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8The Explanatory Value of Cognitive Asymmetries in Policy ControversiesIn J. Goodwin (ed.), Between Scientists and Citizens, Createspace. 2012.Citing an epistemic or cognitive asymmetry between experts and the public, it is easy to view the relation between scientists and citizens as primarily based on trust, rather than on the content of expert argumentation. In criticism of this claim, four theses are defended: Empirical studies suggest that content matters, while trust boasts persuasiveness. In social policy controversies, genuine expert-solutions are normally not available; if trust is important here, then a clear role for cognitiv…Read more
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8Debiasing and Rule of LawIn Eveline Feteris, Harm Kloosterhuis, Jose Plug & Carel Smith (eds.), Legal Argumentation and the Rule of Law, Eleven International Publishing. pp. 217-229. 2016.
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14Reliable Debiasing Techniques in Legal Contexts? : Weak Signals from a darker Corner of the Social Science UniverseStudies in Logic and Argumentation 59 173-196. 2016.
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9Designing an Introductory Course in Elementary Symbolic Logic within the Blackboard e-Learning EnvironmentIn P. Blackburn, H. Dithmarsch & M. Manzano (eds.), Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI), Springer. pp. 249-255. 2011.
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8Ceteris Paribus in Conservative Epistemic ChangeDissertation, Lund University. 2009.This work contrasts conservative or minimally mutilating revisions of empirical theories as they are identified in the presently dominant AGM model of formal belief revision and the structuralist program for the reconstruction of empirical theories. The aim is to make understandable why both approaches only partly succeed in substantially informing and formally restraining the issue. With respect to the rationality of minimal change, the overall result is negative. Readers with an interest in fo…Read more
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14Three logicians walk into a bar : A modest proposal for teaching epistemic logicThe Reasoner 9 (3): 21-22. 2015.
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1Review of: Eemeren, F.H. van, Garssen, B, and Meuffels, B. . "Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness"Cogency - Journal of Reasoning and Argumentation 2 (1): 149-165. 2010.
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8From Stories—via Arguments, Scenarios, and Cases—to Probabilities: Commentary on Floris J. Bex's “The Hybrid Theory of Stories and Arguments Applied to the Simonshaven Case” and Bart Verheij's “Analyzing the Simonshaven Case With and Without Probabilities”Topics in Cognitive Science 12 (4): 1219-1223. 2020.Topics in Cognitive Science, EarlyView.
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4Editors’ IntroductionIn Peter Gärdenfors, Antti Hautamäki, Frank Zenker & Mauri Kaipainen (eds.), Conceptual Spaces: Elaborations and Applications, Springer Verlag. 2019.
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33Conceptual Spaces: Elaborations and Applications (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2019.This edited book focuses on concepts and their applications using the theory of conceptual spaces, one of today’s most central tracks of cognitive science discourse. It features 15 papers based on topics presented at the Conceptual Spaces @ Work 2016 conference. The contributors interweave both theory and applications in their papers. Among the first mentioned are studies on metatheories, logical and systemic implications of the theory, as well as relations between concepts and language. Example…Read more
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18A Dialectical View on Conduction: Reasons, Warrants, and Normal Suasory InclinationsInformal Logic 39 (1): 32-69. 2019.When Carl Wellman introduced the reasoning-type conduction, he endorsed a dialectical view on natural language argumentation. Contemporary scholarship, by contrast, treats conductive argument predominantly on a product view. Not only did Wellman’s reasons for a dialectical view thus fall into disregard; a product-treatment of conduction also flouts the standard semantics of ‘argument’. Attempting to resolve these difficulties, our paper traces Wellman’s preference for a dialectical view to the r…Read more
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10From reasonable preferences, via argumentation, to logicJournal of Applied Logic 18 105-128. 2016.This article demonstrates that typical restrictions which are imposed in dialogical logic in order to recover first-order logical consequence from a fragment of natural language argumentation are also forthcoming from preference profiles of boundedly rational players, provided that these players instantiate a specific player type and compute partial strategies. We present two structural rules, which are formulated similarly to closure rules for tableaux proofs that restrict players' strategies t…Read more
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1200Causal ArgumentIn Michael Waldmann (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning, Oxford University Press. pp. 475-494. 2017.In this chapter, we outline the range of argument forms involving causation that can be found in everyday discourse. We also survey empirical work concerned with the generation and evaluation of such arguments. This survey makes clear that there is presently no unified body of research concerned with causal argument. We highlight the benefits of a unified treatment both for those interested in causal cognition and those interested in argumentation, and identify the key challenges that must be me…Read more
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24Data replication matters to an underpowered study, but replicated hypothesis corroboration countsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 41. 2018.Before replication becomes mainstream, the potential for generating theoretical knowledge better be clear. Replicating statistically significant nonrandom data shows that an original study made a discovery; replicating a specified theoretical effect shows that an original study corroborated a theory. Yet only in the latter case is replication a necessary, sound, and worthwhile strategy.
