Studies in Critical Thinking and Informal Logic 1. C. L. Hamblin Fallacies 2. Ralph H. Johnson The Rise of lnformal Logic The Rise of Informal Logic Essays on Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Reasoning and Politics Ralph H. Johnson With four chapters co-authored by J. Anthony Blair Edited by John Hoaglund with Prefaces by Trudy Govier, Christopher Tindale & Leo Groarke N ote to the Windsor Studies In Argumentation Digital E dition, 2014 The Rise of Informal Logic , by Ralph Johnson, has chapters co-authored by J. Anthony Blair, and prefaces by Trudy Govier, John Hoagland, and Leo Groarke & Christopher Tindale. The content of this edition of the book is the same as the 1996 Vale Press edition, with a number of minor typographical corrections. The cover of this edition was designed by Dave Johnston for WSIA and is an image of the cupola of Dillon Hall, an iconic building at the University of Windsor. Dillon hall was one of the original buildings at the Assumption College before the university became public. We have included this as a cover image to recognize the University of Windsor as the centre of much of the work that gave birth to informal logic as a discipline. E-editions of works in the WSIA series on argumentation are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 4.0 license. E-edition ISBN 978-0-920233-71-9 Windsor Studies in Argumentation Volume 1: Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar, eds. What do We Know about the World? Rhetorical and Argumentative Perspectives Volume 2: Ralph Johnson, The Rise of Informal Logic The WSIA series is overseen by the following editorial board Mark Battersby (Capilano University) Camille Cameron (University of Windsor) Emmanuelle Danblon (Université libre de Bruxelles) Ian Dove (University of Nevada Las Vegas) Bart Garssen (University of Amsterdam) Michael Gilbert (York University) David Godden (Old Dominion University) Jean Goodwin (Iowa State University) Hans V. Hansen (University of Windsor) Gabrijela Kišiček (University of Zagreb) Marcin Koszowy (University of Białystok) Marcin Lewiński (New University of Lisbon) Catherine H. Palczewski (University of Northern Iowa) Steven Patterson (Marygrove College) Chris Reed (University of Dundee) Andrea Rocci (University of Lugano) Paul van den Hoven (Tilburg University) Cristián Santibáñez Yáñez (Diego Portales University) Igor Ž. Žagar (University of Maribor & University of Primorska) Frank Zenker (Lund University) Windsor Studies in Argumentation Mailing Address Department of Philosophy, University of Windsor 2189 Chrysler Hall North, 401 Sunset Avenue Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4 Editors in Chief Christopher Tindale Leo Groarke WSIA Support Contact Dave Johnston Phone: (519) 253 3000 x3208 Email: djohnst@uwindsor.ca N ote to the Vale P ress E dition, 1996 Copyright 1996 by Vale Press. Vale Press P. O. Box 6519 Newport News VA 23606 Print cover design by Chuck Haas. Permissions We are grateful to Ralph H. Johnson, to Anthony Blair, co-author of Chapters 1, 2, and 11, and to the following for permission to reprint material to which they hold the copyright. Edgepress of Inverness, CA, for permission to reprint Chapter 1 from Informal Logic: The First International Symposium © 1980. Informal Logic of Windsor, Ontario, for permission to reprint Chapter 2 © 1994 and Chapter 7 © 1980. Teaching Philosophy and the Philosophy Documentation Center, Bowling Green, OH, for permission to reprint Chapter 3 © 1981 and Chapter 11 © 1991. Argumentation , D. Reidel and Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, for permission to reprint Chapter 5 © 1987. Synthese and Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, for permission to reprint Chapter 10 © 1989. Philosophy and Rhetoric and The Pennsylvania State University for permission to reprint Chapters 8 © 1991 and 9 © 1991. Chapter 12 is reprinted by permission of the publisher from Norris, S.P.(Ed.), The Generalizahility of Critical Thinking: Multiple Perspectives on an Education Ideal (New York: Teachers College Press, © 1992 by Teachers College, Columbia University. All rights reserved.) pp. 38-53. Communication and Cognition of Ghent, Belgium, for permission to reprint Chapter 13 © 1991. North Holland and Elsevier Scientific Publishers ofAmsterdam, The Netherlands, for permission to reprint Chapter 16 from Logic and Political Culture © 1992. ISBN 0916475-265 cloth edition ISBN 0916475-255 paper edition To my parents Ralph and Marion who first exposed me to the practice of argumentation and gave me an appreciation of the importance of logic. Ackno wledgements W hen john Hoaglund first broached the idea of collecting many of my various papers on informal logic under one cover, I was flattered and non-plussed. Two thoughts pushed their way forward. The first was: “ Not dead yet. ” But then I said to myself: “ But neither was Quine. ” Then