Argumentation and artifacts for intelligent multi-agent systems

Reasoning under uncertainty is a human capacity that in software system is necessary and often hidden. Argumentation theory and logic make explicit non-monotonic information in order to enable automatic forms of reasoning under uncertainty. In human organization Distributed Cognition and Activity Theory explain how artifacts are fundamental in all cognitive process. Then, in this thesis we search to understand the use of cognitive artifacts in an new argumentation framework for an agent-based artificial society.

Young adults’ accounts of scientific knowledge when responding to a television news report of contested science

This paper reports one aspect of a study of 28 young adults (18–26 years) engaging with the uncertain (contested) science of a television news report about recent research into mobile phone health risks. The aim of the study was to examine these young people’s ‘accounts of scientific knowledge’ in this context. Seven groups of friends responded to the news report, initially in focus group discussions. Later in semi-structured interviews they elaborated their understanding of the nature of science through their explanations of the scientists’ disagreement and described their mobile phone safety risk assessments. This paper presents their accounts in terms of their views of the nature of science and their concept understanding. Discussions were audio-recorded then analysed by coding the talk in terms of issues raised, which were grouped into themes and interpreted in terms of a moderate social constructionist theoretical framing. In this context, most participants expressed a ‘common sense’ view of the nature of science, describing it as an atheoretical, technical procedure of scientists testing their personal opinions on the issue, subject to the influence of funding sponsors. The roles of theory and data interpretation were largely ignored. It is argued that the nature of science understanding is crucial to engagement with contemporary socioscientific issues, particularly the roles of argumentation, theory, data interpretation, and the distinction of science from common sense. Implications for school science relate primarily to nature of science teaching and the inclusion of socioscientific issues in school science curricula. Future research directions are considered.

Dissertações de vestibular e ensino da argumentação escrita

A tese analisa redações produzidas por candidatos ao vestibular de 2008 da UERJ, nas quais são investigados aspectos concernentes à superestrutura do gênero dissertação de vestibular e às categorias do modo argumentativo de organização do texto, a saber: a tomada de posição, a presença de argumentos orientados para a tese do argumentador, a presença de contra-argumentos e as estratégias argumentativas que se destacam. Busca-se entender a relação entre as falhas redacionais e o ensino desse modo argumentativo do texto, apontando-se os estudos recentes em teoria da argumentação, semântica argumentativa, linguística textual e análise do discurso, que podem oferecer subsídios ao ensino da argumentação escrita, sobretudo os de Oliveira (2010), Charaudeau (2008) e Bernardo (2007 e 2010). Este trabalho interessa-se particularmente pelas contribuições passíveis de aplicação no ensino de redação em nível médio. Tanto os aspectos textuais, quanto os situacionais são analisados com vistas a que as conclusões advindas de tal análise possam convergir para contribuições ao ensino de produção de textos, o que se materializa no capítulo em que se apresentam sugestões de atividades

O Discurso da Educação Fiscal na modernidade tardia: um estudo de análise crítica do discurso e argumentação