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15Reasons Pro et Contra as a Debiasing Technique in Legal ContextsPsychological Reports. forthcoming.Although legal contexts are subject to biased reasoning and decision making, to identify and test debiasing techniques has largely remained an open task. We report on experimentally deploying the technique “giving reasons pro et contra” with professional and lay judges at Swedish municipal courts. Using a mock legal scenario, participants assessed the relevance of an eyewitness’s previous conviction for his credibility. On average, both groups displayed low degrees of bias. We observed a small p…Read more
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80Peirce Knew Why Abduction Isn’t IBE—A Scheme and Critical Questions for Abductive ArgumentArgumentation 32 (4): 569-587. 2017.Whether abduction is treated as an argument or as an inference, the mainstream view presupposes a tight connection between abduction and inference to the best explanation. This paper critically evaluates this link and supports a narrower view on abduction. Our main thesis is that merely the hypothesis-generative aspect, but not the evaluative aspect, is properly abductive in the sense introduced by C. S. Peirce. We show why equating abduction with IBE unnecessarily complicates argument evaluatio…Read more
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25From Discovery to Justification: Outline of an Ideal Research Program in Empirical PsychologyFrontiers in Psychology 8. 2017.
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38Continuity of Theory Structure: A Conceptual Spaces ApproachInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (4): 343-360. 2016.By understanding laws of nature as geometrical rather than linguistic entities, this paper addresses how to describe theory structures and how to evaluate their continuity. Relying on conceptual spaces as a modelling tool, we focus on the conceptual framework an empirical theory presupposes, thus obtain a geometrical representation of a theory’s structure. We stress the relevance of measurement procedures in separating conceptual from empirical structures. This lets our understanding of scientif…Read more
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41Logic, Reasoning, Argumentation: Insights from the WildLogic and Logical Philosophy 27 (4): 421-451. 2018.This article provides a brief selective overview and discussion of recent research into natural language argumentation that may inform the study of human reasoning on the assumption that an episode of argumentation issues an invitation to accept a corresponding inference. As this research shows, arguers typically seek to establish new consequences based on prior information. And they typically do so vis-à-vis a real or an imagined opponent, or an opponent-position, in ways that remain sensitive …Read more
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55Legal Facts in Argumentation-Based Litigation GamesArgumentation 32 (2): 197-211. 2017.This paper analyzes legal fact-argumentation in the framework of the argumentation-based litigation game by Xiong :16–19, 2012). Rather than as an ontological one, an ALG treats a legal fact as a fact-qua-claim whose acceptability depends on the reasons supporting it. In constructing their facts-qua-claims, parties to an ALG must interact to maintain a game-theoretic equilibrium. We compare the general interactional constraints that the civil and common law systems assign, and detail what the ci…Read more
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45Analyzing Social Policy Argumentation: A case study on the opinion of the German National Ethics Council on an amendment of the Stem Cell LawInformal Logic 30 (1): 62-91. 2010.This paper analyzes and evaluates the 2007 majority opinion of the German National Ethics Council which seeks to establish new information (as to the inferior quality of legally procurable human embryonic stem cells) as a sufficient reason for a relaxation of the 2002 Stem Cell Law. A micro-level analysis of the opinion’s central section is conducted and evaluated vis à vis the strongest known opponent position in the national debate at that time. The argumentation is claimed to rely on an unsup…Read more
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49Using conceptual spaces to model the dynamics of empirical theoriesIn Erik J. Olson Sebastian Enqvist (ed.), Belief Revision Meets Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 137--153. 2011.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
General Philosophy of Science |
Philosophy of Probability |