Enthymemetic conditionals: Topoi as a guide for acceptability

Abstract

To model conditionals in a way that reflects their acceptability, we must include some means of making judgements about whether antecedent and consequent are meaningfully related or not. Enthymemes are non-logical arguments which do not hold up by themselves, but are acceptable through their relation to a topos, an already-known general principle or pattern for reasoning. This paper uses enthymemes and topoi as a way to model the world-knowledge behind these judgements. In doing so, it provides a reformalisation (in TTR) of enthymemes and topoi as networks rather than functions, and information state update rules for conditionals.