A relação entre o Estado brasileiro e a sociedade, especialmente quando se trata de questões tributárias, é marcada por um desgaste histórico: paga-se uma carga tributária considerada excessiva, ao passo que o retorno em benefícios sociais não é compatível ao esforço. Diante dessa realidade, a Educação Fiscal (EF) surgiu como um instrumento para renovar o voto de confiança e defende, não apenas que todos paguem os tributos, mas que o façam conscientemente e ativamente, e estabelece, para isso, um diálogo profícuo com as noções de democracia, cidadania, ética e responsabilidade social. Para os fins desta pesquisa, a EF é analisada consoante os pressupostos teóricos da Análise Crítica do Discurso (ACD), tal como compreendido por Fairclough (1989, 2001, 2003 e 2010) e Chouliaraki e Fairclough (1999) e, para aprofundar e facilitar o estudo, são utilizados também os postulados da Nova Retórica de Perelman e Olbrechts-Tyteca (2005) como um instrumento de análise complementar à ACD. O estudo está dividido em três seções de forma a abranger a teoria tridimensional do discurso: textual, discursiva e prática social. Nesse ínterim, o diálogo com a Nova Retórica serve como uma relevante ferramenta para descoberta dos discursos subjacentes ao DEF enriquecendo a reflexão das dimensões textual e discursiva. Nesse diapasão, é contemplada, na análise do discurso da Educação Fiscal (DEF), a tentativa do DEF de ensejar uma mudança social a partir de uma abordagem dos três níveis da estrutura social (GIDDENS, 2009). Neste estudo, de natureza interdisciplinar, são mostrados, de um lado, o poder de influência do DEF nessa conjuntura, e, de outro, os elementos da estrutura social que são obstáculos para que o DEF alcance a hegemonia. Dos resultados da pesquisa, destacam-se os seguintes: a possibilidade de inserção do DEF no evento maior chamado de modernidade tardia (GIDDENS, 1991 e 2002); sua conexão com o fenômeno do aprofundamento dos processos democráticos (GIDDENS, 2002); as relações de poder envolvendo os instrumentos utilizados para a propagação do DEF, como a escola e o material didático (FAIRCLOUGH, 1989 e AGAMBEN, 2005); a tentativa de remodelamento do ethos do Estado realizado pelo DEF (FAIRCLOUGH, 2003); do ponto de vista da intertextualidade e da ordem do discurso (FAIRCLOUGH, 2003), observa-se que o DEF articula diferentes discursos, desde aqueles da democracia e da cidadania até o discurso do direito tributário. Para finalizar, são explorados e discutidos os modos de operação da ideologia (THOMPSON, 2002) no corpus e a relação do DEF com a noção de hegemonia (GRAMSCI, 1999).

Estratégias argumentativas na construção do discurso ideológico: um estudo da produção didático-pedagógica do meb

This research studies the argumentative process developed by the Basis Educational Movement (MEB), using as corpus the booklet Viver é lutar , and other lesson plans of the Educational Rural Radio from Natal. It has as objectives reveal the argumentative strategies in the discursive production of MEB, exploring the meaning effects suggested by its production conditions, and the ideological positions defended, in addition to this, verify how the booklet and the radio classes dialogued in the argumentation of their theses. So, the study is guided by the Discourse Analysis presuppositions, by the Argumentation Theory, by the conceptions of Popular Education, as well as the conception language dialogical language conception, recurring to Bakhtin (1995). The research adopts the documental characteristic of qualitative nature with an interpretative basis. The analysis of the data permitted us to confirm that the pedagogical didactic material discourse of MEB was produced in a social-historical-ideological context in what the education was seen as a social liberation instrument, being able to transform the Brazilian people and the Brazilian unequal structure. The results reveal that the booklet and the classes assume a position remarkably in favor of the popular classes, structured by the argumentative techniques that intended to convince, and to persuade the auditorium. Thus, the argument was based initially on the convincing of youths and of adults for, afterwards, to construct a persuasion to the learners, in terms of referring to act on the reality to transform it, according to their desires of social justice

Ave! Mossoró! : os mecanismos discursivos sobre o episódio da resistência ao bando de Lampião

