Papers by Eugen Octav Popa
Synthese, 2022
Disagreements come in all shapes and sizes, but epistemologists and argumentation theorists have ... more Disagreements come in all shapes and sizes, but epistemologists and argumentation theorists have singled out a special category referred to as deep disagreements. These deep disagreements are thought to pose philosophical and practical difficulties pertaining to their rational resolution. In this paper, I start with a critique of the widespread claim that deep disagreements are qualitatively different from normal disagreements because they arise from a difference in 'fundamental principles' or 'hinge commitments.' I then defend the following two claims: (1) All disagreements are deep to the extent that they are actual disagreements. This first claim implies, I will argue, that disagreements typically regarded as normal ('shallow') can be explained away as misunderstandings or communicative mishaps. (2) The resolution of a disagreement can be rational either through a joint experience of mutually recognized facts or through an exchange of arguments that leads to a reformulation of the disagreement that, in this new form, lends itself to a resolution through a joint experience of mutually recognized facts. I conclude with a reflection on the consequences of these two theses for the idea of deep disagreement and that of rational resolution.
Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2021
Fallacies are traditionally defined as potentially deceptive failures of rationality or reasonabl... more Fallacies are traditionally defined as potentially deceptive failures of rationality or reasonableness. Fallacy theories seek to model this failure by formulating standards of rationality or reasonableness that arguers must observe when engaging in argumentative interaction. Yet it remains relatively easy to reject or avoid fallacy judgments even in the most clear-cut cases. In this article, I argue for a pluralist approach to criticism in which the fallacy accusation is only the starting point for a more complex form of criticism. In a pluralist approach, the identification of fallacies works as a first step precisely because it can be so easily set aside. In doing so, the evaluator seeks other evaluative angles that depart from the original one. As a case in point, I exemplify the approach on a piece of argumentative discourse in the scientific context. I conclude by spelling out some of the methodological consequences of the present approach.
Life Sciences, Society and Policy, 2021
Anticipating the ethical impact of emerging technologies is an essential part of responsible inno... more Anticipating the ethical impact of emerging technologies is an essential part of responsible innovation. One such emergent technology is the digital twin which we define here as a living replica of a physical system (human or non-human). A digital twin combines various emerging technologies such as AI, Internet of Things, big data and robotics, each component bringing its own socio-ethical issues to the resulting artefacts. The question thus arises which of these socio-ethical themes surface in the process and how they are perceived by stakeholders in the field. In this report we present the results of a qualitative study into the socio-ethical benefits and socio-ethical risks of using digital twins in healthcare. Employing insights from ethics of technology and the Quadruple Helix theory of innovation, we conducted desk research of white literature and 23 interviews with representatives from the four helixes: industry, research, policy and civil society. The ethical scan revealed several important areas where the digital twin can produce socio-ethical value (e.g., prevention and treatment of disease, cost reduction, patient autonomy and freedom, equal treatment) but also several important areas of socio-ethical risks (e.g., privacy and property of data, disruption of existing societal structures, inequality and injustice). We conclude with a reflection on the employed analytical tool and suggestions for further research. The digital twin finally peaks The idea of replicating humans is anything but new. Descartes was perhaps the first to ponder philosophically on the idea of such "automata" (Descartes 1980: 32) and contemporary philosophy is in fact replete with twin-like creatures such as "doppelgangers" (Putnam 1996), "zombies" (Kirk 2008), and "swamp-men" (Donald 1987). Interesting and controversial as such thought experiments might be, they are nothing but philosophical devicesthey are sometimes called "intuition pumps" because they are devised to trigger and direct our intuition (Dennett 2013). But nowadays, such improbable twin versions of humans are approaching reality. Recent research on the topic of 'digital twins' has created the possibility of a dynamic (i.e., constantly updated) replica of the human body or at least some parts of the human body (
Science and Public Policy, 2020
R&D collaborations between industry, government, civil society, and research (also known as 'quad... more R&D collaborations between industry, government, civil society, and research (also known as 'quadruple helix collaborations' (QHCs)) have recently gained attention from R&D theorists and practitioners. In aiming to come to grips with their complexity, past models have generally taken a stakeholder-analytical approach based on stakeholder types. Yet stakeholder types are difficult to operationalise. We therefore argue that a processual model is more suited for studying the interaction in QHCs because it eschews matters of titles and identities. We develop such a model in which the QHC is represented as a process of generating four types of value: research value, market value, political value, and societal value. We then apply this processual model in analysing real-life cases of friction in QHCs. Friction is seen, not as an interpersonal clash, but as a discrepancy between two or more value-creation processes that compete for limited resources (some overperforming while others under-performing).
