Escritoire\Writing\Case\Rating

The rating is a level of confidence in, or plausibility of this case made for or against the claim of the argument, recorded as a probability.  There are four ratings associated with each case: Prior and posterior ratings of others and yourself.

• Prior ratings are awarded by a reviewer for the argument encapsulated in a particular case.
• Posterior ratings are calculated taking into account any sub-arguments referenced in the case (for details see Pacisco\Evaluative Mechanism).

A significant difference between the prior and posterior rating of a case indicate that a more thoroughgoing review of the argument and the assignment of prior ratings should be carried out.

Only when logged in are the ratings due to yourself presented.  Your prior rating can be changed at any time.

Probability is traditionally recorded as a value between zero and one inclusive.  The value 1 indicates complete certainty (knowledge) that the case proves the claim, while the value 0 indicates complete certainty (knowledge) that it does not.  Intermediate values indicate levels of belief in the likelihood of the case proving the claim (values greater than 0.5) or disbelief (values less than 0.5).  The value 0.5 indicates no belief either way.Ten pre-set probabilities with an interpretive note are available.

It is also possible to rate the case as illogical, incoherent, irrelevant and sophistical.

• illogical:  the case contains a logical flaw
• incoherent:  you are unable to make sense of the case
• irrelevant:  the case’s relevance to proving or disproving the claim is not apparent
• sophistical:  elements of the case are in-authentically contrived to effect its evaluation without progressing the debate*

These ratings are only shown to you and will exclude this case from your evaluation of the strength of an argument.

How to assess your rating of a case

This should be approached differently for intermediate cases (i.e. that have grounds and warrant) and terminal cases (i.e. established facts and self-evident claims).

Intermediate cases

The rating should indicate your assessment of the plausibility of that particular case as a basis for establishing the validity of its associated claim.  It is important that your current assessment of the actual validity of the claim, and/or this particular case, (i.e. based on what you believe to be the actual truth values of the grounds and warrant) are set aside.  You should ask yourself:

Supposing that the grounds and warrant were absolutely true, to what extent would this case substantiate (or rebut) its claim?

You should attempt to cast prejudice aside and give each case a fair rating based on its own merits.

For cases referencing external resources, the rating should reflect the support the resource actually gives the claim (i.e. treated as a terminal case, as below), as licensed by the warrant.

Terminal cases

The rating will depend on your knowledge or expertise in the domain, or even a ‘gut feeling’.  Alternatively it may be informed by a statistical result, perhaps when the case contains reference to a research paper.

Pacisco does not require that reviewers rate cases they have not themselves made.  Where a reviewer chooses not to rate a case, it will not be included in the calculation of the reviewers posterior rating of that claim.  However, it will be included in the others posterior rating.

The use of the extreme, categorical rating values 0 (absolutely false) or 1 (absolutely true), should be confined to cases that you believe to be incontrovertible true; usually based on logical deduction, mathematics or empirical evidence, but also possibly ethical or religious ‘truths’.