came the second: “ Not Quine yet. ” I had no response to that one. I am grateful to Vale Press for undertaking the publication of these papers which reflect 20 years of struggling to identify clearly both the nature of informal logic and its contribution to logic and to philosophy. When I look at some of the changes that have taken place in the teaching of logic at the college and university level, I am satisfied that informal logic has had an impact. In addition to John Hoaglund, there are others I want to thank. First and foremost my colleague, Tony Blair, who is co-author of four of the papers reprinted here, with whom I have co-edited Informal Logic and Informal Logic Newsletter , and with whom I have been fortunate to have had an ongoing conversation about both the theory and practice of informal logic for more than 25 years. I want to thank a great many colleagues whom I have met and with whom I have had conversations that have both influenced my ideas and also had a direct impact on the writing of these papers, among them: Michael Scriven, Nicholas Rescher, Howard Kahane, John McPeck, John Woods, Douglas Walton, Jonathan Adler, Stephen Norris, Richard Paul, Perry Weddle, Trudy Govier, John Hoaglund, Maurice Finocchiaro, Robert Ennis, Matthew Libman, Else Barth, Frans van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, Erik Krabbe, Charles Willard, and Joe Wenzel. I apologize to those whose names have, at the moment, slipped my mind. I want especially to thank those who have supported the journal: Hans V. Hansen, Robert C. Pinto, and Mark Letteri. Thank you to Trudy Govier for writing such an apt and gracious Preface. A huge thank you to my wife, Maggie, for her patience and support over many years. Ralph H. Johnson Windsor June 1996 Origins of the E ssays Chapter 1: “ The Recent Development of Informal Logic “in J. Anthony Blair and Ralph H. Johnson, eds., Informal Logic: The First lnternational Symposium (Inverness, CA: Edgepress, 1980), pp. 3-28. Chapter 2: “ Informal Logic: Past and Present ” in Ralph H. Johnson and J. Anthony Blair, eds., New Essays in Informal Logic (Windsor, Ontario: Informal Logic, 1994), pp. 1-19. Chapter 3: “ The New Logic Course: The State of the Art in Non-Formal Methods of Argument Analysis ,” Teaching Philosophy , Vol. 4 (1984) pp. 123-43. Chapter 4: “ Logic Naturalized: Recovering a Tradition" in Argumentation: Across the Lines of Discipline , ed. by Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, J. Anthony Blair, and Charles A. Willard (Dordrecht: Foris, 1987) pp. 47-56. (Studies of Argumentation in Pragmatics and Discourse Analyses.) Chapter 5: “ Argumentation as Dialectical, ” Argumentation , Vol. 1 (1987), pp. 41-56. Chapter 7: “ Toulmin ’ s Bold Experiment, ” Part I Informal Logic Newsletter , Vol. 3, No. 3 (1981), pp. 13-19. Chapter 8: “ Hamblin on the Standard Treatment, ” Philosophy and Rhetoric , Vol. 23 (1991), pp. 153-67. Chapter 9: “ Acceptance is Not Enough: A Critique of Hamblin. ” Philosophy and Rhetoric , Vol. 23 (1991), pp. 271-287. Chapter 10: “ Massey on Fallacy and Informal Logic: A Reply, ” Synthese , Vol. 80 (1989), pp. 407-26. Chapter 11: “ Misconceptions of Informal Logic: A Reply to McPeck, ” Teaching Philosophy , Vol. 14 (1991), pp. 55-52. Chapter 12: “ The Problem of Defining Critical Thinking ” in The Generalizability of Critical Thinking , ed. by Stephen P. Norris (New York and London: Teachers College Press, 1992), pp. 38-53. Chapter 13: “ The Place of Argumentation in the Theory of Reasoning, ” Communication and Cognition , Vol. 24 (1991), pp. 5-14. Chapter 16: “ Informal Logic and Politics in Logical and Political Culture, ” ed. by E. M. Barth and E. C. W. Krabbe (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1992), pp. 133-44. Chapters 6, 14, and 15 appear here in print for the first time. Co ntents I. Informal Logic ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 1: The Recent Development of Informal Logic .................................................................. 10 Chapter 2: Informal Logic: Past and Present ...................................................................................... 36 Chapter 3: The New Logic Course: The State of the Art in Non-Formal Methods of Argument Analysis ........................................................................................................................................ 53 II. Informal Logic and Argumentation........................................................................................................ 73 Chapter 4: Logic Naturalized: Recovering A Tradition ................................................................... 74 Chapter 5: Argumentation as Dialectical .............................................................................................. 83 Chapter 6: Argumentation: A Pragmatic Perspective ...................................................................... 