ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Is It A Monologue, A Dialogue Or A Turn In A Dialogue?

• by: Chris Reed - Brunel University

1. Introduction
This paper is motivated by two concerns, one theoretical and the other rather more practical. The former regards the status of monologue, and in particular, persuasive monologue. Argument analysis frequently focuses upon dialogue – either by designing systems of exchange and incurred commitment, (e.g. (Hamblin, 1970), (Walton and Krabbe, 1995)) or by viewing apparently monologic argument as an “implicit dialogue” between writer and imaginary foe (Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1992). Yet despite the great abundance of persuasive monologue (examples are offered by advertisements, editorials, political addresses, theses and academic papers, amongst others) there seems to be little recognition of the status of monologue as a distinct medium for argument. If such a status is granted to monologue, then the hazy distinction between monologue and dialogue requires careful investigation.
The second concern forms a component of recent work which has focused upon the design of a computational system for generating text (Reed, 1998), (Reed and Long, 1997). This system aims to generate the structure of coherent, persuasive argument – monologic argument. Determining a reasonably rigorous definition of persuasive monologue is thus a prerequisite of establishing the functional remit of this system.
The discussion is based upon ideas presented in (Reed, 1997), and those offered in reply by Vorobej (1997), and is divided into four sections: the first three characterise persuasive monologue on the basis of its aims, physical situation and internal structure; the fourth then points out some common misconceptions of what comprises monologue, which are then rejected on the basis of the three preceding sections.

2. Aims of Persuasive Monologue
The aims of persuasive monologue (and indeed persuasive dialogue as well) fall into three groups. Firstly, to alter the beliefs of either the hearer (e.g. a letter from one academic to another discussing some matter upon which they disagree), a particular audience (e.g. an academic paper presented at a small, focused workshop), or a general audience (e.g. an article in Scientific American). As discussed in (Perelman and Ohlbrechts-Tyteca, 1969), the difference between the constructs particular audience and general audience is used in defining the distinction between persuasive and convincing argument. The further distinction between particular audience and single hearer (which in the work of Perelman and are conflated) is important for determining an appropriate level of confidence in the model of the hearer (broadly, that a model of a single hearer is likely to be more reliable than a less specific model which abstracts the beliefs of an entire audience). It is often not transparently obvious who the intended audience is in any given situation – in the debating chamber, for example, the speaker has one or more opponents to whom she is supposed to be addressing herself – the primary aim of her discourse, however, is to change the beliefs of the nonparticipatory audience. This form of ‘misdirection’ is very common in monologue, especially in those examples where a particular position is being attacked. Other permutations are rarer, but one could imagine a scenario in which a monologue was addressed to a general audience and yet the speaker hope only to influence the beliefs of some particular subset of that audience. It should also be noted that Perelman’s terminology is a little misleading, for under the heading of ‘altering belief’ is included more than just persuading and convincing, viz. shedding doubt, confusing, confounding and dissuading. Often, a speaker’s ‘best hope’ may be to persuade, but would settle for simply reducing the audience’s certainty in their belief. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Learning Of Argumentation In Face-To-Face And E-Mail Environments

• by: Miika Marttunen & Leena Laurinen - University of Jyväskylä

1. Introduction
Recent studies (e.g. Littlefield 1995; Marttunen 1997) have shown that learning environments based on interaction and debates between students are beneficial when the aim is to promote students’  argumentation and critical thinking skills. However, learning environments that support this objective are quite rare in Finnish higher education. Previous studies (Steffensen 1996) concerning higher education in Finland have indicated that the typical Finnish student lacks both a critical attitude towards knowledge and a willingness to engage in critical discussions on the study contents. Similar results are also reported by Mauranen (1993) and Hirsjärvi, Böök, and Penttinen (1996), who found that the students in a Finnish university seminar hesitated to criticize each others’ opinions or that of the teacher, who was experienced as an authority whose views should not be called in question. Finnish students’ argumentation skills have similarly proved poor (Marttunen 1997), and for this reason, especially when they were approaching the end of their studies, students have sometimes found it difficult to participate in seminar debates (Laurinen 1996). Hence, more such learning environments and study methods that activate the students in mutual dialogue and argumentative discussions of the study contents is needed in Finnish higher education.

The development of new information technology, such as electronic mail (e-mail), has facilitated communication between people. Recent studies (e.g., Ruberg, Moore & Taylor 1996) have also indicated that e-mail is effective in establishing interaction between students. E-mail as a communication medium includes many features that facilitate person-to-person communication. First, e-mail discussions are asynchronous (time and place independent) in nature, which makes it possible for one to write and read e-mail messages at any time convenient to him/her. Thus, e-mail working can also be easily integrated with working that presupposes simultaneous presence at certain time and place. Second, e-mail has been characterized as a “democratic” medium that allows various kinds of people regardless, for example, of their race, looks, occupational status, and level of education, to participate in interaction on an equal basis. When communication is textual and the participants do not see each other it is not so difficult to put over one’s own points of view as it may be in face-to-face situations. Third, the informal nature of e-mail language also makes it easier for one to put forward opinions and arguments: a typical feature of e-mail culture is that the texts do not have to be carefully revised, but it is enough that the writer’s thoughts are delivered to other people. However, when e-mail is used one has to formulate his/her thoughts into written text, which makes the message more considered than in the case of spoken language.

This article describes a teaching experiment in which academic argumentation was practised in a university course. The course was carried out at the Department of Education in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, during the spring term 1998. The learning of argumentation by e-mail has previously been studied (Marttunen 1997) at the same department. The results of this earlier project indicated that the level of argumentation in students’ e-mail messages improved as the e-mail discussions proceeded. Thus, the study suggested that e-mail can be regarded as an appropriate medium for developing the skills of argumentation. The main deficiencies of the previous study were, first, the lack of a comparison group in which argumentation skills would also have been practised in a face-to-face situation. Second, the actual teaching intervention in the e-mail study experiment was quite slight: the students were not taught argumentation in the strict sense, but merely carried out argumentative group discussions with the help of e-mail. Read more

ISSA Procedings 1998 – Public Argument In The Post-Mass Media Age

• by: Thomas A. Hollihan - University of Southern California, James Klumpp - University of Maryland & Patricia Riley - University of Southern California

In recent years, the demise of the “public sphere” has been a frequent subject for discussion, among philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, cultural critics, and argumentation theorists (Goodnight 1982; 1987; Hauser 1998; Verstraeten 1996). The discussion has been provoked, at least in part, by Jurgen Habermas’ (1975; 1979; and 1989) declarations that the public sphere had been “colonized.” Habermas’ argued that we needed to emancipate public discourse and identify new communication practices that could both create and sustain a more democratic “lifeworld.”
Our own interest in this topic has resulted in a series of papers that examine both argumentation theory and pedagogy. In previous studies we explored the demise of the argumentative free marketplace for ideas, the importance of having students engaged in “real world” disputes, the poverty of conventional forms of argumentation in politics and democratic processes, and proposed alternative sites for a democratic lifeworld (Hollihan, Riley & Klumpp 1993; Klumpp, Riley & Hollihan 1995; and Riley, Klumpp & Hollihan 1995). This essay extends our project by considering how the changing media environment may impact the possibility for public argumentation and civic deliberation.
We argue that the era of the mass audience and mass media is ending. While an optimistic reading of the future might lead one to claim that the advent of new media technologies will enhance the possibilities for civic participation by increasing the opportunities for citizens to express themselves, the new technologies may serve only to further isolate citizens and decrease their political influence.

The paper proceeds by:
1.considering the origins and emergence of the notion of the public sphere and the liberal political philosophy it reflects;
2. discussing the development of mass society and the mass media as a modernist invention;
3. arguing that the era of mass media is coming to a close;
4. assessing the consequences of a post-mass media society on the abilty to form a democratically engaged citizenry; and
5) identifying some responses mandated for argumentation study and pedagogy by the new media world.

This essay raises many new questions as it offers insights on changing publics and arguments. It is only through such preliminary discussions and criticisms, that argumentation scholars can help ascertain the approaches available for public argument that can strengthen the citizenry’s voice in their own governance and place in the global milieux.

