This is a linkpost for https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Dialectic_algorithm
This could be a great technique for adding structure to internet discussions, but this algorithm says more about which debate team has more time on their hands, than which arguments have been refuted or not.
The Wikidebate project has some wisdom on how to avoid that, and the fact that the algorithm is run on a wiki ensures that repeated, misguided or otherwise useless arguments are removed or improved. Also, coming up with arguments where there are none is pretty difficult, and stupid ones are much easier to delete than to write down.
Also, coming up with arguments where there are none is pretty difficult
That sounds to me like you have never spoken with people who are skilled at debate. It might be difficult for the average person but there are plenty of people who can debate well and argue nearly any point.
A Bayesian network is a generalization of a dialectic tree, where instead of 'sustained' or 'refuted' you have probabilities.
I made such a site but I wasn't good at spreading it, so in the end I closed it and moved the project to Wikiversity and called it Wikidebate :-)
There's a wikidebate now on wether or not to use the dialectic algorithm and the answer seems to be clearly YES.
Given the way I have seen the term dialectic be used, calling this algorithm dialetic seems misleading.
There's no mechanism for synthesis.
Good point, yet the meaning of "dialectics" has changed a lot through the centuries, and on Wikipedia it currently is "a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned arguments" which quite fits the function of the algorithm.
But how would you call it?
But how would you call it?
The first step would be to research whether there is prior art. "Refutation tree" might be a description that gives a better impression of what it does.
"a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned arguments" which quite fits the function of the algorithm.
The algorithm doesn't care whether or not the arguments are "reasoned" it cares about whether they have counterarguments.
It's also not clear that the statements have a truth value to begin with. Appeals about what should be done, are value judgments. The example claims are also ill-defined. It starts with the question of whether everybody should be vegan and later people make arguments based on them defending that people should eat little meat. Motte-and-bailey is in full effect.