Argument schemes and visualization software for critical thinking about international politics

Critical Thinking about 'critical Thinking'

Using Argument Diagramming Software to Teach Critical Thinking Skills

There is substantial evidence from many domains that visual representations aid various forms of cognition. We aimed to determine whether visual representations of argument structure enhanced the acquisition and development of critical thinking skills within the context of an introductory philosophy course. We found a significant effect of the use of argument diagrams, and this effect was stabl...

Thinking About the Ultimate Argument for Realism

Alan Musgrave has been one of the most passionate defenders of scientific realism. Most of his papers in this area are, by now, classics. The title of my paper alludes to Musgrave’s piece “The Ultimate Argument for Realism”, though the expression is Bas van Fraassen’s (1980, 39), and the argument is Hilary Putnam’s (1975, 73): realism “is the only philosophy of science that does not make the su...

Argument Maps Improve Critical Thinking

Computer-based argument mapping greatly enhances student critical thinking, more than tripling absolute gains made by other methods. I describe the method and my experience as an outsider. Argument mapping often showed precisely how students were erring (for example: confusing helping premises for separate reasons), making it much easier for them to fix their errors. I’ve been skeptical about c...

Argument Schemes for Reasoning about Trust

Trust is a natural mechanism by which an autonomous party can deal with the inherent uncertainty regarding the behaviors of other parties and the uncertainty in the information it shares with those parties. Trust is thus crucial in any decentralized system. We build on recent efforts to use argumentation to reason about trust. Specifically, we provide a set of schemes, abstract patterns of reas...