The slippery slope argument (SSA) is generally treated as a fallacy by both traditional and contemporary theories of argumentation, but is frequently used and widely accepted in applied reasoning domains. Experiment 1 tests the hypothesis that SSAs are not perceived as universally weak arguments. The results provide the first empirical demonstration that SSAs vary predictably in their subjectiv...

Entire matrix-valued functions of a complex argument (entire matrix pencils) are considered. Bounds for spectral variations of pencils are derived. In particular, approximations of entire pencils by polynomial pencils are investigated. Our results are new even for polynomial pencils. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Recent developments in cosmology indicate that every history having a nonzero probability is realized in infinitely many distinct regions of spacetime. Thus, it appears that the universe contains infinitely many civilizations exactly like our own, as well as infinitely many civilizations that differ from our own in any way permitted by physical laws. We explore the implications of this conclusi...

Anselm’s Ontological Argument fails, but not for any of the various reasons commonly adduced. In particular, its failure has nothing to do with violating deep Kantian principles by treating ‘exists’ as a predicate or making reference to ‘Meinongian’ entities. Its one fatal flaw, so far from being metaphysically deep, is in fact logically shallow, deriving from a subtle scope ambiguity in Anselm...

The validity of large-scale assessments may be compromised, partly due to their content inappropriateness or construct underrepresentation. Few validity studies have focused on such assessments within an argument-based framework. This study analyzed the domain description and evaluation inference of the Ph.D. Entrance Exam of ELT (PEEE) sat by Ph.D. examinees (n = 999) in 2014 in Iran....

Short-circuit evaluation denotes the semantics of propositional connectives in which the second argument is evaluated only if the first argument does not suffice to determine the value of the expression. Free short-circuit logic is the equational logic in which compound statements are evaluated from left to right, while atomic evaluations are not memorized throughout the evaluation, i.e., evalu...

We have implemented a translator that translates Carneades Argument Graphs as specified in the LKIF files of the Carneades editor to a database specification of the Argument Interchange Format and vice versa. In this paper the algorithms for this translation are presented.

An explicit construction of a geodesic flow-invariant distribution lying in the discrete series of weight 2k isotopic component is found, using techniques from representation theory of SL2(R). It is found that the distribution represents an AC measure on the unit tangent bundle of the hyperbolic plane minus an explicit singular set. Finally, via an averaging argument, a geodesic flow-invariant ...

Verification of a polynomial’s evaluation in a secret committed value plays a role in cryptographic applications such as non-membership or membership proofs. We construct a novel special honest verifier zero-knowledge argument for correct polynomial evaluation. The argument has logarithmic communication cost in the degree of the polynomial, which is a significant improvement over the state of t...