Defeasible Arguments
An argument is defeasible when additional information (such as new counterreasons) can have the effect that it no longer justifies its conclusion. The term "defeasibility" goes back to the legal theorist H.L.A. Hart, although he focused on concepts instead of arguments. Stephen Toulmin's influential argument model includes the possibility of counterreasons that are characteristic of defeasible arguments, but he did not discuss the evaluation of defeasible arguments. Defeasible arguments give rise to defeasible reasoning.
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Famous quotes containing the word arguments:
“There is no assurance of the great fact in question [namely, immortality]. All the arguments are mere probabilities, analogies, fancies, whims. We believe, or disbelieve, or are in doubt according to our own make-up—to accidents, to education, to environment. For myself, I do not reach either faith or belief ... that I—the conscious person talking to you—will meet you in the world beyond—you being yourself a conscious person—the same person now reading what I say.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)