has not examined how preservice teachers construct arguments in classroom interactions. A discourse analysis of twenty-one preservice teachers was conducted to study how preservice teachers constructed arguments within small group activities. Specifically, I drew upon discursive psychology (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) and conversation analysis (Sacks, 1972) to consider how preservice teachers' talk functioned to build arguments, as well as how their talk evolved over the course of the four targeted activities. Findings indicated that the preservice teachers oriented towards institutional norms in constructing arguments. These norms shaped the ways that arguments were constructed. The construction of arguments also included negotiating epistemic authority. This authority was used by a member of the group to take up a leadership position, which they used to direct the group's actions. However, there were moments that other group members attempted to take up epistemic stances, which created instances where members used various talk moves (e.g., overlapping speech, ignoring, and holding the conversational floor) to implicitly disagree with each other. As the activities progressed the students spontaneously adopted asynchronous online collaborative tools that seemed to shape their discourse by decreasing conceptually rich talk. The transition from talk to text also coincided with an increased reliance on the teacher, which changed from focusing on expectations of the assignment to how evidence should be organized. Overall, the findings demonstrated how preservice teachers used discourse, specifically talk, to

  14. Argumentation Skills: A Peer Assessment Approach to Discussions in the EFL Classroom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diego Fernando Ubaque Casallas

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents an exploratory action research study carried out by two English as a foreign language teachers in a private, non-profit institution in Bogota, Colombia, with a group of 12 learners in a B1 English course. These students faced difficulties elaborating on their ideas when discussing issues in class. The study placed emphasis on the use of argumentation outlines and peer assessment to boost learners’ argumentative abilities. Audio-taped conversations and open-ended interviews were used to understand the impact on the pedagogical intervention. Findings revealed that argumentation outlines and peer assessment can promote learners’ awareness and ability to engage in argumentation processes. Moreover, peer assessment appears to be an essential tool for enhancing personal and collaborative learning, as well as for promoting learner reflection and agency.

  15. Analysis of Arguments in the Public Debate on the Alphabet Change in bilingual Kazakhstan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lyazzat Kimanova

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available By focusing on an example of a public social debate on language policy, this article aims at showing the relevant contribution of argument analysis to the understanding of such debates. Argumentative discourse constitutes an essential condition for real democratic practice. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958: 73 point out that the commitment to argumentative practice offers an alternative to the use of violence. The relationship between argumentation and a democratic society is fundamental: argumentation is the substance of democracy, which differs from other social systems in that the only legitimate power is the power of the word. It is free will, which builds on the word alone, that enables us to live together in freedom. An important aspect of democracy, being based on a dialectic ideal, is its uncertain outcome: van Eemeren (2002: 71 characterizes democracy as «institutionalized uncertainty». Thus, insight into the functioning of argumentation contributes significantly to the understanding of democratic processes

  16. Improving Undergraduates’ Argumentative Group Essay Writing through Self-assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yong Mei Fung

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available When writing an argumentative essay, writers develop and evaluate arguments to embody, initiate, or simulate various kinds of interpersonal and textual interaction for reader consideration (Wu & Allison, 2003. This is quite challenging for English as a second language (ESL learners. To improve the quality of their writing, students need to review their draft throughout the writing process. This study aimed to investigate the effect of self-assessment in group writing and how group work improves students’ writing ability. An intact class comprising 22 first-year undergraduates participated in the study.  Data were collected from pre- and post-treatment writing tests, semi-structured interview and reflection entries. The results revealed that self-assessment has a significant effect on students’ writing performance. Group work also enhanced social and cognitive development of the students. This study provides insights into the use of self-assessment in writing class to develop learner autonomy and improve writing ability. Keywords: Argumentative essay, Self-assessment, Learner autonomy, Group writing, ESL learners

  17. Alfred Russel Wallace and the antivaccination movement in Victorian England.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weber, Thomas P

    2010-04-01

    Alfred Russel Wallace, eminent naturalist and codiscoverer of the principle of natural selection, was a major participant in the antivaccination campaigns in late 19th-century England. Wallace combined social reformism and quantitative arguments to undermine the claims of provaccinationists and had a major impact on the debate. A brief account of Wallace's background, his role in the campaign, and a summary of his quantitative arguments leads to the conclusion that it is unwarranted to portray Victorian antivaccination campaigners in general as irrational and antiscience. Public health policy can benefit from history, but the proper context of the evidence used should always be kept in mind.