Journal of Pragmatics, 2021
We develop a method for analyzing argumentative discussions centered around the notion of 'stock ... more We develop a method for analyzing argumentative discussions centered around the notion of 'stock issues', i.e., the field-dependent standard issues addressed by the participants in such discussions. The method yields an overview of the structure and content of complex argumentative discussions with multiple participants, including the activated stock issues and the 'depth' of the argumentation advanced per each stock issue. We start from the assumption that any given discussion context requires a set of stock issues to be addressed by the participants through their argumentation, tied together by a decision rule regulating the weight of each stock issue on the matter at hand. The building blocks of our method and the results of its application are illustrated through an example. We discuss several extensions and problems, concluding with directions for further research.
Public Understanding of Science, 2020
We propose the use of discussion structures as tools for analyzing policy debates in a way that e... more We propose the use of discussion structures as tools for analyzing policy debates in a way that enables the increased participation of lay stakeholders. Discussion structures are argumentation-theoretical tools that can be employed to tackle three barriers that separate lay stakeholders from policy debates: difficulty, magnitude, and complexity. We exemplify the use of these tools on a debate in research policy on the question of responsibility. By making use of discussion structures, we focus on the argumentative moves performed by the parties involved in this debate. We conclude by discussing advantages and limitations of discussion structures and we trace several opportunities for further research on these instruments.
To stimulate research and innovation (R&I), to contribute to the solution of societal challenges ... more To stimulate research and innovation (R&I), to contribute to the solution of societal challenges and to align R&I with societal values, the European Commission has launched the governance framework of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). RRI figures in many high-level EU policies as a means to promote smart growth, and a growing community of R&I practitioners from both the public and private sectors appears committed to it. Although debates on what RRI precisely entails have not reached closure yet, RRI provides an interesting avenue to explore ways of making R&I more societally germane. While recognizing the usefulness of keeping critical reflection on RRI's meaning alive, we suggest that to make the step from theorizing to implementation, RRI could benefit from a clearer conceptualization. This chapter presents the iterative trajectory in conceptualizing RRI followed as part of RRI Tools, one of a number of EC-funded research projects and support acts aimed at fleshing out what RRI can and should be, and the concep-tualization of RRI that this led to. It suggests that RRI is best captured if in R&I governance attention is paid to the five p's of Purpose, Products, Processes, Preconditions and People, and that further elaborations on the meaning of RRI should happen in dialogue with attempts at practicing RRI.
In this paper, I defend two skeptical claims regarding current research on visual arguments and I... more In this paper, I defend two skeptical claims regarding current research on visual arguments and I explain how these claims reflect upon past and future research. The first claim is that qualifying an argument as being visual amounts to a category mistake; the second claim is that past analyses of visual arguments fault on both end of the “production line” in that the input is not visual and the output is not an argument. Based on the developed critique, I discuss how the study of images in communicative events can be carried out without the concept of “visual argument” and I illustrate this with two new directions of interdisciplinary research.
In this paper I develop and defend a form of argumentative normativity that is not based on funda... more In this paper I develop and defend a form of argumentative normativity that is not based on fundamental principles. I first argue that research agendas that aim to discover (or claimed to have discovered) fundamental principles of ‘good’ argumentative discourse share one crucial weak spot, viz. circularity. I then argue that this weak spot can be avoided in a pancritical (Bartley, 1984) view of normativity.
A thought experiment is a form of academic interaction in which two or more scholars discuss base... more A thought experiment is a form of academic interaction in which two or more scholars discuss based on an imaginary scenario the acceptability of an academic claim. The argumentative dimension of thought experiments has been the subject of intense debates: for some scholars, thought experiments are nothing but arguments; for others, they cannot be arguments. In this paper I propose approaching the argumentative dimension of thought experiments with pragma-dialectical reconstruction tools. After a brief outline of the main positions taken with respect to the argumentative dimension of thought experiments, I explain the benefits of the proposed approach and I illustrate these by reconstructing a thought experiment as an exchange of argumentative moves. I conclude by reassessing the main positions taken in the debate.
In this paper I make a case for the use of game-theoretical tools in the analysis of the rhetoric... more In this paper I make a case for the use of game-theoretical tools in the analysis of the rhetorical effectiveness of argumentative discourse. I begin by describing a pattern of argumentative discourse whose rhetorical effectiveness I aim to explain with game-theoretical tools. I then devise a game that will serve as basis for this explanation. The game is then used as an analytical instrument in two examples.
The practice of constructing imaginary scenarios for the sake of argument is sometimes referred t... more The practice of constructing imaginary scenarios for the sake of argument is sometimes referred to as ‘thought experimentation.’ In this paper, I employ analytical tools from the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation in order to clarify two theoretical puzzles that have been formulated with respect to thought experimentation. I do so by analysing the place and function of argumentative moves that contain suppositions in their propositional content. Three such moves are distinguished: proposing suppositions, accepting suppositions and using suppositions.
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Papers by Eugen Octav Popa