This thesis has as objective the interdiscursive relations in the process of language construction in use in the poetic and in the journalistic spheres, with the purpose of perceiving how the genre news is constituted in different fields of social activity, as well as to analyze the argumentative processes that structure the written discourses about the resistance episode to the group of Lampião in Mossoró in the year of 1927. The corpus of the research is constituted by the news of the period informed in the printed newspapers: Correio do povo and O Nordeste, both from Mossoró/RN, and the narratives presented in the cordéis de acontecido : Mossoró in the resistance to the group of Lampião; Lampião in Mossoró in 1927, and Mossoró attacking to the group of Lampião, all potiguar poets. The analysis of the texts had as theoretical background the studies of: The texts analysis had as theoretical background The Discourse Analysis; The Argumentation Theory and the studies about Discourse Genres. We focused our discussion in the emphasis given to the news in the discursive perspective of the social-historic memory constructed in the cordéis, from ideological values (political, economical, religious etc.) that pass to be a fundamental element in the constitution of the image of the resistance. Methodologically, this is a documental research, since it makes use essentially of the written document. Regarding to the nature of the data, the research is characterized as a qualitative one. In the analysis, we considered the argumentative techniques adopted in the defense of the thesis, the meaning effects suggested, and the genres mentioned, that revealed to us the manner in which the episode was informed by the newspapers and the cordéis. That way, we affirm, based on the positions assumed by the announcers of the genres analyzed who defended clearly positions in favor of the defense of Mossoró, that the relation between both is captured interdiscursively, since they are asked by the same ideology, and converge to the same discursive formation, defending identical positions, and structuring their discussions with resembling argumentative techniques, reason by which take us to believe that the discourse presented in that social activity demonstrates and develops traces of a manipulation of the subject. In this case, the discursive construction of the text points towards determining standard of repetition, since the linguistic context is characterized in the journalistic field, and in the poetic field assuming, in the first instance, a local expression

Insuficiências e propostas teórico-práticas para a efetivação judicial de direitos humanos fundamentais

Pós-graduação em Direito - FCHS

Lógica formal y argumentación

Este artículo explora críticamente la tesis según la cual la lógica formal deductiva contemporánea proporciona métodos e instrumentos para una teoría de la evaluación de argumentos formulados en un lenguaje natural. En este artículo se sostiene que la teoría de la (in)validez de la lógica formal deductiva sólo se puede aplicar a los argumentos del lenguaje natural utilizando aquello que se quiere explicar teóricamente, i.e. Las intuiciones que los/las hablantes de un lenguaje natural tienen acerca de la relaciones de implicación lógica entre las expresiones de esa lengua. Se exploran también algunas consecuencias pedagógicas de esta crítica.

Lógica formal y argumentación

Este artículo explora críticamente la tesis según la cual la lógica formal deductiva contemporánea proporciona métodos e instrumentos para una teoría de la evaluación de argumentos formulados en un lenguaje natural. En este artículo se sostiene que la teoría de la (in)validez de la lógica formal deductiva sólo se puede aplicar a los argumentos del lenguaje natural utilizando aquello que se quiere explicar teóricamente, i.e. Las intuiciones que los/las hablantes de un lenguaje natural tienen acerca de la relaciones de implicación lógica entre las expresiones de esa lengua. Se exploran también algunas consecuencias pedagógicas de esta crítica.

Lógica formal y argumentación

Este artículo explora críticamente la tesis según la cual la lógica formal deductiva contemporánea proporciona métodos e instrumentos para una teoría de la evaluación de argumentos formulados en un lenguaje natural. En este artículo se sostiene que la teoría de la (in)validez de la lógica formal deductiva sólo se puede aplicar a los argumentos del lenguaje natural utilizando aquello que se quiere explicar teóricamente, i.e. Las intuiciones que los/las hablantes de un lenguaje natural tienen acerca de la relaciones de implicación lógica entre las expresiones de esa lengua. Se exploran también algunas consecuencias pedagógicas de esta crítica.

A construção do Ethos no discurso publicitário : sob a máscara da cientificidade

“A construção do ethos no discurso publicitário: sob a máscara da cientificidade” resulta de um trabalho de investigação de mestrado que tem por objeto de estudo o discurso publicitário impresso, que refere a autoridade científica como estratégia persuasiva, ganhando, assim, um caráter de seriedade e de verdade. A análise, tributária dos estudos do campo da Retórica, da Análise do Discurso, da Linguística Textual, da Pragmática e da Teoria da Argumentação, visa demonstrar os mecanismos envolvidos no processo de construção do ethos no discurso publicitário marcado pela cientificidade. Neste sentido, a partir da observação do corpus, constata-se a eficácia argumentativa da cientificidade na construção do ethos presente no discurso publicitário.