  18. An Examination of the Effects of Argument Mapping on Students' Memory and Comprehension Performance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dwyer, Christopher P.; Hogan, Michael J.; Stewart, Ian

    2013-01-01

    Argument mapping (AM) is a method of visually diagramming arguments to allow for easy comprehension of core statements and relations. A series of three experiments compared argument map reading and construction with hierarchical outlining, text summarisation, and text reading as learning methods by examining subsequent memory and comprehension…

  19. Twitter vs. Facebook: Using Social Media to Promote Collaborative Argumentation in an Online Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Owens, Marissa; Nussbaum, E. Michael

    2017-01-01

    This study aimed to: 1) evaluate Twitter as a viable tool for promoting collaborative argumentation; 2) determine if scripting through sentence openers promotes a greater number of arguments within an online discussion; and 3) compare Twitter to Facebook as viable tools for promoting collaborative argumentation. Participants were 27 undergraduate…

  20. Swiss residents' arguments for and against a career in medicine

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Klaghofer Richard

    2006-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In some Western countries, the medical profession is continuously losing prestige, doctors are claiming of high demands, low rewards, and difficult structural working conditions. This study aimed to investigate the arguments given by Swiss residents for and against a career in medicine. Methods As part of a prospective cohort study of Swiss medical school graduates on career development, 567 fourth-year residents were asked to answer the free-response item of what arguments there still were in favour of or against a career in medicine. They also indicated whether they would choose the medical profession all over again (yes/no. The statements were transcribed, content categories inductively formulated, and their descriptions written down in a code manual. Arguments were encoded according to the code manual and assigned to eight content categories (Mayring's content analysis. Frequency distributions were given for categories and tested with Chi2-tests for differences in gender, speciality fields, and whether or not the respondent would again choose a career in medicine. Results The 567 participants made 1,640 statements in favour of and 1,703 statements against a career in medicine. The content analysis of the residents' answers yielded eight categories with arguments both for and against a career in medicine. Of all "statements for" responses, 70% fell into the two top-ranking categories of Personal experiences in day-to-day working life (41.2% and Interpersonal experiences in professional relationships (28.8%. The top-ranking category of the "statements against" arguments was General work-related structural conditions (32%, followed by Social prestige and health-policy aspects (21%. Main arguments in favour of a career in medicine were interdisciplinary challenge, combination of basic sciences and interpersonal concerns, helping suffering people, guarantee of a secure job; arguments against comprised high workload, time

  1. Coherence-driven argumentation to norm consensus

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Joseph, S.; Prakken, H.

    2009-01-01

    In this paper coherence-based models are proposed as an alternative to logic-based BDI and argumentation models for the reasoning of normative agents. A model is provided for how two coherence-based agents can deliberate on how to regulate a domain of interest. First a deductive coherence model

  2. Computing Preferred Extensions for Argumentation Systems with Sets of Attacking

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Søren Holbech; Parsons, Simon

    2006-01-01

    The hitherto most abstract, and hence general, argumentation system, is the one described by Dung in a paper from 1995. This framework does not allow for joint attacks on arguments, but in a recent paper we adapted it to support such attacks, and proved that this adapted framework enjoyed the same...... formal properties as that of Dung. One problem posed by Dung's original framework, which was neglected for some time, is how to compute preferred extensions of the argumentation systems. However, in 2001, in a paper by Doutre and Mengin, a procedure was given for enumerating preferred extensions...... for these systems. In this paper we propose a method for enumerating preferred extensions of the potentially more complex systems, where joint attacks are allowed. The method is inspired by the one given by Doutre and Mengin....

