AI & Soc (2011) 26:1–2
DOI 10.1007/s00146-010-0301-7
EDITORIAL
Beyond logic and rhetoric: the argumentative scientist
Karamjit S. Gill
Published online: 18 September 2010
Ó Springer-Verlag London Limited 2010
In the world of expanding googling and growing wikiness,
how can the argumentative scientist employ dialectics as a
tool to transcend the old division of rhetoric from knowl-
edge, while still holding to rhetoric as civic art? Could
dialectic open a new avenue for rethinking the relationship
between logic and rhetoric or would it further constrain
public debate to a narrow agenda of rhetoric of unreason?
What are the implications of rhetoric appropriating logic as
a tool of public persuasion or logic turning rhetoric into a
craft of public argument? What are the opportunities of
dialectics as a tool of public argument, by seeking dia-
logical connections between rhetoric and logic? Recently,
reflection on these issues was prompted by the conflicting
argument between Massimo Negrotti and gatekeepers of
Wikipedia (WP) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:
Articles_for_deletion/Naturoid).
Negrotti’s argument for inclusion of his article on
Theory of Naturoids can be seen to be based on the belief
that all new ideas by definition are not notable at the outset,
whilst the WP seems to have taken their established view
of notability. Where Negrotti would assert that ‘Naturoid’
should be notable in the long term as it fulfils a need in a
wider debate on the artificial, WP holds a rather narrow and
short-term view of notability seemingly giving credence to
the view that knowledge is completely defined and our task
is just to accept the only understood and established facts.
Seen from the plural perspective of AI & Society, this is a
rather limited view of knowledge. The argument that
knowledge is accepted only if it is attested is a reductive
view, and it seems to invalidate any future work that is
theoretical, methodological or philosophical. This may do
K. S. Gill (&)
University of Brighton, IPGM, Falmer Campus, Brighton, UK
e-mail: kgillbton@yahoo.co.uk
in terms of management of organisations and institutions,
but it would not do for the future of knowledge upon which
our future depends. In drawing a distinction between robots
and naturoids, Negrotti provides a theoretical and meth-
odological tool for analysis and thought, and this distinc-
tion necessitates thinking about new knowledge. If WP is
an international depository of knowledge, then surely we
could reasonably expect hospitality to new knowledge and
understanding of the diversity of views in order to benefit
from them. Surely the future of knowledge and future of
WP is far bigger than the reductive stance taken by the
proponents of attested knowledge.
Maybe the guardians of WP also need to recognise that
calculations, at least in the temporary sense, can be quite
intimidating even if they are completely wrong. Arch-
bishop Ussher, in calculating the age of the world as
understood in the Middle Ages, declared it was created in
4004 BC on October 22nd at about 6 p.m. Although his
calculation was wrong by some billions of years, it must
have seemed quite impressive and intimidating at the time.
I trust that it is not the intention of well-wishers of WP to
use calculation of notability in this way. In the spirit of
Joseph Weizenbaum’s wisdom, it may be hospitable to
make a choice of moving forward from calculation to
judgement and from reductionism to diversity. Possibly we
can see the conflict between Negrotti and WP to lie in the
old division of rhetoric from knowledge or contrariness
between logic and rhetoric. It could be said that Negrotti’s
argument for inclusion of his article in WP is based on his
affirmation of the dialectics of logic and rhetoric; logic of
long-term notability of new knowledge, and rhetoric of
hospitality to the diversity of knowledges. The argument
of WP gatekeepers seems to be constrained by the logic of
instrumental reason, with little scope of giving hospitality
to rhetoric of the public sphere.
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2 AI & Soc (2011) 26:1–2
Diversity and plurality of argument have always been
the guiding ethos of AI & Society. The diversity of con-
tributions in this Issue, ranging from dialectics, logic and
rhetoric, scientific conservatism, cross-cultural interfacing,
knowledge production, artificial others, social computing,
robotic workers, machine vision, and architectural meta-
phors, is part of the plural tradition of AI & Society.
