Unsafe Presumptions in Clinical Research

Unsafe presumptions in clinical research.

Ethics in Clinical Research

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Implicatures and hierarchies of presumptions

Implicatures are described as particular forms reasoning from best explanation, in which the paradigm of possible explanations consists of the possible semantic interpretations of a sentence or a word. The need for explanation will be shown to be triggered by conflicts between presumptions, namely hearer’s dialogical expectations and the presumptive sentence meaning. What counts as the best exp...

Presumptions and Burdens of Proof

This paper studies the logical modelling of presumptions and their effects on the burden of proof. Presumptions are modelled as default rules and their effect on the burden of proof is defined in terms of a distinction between the burden of production, the burden of persuasion and the tactical burden of proof. These notions are logically characterised in such a way that presumptions enable a pa...

The Presumptions of Meaning: Hamblin and Equivocation

The force and the deceptive nature of the fallacy of equivocation lies in its dialectical nature. The speaker redefines a word in order to classify a fragment of reality, while the hearer draws a conclusion based on the ordinary meaning of such a classification. This difference between the interlocutors’ meanings is grounded on a crucial epistemic gap: how is it possible to know our hearer’s mi...