  3. Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation: Advancing an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda in Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fischer, Frank; Kollar, Ingo; Ufer, Stefan; Sodian, Beate; Hussmann, Heinrich; Pekrun, Reinhard; Neuhaus, Birgit; Dorner, Birgit; Pankofer, Sabine; Fischer, Martin; Strijbos, Jan-Willem; Heene, Moritz; Eberle, Julia

    2014-01-01

    Scientific reasoning and scientific argumentation are highly valued outcomes of K-12 and higher education. In this article, we first review main topics and key findings of three different strands of research, namely research on the development of scientific reasoning, research on scientific argumentation, and research on approaches to support…

  4. The modal-epistemic argument for the existence of God is flawed

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    S. Wintein (Stefan)

    2018-01-01

    textabstractIn a recent article, Emanuel Rutten has presented a novel argument for the existence of God, defined as a personal being that is the first cause of reality. An interesting feature of the argument, which caused quite a stir, is that it does not fall within any of the traditional

  5. A Labeling Approach to the Computation of Credulous Acceptance in Argumentation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verheij, Bart; Veloso, MM

    2007-01-01

    In recent years, the combinatorics of argumentation with arguments that can attack each other has been studied extensively. Especially, attack graphs (put in the focus of attention by Dung's seminal work 1995) have proven to be a productive tool of analysis. In this paper a new style of algorithm is

  6. Sexuality in institutionalized elderly persons: a systematic review of argument-based ethics literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahieu, Lieslot; Gastmans, Chris

    2012-03-01

    Admission to a nursing home might challenge the way in which individuals experience their own sexuality, but it does not automatically diminish their need and desire for sexual fulfillment. Despite the fact that sexuality proves to be an intrinsic part of human existence, the sexual expression of geriatric residents remains a sensitive subject for many caregivers and family members. It evokes a variety of ethical issues and concerns, especially when dementia patients are involved. The overall objective of this review was to examine the ethical arguments and concepts about the debate on sexuality within a nursing home environment. We conducted a systematic search for argument-based ethics literature focusing on sexuality in institutionalized elderly people. Twenty-five appropriate studies were identified. A thematic analysis of the included literature led us to distinguish two major groups of ethical arguments: (i) principles and (ii) care. Ethics arguments on sexuality in institutionalized elderly are particularly guided by the principle of respect for autonomy and the concomitant notion of informed consent. Arguments related to care were also apparent within the research literature although they received considerably less attention than the arguments related to the principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice. The lack of clarity in the conceptualization of the arguments referred to in the research literature indicates that there is a pressing need for a better defined, more fundamental philosophical-ethical analysis of the values at stake.

  7. A critique of an argument against patent rights for essential medicines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jorn Sonderholm

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Thomas Pogge has recently argued that the way in which research and development of essential medicines is incentivized, under existing World Trade Organization rules, should be supplemented with an additional incentivizing mechanism. One might hold a stronger view than the one that Pogge currently holds, namely that patent rights for essential medicines are morally unjustified per se. Throughout this paper, ‘the strong view’ refers to this view. The strong view is one that enjoys considerable support both within and outside the academic community. This paper critically discusses one specific argument in favor of the strong view. This argument is named the ‘Poggean argument’. This denominator is appropriate because a number of the essential premises of the argument are constituted by propositions that Pogge at some point has defended. The Poggean argument is valid, and defenders of the strong view also have some grounds for believing that the argument is sound. This belief comes, however, with what is arguably a too high cost, namely that the global institutional order becomes very demanding on taxpaying citizens of high-income countries if it is to be just. One may find acceptance of this cost relatively unproblematic, but this cost is, it is argued, unacceptable to anyone who has views on distributive justice that are sympathetic to the core tenets of libertarianism.

  8. Why the Difference Between Explanation and Argument Matters to Science Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brigandt, Ingo

    2016-05-01

    Contributing to the recent debate on whether or not explanations ought to be differentiated from arguments, this article argues that the distinction matters to science education. I articulate the distinction in terms of explanations and arguments having to meet different standards of adequacy. Standards of explanatory adequacy are important because they correspond to what counts as a good explanation in a science classroom, whereas a focus on evidence-based argumentation can obscure such standards of what makes an explanation explanatory. I provide further reasons for the relevance of not conflating explanations with arguments (and having standards of explanatory adequacy in view). First, what guides the adoption of the particular standards of explanatory adequacy that are relevant in a scientific case is the explanatory aim pursued in this context. Apart from explanatory aims being an important aspect of the nature of science, including explanatory aims in classroom instruction also promotes students seeing explanations as more than facts, and engages them in developing explanations as responses to interesting explanatory problems. Second, it is of relevance to science curricula that science aims at intervening in natural processes, not only for technological applications, but also as part of experimental discovery. Not any argument enables intervention in nature, as successful intervention specifically presupposes causal explanations. Students can fruitfully explore in the classroom how an explanatory account suggests different options for intervention.

