In informal logic and philosophy, an argument map is a visual representation of the structure of an argument. It includes the components of an argument such as a main contention, premises, co-premises, objections, rebuttals, and lemmas. Typically an argument map is a "box and arrow" diagram with boxes corresponding to propositions and arrows corresponding to relationships such as evidential support.
Argument maps are commonly used in the context of teaching and applying critical thinking. The purpose of mapping is to uncover the logical structure of arguments, identify unstated assumptions, evaluate the support an argument offers for a conclusion, and aid understanding of debates. Argument maps are often designed to support deliberation of issues, ideas and arguments in wicked problems.
- 1 Introduction
- 2 History and current applications
- 3 Standards
- 4 See also
- 5 Notes
- 6 References
- 7 Further reading
- 8 External links
This is a simple argument map. The conclusion is shown at the top, and the boxes linked to it represent supporting reasons, which comprise one or more premises. The reason, 1A, comprising two premises 1A-a and 1A-b, support the conclusion:
Here is a more complex map. The objection 1A weakens the conclusion, while the reason 2A supports premise 1A-b of the objection:
Evidence that argument mapping improves critical thinking ability
There is empirical evidence that the skills developed in argument-mapping-based critical thinking courses substantially transfer to critical thinking done without argument maps. Alvarez's meta-analysis found that such critical thinking courses produced gains of around 0.70 SD, about twice as much as standard critical-thinking courses. The tests used in the reviewed studies were standard critical-thinking tests.
How argument mapping helps with critical thinking
The use of argument mapping has occurred within a number of disciplines, such as philosophy, management reporting, military and intelligence analysis, and public debates.
Logical structure: Argument maps display an argument's logical structure more clearly than does the standard linear way of presenting arguments.
Critical thinking concepts: In learning to argument map, students master such key critical thinking concepts as "reason", "objection", "premise", "conclusion", "inference", "rebuttal", "unstated assumption", "co-premise", "strength of evidence", "logical structure", "independent evidence", etc. Mastering such concepts is not just a matter of memorizing their definitions or even being able to apply them correctly; it is also understanding why the distinctions these words mark are important and using that understanding to guide one's reasoning.
Visualization: Humans are highly visual and argument mapping may provide students with a basic set of visual schemas with which to understand argument structures.
More careful reading and listening: Learning to argument map teaches people to read and listen more carefully, and highlights for them the key questions "What is the logical structure of this argument?" and "How does this sentence fit into the larger structure?" In-depth cognitive processing is thus more likely.
More careful writing and speaking: Argument mapping helps people to state their reasoning and evidence more precisely, because the reasoning and evidence must fit explicitly into the map's logical structure.
Literal and intended meaning: Often, many statements in an argument do not precisely assert what the author meant. Learning to argument map enhances the complex skill of distinguishing literal from intended meaning.
Externalization: Writing something down and reviewing what one has written often helps reveal gaps and clarify one's thinking. Because the logical structure of argument maps is clearer than that of linear prose, the benefits of mapping will exceed those or ordinary writing.
Anticipating replies: Important to critical thinking is anticipating objections and considering the plausibility of different rebuttals. Mapping develops this anticipation skill, and so improves analysis.
History and current applications
The philosophical origins and tradition of argument mapping
In the Elements of Logic, which was published in 1826 and issued in many subsequent editions, Archbishop Richard Whately gave probably the first form of an argument map, introducing it with the suggestion that "many students probably will find it a very clear and convenient mode of exhibiting the logical analysis of the course of argument, to draw it out in the form of a Tree, or Logical Division".
However, the technique did not become widely used, possibly because for complex arguments, it involved much writing and rewriting of the premises.
Legal philosopher and theorist John Henry Wigmore produced maps of legal arguments using numbered premises in the early 20th century, based in part on the ideas of 19th century philosopher Henry Sidgwick who used lines to indicate relations between terms.
Stephen Toulmin, in a groundbreaking and influential book The Uses of Argument, identified several elements to an argument which has been generalized. The Toulmin diagram is widely used in educational critical teaching.
In 1998 a substantial series of maps released by Robert E. Horn stimulated widespread interest in the technique. In 1999 articles in the journal New Scientist, Lingua Franca and the Philosophers' Magazine focused more attention on the project.
Anglophone argument diagramming in the 20th century
Dealing with the failure of formal reduction of informal argumentation, English speaking argumentation theory developed diagrammatic approaches to informal reasoning over a period of fifty years.
