#75 Indicate Assent to Position Sans Argument

[Danny Weltman]

I think I want a good way to indicate that someone endorses a position without having to add an argument entry indicating this, because sometimes people endorse positions without giving an argument for their endorsement.

For instance, I have in my database the position "The discretionary value the requestee places in the requestor comes from an existing relationship." This is a position that I think is endorsed by Lewis 2018. But Lewis does not give an argument for this: it's something he presupposes.

I could indicate this by adding an "argument" the contents of which are "this is presupposed," so maybe that is the best option. Currently what I do is in the entry for the position, I just list all the people who assent to the position, and indicate that they assent to it. Maybe that's the best option. I could of course do both. Probably there are other solutions too.

Any existing solution, however, seems inferior to me compared to a way to keep track of people's views without using empty argument entries. I am envisioning a change to the pane in the bottom left that lists arguments. I want to be able to add an entry to that pane with "Person," "Verdict," "Date," and "Title of Work" filled in, but no "Arg. Name" because there is no associated argument. I just need the verdict.

One way to do this is if the new argument entry dialogue were altered. It could become a "New Verdict" entry dialogue. It would be the same as the existing "New Argument" dialogue, except with a few changes.

First, the "Argues that:" field would be renamed to "Verdict:" which would just be a cosmetic change but it would indicate the shift in what the dialogue is doing. ("Include author name(s) in name of argument" would also then be changed to "Include author name(s) in name of verdict".)

Second, this "Verdict:" field would be moved right under the "Position description" field, so that primarily you are picking a verdict about the position. Again this is just cosmetic.

Third, along with the "Verdict:" field, a new check box would be added near the "Include author name(s) in name of verdict" check box. This check box would say "Supported by argument?" or something similar.

If you check that box, the rest of the dialogue looks the same as it currently does. If you don't check the box, the "Name suggestions" field would look different: where currently the words "argument for" and "argument that" appears, instead it would have "Verdict that" or "Claim that" or something like this.

I think those changes would take care of everything. Chances are there are other ways to do this, etc. I'm not wedded to my suggestion. I just want some more elegant way of recording what people think in cases where they provide no argument for thinking this thing.

In my ideal version of Hypernomicon, something like Ticket #49 is implemented, such that logical relations between positions are also included. If this were to be the case, Hypernomicon could in principle infer potential commitments of authors on the basis of their existing commitments and the logical relations those commitments stand in to other commitments. That would be kind of neat. It might suggest automatically assigning various inferred commitments to authors whenever I enter a commitment that would suggest such an inference, etc. (Probably it should have some indication that a commitment is inferred versus explicit.) That could all happen without this suggested change to the argument dialogue, but this suggested change would give me a way to enter argument-less commitments into a field where the verdict is recorded, which is something I am not currently doing, which means it would in principle be available for evaluating in terms of its logical connections to other positions etc.

[Danny Weltman]

Also I realize I titled this change "indicate assent..." but also I want to be able to indicate people disagree with a position, of course, so it's not just assent but assent etc.

[Jason Winning]

I asked AI for advice about this situation, and AI suggested creating a new record type called "Stance" to record that someone takes a stance on a position/argument without giving an argument. I think I want to just change the name of "Argument" records to "Argument/Stance" records. In the "New Argument" popup, there would be a checkbox to say whether there is an argument, and the name suggestions would reflect whether there is an argument ("Weltman's argument that..." versus "Weltman's stance that...").

I like "Stance" because it covers cases where the person endorses but does not commit to that endorsement, or you could record that they vacillate between positions (their stance is such that one foot is on one position and the other foot is on another, "straddling" them). The Argument records have always actually been intended to represent both an argument and a stance (the fact that the person endorses the cogency of the argument and its conclusion). Though you can of course have an argument record where the associated author discusses the argument only as a hypothetical objection; so the "Argument/Stance" record could be an argument without a stance or a stance without an argument. It still makes sense to me for them to be one record type though.

I guess if someone mentions an argument without making that argument (endorsing the cogency and conclusion), you might not want to include the source in the "Where made" table (which should become "Where made/taken"). Instead you can just mention that source in the description and even display the work's description there (then it will still show in "Records displaying or having this as a key work" in the Works tab, but not appear in the Tree under that argument/stance).

If multiple people take the same stance on something and don't give an argument, I suppose you could just list multiple sources on the same record for that stance.

The information whether there is an argument should be stored in the record, so there will be a checkbox for it on the Arguments tab as well. The wording in many places in the UI will need to be changed to reflect that the record might not represent an argument, as you point out.

I think it should still be a record even if there's no argument so it will still show up in the Tree, and you can put in the description what the person says that shows they endorse the position, etc. Maybe the icon should look different in the Tree if there's no argument, like more translucent or something (sort of like how the icon in the Bibliographic Entry button on the Works tab becomes more translucent when there's no bibliographic entry). But maybe not, because if person 1 gives a very strong endorsement or rejection but no argument, and person 2 gives a very weak endorsement/rejection but provides an argument, it might not make sense for person 2's argument/stance icon to be bolder. Maybe having "argument" versus "stance" in the record will be a good enough indicator whether there is an argument. Let me know your thoughts.

[Jason Winning]

I just realized that the "Argument/Stance" way of naming roughly corresponds to the existing compound naming of "Problem/Debate" records; it is a problem but not a debate if nobody has been arguing about it yet.