Review by: De Ascaniis, Silvia (2008-10-21)

The paper by Tim van Gelder, associate professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Melbourne, is part of the discussion about the development of reasoning skills and the enhancement of group deliberation with the use of computers. It constitutes the 5th chapter of a book entirely dedicated to the Computer-Supported Argument Visualization, titled “Visualizing Argumentation” and edited by Kirschner et al. in 2003.

The keyword in van Gelder’s chapter is „deliberation“. It refers to a form of thinking in which one decides the claim to stand on by considering the relevant arguments. Deliberation uses reasoning to recognize the inferential relationships among propositions, but unlike pure reasoning, it aimes at determining the reasonableness of the claim. Furthermore, deliberation is similar to argumentation, since it involves rational persuasion to determine one’s own attitude and since it is often a collective activity.

The author does not consider the structure of reasoning itself but the ways in which it could be presented to facilitate deliberation. Even if prose is the standard way, he claims that it is not a good tool for the issue at end and identifies some limitations: prose requires interpretation, as the reader has to find out the relationships among claims and arguments; it represents reasoning throughout streams of words neglecting any other representational resource and hence the visual display of the metaphors we naturally use for reasoning and argument construction (e. g. bigger or smaller diagram boxes to illustrate the concept of “argument strength”). Finally, prose imposes a sequential structure thus introducing inappropriate juxtapositions, while arguments are not necessarily sequential.

Van Gelder introduces argument maps as a tool designed to overcome the limitations of prose and contends that they can improve deliberation, especially if computer-supported. He provides two examples of argument mapping; the first is a project conducted among undergraduate students and the second is a business-oriented application. Both used a software called Reason!Able that was developed by the University of Melbourne within the Reason! Project. This tool allows users to build, modify, evaluate and store argument maps in an easy and rapid way.

In the first case, relying on the assumption that deliberation is a matter of exercising reasoning and argumentative skills, a group of undergraduate students were tested for a period of two years in the exercising of such skills using different methods. It was found that a large amount of practice with the Reason!Able software improved critical thinking skills, and that the improvement was not due to the practice itself but rather to the use of the tool, since no correlation between simple practice and improvement was found.

As CEO of Austhink Software, an Australian company devoted to the development of software for business decision-making, van Gelder had the opportunity to test Reason!Able in working groups dealing with deliberation in complex situations. He presents the experience of a factory which made a switch in the operation mode; this switch led to a general internal disagreement that was handled in a more effective way thanks to the visualization of all the arguments arisen around the main issue. The argument mapping process allowed to create a common understanding among participants and reach consensus.

In summary, the paper succeeds in supporting the initial statement through evidence, and thus represents an important attempt to test the effectiveness of argument mapping software. The question that arises is whether the use of such tools is subordinated to the help of an expert who facilitates technical issues such as the argumentative “translation” of the deliberation process. Moreover, the author states that “anything which enhances deliberation thereby enhances our ability to know the truth”, but the ability to make clear one’s opinion does not necessarily avoid reasoning mistakes, fallacies included.