Examination Dialogue: An Argumentation Framework for Critically Questioning an Expert Opinion

Abstract

Recent work in argumentation theory uses types of dialogue as contexts of argument use. This paper provides an analysis of a special type called examination dialogue, in which one party questions another party, sometimes critically or even antagonistically, to try to find out what that party knows about something. This type of dialogue is most prominent in law and in both legal and non-legal arguments based on expert opinion. It is also central to dialogue systems for questioning and answering in expert systems in artificial intelligence. Examples studied are: (1) exegetical analyses and criticisms of religious and philosophical texts, and (2) legal examinations and cross-examinations conducted in a trial setting.

Keywords: expert opinion testimony; computational dialectics, witness testimony, dialogue theory, discovering inconsistency, fallacies