  9. Thierry De Putter, a geologist faced to the ''irrational'' fear of radioactive wastes; Thierry De Putter, un geologue face a la peur ''irrationnelle'' des dechets radioactifs

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Putter, Th. de [Musee Royal de l' Afrique Centrale, Geologie Isotopique, Tervuren (Belgium); Pivot, A. [Paris-10 Univ., Sociologue, Ladyss/NSS, Maison Max Weber, 92 - Nanterre (France)

    2004-06-01

    The author analyses the origins of the irrational fear the public feels concerning the disposal of radioactive wastes in deep geological layers. This fear seems to be linked to the positive image of the earth that has been built for millenniums in all humane civilizations, according to it the earth appears as a universal, pure and prolific mother. The burial of radioactive wastes might be considered in an unconscious way as a direct and permanent threat to the integrity of the earth. In fact the earth is not so fragile, it has already undergone catastrophes worse than these that are looming like climate changing or extinction of species, but what is true is that humane civilizations settled on its surface are very fragile. Irrational fear might be an acute and unconscious awareness of this fragility. (A.C.)

  10. The effectiveness of argumentation in tutorial dialogues with an Intelligent Tutoring System for genetic risk of breast cancer

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cedillos-Whynott, Elizabeth M.; Wolfe, Christopher R.; Widmer, Colin L.; Brust-Renck, Priscila G.; Weil, Audrey; Reyna, Valerie F.

    2017-01-01

    BRCA Gist is an Intelligent Tutoring System that helps women understand issues related to genetic testing and breast cancer risk. In two laboratory experiments and a field experiment with community and web-based samples, an avatar asked 120 participants to produce arguments for and against genetic testing for breast cancer risk. Two raters assessed the number of argumentation elements (claim, reason, backing, etc.) found in response to prompts soliciting arguments for and against genetic testing for breast cancer risk (IRR=.85). When asked to argue for genetic testing, 53.3 % failed to meet the minimum operational definition of making an argument, a claim supported by one or more reasons. When asked to argue against genetic testing, 59.3 % failed to do so. Of those who failed to generate arguments most simply listed disconnected reasons. However, participants who provided arguments against testing (40.7 %) performed significantly higher on a posttest of declarative knowledge. In each study we found positive correlations between the quality of arguments against genetic testing (i.e., number of argumentation elements) and genetic risk categorization scores. Although most interactions did not contain two or more argument elements, when more elements of arguments were included in the argument against genetic testing interaction, participants had greater learning outcomes. Apparently, many participants lack skills in making coherent arguments. These results suggest an association between argumentation ability (knowing how to make complex arguments) and subsequent learning. Better education in developing arguments may be necessary for people to learn from generating arguments within Intelligent Tutoring Systems and other settings. PMID:26511370

  11. Implementation of a Curriculum-Integrated Computer Game for Introducing Scientific Argumentation

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    Wallon, Robert C.; Jasti, Chandana; Lauren, Hillary Z. G.; Hug, Barbara

    2018-01-01

    Argumentation has been emphasized in recent US science education reform efforts (NGSS Lead States 2013; NRC 2012), and while existing studies have investigated approaches to introducing and supporting argumentation (e.g., McNeill and Krajcik in "Journal of Research in Science Teaching," 45(1), 53-78, 2008; Kang et al. in "Science…

