Abstract
This paper compares the features and methods of the two leading implemented systems that offer a tool for helping a user to find or invent arguments to support or attack a designated conclusion, the Carneades Argumentation System and the IBM Watson Debater tool. The central aim is to contribute to the understanding of scholars in informal logic, rhetoric and argumentation on how these two software systems can be useful for them. One contribution of the paper is to explain to these potential users how the two tools are applicable to the task of inventing arguments by using some simple illustrative examples. Another is to redefine the structure of argument invention as a procedure.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aharoni, E., C. Alzate, A. Bar-Haim, Y. Bilu, L. Dankin, I. Eiron, D. Hershkovich, S. Hummerl, M. Khapra, T. Lavee, R. Levy, P. Matchen, A. Polnarov, V. Raykar, R. Rinott, A. Saha, N. Zwerdling, D. Konopnicki, D. Gutfreund, and N. Slonim 2014. Claims on Demand—An Initial Demonstration of a System for Automatic Detection and Polarity Identification of Context Dependent Claims in Massive Corpora. In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING 2014), Dublin, Ireland, 6–9. Available as of 2014/12/17 at: http://anthology.aclweb.org/C/C14/C14-2002.pdf.
Anon. 2014. Proceedings of the First Workshop on Argumentation Mining ACL 2014. Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Association for Computational Linguistics, 2014. Available at: http://acl2014.org/acl2014/W14-21/index.html.
Anon. 2015. Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Argumentation Mining, June 4, 2015, Denver, Colorado. Association for Computational Linguistics, 2015. Available at: https://aclweb.org/anthology/W/W15/W15-05.pdf.
Aristotle. 1991. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civil Discourse, ed. G.A. Kennedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Arnauld, A. 1662. La Logique, ou l’Art de Penser [Commonly called the Port-Royal Logic]. Translated into English as The Art of Thinking, Dickoff, J. and James, P., 1964. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Ashley, K.D. (2014). Automatically Extracting Arguments from Legal Texts: A Position Paper. Paper Presented at the Met-Arg Workshop, JURIX 2014.
Ashley, K. 2017. Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics: New Tools for Law Practice in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bench-Capon, Trevor J.M., Sylvie Doutre, and Paul E. Dunne. 2007. Audiences in Argumentation Frameworks. Artificial Intelligence 171 (1): 42–71.
Cabrio, E., and S. Villata. 2012, Combining Textual Entailment and Argumentation Theory for Supporting Online Debate Interactions. In Proceedings of the 50th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Association for Computational Linguistics, 208–212.
Cicero, M.T. 1949. De Inventione (Loeb Library Edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dagan, I., O. Glickman, and B. Magnini. 2006. The PASCAL Recognizing Textual Entailment Challenge. http://eprints.pascal-network.org/archive/00001298/01/dagan_et_al_rte05.pdf.
Dagan, I., B. Dolan, B. Magnini, and D. Roth. 2009. Recognizing Textual Entailment: Rational Evaluation and Approaches. Natural Language Engineering 15(4), i–xvii.
Fruwirth, T. 2009. Constraint Handling Rules. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gordon, T.F. 2010. The Carneades Argumentation Support System. In Dialectics, dialogue and argumentation, ed. C. Reed and C.W. Tindale, 145–156. London: College Publications.
Gordon, T.F. 2011a. Combining Rules and Ontologies with Carneades. In Proceedings of the 5th International RuleML2011@BRF Challenge, CEUR Workshop Proceedings103–110.
Gordon, T.F. 2011b. Analyzing Open Source License Compatibility Issues with Carneades. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL-2011), 50–55. New York, NY: ACM Press.
Gordon, T.F., H. Prakken, and D. Walton. 2007. The Carneades Model of Argument and Burden of Proof. Artificial Intelligence 171(10–15), 875–896.
Gordon, T.F., and D. Walton. 2009. Proof Burdens and Standards. In Argumentation and Artificial Intelligence, ed. Iyad Rahwan and Guillermo Simari, 239–260. Berlin: Springer.
Gordon, T.F., and H. Friedrich. 2017. Representing Argumentation Schemes with Constraint Handling Rules, CMNA 2017.
Kennedy, G. 1963. The Art of Persuasion in Greece. London: Routledge.
Kienpointner, M. 1997. On the Art of Finding Arguments: What Ancient and Modern Masters of Invention Have to Tell Us About the Ars Inveniendi. Argumentation 11(2): 225–236.
Lawrence, J., Bex, F., and C. Reed. 2012. Dialogues on the Argument Web: Mixed Initiative Argumentation with Arvina. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA 2012), 513–514. Amsterdam: IOS Press.
Levy, R., Y. Bilu, D. Hershcovich, E. Aharoni, and M. Slonim. 2014. Context Dependent Claim Detection, Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING 2014), Dublin, Ireland, 1489–1500. Available as of 2014/12/17 at: http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C/C14/C14-1141.pdf.
Mochales, R., and M.-F. Moens. (2011). Argumentation Mining. Artificial Intelligence and Law 19(1), 1–22.
Peldszus, A., and M. Stede. 2013. From Argument Diagrams to Argumentation Mining in Texts. International Journal of Cognitive Informatics and Natural Intelligence 7(1), 1–31.
Pollock, J.L. 1995. Cognitive Carpentry. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Prakken, H. 2010. An Abstract Framework for Argumentation with Structured Arguments. Argument & Computation 1(2), 93–124.
Taboada, M., and W.C. Mann (2006). Rhetorical Structure Theory: Looking Back and Moving Ahead. Discourse Studies 8(3), 423–459.
Toni, F. 2014. A Tutorial on Assumption-Based Argumentation. Argument and Computation 5(1), 89–117.
Turney, P. 2002. Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down? Semantic Orientation Applied to Unsupervised Classification of Reviews. In Proceedings of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 417–424.
Verheij, B. 2005. Virtual Arguments: On the Design of Argument Assistants for Lawyers and Other Arguers. The Hague: TMC Asser Press.
Verheij, B. 2008. About the Logical Relations Between Cases and Rules. In Legal Knowledge and Information Systems. JURIX 2008: The Twenty-First Annual Conference, ed. E. Francesconi, G. Sartor, and D. Tiscornia, 21–32. Amsterdam: IOS Press.
Walton, D. 1994. Begging the Question as a Pragmatic Fallacy. Synthese 100: 95–131.
Walton, D. 2002. Are Some Modus Ponens Arguments Deductively Invalid? Informal Logic, 22(1): 19–46.
Walton, D., C. Reed, and F. Macagno. 2008. Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Walton, D., and T.F. Gordon. 2012. The Carneades Model of Argument Invention. Pragmatics and Cognition 20(1): 1–31.
Walton, D. and T.F. Gordon. 2017. Argument Invention with the Carneades Argumentation System. ScriptED: A Journal of Law, Technology and Society 14(2): 168–207.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Walton, D., Gordon, T.F. How Computational Tools Can Help Rhetoric and Informal Logic with Argument Invention. Argumentation 33, 269–295 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-017-9439-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-017-9439-5