A Note on Argumentative Topology: Circularity and Syllogisms as Unsolved Problems

TL;DR

This paper examines the challenges of applying topological data analysis to natural language inference, highlighting unresolved issues in linking logic, topology, and text, and questioning the feasibility of detecting circular reasoning through topological methods.

Contribution

It critically evaluates recent attempts to use topological delay embeddings for logical analysis in text, emphasizing unresolved problems and proposing future research directions.

Findings

Topological methods have not yet conclusively captured logical structures in text.

Detecting circular reasoning via topology remains an open problem.

The paper provides experimental code and discusses potential research avenues.

Abstract

In the last couple of years there were a few attempts to apply topological data analysis to text, and in particular to natural language inference. A recent work by Tymochko et al. suggests the possibility of capturing `the notion of logical shape in text,' using `topological delay embeddings,' a technique derived from dynamical systems, applied to word embeddings. In this note we reconstruct their argument and show, using several old and new examples, that the problem of connecting logic, topology and text is still very much unsolved. We conclude that there is no clear answer to the question: ``Can we find a circle in a circular argument?'' We point out some possible avenues of exploration. The code used in our experiment is also shown.