Posted in Argumentation, CFP, Contests & Competitions, Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, tagged AILACT Essay Prize on June 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Submissions are invited for the 2018 AILACT Essay Prize in informal logic/critical thinking/argumentation theory. This will be the 14th year in which the prize ($500 U.S.) has been offered. Submissions are due by September 1, 2018. For details, see below. The details are also available at: https://ailact.wordpress.com and in the attached flyer.
Eligibility Requirements
(more…)
Posted in cognitive science, Critical Thinking, Research Projects, tagged applied episemology, CREATE, IARPA on June 6, 2018| Leave a Comment »
IARPA is currently recruiting thousands of participants to test the analytic methods developed for its CREATE (Crowdsourcing Evidence, Argumentation, Thinking and Evaluation) program. IARPA is the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. CREATE is a multi-million-dollar, multi-year R&D effort to improve the core process of intelligence analysis: making well-reasoned inferences from incomplete information. If effective, CREATE analytic tools could greatly assist many other disciplines that depend on good reasoning, including, law, medicine, and public policy. CREATE is a basic research program; it does not involve any security restrictions, and its research outputs will be freely available.
Participating might be interesting for anyone working in applied epistemology, critical thinking, informal reasoning, or probabilistic reasoning. It might also be helpful for students wishing to develop their analytical reasoning skills.
For more information see: Frequently Asked Questions about CREATE
Here is the sign-up page: join.createbetterreasoning.com
Posted in About RAIL, Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Discussion, tagged Critical Thinking Research Gateway on May 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
A lot has changed since RAIL was launched in December of 2009. I can’t believe it has
Review, revise, keep rolling!
been almost a decade! With a little extra time on my hands I’ve been doing some thinking about how RAIL can best serve the argumentation and critical thinking research communities going forward.
One of the most important changes is that I’m working on strengthening the critical thinking side of RAIL. To that end I’ve recently launched the Critical Thinking Research Gateway, a page of links and research starters to help researchers find current work on critical thinking across the disciplines. I will also be looking to run more critical thinking-oriented content. That doesn’t mean that argumentation will no longer be featured on RAIL, however. The RAIL Resources page, as well as the Study Argumentation and People pages are still active and will remain so. (If you or your program is listed there, you could help by reviewing the information that’s there and making sure it’s accurate.)
What’s not there anymore is the ArgEvents Calendar. In the early days of RAIL there weren’t many other common places online where it was easy to get the word out about conferences and symposia in argumentation, apart from a couple of listservs. There are now thriving communities for argumentation across the web, including LinkedIn and Facebook, where this information is shared–more often than not by the organizers themselves. The number of events–especially regularly recurring events–has grown exponentially too. This is an awesome development! It is however, also one that makes it hard for one person to keep up with. For this reason, although CFPs are most welcome and will still be posted at RAIL, I’m letting go of the attempt to keep a comprehensive calendar of argumentation-related events going.
One thing I’m considering adding is a page devoted to job postings (PhD studentships, research positions, and faculty positions) where critical thinking or argumentation are central to the work to be done. I’m curious to know what the community thinks. Is this a good idea or are folks happy to use other means to find candidates/positions for academic work in argumentation and critical thinking? Post here in the comments or drop me a line at railargumentation[at]gmail.com and let me know. As always, comments and suggestions for how to improve RAIL are more than welcome!
Posted in Argumentation, Critical Thinking, dark arts, Informal Logic, Rhetoric on March 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Naturally I believe every issue of Informal Logic should be read cover to cover, but the most recent issue is particularly timely and deserves special mention here. Informal Logic Vol 38, No 1 (2018): Special Issue: Reason and Rhetoric in the Time of Alternative Facts is everything it’s title promises. Hats off to special editors Katharina Stevens and Michael Baumtrog for giving us the perfect antidote to the narcotic of fake news: a collection of articles that demystify and respond to it with clear, careful and informed thought. It’s got Trump. It’s got snakes. It’s got everything you need to get started with your Defense Against the Dark Arts homework. Do check it out!
Posted in Argumentation, Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, Fallacies, Informal Logic, News, tagged critical thinking and journalism, dark arts, fake news, politifact, Snopes on December 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »
The “fake news” phenomenon plays on highly predictable and prevalent weaknesses in human cognition: confirmation bias, ownership/endowment effects, and belief overkill using messages with high affective valence, usually negative. Emotions of fear, outrage, and suspicion typically are featured, but sometimes positive themes are used too, like appeals to feelings of patriotism or nostalgia for an idealized past. The images selected typically reflect whatever the emotional focus is, or whoever (or whatever, in the case of abstract institutions) is the target of that focus. There is no attempt at truthful communication. Sources are often described rather than named (think pizzagate’s “New York City police detective”, or phrases like “sources close to the Trump family”). Essentially, fake news stories follow the same sort of style as tabloid writing: sensationalistic, unverifiable, and over-the-top claims are made about publicly recognizable figures for money. That’s nothing new. Tabloid journalism has been around since papers started being printed. What’s “new” about fake news is that:
(more…)Posted in Critical Thinking, In memoriam, tagged Richard Paul on September 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »
On 30th August, 2015, the critical thinking research community lost one of its earliest and most consistent supporters, Richard Paul. A memorial and biography of Dr. Paul can be found here on the website of the influential critical thinking organization he co-founded, the Critical Thinking Community.
A future issue of the journal Informal Logic will be devoted to discussion of Richard Paul’s works and influence on critical thinking research and advocacy.
Posted in Announcements, Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Symposium, Teaching, tagged Beyond Critical Thinking, teaching critical thinking, York University on September 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Friday, 13 November 2015
York University
Over the past 50 years a great deal of work has been done in the young field of Argumentation Theory. Much of this work is highly relevant to traditional Critical Thinking and Critical Reasoning pedagogy. Nonetheless, it has been largely ignored by the many instructors of those courses who are not themselves working in Argumentation Theory. In this symposium each speaker will relate their work to uses in the classroom and discuss the impact it can have on students and their approach to argument. Following each speaker, all the invited speakers and several other qualified scholars will form a panel and answer questions and raise points of discussion.
There will be two speakers in the morning and two in the afternoon. The morning and afternoon sessions will followed by a panel consisting of all speakers and other qualified persons. The panel will be discussion-based and participant led.
Invited Speakers:
The Symposium takes place on Friday, 13 November, 2015 at:
York University
4700 Keele St.
Department of Philosophy
Toronto, Canada M3J 1P3
Lunch will be provided to registrants.
To register, please click here: http://sgy.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=13165
Posted in Argumentation, CFP, Critical Thinking, Teaching, tagged RACT 2015, teaching critical thinking, TOPOI on September 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Special Issue of TOPOI: Reasoning, Argumentation, Critical Thinking Instruction
Peer review stage: about 8 weeks; revised papers: January 2016; online-first: April 2016
Following the RACT2015 conference, held 25-27 FEB at Lund University, we invite submissions of papers for publication in a special issue of TOPOI (http://www.springer.com/philosophy/journal/11245). Papers must be in the order of 6000 to 8000 words (including references), and must address one or more of the conference themes (listed at http://ract2015.wordpress.com), whether from an empirical or a more conceptual perspective. Other than promoting rigor and quality of scholarship (as evidenced, for instance, by demonstrating, familiarity with the relevant literature), this special issue primarily seeks to inform readers who wish to reduce the distance between the research front and what is (falsely) presented to students as the state-of-the-art in critical thinking instruction. Therefore, papers should be of immediate relevance to those who teach or coordinate instruction in critical thinking as part of school or university education, either as dedicated courses or across the curriculum, or plan to do so. Of special relevance is the current trend to appropriate research on social, cognitive and other biases, as well as on two systems or two processes accounts of human reasoning.
Among those invited to submit to this special issue are the RACT keynote speakers: (more…)
Posted in Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, tagged AILACT Essay Prize on August 5, 2015| 1 Comment »
The Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking (AILACT) invites submissions for the 2015 AILACT Essay Prize. This will be the 11th year in which the prize has been offered.
Deadline: September 1, 2015
The winner will be announced by December 15, 2015. AILACT will publicize the name of the winner on its web site and at AILACT sessions held at APA divisional meetings in 2015 and 2016. For further information about the essay prize, please contact Ben Hamby (bhamby@coastal.edu). For information about AILACT, visit our web site: https://ailact.wordpress.com/
Posted in Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Rationality, tagged RACT 2015, reasoning, teaching critical thinking, TOPOI on June 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Submission Deadline: 30 OCTOBER 2015
Topic: Reasoning, Argumentation, Critical Thinking Instruction (RACT)
Journal: TOPOI (http://www.springer.com/philosophy/journal/11245)
Peer review stage: about 8 weeks
Submission of revised papers: January 2016
Online-first publication expected: April 2016
Following the RACT2015 conference, held 25-27 FEB at Lund University (see: http://ract2015.wordpress.com), we invite submissions of papers for publication in a special issue of TOPOI (http://www.springer.com/philosophy/journal/11245). Papers must be in the order of 6000 to 8000 words (including references), and must address one or more of the conference themes listed at the above website. Whether being addressed from an empirical or a more conceptual perspective, other than rigor and quality of scholarship (as evidenced, for instance, by demonstrating, familiarity with the relevant literature), this special issue primarily seeks to inform those who wish to reduce the distance between the research front and what is (falsely) presented to students as the state-of-the-art critical thinking instruction. Therefore, papers should in one way or another be of immediate relevance to those who already do, or plan to, teach or implement instruction in critical thinking as part of school or university education, either as dedicated courses or across the curriculum. Of special relevance is the current trend to appropriate research on social, cognitive and other biases, as well as two systems or two processes accounts of human reasoning.
Among those invited to submit to this special issue are the RACT keynote speakers: (more…)
RAIL 