Argumentation and education. Theoretical foundations and practices

During the last decade, argumentation has attracted growing attention as a means to elicit processes (linguistic, logical, dialogical, psychological, etc.) that can sustain or provoke reasoning and learning. Constituting an important dimension of daily life and of professional activities, argumentation plays a special role in democracies and is at the heart of philosophical reasoning and scientific inquiry. Argumentation, as such, requires specific intellectual and social skills. Hence, argumentation will have an increasing importance in education, both because it is a critical competence that has to be learned, and because argumentation can be used to foster learning in philosophy, history, sciences and in many other domains. Argumentation and Education answers these and other questions by providing both theoretical backgrounds, in psychology, education and theory of argumentation, and concrete examples of experiments and results in school contexts in a range of domains. It reports on existing innovative practices in education settings at various levels.

Rhetorical theory of public relations: opening the door to semiotic and pragmatism approaches

The 2001 Handbook of Public Relations edited by Robert Heath contains a prominent article advocating the use of rhetorical theory or ‘rhetorical enactment rational’ as a fruitful way of advancing theoretical understandings of public relations. In 2004 Heath and Dan Millar edited: Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication. These are the latest excursions into a perspective on public relations reflecting the extensive study of rhetoric in North America. Other examples are Public Relations Inquiry as Rhetorical Criticism (Elwood, 1995); Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public Relations (Toth and Heath, 1992); and a chapter Public Relations? No, Relations with Publics: A Rhetorical-Organisational Approach to Contemporary Corporate Communication (Cheney and Dionisopoulos, in Botan and Hazleton (Eds.) 1989).

The conventional notion of rhetoric is argumentation and persuasion stemming from the ancient Greek sophists, such as Aristotle, and from the Romans, particularly Cicero and Quintillion. Rhetoric became a fundamental plank of the trivium of ancient and medieval education: grammar, logic and rhetoric. Then in the 20th century Kenneth Burke, Stephen Toulmin and Chaim Perelman with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca extended Aristotle’s suggestion that: “Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic” Aristotle (trans. 1991). To use the rhetorical approach to argue that rational discourse cannot describe the world on its own. Instead living, enculturated human beings have to perceive ‘their’ truths. They take a perceptual ‘position’ on reason.

Public relations, is an industry for influencing perceptual ‘positions’. But the study of perception and attempts to influence perception cannot be claimed by rhetorical scholars alone. Semioticians and linguists who take the perspective of linguistic pragmatics also claim this field. This paper takes the example of ‘public relations’ as a focus for the confluence of rhetorical, semiotic and pragmatism approaches to the ‘problematic’ of understanding and truth.

Inconsistent-tolerant base revision through Argument Theory Change

Reasoning and change over inconsistent knowledge bases (KBs) is of utmost relevance in areas like medicine and law. Argumentation may bring the possibility to cope with both problems. Firstly, by constructing an argumentation framework (AF) from the inconsistent KB, we can decide whether to accept or reject a certain claim through the interplay among arguments and counterarguments. Secondly, by handling dynamics of arguments of the AF, we might deal with the dynamics of knowledge of the underlying inconsistent KB. Dynamics of arguments has recently attracted attention and although some approaches have been proposed, a full axiomatization within the theory of belief revision was still missing. A revision arises when we want the argumentation semantics to accept an argument. Argument Theory Change (ATC) encloses the revision operators that modify the AF by analyzing dialectical trees-arguments as nodes and attacks as edges-as the adopted argumentation semantics. In this article, we present a simple approach to ATC based on propositional KBs. This allows to manage change of inconsistent KBs by relying upon classical belief revision, although contrary to it, consistency restoration of the KB is avoided. Subsequently, a set of rationality postulates adapted to argumentation is given, and finally, the proposed model of change is related to the postulates through the corresponding representation theorem. Though we focus on propositional logic, the results can be easily extended to more expressive formalisms such as first-order logic and description logics, to handle evolution of ontologies.