1. Origins of the Public Sphere Concept
The notion of an engaged, civic minded public capable of forming themselves through social interactions emerged as enlightenment thinkers contemplated the requirements for democratic civic engagement. This was an essentially bourgeois vision, conceptually described as a forum accessible to as many people as possible, where a wide variety of social experiences could be expressed. The public sphere, thus came to occupy a space between the state, and the private spheres of life where questions of individual beliefs or conduct remained autonomous (Habermas 1989; Balthrop 1989). This sphere was the salon, the coffeehouse, the pub, or in the early days of the American republic, the town meeting. Citizens engaged in the public sphere provided a rich storehouse of public opinion, defined as a body of discourse and arguments constituting public will and values, from which governmental officials and other societal leaders could draw rhetorical sustenance and legitimacy. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Conditional Reasoning

• by: Javier Vilanova Arias - Universidad Complutense de Madrid

1. Introduction: logic and argumentation[i]
I would like to start with a pronouncement: I believe that logic is and must be a essential tool for the testing, classification and explication of arguments as well as reasonings. Specially, it’s the job of logic to distinguish between valid and unvalid arguments, as well as between good and bad reasonings. In this sense, the main role of logic in the theory of argumentation is not descriptive nor explanatory, but normative. I think this deontic dimension is necessary for drawing the boundaries between rhetoric and argumentation, which are the boundaries between proving and persuasion.
This solemn beginning is not just to release myself. From my point of view, it’s not a passing fancy to remind the normative character of logic. A logical entity may be used as a model for a physical or mental entity, but in any case it’s a ideal model. In the case of argumentations, this means that it has not the properties of the real entity, but the properties that we think the real entity ought to have.
The aim of this lecture is to provide a definition as well as a brief explanation of a special kind of reasonings which I will call “conditional reasoning”. This definition must be understood as the first step to a general theory of conditional reasoning which is not explained here, and whose main bricks are the logical theory of conditionals (see Vilanova 1995, Vilanova 1996). The term “conditional reasoning” is a new one in the literature, so some people will look to it in surprise. Nevertheless, a lot of authors have defined similar notions, and all of them have showed a big interest in the topic. Later on we will see some examples. For the moment it’s enough to note that the medieval logicians use a very similar notion when defining the “dubium proponitur” (I propose to doubt) arguments: arguments where something evident or firmly believed is negated, in order to know what theoretical consequences it would produce.

2. A “prima facie” definition
I will begin by explaining the two words included in the title. I would distinguish two senses of the word “reasoning”:
i. Cognitive or Psychological sense: a mental event consisting in a thinking process directed to the resolution of some problem. This is the customary sense of the word reasoning, the sense we mean when we talk about the reasonings that our neighbours make, or the reasonings that our politicians don’t make. In other words, this is the action to which we compel when we say “use your brain, reason!”
ii. Logical sense: a triad D,C where P is the set of premises, C is the conclusion, and D is a deduction of C from P. P, D and C are set of sentences. They may belong to a formal language (for example, the language of first order logic with some supplementary symbols as identity, modal symbols, conditional operators…). But they may belong to a natural language. Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as scientific books, are full of reasonings in this sense where the sentences belong to a natural language. The main difference between an argument and a reasoning is that in a argument the premises are supposed to be true. On the contrary, in a reasoning the premises don’t need to be true; they are just those propositions not proved in the deduction.

We may understand a reasoning in the logical sense as a model of a reasoning in the cognitive sense. In other words, we use linguistic entities (propositions) for modelling mental entities. Some philosophers and psychologists, as Fodor, think that mental entities are also linguistic entities belonging to a special language, the language of mind. If they are right, then we ought to speak about public linguistic reasonings (second sense) as models of private linguistic reasonings (first sense). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – Conditions For Spontaneous Production Of Computer-Mediated Argumentative Dialogues Between Learners

