Dialog Theory for Critical Argumentation

Douglas N. Walton

| University of Winnipeg

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027218858 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027292001 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

Because of the need to devise systems for electronic communication on the internet, multi-agent computing is moving to a model of communication as a structured conversation between rational agents. For example, in multi-agent systems, an electronic agent searches around the internet, and collects certain kinds of information by asking questions to other agents. Such agents also reason with each other when they engage in negotiation and persuasion. It is shown in this book that critical argumentation is best represented in this framework by the model of reasoned argument called a dialog, in which two or more parties engage in a polite and orderly exchange with each other according to rules governed by conversation policies. In such dialog argumentation, the two parties reason together by taking turns asking questions, offering replies, and offering reasons to support a claim. They try to settle their disagreements by an orderly conversational exchange that is partly adversarial and partly collaborative.

[Controversies, 5] 2007. xviii, 308 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.5

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	xi–xii
Acronyms	xiii–xiv
Introduction:: Dialog theory for critical argumentation	xv–xviii
Chapter 1. The place of dialog theory	1–45
Chapter 2. The history of dialectic	47–88
Chapter 3. Persuasion dialog	89–129
Chapter 4. Multi-agent dialog systems	131–157
Chapter 5. Agents in critical argumentation	159–203
Chapter 6. Dialectical shifts and embeddings	205–245
Chapter 7. Criticizing a natural language argument	247–287
Bibliography	289–302
Index	303–307

“Walton's book is certainly a major landmark in the study of critical discussion, with detailed models and extensive exemplification (notably in chapters six and seven) that help grasping the indubitably logical basis of fair argumentation.”

Louis de Saussure, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in Pragmatics & Cognition, Vol. 17:2 (2009)

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