Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-making
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BOOK REVIEW
Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-making Published by Springer-Verlag, London, UK, 2003, 202216 pp. ISBN 1-85233-664-1
Reviewed by: Ian Alexander Scenario Plus, UK
European Journal of Information Systems (2003) 12, 163–164. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000457
The remarkable part was that when this was laid out clearly in the context of all other relevant considerations, its overriding force was fully appreciated in a way it had never been when the arguments were rehearsed in standard ways (van Gelder, p 112).
The basic assertion of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is that there is a synergy when the right technology combines with skilled human effort. The special claim of this book is that CSCW tools that illustrate arguments and their supporting evidence contribute significantly to that synergy. Tim van Gelder in a way summarizes the case: at least sometimes, it is virtually enough just to elicit and diagram an argument. Once everybody can see the battlelines drawn out, the need for debate often melts away. Presumably, the psychological reason for this is shared experience. Have you not felt, on hearing on the radio that 70% of the public agree with a claim, that you yourself are 70% persuaded and 30% not persuaded? Everyone knows the arguments, but not everyone visualizes them clearly. If so, consensus is just a visualization away. Part I, Foundations, consists of just two chapters – on the roots of computer-supported argument visualization (let us call it CSAV for short) by Buckingham Shum, and a cognitive framework for cooperative problem solving with CSAV, by Jan van Bruggen and others. Both discuss the IBIS method (which is supported by several tools). One wonderful example, namely, John Henry Wigmore’s Chart Method for analysing legal evidence, was devised in 1913. It was certainly an AV method although the computer was just pen and paper. Hypertext, too, was from the start about argumentation, as Vannevar Bush made clear in his famous article As We May Think in 1945. Another major root is the philosophy of language of Stephen Toulmin, whose Uses of Argument (1958) counters 2000 years of excessive Aristotelian logic. Toulmin devised an argument structure involving Datum, Claim, Warrant, Backing, and Rebuttal, all to be arranged graphically – again, clearly an AV format. Buckingham Shum wickedly pokes fun at ‘tame’ problems, contrasted with Horst Rittel’s ‘wicked’ problems that CSAV tries to address. He observes that ‘Tame problems may even be amenable to automated analysis, such as computer configuration design or medical diagnosis by expert system’ (p 11). This is a gibe at the most famous examples of Artificial Intelligence such as Mycin. CSAV’s answer is that machines are far too stupid to solve wicked problems, but that computers and people together may do so. Part II, Applications, consists of seven chapters illustrating different CSAV approaches. Gellof Kanselaar and others write on designing tools for collaborative learning; Carr w
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