  12. MULTIMODAL CONSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN'S ARGUMENTS IN DISPUTES DURING PLAY

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    Rosemberg, Celia Renata

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Within the framework of a sociocultural theory of human development and learning (Vigotsky, 2009; Bruner, 1986; Nelson, 1996; Tomasello, 1998, 2003, this paper aims to investigate the multimodal construction of arguments produced by 5 year-old children during disputes in a kindergarten play situation. We considered the juxtaposition of information provided by resources from different semiotic fields (Goodwin, 2000, 2007. The corpus consists of the interactions in a group of children while they play with building blocks. This play situation was videotaped in a kindergarten classroom that is attended by an urban marginalized population of outer Buenos Aires, Argentina. The analysis makes use of the qualitative logic derived from the methodological tools of Conversation Analysis developed in previous research (Goodwin, 2000, 2007; Goodwin and Goodwin, 1990, 2000; Goodwin, Goodwin and Yaeger-Dror, 2002. The results show the different semiotic fields that overlap with the linguistic expression of the arguments or points of view that children maintain while quarrelling during play situations. This demonstrates the importance of attending to intonation, the use of space, the direction of gaze, gestures, and body positioning as they are components that contribute to the argumentative force of the utterances in disputes. These elements emerge as indicators of the emotions that parties experience in disputes which can not be disregarded when attempting to account for how argumentation occurs in real situations of interaction. This paper is written in Spanish.

  13. Statistics As Principled Argument

    CERN Document Server

    Abelson, Robert P

    2012-01-01

    In this illuminating volume, Robert P. Abelson delves into the too-often dismissed problems of interpreting quantitative data and then presenting them in the context of a coherent story about one's research. Unlike too many books on statistics, this is a remarkably engaging read, filled with fascinating real-life (and real-research) examples rather than with recipes for analysis. It will be of true interest and lasting value to beginning graduate students and seasoned researchers alike. The focus of the book is that the purpose of statistics is to organize a useful argument from quantitative

  14. Factors in the development of higher levels of reading literacy: Argumentation skills in educational practice

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    Branković Marija

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The highest levels of reading literacy, as defined within PISA study, include the ability to use various cognitive skills, with argumentative skills being one of the most important among them. In the present study our goal was to reveal some of the factors that influence the development of argumentative skills in Serbian schools. We investigated the extent to which argumentative skills are required in PISA reading literacy tasks, as well as the specific difficulties our students have faced on these tasks, through an analysis of student performance. We also conducted an analysis of the educational practice - by doing in-depth interviews with teachers and content analysis of students' textbooks. The results revealed that: 1 Argumentations skills are an important requirement within PISA tasks; 2 Serbian students are mostly successful at basic tasks of recognizing arguments or providing arguments for the given position; they face difficulties answering the tasks which require precise formulation of relevant arguments as well as those demanding meta-cognitive skills (e.g. recognizing persuasive strategies in the given text. Their performance is particularly poor on tasks requiring the combination of information from different sources or information presented in different formats (text, tables, or graphs; 3 There is a significant gap between the requirements for argumentation skills our students usually encounter and PISA reading literacy tasks. In this paper we discuss some of the difficulties and obstacles to encouraging the development of argumentative thinking.

  15. Computer Supported Argument Visualisation: Modelling in Consultative Democracy Around Wicked Problems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohl, Ricky

    In this case study, computer supported argument visualisation has been applied to the analysis and representation of the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan Consultation discourse, demonstrating how argument mapping can help deliver the transparency and accountability required in participatory democracy. Consultative democracy for regional planning falls into a category of problems known as “wicked problems”. Inherent in this environment is heterogeneous viewpoints, agendas and voices, built on disparate and often contradictory logic. An argument ontology and notation that was designed specifically to deal with consultative urban planning around wicked problems is the Issue Based Information System (IBIS) and IBIS notation (Rittel & Webber, 1984). The software used for argument visualisation in this case was Compendium, a derivative of IBIS. The high volume of stakeholders and discourse heterogeneity in this environment calls for a unique approach to argument mapping. The map design model developed from this research has been titled a “Consultation Map”. The design incorporates the IBIS ontology within a hybrid of mapping approaches, amalgamating elements from concept, dialogue, argument, debate, thematic and tree-mapping. The consultation maps developed from the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan Consultation provide a transparent visual record to give evidence of the themes of citizen issues within the consultation discourse. The consultation maps also link the elicited discourse themes to related policies from the SEQ Regional Plan providing explicit evidence of SEQ Regional Plan policy-decisions matching citizen concerns. The final consultation map in the series provides explicit links between SEQ Regional Plan policy items and monitoring activities reporting on the ongoing implementation of the SEQ Regional Plan. This map provides updatable evidence of and accountability for SEQ Regional Plan policy implementation and developments.