96 III. Other Voices ................................................................................................................................................ 107 Chapter 7: Toulmin’s Bold Experiment ............................................................................................... 108 Chapter 8: Hamblin on the Standard Treatment ............................................................................. 141 Chapter 9: Acceptance is Not Enough: A Critique of Hamblin.................................................... 153 Chapter 10: Massey on Fallacy and Informal Logic: A Reply ...................................................... 166 Chapter 11: McPeck’s Misconceptions ................................................................................................ 180 IV. Informal Logic and Reasoning .............................................................................................................. 194 Chapter 12: The Problem of Defining Critical Thinking ............................................................... 195 Chapter 13: The Place of Argumentation in the Theory of Reasoning................................... 207 Chapter 14: Reasoning, Critical Thinking and The Network Problem ................................... 213 Chapter 15: The Contribution of Informal Logic to the Theory of Reasoning ..................... 224 Chapter 16: Informal Logic and Politics ............................................................................................. 233 1 P reface to the E -editio n W e are pleased to release this edition of Ralph Johnson’s The Rise of Informal Logic as Volume 2 in the series Windsor Studies in Argumentation. This edition is a reprint of the previous Vale Press edition with some typographical errors and other minor mistakes corrected. We want to thank Dave Johnston for converting the electronic files and helping generally with the publishing of our series, and Elisa Durante for her careful correcting of those electronic files to produce a polished, readable text. We wanted to reissue this book as a volume in the WSIA series because it provides a key account of informal logic written by one of the founders of the field. Especially in light of the role that informal logic has come to play in argumentation theory, we believe it is important to make it widely available to anyone interested in argumentation as a subject of study. We are grateful to Lilian Hoagland of Vale Press for permission to reproduce the initial edition which was published in paper, and to John Hoagland for the work he did to make the initial publication possible. Leo Groarke, Trent University Christopher Tindale, University of Windsor Editors in Chief, Windsor Studies in Argumentation July 1, 2014 2 Original P reface I n making available this collection of Ralph Johnson ’s papers , developed over an eighteen-year period, Vale Press has performed a valuable service. The name of Ralph Johnson is well-known to everyone interested in Informal Logic, and these essays will be interesting and useful to all who are exploring central issues in that field or in the related area of critical thinking. Ralph Johnson began teaching informal logic in 1971; Logical Self- Defence , his first book on the subject, was co-authored with his colleague Tony Blair and appeared in 1978. As the essays collected here so clearly reveal, Johnson has been active ever since. With Tony Blair, Ralph Johnson began the Informal Logic Newsletter in 1978. It became an indispensable communication tool for those teaching and writing in the area. As one who was keenly interested in informal logic at a time when most other philosophers were not, I can remember how indispensable the newsletter seemed in those early years. I used to pounce on it when it arrived in the mail, and eagerly devour every morsel of food for thought. Later, when there was a need for a refereed journal in the area, Johnson and Blair worked hard to turn the Newsletter into a successful and respected journal, Informal Logic , which they continue to edit today. Johnson and Blair organized three international conferences on informal logic at the University of Windsor in 1978, 1983 and 1989. Through their work teaching, editing, organizing, speaking and writing, they have remained at the center of most of the key developments in informal logic over the past two decades. Two overview essays included here (Chapters One and Two) show how their position has given Johnson and Blair a broad perspective on many developments. Throughout, their own contributions have been pivotal. It is not only through his diligent editorial and academic work that Ralph Johnson has contributed to informal logic and the theory of argument. In this area – more I suspect than in many others – personality and character count for much. Over the eighteen years that I have known Ralph Johnson, I have always found him to