Much Ado About Argument (and A Bit About Other Stuff)
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to C Michael Holloway.
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This document constitutes the official description of the current iteration of the Friendly Argument Notation (FAN). This new version provides several enhancements to the original 2020 instantiation, while maintaining essential compatibility with it. Specifically, the new version enables distinguishing between deductive and non-deductive arguments, removes the requirement for always providing an explicit statement of reasoning, and relaxes the rules for when labels may be used. The primary intended use of FAN is unchanged: creating and evaluating arguments about safety-critical systems, specifically the types of arguments common within safety and assurance cases.
This paper has two main purposes: to articulate a concern about assessing arguments based on confidence; and to provide an assessment procedure which takes this concern into account. The concern is that confidence is a tricky notion for non-deductive Arguments: doubts inherent in Reasoning coalesces with doubts inherent in Premises. And, within a Compound Argument, this may happen many times over, thus accumulating in unpredictable ways. We explain two procedures we have developed to help address the concern in a methodical way.
The Overarching Properties (OPs) distill the essence of the implicit properties that decades of practice have determined an aviation system or subsystem must possess to be eligible for approval by relevant authorities. This document presents the fundamentals of construction and assessment for explicit arguments that conclude a system or subsystem possesses the OPs.
This paper follows up A Primer on Argument by providing introductory information about how to assess arguments. The structure is as follows. The opening section identifies and summarizes prerequisite information a reader needs to understand to understand this document. Section 2 introduces a way (but not the only way) to assess atomic arguments. Section 3 does the same for compound arguments. Section 4 wraps everything up. Appendix A collects the crucial information in one place. Appendix B explicates a detailed assessment example. The paper is published as a white paper because it is intended to be updated as additional experience is gained with its use.
The purpose of this document is to provide a common understanding of terms, concepts, principles, and uses of argument. It emphasizes the practical over the theoretical and the simple over the complicated.
The purpose of this document is to establish for the Overarching Properties Working Group (OPWG) a common understanding of the terms, concepts, principles, and uses of argument. It emphasizes the practical over the theoretical and the simple over the complicated.
This document explains the purpose, history, and philosophy of the Overarching Properties, and explains the specific details of each property, the relationships among them, and some practical considerations that attach to their use. Although it has been extensively reviewed by over a dozen members of the Overarching Properties Working Group, it does not constitute official guidance, nor does it necessarily express a unanimously agreed view of the Working Group on every detail.
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Explore the source record for details and available documents.
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