In 1988, David Kelley proposed a structured diagram technique with numbered premises, and arrows indicating inferential relations. The premises were to be listed at the side of the diagram for reference. The three forms here of an argument are serial, additive (or joint), and non-additive (or convergent), respectively. Kelley also had divergent arguments, where a single premise could act as a reason for multiple lines of argument. Kelley diagrams are also often shown as "ball and stick" diagrams.
In the 1990s, Tim van Gelder developed a series of computer applications that permitted the premises to be fully stated and edited in the diagram, rather than in a legend. This also permitted reasons to be edited for clarity according to the principle of charity, whereby one reconstructs arguments so they are consistent with the best interpretation of authorial intentions. The first program, Reason!Able, was superseded by two subsequent programs, bCisive and Rationale. In 2009, van Gelder sold the software rights to Kritische Denken in the Netherlands. Rationale permits reasons comprising one or more premises. This forces the arguer or analyst to identify the missing (unstated) premises based on the rule that there should be no danglers, that is, terms that only appear in one claim box of an argument (see Enthymeme). Here is a basic Rationale argument map:
Reasons consist of premises that support a final or intermediate conclusion. In this map, premises 2A-a and 2A-b support the intermediate conclusion 1A-a, which is a co-premise with 1A-b for the final conclusion.
Argument maps can also map objections to conclusions or premises:
In this map, objections are offered to premise 2A-b and also to the conclusion directly.
Difficulties with the philosophical tradition
It has traditionally been hard to separate teaching critical thinking from the philosophical tradition of teaching logic and method, and most critical thinking textbooks have been written by philosophers. Informal logic textbooks are replete with philosophical examples, but it is unclear whether the approach in such textbooks transfers to non-philosophy students. There appears to be little statistical effect after such classes. Argument mapping, however, has a measurable effect according to many studies. For example, instruction in argument mapping has been shown to improve the critical thinking skills of business students.
Argument maps have been applied in many areas, but foremost in educational, academic and business settings. It has also been proposed that argument mapping has a great potential to improve how we understand and execute democracy, in reference to the ongoing evolution of e-democracy.
Argument Interchange Format
The Argument Interchange Format, AIF, is an international effort to develop a representational mechanism for exchanging argument resources between research groups, tools, and domains using a semantically rich language. AIF-RDF, is the extended ontology represented in the Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS) semantic language. Though AIF is still something of a moving target, it is settling down.
Legal Knowledge Interchange Format
The Legal Knowledge Interchange Format (LKIF), developed in the European ESTRELLA project, is an XML schema for rules and arguments, designed with the goal of becoming a standard for representing and interchanging policy, legislation and cases, including their justificatory arguments, in the legal domain. LKIF builds on and uses the Web Ontology Language (OWL) for representing concepts and includes a reusable basic ontology of legal concepts.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Argument maps.|
- Araucaria (software)
- Argumentation theory
- Compendium (software)
- Concept map
- Flow (policy debate)
- Informal fallacy
- Information graphics
- Mind map
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Argument mapping software
- Araucaria (open source, cross platform/Java)
- Argumentative (open source, Windows); supports single-user, graphical argumentation
- bCisive (commercial, Windows); supports reasoning and decision making by mapping decision problems, options and arguments.
- Compendium (open source, cross platform/Java)
- DeMMaTTouL [in Spanish] (open source, Linux, Windows, Mac); argument mapping using the Toulmin Model, export to HTML (Download from Sourceforge)
- Rationale (commercial, Windows); supports simple "Reasoning" maps and more advanced "Analysis" maps
- PIRIKA (PIlot for the RIght Knowledge and Argument) (open source, Linux, Windows)
- PIRIKA on iPad (open source)
- Arguman.org (user interface in Turkish, discuss arguments, opensource project)
- AGORA-net (user interface in English, German, Spanish, and Russian)
- Carneades (open source, argument (re)construction, evaluation, mapping and interchange)
- CrystalTower (open debate map built on syllogisms/arguments)
- DebateWithMe (Premise-Premise-Conclusion structure based maps)
- Deliberatorium (MIT)
- Riyarchy (Collaborative argument map for outlining and ending debates)
- Theorymaps (a causal & theory mapping tool designed specifically to map out arguments presented in an empirical research article)
- ArgDF (a Semantic Web-based argumentation system)
- Argumap Yahoo Group
- Argument & Computation research journal
- Argument Mapping in Your Subject (resource site for college-level educators integrating argument mapping into their teaching)
- Scholarly Ontologies Project
- IJCAI International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
- AISB Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour
- Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS) Workshop Series
- CMNA Computational Models of Natural Argument
- COMMA Computational Models of Argument
- ISSA International Society for the Study of Argumentation