The Visual Argument Structure Tool (VAST) may be used for jointly visualizing the semantic, conceptual, empirical and reasoning relationships that constitute arguments. Its primary purpose is to promote exactness and comprehensiveness in systematic thinking. The system distinguishes between concepts and the words (“names”) that may be used to refer to them. It also distinguishes various ways in which concepts may be related to one another (causation, conceptual implication, prediction, transformation, reasoning), and all of these from beliefs as to whether something IS the case and/or OUGHT to be the case. Using these elements, the system allows for formalizations of narrative argument components at any level of vagueness vs. precision that is deemed possible and/or necessary. This latter feature may make the system particularly useful for attaining greater theoretical specificity in the humanities, and for bridging the gap between the humanities and the “harder” sciences. However, VAST may also be used outside of science, to capture argument structures in e.g., legal analyses, media reports, belief systems, and debates.

The following Llama-based Chatbot reads the herein compiled VAST rules to facilitate the formalization of verbal proto-theories: https://hf.co/chat/assistant/66e3e1aa970006a7b79f350a

Example prompt: Please read the following short summary of dissonance theory from the Handbook of Theories in Social Psychology (Cooper in Van Lange, Higgings & Kruglanski, Eds., 2012). “The major tenets of the original version of dissonance theory are well known and straightforward. The state of cognitive dissonance occurs when people perceive that a pair of cognitions is inconsistent. Formally, Festinger defined a pair of cognitions as dissonant if the actor believed that one cognition followed from the obverse of the other. He postulated that dissonance is experienced as an unpleasant drive and, like other unpleasant drive states, needs to be reduced. The reduction occurs by changing the cognition least resistant to change or by adding cognitions that minimize the perceived magnitude of the discrepancy. In keeping with Festinger’s philosophical assumption that the dissonance battle was played out inside the head of the perceiver, he reasoned that inconsistency itself is a psychological state – that is, two cognitions are dissonant if the perceiver believes they are dissonant. The psychology of the perceiver, not the philosophical rules of logic, determines the existence of dissonance.” Please use the VAST rules to elaborate how this theory could be formally specified.