Argumentation Schemes

Provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes.

Douglas Walton (Author), Christopher Reed (Author), Fabrizio Macagno (Author)

9780521723749, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 August 2008

456 pages, 37 b/w illus. 21 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.64 kg

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes.

1. Basic tools in the state of the art
2. Schemes for argument from analogy, classification and precedent
3. Knowledge-related, practical and other schemes
4. Arguments from generally accepted opinions, commitment and character
5. Causal argumentation schemes
6. Schemes and enthymemes
7. Attack, rebuttal and refutation
8. The history of schemes
9. A user's compendium of schemes
10. Refining the classification of schemes
11. Formalizing schemes
12. Schemes in computer systems.

Subject Areas: Artificial intelligence [UYQ], Computer science [UY], Philosophy: logic [HPL], Analytical philosophy & Logical Positivism [HPCF5]