  16. Pre-Service Physics Teachers' Argumentation in a Model Rocketry Physics Experience

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gürel, Cem; Süzük, Erol

    2017-01-01

    This study investigates the quality of argumentation developed by a group of pre-service physics teachers' (PSPT) as an indicator of subject matter knowledge on model rocketry physics. The structure of arguments and scientific credibility model was used as a design framework in the study. The inquiry of model rocketry physics was employed in…

  17. From gulf to bridge: when do moral arguments facilitate political influence?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feinberg, Matthew; Willer, Robb

    2015-12-01

    Much of contemporary American political rhetoric is characterized by liberals and conservatives advancing arguments for the morality of their respective political positions. However, research suggests such moral rhetoric is largely ineffective for persuading those who do not already hold one's position because advocates advancing these arguments fail to account for the divergent moral commitments that undergird America's political divisions. Building on this, we hypothesize that (a) political advocates spontaneously make arguments grounded in their own moral values, not the values of those targeted for persuasion, and (b) political arguments reframed to appeal to the moral values of those holding the opposing political position are typically more effective. We find support for these claims across six studies involving diverse political issues, including same-sex marriage, universal health care, military spending, and adopting English as the nation's official langauge. Mediation and moderation analyses further indicated that reframed moral appeals were persuasive because they increased the apparent agreement between the political position and the targeted individuals' moral values. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

  18. Does prior domain-specific content knowledge influence students' recall of arguments surrounding interdisciplinary topics?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmidt, Hiemke K; Rothgangel, Martin; Grube, Dietmar

    2017-12-01

    Awareness of various arguments can help interactants present opinions, stress points, and build counterarguments during discussions. At school, some topics are taught in a way that students learn to accumulate knowledge and gather arguments, and later employ them during debates. Prior knowledge may facilitate recalling information on well structured, fact-based topics, but does it facilitate recalling arguments during discussions on complex, interdisciplinary topics? We assessed the prior knowledge in domains related to a bioethical topic of 277 students from Germany (approximately 15 years old), their interest in the topic, and their general knowledge. The students read a text with arguments for and against prenatal diagnostics and tried to recall the arguments one week later and again six weeks later. Prior knowledge in various domains related to the topic individually and separately helped students recall the arguments. These relationships were independent of students' interest in the topic and their general knowledge. Copyright © 2017 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. The scientific argumentation profile of physics teacher candidate in Surabaya

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ain, T. N.; Wibowo, H. A. C.; Rohman, A.; Deta, U. A.

    2018-03-01

    The ability of scientific argumentation is an essential factor that must be mastered by physics teacher candidate as a requirement in explaining good and accurate scientific concepts. In the process of arguing, students develop explanations or persuade colleagues to support their hypotheses, express doubts, ask questions, relate alternative answers, and confirm what is unknown to develop the ability to provide rational and scientific explanations. The design of this research is descriptive qualitative with the subject of research is 20 undergraduate students of Physics Education Department in Surabaya. The research instrument consists of four casuistic questions related to the concept of kinematics. The argumentation pattern of physics teacher candidate is coded using Toulmin's argumentation pattern. The results show that the student’s ability in providing scientific argument is at the level of providing claims with the support of a weak warrant. The students are not able to provide excellent rebuttals. In each case given, the student can give a good claim statement in answering the questions. However, the concept used to support the claim is not correct. This case causes the warrant used to support the claim is weak. Students also do not analyse other facts that affect the system. Students have not reached a higher level because the understanding of physics is not deep enough.

  20. Semantic motivation for the denotational identity of arguments in predication structures

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Viara Maldjieva

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Semantic motivation for the denotational identity of arguments in predication structures This text is an attempt at a preliminary outline of the factors that motivate the denotational identity of argument content in the predication structure as well as the consequences of this identity for the shape of the sentence expression which is a realization of such a structure. The first question this analysis attempts to answer concerns the structure of predicative concepts that constitute the predication structure with arguments of the identical content? The second question the cursory analysis done attempts to answer concerns the manner, in which the identity existing on the semantic structure level is signaled on the surface, in the formal structure.