Posted in CFP, tagged AILACT, APA, APA Eastern Division Meeting, argument, Argumentation, argumentation conferences, calls for papers, critical thinking, Informal Logic, logic, philosophy, philosophy conferences, reasoning, reasoning conferences on June 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Announcements, Argumentation, Connections, Discussion, Fallacies, Informal Logic, Pragma-dialectics, Rationality, Rhetoric, tagged Argumentation, argumentation journals, CEAR, Cogency, free content from journals, Informal Logic, informal logic journals, logic journals, open access journals, Pragma-dialectics, Rationality, Rhetoric, rhetoric jourals, Universidad Diego Portales on June 9, 2011| 1 Comment »
I’m pleased to announce here on RAIL that the journal Cogency has allowed open access to it’s first four issues. I’m not sure if they plan to continue this policy, as, for instance, Informal Logic does, but for now it’s a great opportunity to check out what is already a diverse and interesting array of articles by many of the leading scholars in our field. (How they let an article of mine slip into the mix is anyone’s guess!)
Do check it out!
Posted in Announcements, Connections, Discussion, tagged Argumentation, conference backchannel, CRRAR, fallacies, Formal Dialectic, Informal Logic, Normative Pragmatics, Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation, OSSA 2011, Rhetoric, Twitter, University of Windsor on May 12, 2011| 1 Comment »
The Ambassador Bridge, via Wikimedia Commons. Original by Mike Russell, CC 3.0 S-A
As many in the argumentation studies community know next week is OSSA 9, one of the bigger events on our calendars. The conference theme this go around is “Argumentation, Cognition and Community”. Having had a look at the schedule I think this promises to be an interesting conference. Many leading scholars in argumentation, informal logic, rhetoric, and normative pragmatics will be there presenting and responding to papers. There is also a good range of strong papers by up and coming scholars as well. This is one to look forward to, if you’ll be coming.
All the pertinent information for OSSA, including .pdf downloads of the schedule and abstracts among other things, can be accessed here.
Unfortunately, as we all know, not everyone who would like to attend can attend. These are tough times and many of us find ourselves at institutions who can’t always support travel to events like these as often or to the degree that they would wish. For those who won’t be coming but want to follow along, I thought I might propose a conference back-channel on Twitter with the hashtag #OSSA2011. Those of us who have Twitter accounts and will be there could post about discussions, sessions, workshops, and everything else OSSA between sessions or whenever else we have the chance. That way those who cannot come can follow along. An added benefit is that those of us who are there will be able get to know each other a little better and to coordinate a little easier when it comes to dinner plans, taxi rides, etc.. (To get a better idea of how it works, you might check out this post from the innovative and consistently helpful ProfHacker blog on the Chronicle of Higher Ed website.)
If you’re interested, let me know! You can comment here or post to Twitter including “#OSSA2011” somewhere in your tweet.
Posted in Announcements, Informal Logic, tagged absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, Bayesianism, dialogue based reasoning, fallacies, functionalism in argument, Hitchcock, Informal Logic, informal logic journals, Macagno, Navarro, Patterson, philosophy of argument, Stephens, Walton on March 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Informal Logic, vol. 31, no. 1
As part of the mission of RAIL is to keep readers informed of new publications, journals, and articles of interest, I’ve arranged with the editors to post announcements here when new issues of Informal Logic become available. If you’d like to have your informal logic/argumentation-themed journal, or special issue similarly featured here by all means please drop me a line and let me know!
Click here or on the image above to reach the current issue of Informal Logic. If you see something you find interesting or want to discuss in this issue, why not start the conversation by commenting on it below?
Posted in CFP, tagged Hamblin, Informal Logic on November 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »
C.L. Hamblin and Argumentation Theory
A special issue of Informal Logic
Guest editors: Douglas N. Walton and Ralph H. Johnson
Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:
• Hamblin’s views on logic
• Hamblin’s views on fallacies
• Hamblin’s view on argument
• Hamblin’s views on formal dialectic
Papers should be prepared for blind refereeing and include 100-word-limit Abstract and 10-word-limit Keyword list, and should meet the format requirements of the journal:
http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/informal_logic/about Click on “Submissions>Author Guidelines” to read the format requirements.
Submission deadline: 30 June 2011.
Papers will be blind refereed. Questions may be directed to either of the Guest Editors. The paper should be submitted to either one of the Guest Editors. Please advise one of the guest editors if you intend to submit a paper.
Douglas N. Walton: walton@uwindsor.ca Ralph H. Johnson: johnsoa@uwindsor.ca
Posted in CFP, tagged AILACT, AILACT Essay Prize, Informal Logic on September 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Connections, Rationality, Teaching, tagged critical thinking, heuristics and biases, Informal Logic, Rationality, Teaching on January 16, 2010| 4 Comments »
Thinking about the last post got me wondering if anyone besides myself regularly covers forms of irrationality that are studied in the social sciences in their Critical Thinking or Informal Logic classes. It seems to me to be important for students to know about things like the endowment effect, the bandwagon effect, confirmation bias, framing problems, and groupthink (among others). These irrational tendencies in persons and others like them certainly present obstacles to critical thinking that (we hope) can be mitigated to at least some degree by the concepts and techniques we teach. And yet there’s not exactly a huge volume of literature bringing together critical thinking and the empirical study of phenomena like these.
What place, if any, does teaching about the empirical study of irrationality have in your overall pedagogy? Do you think it should have a place in the study of critical thinking, or should we be content to let the scientists work on it? Is it even reasonable to think that training in critical thinking help prevent these kinds of irrationality? If you do include presentations about the forms of irrationality studied by psychology, economics, &c., how do you do it?
RAIL 