Arguing with limited beings (us, that is) Konrad Talmont-Kaminski, KLI & UMCS

Aims To consider the impact of bounded rationality upon our understanding of argumentation To argue the required response is to consider argumentation as part of a cooperative cognitive process

Plan Standard objections Assumptions behind the objections Bounded rationality and arguments Reconsidering the objections The pessimistic view The optimistic view Cooperation and objective values

Standard objections Arguments inadequate because of: –Informal fallacies –Misrepresenting the facts –Appeal to emotion

Assumptions behind objections Human reasoning approximates an idealised rationality, but –Swayed by emotions –Misled by fallacious reasoning

Bounded rationality Herbert Simon, Bill Wimsatt No idealised rationality to approximate –Similarity to Harman and to Toulmin Rationality constituted by heuristics –Limited use of resources –Biased –Context-dependent –Open-ended Normally considered in context of decisions Can be applied in context of argumentation

Three kinds of arguments Harman’s distinction –Arguments –Inferences Inferences to be understood in terms of heuristics Arguments as: –Abstract objects –(Rational) form of decision-making –(Rational) form of communication

Fallacies and enthymemes Biggles wears boots Nazis wear boots Biggles is a Nazi Hans wears boots, a hat with a skull… Nazis wear boots, hats with skulls… Hans is a Nazi Some cases of informal fallacies are rational arguments Inadequate arguments can be reinterpreted as enthymematic People can distinguish bad and good arguments of the same apparent form Arguments treated as heuristics

Bias and argument Gigerenzer example –City of 1 million –1000 infected –5% false positive –How likely to be ill? –95%? –About 2%! –50,000 false positive Both examples provide the same information Way information presented important Need to understand actual heuristics

Emotion and cognition Over two million Burmese affected by cyclone Actual effect upon a single individual –Engaging empathy –Not clearly inappropriate Role of emotions in rapid response to stimuli Emotion plays a cognitive role Emotions as simple heuristics

The pessimistic view Human reasoning deeply flawed Known biases can be consciously abused The notion of ideal rationality can be used to hide abuse No general strategy to avoid biases Emotions can not be excluded No way to generally distinguish appropriate arguments Argumentation is just another way of getting others to do what you want

The optimistic view Can identify and avoid individual biases –Use heuristics for this Can develop new heuristics to deal with problematic cases Can use arguments for cognitive cooperation given shared goals Heuristics a realistic way to move social epistemology beyond ‘trust’

Cooperation and values Objective values –Truth Can underpin a shared cognitive effort Such efforts self-defeating if no such values Rorty’s notion of solidarity probably not robust enough for this

Thank you