How Understanding Shapes Reasoning:Experimental Argument Analysis with Methods from Psycholinguistics and Computational Linguistics

Fischer, Eugen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2088-1610 and Herbelot, Aurélie (2023) How Understanding Shapes Reasoning:Experimental Argument Analysis with Methods from Psycholinguistics and Computational Linguistics. In: Experimental Philosophy of Language. Logic, Argumentation and Reasoning . Springer, pp. 241-262. ISBN 978-3-031-28907-1

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Abstract

Empirical insights into language processing have a philosophical relevance that extends well beyond philosophical questions about language. This chapter will discuss this wider relevance: We will consider how experimental philosophers can examine language processing in order to address questions in several different areas of philosophy. To do so, we will present the emerging research program of experimental argument analysis (EAA) that examines how automatic language processing shapes verbal reasoning – including philosophical arguments. The evidential strand of experimental philosophy uses mainly questionnaire-based methods to assess the evidentiary value of intuitive judgments that are adduced as evidence for philosophical theories and as premises for philosophical arguments. Extending this prominent strand of experimental philosophy, EAA underpins such assessments, extends the scope of the assessments, and expands the range of the empirical methods employed: EAA examines how automatic inferences that are continually made in language comprehension and production shape verbal reasoning, and draws on findings about comprehension biases that affect the contextualisation of such default inferences, in order to explain and expose fallacies. It deploys findings to assess premises and inferences from premises to conclusions, in philosophical arguments. To do so, it adapts methods from psycholinguistics and recruits methods from computational linguistics.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	communication,language and linguistics,history,philosophy,linguistics and language,applied mathematics ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3315
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Wittgenstein Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > UEA Experimental Philosophy Group
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?... https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.100...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	23 Jan 2023 10:30
Last Modified:	13 Nov 2023 18:09
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/90688
DOI:	10.1007/978-3-031-28908-8_12

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