• by: Matthieu Quignard & Michael Baker - Université Lumière Lyon

1. Introduction
This research aims to experiment the conditions for spontaneous production of argumentative dialogues between learners, in problem-solving situations. Since relatively little research has been carried out in this field of research, this paper proposes a restricted set of hypotheses, from both theoretical and practical points of view, on the conditions under which such discussions can be produced. A computer-based environment, involving synchronous typewritten communication, has been implemented in order to test these hypotheses, and to collect a corpus of argumentative interactions that is adapted for the validation of a cognitive model of this type of interaction. Preliminary analyses of the corpus gave quite encouraging results.
Up to the present date, some research in the field of cooperative learning has been carried out on the role of dialogic interactions in the processes of concept acquisition or comprehension (e.g. Thorley & Treagust 1987 ; Baker 1996). However, much less research relates to the study of the conditions under which argumentative interactions are produced between learners. Golder (1996) carried out research on young pupils’ criteria for obtaining argumentative texts (the task was to compose a coherent text, while arguing successively in favour of two conflicting points of view, with respect to a particular question). Other research has been carried out on the design of computer-based environments, using computer mediated communication (CMC) for promoting certain types of interaction, by a suitably structured dialogue interface (Baker & Lund 1997). All of this research shows, that the conditions for producing argumentative dialogues are very diverse, including for example cognitive, social aspects as well as the design of the interface itself. The approach described here is practical as well as theoretical, the main aim being to collect a corpus of argumentative dialogues within a cognitive modelling framework.
This paper presents a experimental situation, designed for the production of argumentative dialogues, by computer mediated communication (CMC), between learners, on a specific problem-solving task in physics : the elaboration of simple qualitative models of energy (“energy chains”, Tiberghien 1994). Once this work has been situated in the framework of research related to argumentation modelling, the hypotheses and modelling constraints that contribute to the elaboration of the experiment are exposed. Then a corpus sample is given, that includes a CMC discussion of one dyad and the individual attitudes of the two participants, just before and just after the interaction. In conclusion, some qualitative preliminary results are given, related to the evaluation of the situation with respect to its original aim : provoking spontaneous argumentative dialogues.

2. Research project
The work described here is situated within the research framework of a PhD thesis in cognitive science, the aim of which is to investigate the cognitive changes (specifically, changes in attitudes) of learners that result from engaging in argumentative dialogues. As part of this work, a computational model based on artificial intelligence techniques is currently under development (Quignard & Baker 1997). The model comprises two belief sets (Doyle 1979) imbedded in two artificial agents, whose dialogue is based on a dialectical model of argumentation (Barth & Krabbe 1982) using multifunctional communicative acts (Bunt 1989).
From a methodological point of view, this cognitive modelling approach requires collecting specific empirical data, for validation of the model. This data must include a dialogue corpus, containing modellable argumentative phases, and give access to the participants’ attitudes at the boundaries of these phases. Since that kind of corpus is not naturally available, a specific experimental situation has been designed and implemented for this purpose. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 1998 – The Changing Ethos Of Physicians And Implications For Their Ability To Persuade

• by: Shari Hoppin - University of Southern California

Physicians in the United States have enjoyed a particularly high social status during the 20th century. But increasing concern about patient autonomy and about noncompliance with prescribed regimens, as well as questions about whether doctors always act in the best interests of their patients, especially when health insurance companies are involved, have called into question the credibility and authority that physicians have enjoyed for so long. Large quantities of research about patient noncompliance have been produced in recent years (Donovan & Blake, 1992), accompanied by concerns about how patients may be persuaded to follow prescribed regimens. This concern about persuasion may be associated with changing perceptions about the character or authority of physicians in general.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric has been read as dividing artistic proofs or interior persuaders, for which the rhetorician constructs the material, into three forms of persuasive appeal: to reason (logos), to emotion (pathos), and to the speaker’s authority and character (ethos). In the Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 2, Aristotle states that character may be the most effective means of persuasion that speakers possess. Ethos involves presenting oneself so as to be believed, and plays a significant role in the success of a presentation (Welch, 1990: 139). In the context of practitioner-patient communication, it influences patients’ perceptions of their physicians and the likelihood that patients will be persuaded to follow medical instructions.
Until recently the medical profession has exercised dominant control over the markets and organisations in medicine that affect its interests, but the profession’s autonomy and dominance are now in jeopardy (Starr, 1982). Healers have not always been held in high regard. Ancient Roman physicians were primarily slaves, former slaves, or foreigners, and medicine was considered a low grade occupation; in eighteenth century England, physicians struggled for the patronage of the rich; even in the United States before 1900, many doctors found it difficult to make a living and had much less influence than they have enjoyed in the 20th century (Starr, 1982, pp. 6-7). The authority of physicians in the United States may now be eroding, following increased patient autonomy and the increasing use of physicians as administrators for health insurance companies. Starr (1982) has pointed out that: “The more administrative uses the state and other institutions find for professionals, the more they may simultaneously expand and undermine their authority” as patients wonder whether their welfare really comes first (p. 12). Read more