Emotion, Argument Strength, and Experimental Philosophy

Emotional appeals have had an ambiguous place in theories of argumentation. Starting with Aristotle’s concept of pathos, they were later often treated as fallacies. More recent work by Douglas Walton, Michael A. Gilbert, Christian Plantin, and Christopher Tindale has reopened the question of their argumentative legitimacy. This lecture approaches that question from the perspective of experimental philosophy of argumentation. Argumentation theory asks whether emotional appeals can be reasonable; psychology asks whether they are persuasive; experimental philosophy allows us to ask how ordinary reasoners evaluate arguments when such appeals are present.

I will present work from a research program in which we refine the concept of pathos through psychological theories of emotion and test its effects on perceived argument strength within a framework inspired by Petty and Cacioppo. I will also discuss how computational and AI-supported analysis of naturally occurring discourse can complement experiments by showing how emotional appeals function in real persuasive exchanges.

Teleology and the meaning of life

“What does it all mean?” Philosophers generally reject nihilistic responses to such questions about the meaning of life. But what are the presuppositions behind these questions? I will argue that questions about the meaning of life are animated by the presupposition that the world is suffused with purposes. The teleological orientation is revealed in classic studies with children (Kelemen 1999), as well as more recent work on categorization (Rose & Nichols 2019, 2020).  Our new work indicates that, at least for animals, people robustly affirm teleological views.  People also draw on their teleological views to explain why animals have the features they do. The idea that people assume that humans have a purpose is thus not exceptionalist – people think that everything from foxes to spiders have purposes. Thus, I will argue that part of the reason it is natural to ask about the meaning of life is precisely because we presuppose that there *is* a purpose for our existence. 

It’s a Bitter-Sweet Irony: Understanding Ironic Compliments

Verbal irony consists of an evaluative statement whose literal meaning is incongruent with the context. While ironic criticisms (positive statements conveying negative evaluations) have received considerable attention, ironic compliments (negative statements conveying positive evaluations) remain comparatively understudied. This talk examines the asymmetry between these two forms of irony, reviewing evidence showing that ironic compliments are both less frequent in everyday communication and more difficult to interpret than ironic criticisms. Several explanations are discussed, including differences in communicative goals, negativity bias, expectation violations, processing demands, the risk of misunderstanding and the role of multimodal irony markers, such as facial expressions and prosody. Evidence from studies involving both neurotypical and atypical populations further highlights the cognitive and social mechanisms underlying irony comprehension. The findings contribute to a broader understanding of how evaluative meaning is communicated and interpreted in social interaction.