INFERENCE PATH

Every inference path rests upon assumptions (aka conditions). So it is a good idea to not only examine the stepping stones that form the inference path, but also to check for any underlying assumptions that support them. If you don’t agree with an assumption, the path is probably not one you should walk on.

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Recognizing structural fallacies is important in presenting arguments to the court. Yet in litigation, even the courts do not always recognize structural fallacies. (Thompson v. State of Texas, Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, No. 73,431, discussing Denying the Antecedent.) Typical hierarchical pyramid argument mapping is, however, no help.

Gibson, Rowe, and Reed present an interesting analysis of one type of structural fallacy using Araucaria hierarchical pyramid argument mapping to develop a computational approach. http://babbage.computing.dundee.ac.uk/chris/publications/2007/cmna2007-gibson.pdf.  The structural fallacy examined is Affirming the Consequent. The scaffolding of Araucaria provides, however, no clue of the structural problem.

A TRANSITIVITY™ approach, as illustrated in the slide show below using their example, provides a solution. And, in my opinion, extending the AML to include a representation of the transitivity of predication,  rather than basing it on a Wigmorean schema, would optimize the effectiveness of the computational approach.

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Learning argument visualization has never been easier. The new tutorial slide show at the page tab above makes it easy.

The ease and effectiveness of any argument visualization design is dependent on the underlying concept of argumentation upon which it is based. Old-style conventional hierarchical pyramid approaches rely upon sluggish and unnecessarily complex concepts that are opaque and awkward for the casual reader. (e.g. Can anybody really explain the distinction between a main premise and a co-premise or what an inference looks like?)

This tutorial uses a more intuitive, readable, and ultimately, a more effective approach. It is based on the transitivity of predication (e.g. If A=B and B=C, then A=C;  http://inferencepath.edublogs.org/2007/05/27/how-does-a-transitive-inference-path-work/).

The tutorial uses a simple dialogue to illustrate the visual language.

I hope you find it helpful. And I welcome any suggestions for improvement.

Tenuous inference leaps can be made more evident with a visual language of transitive predicates rather than transitive premises. This increased atomicity visually depicts each nexus of predication as an arrow. The following case illustrates this effect.

In Chesterfield Assoc. v. Edison Township, 13 N.J. Tax 195 (1993) the subject properties being appraised for property tax purposes were residential townhouses. The comparable sales were 95 townhouses for which the appraisers for the taxpayer and the county stipulated to sales prices. Both appraisers then made adjustments to these sales prices to reflect differences between the subject properties and the comparables.

The taxpayer’s appraiser testified that a downward adjustment for physical condition should be made to the sales prices of the comparable townhouses since, unlike the subject townhouses, the comparable townhouses were owner, not tenant, occupied.

The argument map reveals that the appraiser perceives that the subject and predicate of the main contention is linked by the predicate “are owner-occupied unlike the subject.” The problem was that the judge’s perception was different. The judge perceived a gap in the connection between this predicate and the final predicate of the main contention.

The court stated that the connection between “are owner-occupied unlike the subject” and “require a downward adjustment to sales price for condition” was not made apparent by the appraiser “in the stipulation of facts, the appraisal reports of plaintiff’s expert, or the certification of plaintiff’s expert…” It was not relevant to the court that the taxpayer’s attorney, after the evidence was presented, argued in the post-trial brief that the connection implied by the appraiser was that “a tenant tends to abuse property to a greater degree than an owner.” The attorney’s attempt to clarify the support for the conclusion was too late to influence the judge.

So, it can be helpful to map the transitive predicates and view the leaps through the eyes of the judge prior to trial to better assess for tenuous connections.