In his paper, Computational Dialectic and Rhetorical
Invention, Douglas Walton draws our attention to the
growing relationship between logic and rhetoric and
reflects on the positive and negative potential of dialectics
in the public sphere. For example, could the new dialectic
combined with rhetorical invention lead to the develop-
ment of better tools for the art and craft of mass persuasion
in areas such as politics, law, and advertising? And could
these tools be used for detecting the fallacies in public
persuasion attempts, so that the art of mass persuasion may
not be treated without any more distrust than it is now?
Peter Wellstead in his paper, On the Industrialisation of
Biology, argues that scientific conservatism is not confined
to organisational resistance to change; it also impacts on
the personal and professional facets of life. He notes that
even in life sciences, this conservatism has unpleasant
consequences of automation of high demand skills and
de-skilling. On a positive note, he sees opportunities of
innovation and a place for creative contribution. However,
opportunities for this creative innovation would be driven
by the perseverance and passion of researchers working in
interdisciplinary collaborations. He warns us of the unin-
tended consequence of the tendency of modern manage-
ment to micro-manage and too crudely assess research and
development. We can see that the same conservative sci-
entific culture, which provides respectability and authen-
ticity to research, acts as a brake on the creation of
environments in which scientists are not reluctant to take
risks, entering unfamiliar research territories full of
uncertainties and unknowns. In exploring the design of
culturally aware tutoring systems, Patricia Young asserts
that culture-specific products will eventually move beyond
those focused only on language or a few localisation fea-
tures. She wonders why there is such a resistance on the
part of information scientists to engage in cross-cultural
communication issues and what will it take for culture-
specific technologies to be valued as global technological
necessities? In arguing for the systems theoretical approach
to online knowledge building, Joachim Kimmerle et al.
assert the significance of this approach into knowledge
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construction and knowledge emergence and underline the
importance of collaboration between individuals and a
collective in Internet communication. In the dialectic tra-
dition of knowledge building, they seek synergy between
knowledge (in the psychic system) and information (in the
social system).
Mark Coeckelbergh widens the debate on human–robot
relations to concrete human–robot practices, experiences,
conversations, and stories. Within a social and cultural
context, the paper provides an insight into the robot as a
co-constructed artefact, social robotics, the robot-as-thing
and the robot-as-quasi-other, reflecting on how this insight
can lead to understanding our relations to other technolo-
gies and artefacts. In Robots and the Changing Workforce,
Jason Borenstein discusses the growing integration of
robots into the workplace and argues that it is vital that the
ethical consequences of the pervasive use of robotic
workers continues to be explored and analysed as we near
the onset of the robotic age. In their paper on Mobile Social
Groups, Santi and Ram point to the overlapping area
between face-to-face, online, and mobile social networks
and show how their work could be beneficial to mobile
phone service providers, privacy setting, anomaly detec-
tion, phone call filtering, epidemiology, and business
marketing. In Machine Vision, Putchala and Agarwal
examine the optical character recognition ability of current
machine vision technology. Barie Fez-Barringtenin’s
paper, An architectural history of metaphors, presents a
review and an historical perspective on the architectural
metaphor. It identifies common characteristics and pecu-
liarities, as they apply to given historical periods, and
analyses the similarities and divergences. The review
provides a vocabulary, which will facilitate an appreciation
of existing and new metaphors.
AI & Society provides a forum for harnessing the
potential while critically examining the impact of tech-
nology on the human condition. Our concern is with what
ways pervasive technology impacts the wider social, cul-
tural, ethical, and moral dimensions. The key issue here is
not only just what drives the design of good technology but
also about how technology is shaped for the good of
societies. One of the core questions raised in this issue of
AI & Society is: How would the dialectical relationship
between logic and rhetoric shape argument for hospitality
of divergent views in the public sphere? AI & Society
welcomes contributions on taming ubiquitous technology
to make it more hospitable to the human condition.