Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for December, 2011

Cogency vol. 3 no.1 Now Available

Posted in Announcements, Informal Logic, Pragma-dialectics, Rationality, Rhetoric, tagged , , , , on December 8, 2011| 2 Comments »

RAIL is happy to announce the appearance of the latest issue of the journal Cogency!  

Click on the image to the right to view the table of contents for this issue.  The articles named therein make me wish this weren’t final exam season. Among them is an article by Tony Blair on the moral normativity of argumentation, an issue by Scott Aikin on how the rhetorical model of argument is self-defeating, and a note on practical reasoning by Gilbert Harman just to name a few. All the articles aren’t available for download yet but I’m assured that they will be soon. The editorial, which is available for download at the present time, gives a brief synopsis of the articles.  (It also gives a fairly comprehensive listing of recent and ongoing conferences in argumentation theory.) Happy reading!

Read Full Post »

Dancing an Explanation

Posted in Connections, Discussion, Rhetoric, Teaching, tagged , , , , , , , on December 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Some readers of RAIL may already with John Bohannon’s brilliant competition Dance your PhD.  In the video below, given at a TED event in Brussels, Bohannon generalizes the point that Dance your PhD essentially makes: Explanations can be effectively delivered in any number of ways.  Though the suggestion that dancers might replace the ubiquitous and dreaded PowerPoint is a bit tongue-in-cheek to be sure, I think that the observations Bohannon makes here about it’s pitfalls are spot on and worthy of consideration.

I have to admit that I’m also seized with curiosity as to how or even whether this could be done with arguments.  At the very least the results would put a whole new “spin” on Michael Gilbert‘s theory of visceral argument. 🙂

Enjoy.

Read Full Post »

SEP Entry on Informal Logic Updated

Posted in Announcements, Informal Logic, tagged , , on December 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Just a quick announcement here to let you know that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Informal Logic has been updated by author Leo Groarke.  The update is a substantial one and includes a great many new resources in the links section.  Thanks are due to Leo for his work on this. Do check it out!

Read Full Post »

Informal Logic vol. 31 no. 4, on Charles Hamblin

Posted in Announcements, Informal Logic, tagged , , , , , , , on December 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Informal Logic vol. 31 no. 4

The latest edition of Informal Logic, dedicated to topics emerging from Charles Hamblin’s landmark 1970 work, Fallacies, is now available.  Contributing authors to this volume include Jim Mackenzie, Douglas Walton, Ralph Johnson, Fabrizio Macagno, and Jan Ablert van Laar and John Woods.It’s an interesting and welcome collection of essays with entries that range from developments of Hamblin’s ideas to criticism of the same.  In the latter category is John Woods’s highly recommended essay “Whither Consequence?”. Those interested in foundational questions of informal logic (for instance, whether informal logic is rightly called logic in the first place) will find Woods’s discussion of Hamblin’s views on induction very stimulating indeed.  It is an important discussion not just for informal logicians and argumentation theorists, but for logicians of all denominations. It easily is one of the best essays of the year.

Having had only the opportunity to peruse the other entries at this point I have to say that I’m very much looking forward to reading them too. If they are as interesting and insightful as I believe they are on the basis of what I’ve seen of them, then this issue of Informal Logic is a worthy tribute to the enduring importance of Charles Hamblin’s work and its impact on our field.

 

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts