Dialectic, also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned argumentation. Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and the modern pejorative sense of rhetoric. Dialectic may thus be contrasted with both the eristic, which refers to argument that aims to successfully dispute another's argument, and the didactic method, wherein one side of the conversation teaches the other. Dialectic is alternatively known as minor logic, as opposed to major logic or critique.
A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument, which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term was in the Western intellectual tradition introduced in the Aristotelian De Sophisticis Elenchis.
Procatalepsis, also called prolepsis or prebuttal, is a figure of speech in which the speaker raises an objection to their own argument and then immediately answers it. By doing so, they hope to strengthen their argument by dealing with possible counter-arguments before their audience can raise them.
Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be supported or undermined by premises through logical reasoning. With historical origins in logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, argumentation theory, includes the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion. It studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real-world settings.
An argument map or argument diagram is a visual representation of the structure of an argument. An argument map typically includes the key components of the argument, traditionally called the conclusion and the premises, also called contention and reasons. Argument maps can also show co-premises, objections, counterarguments, rebuttals, and lemmas. There are different styles of argument map but they are often functionally equivalent and represent an argument's individual claims and the relationships between them.
Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem, is a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further argumentation. This theory is closely tied to proof by assertion due to the lack of evidence behind the statement and its attempt to persuade without providing any evidence.
Charles Arthur Willard is an American argumentation and rhetorical theorist. He is a retired Professor and University Scholar at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
I'm entitled to my opinion is an informal fallacy in which someone dismisses arguments against their position by claiming that they have a right to hold their own particular viewpoint. The statement exemplifies a red herring or thought-terminating cliché. The fallacy is sometimes presented as "let's agree to disagree". Whether one has a particular entitlement or right is irrelevant to whether one's assertion is true or false. Where an objection to a belief is made, the assertion of the right to an opinion side-steps the usual steps of discourse of either asserting a justification of that belief, or an argument against the validity of the objection. Such an assertion, however, can also be an assertion of one's own freedom from, or a refusal to participate in, the rules of argumentation and logic at hand.
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectical and the rhetorical perspective.
Informal logic encompasses the principles of logic and logical thought outside of a formal setting. However, the precise definition of "informal logic" is a matter of some dispute. Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair define informal logic as "a branch of logic whose task is to develop non-formal standards, criteria, procedures for the analysis, interpretation, evaluation, criticism and construction of argumentation." This definition reflects what had been implicit in their practice and what others were doing in their informal logic texts.
The burden of proof is the obligation on a party in a dispute to provide sufficient warrant for its position.
Rob Grootendorst was a Dutch communication and argumentation theory scholar. He was professor for Dutch speech communication at the University of Amsterdam. His contributions to the argumentation field include the co-foundation of the pragma-dialectic school in argumentation theory.
Appeal to accomplishment is a genetic fallacy wherein Person A challenges a thesis put forward by Person B because Person B has not accomplished similar feats or accomplished as many feats as Person C or Person A.
Frans Hendrik van Eemeren is a Dutch scholar, professor in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam. He is noted for his Pragma-dialectics theory, an argumentation theory which he developed with Rob Grootendorst from the early 1980s onwards. He has published numerous books and papers, including Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse.
Howard Kahane was an American professor of philosophy at Bernard M. Baruch College in New York City. He was noted for promoting a popular, and non-mathematical, approach to logic, now known as informal logic. His best known publication in that area is his textbook Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life, now at the 12th edition, published in 2014.
Harald R. Wohlrapp is a German philosopher. His main focus is argumentation theory.
An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. Some consider that it is used in a cogent form if all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context, and others consider it to be a fallacy to cite the views of an authority on the discussed topic as a means of supporting an argument.
Formal scientists have attempted to combine logic and dialectic through formalisation. These attempts include pre-formal and partially formal treatises on argument and dialectic, systems based on defeasible reasoning, and systems based on game semantics and dialogical logic.
Argument technology is a sub-field of artificial intelligence that focuses on applying computational techniques to the creation, identification, analysis, navigation, evaluation and visualisation of arguments and debates. In the 1980s and 1990s, philosophical theories of arguments in general, and argumentation theory in particular, were leveraged to handle key computational challenges, such as modeling non-monotonic and defeasible reasoning and designing robust coordination protocols for multi-agent systems. At the same time, mechanisms for computing semantics of Argumentation frameworks were introduced as a way of providing a calculus of opposition for computing what it is reasonable to believe in the context of conflicting arguments.
In argumentation theory, an argumentation scheme or argument scheme is a template that represents a common type of argument used in ordinary conversation. Many different argumentation schemes have been identified. Each one has a name and presents a type of connection between premises and a conclusion in an argument, and this connection is expressed as a rule of inference. Argumentation schemes can include inferences based on different types of reasoning—deductive, inductive, abductive, probabilistic, etc.