be genial, open-minded, good-natured, and respectful of others. Often witty and imaginative, his work is nevertheless careful and meticulous. Johnson ’ s conscientious fairness and cheerful personality have not only contributed to the tone and credibility of his own work, they have been an inspiration and help to many others in the field. It would perhaps be premature to honor Ralph Johnson, because he is active and very much alive, and will contribute much more to informal logic and the theory of argument. But if one did wish to honor him, producing this book would be one good way to do it. John Hoaglund and Vale Press is to be congratulated for making its appearance possible. There is much confusion about rationality and method today, not least in philosophy. Two prominent movements strongly opposite in their tendencies have a status and influence that is considerable and – it seems to me – undermining of practical rationality. At one end, there is the scientism of cognitive science; at the other, the anarchy of deconstruction. In cognitive science, we find a desire to understand human reasoning and discourse scientifically, through the development and testing of computer models. More scientistic than scientific, this approach is likely to produce pseudo-precision and 3 pseudo-rigor and unlikely to provide useful and sensible insights into standards for evaluating arguments. At the other extreme we find the confusing and trendy buzz of deconstruction and post-modernism, featuring skepticism about stable meaning, and denial that there are any rational standards at all. We can regard developments in the theory of argument as work towards sane and viable standards on the middle ground. In this way, the future of informal logic is important to preserving the practice of rational argumentation, which is threatened in so many ways in the contemporary world. Though prominent in the teaching of logic, informal logic and critical thinking are still marginalized within their home discipline of philosophy. In all of this, there is much at stake, and we neglect it at our peril. Apart from the University of Windsor, home to Ralph Johnson and Tony Blair, the other major world center for middle-ground studies of rationality and argument is the University of Amsterdam. There Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst have worked with colleagues and students to found the pragma-dialectical school. According to Pragma- Dialectics, which has been energetically promulgated in numerous books and papers and at many conferences around the globe, arguments are rational discussions between two parties who begin by disagreeing on a thesis and proceed to carry out a discussion aiming to reach an agreement. In this model, fallacies are understood as violations of the rules for a proper discussion. The paradigmatic argumentative situation is that in which two parties are talking with each other. The discussion is oral; both parties are present; each can challenge the other. From actual conversations, arguments are written down and reconstructed for theoretical analysis; then rules are applied to them. In an ideal discussion, parties will follow the rules. Unlike van Eemeren and Grootendorst, Johnson does not adopt an oral paradigm. He believes that for the analysis and evaluation of arguments, the written text should be the paradigm, the primary object. A written argument is more fixed and stable than an oral one. It is, notably, a more public object, being available to a greater number of people. Furthermore, greater care has typically gone into constructing a written argument – it is not simply “ off the cuff. ” Similarly, responses to written arguments are more thorough and more carefully developed. If one develops a sound theory for written argument, one may go on to determine whether and how that theory may be adapted so as to apply to oral arguments. As readers will soon discover, there is much of interest in these essays. Especially clear – and still pertinent due to the careless prominence still enjoyed by formal logic in some philosophical circles – is Johnson’ s discussion of formal deductive logic (FDL). Johnson argues convincingly that FDL provides doctrines about one kind of inference or implication (namely deductive) but sheds little light on the appropriate standards for evaluating arguments in everyday life or in academic disciplines. It has nothing to say about such key matters as the evaluation of premises, the clarification of meaning, the role of charity in interpretation, or the strength of non-deductive inferences. In his essay on logic and politics (Chapter Sixteen) Johnson sets forth some basic conditions that he thinks must be met by any logic that will apply sensibly to political discourse. First, that logic must allow for good arguments both for and against the same claim. Second, that logic must evaluate arguments in such a way that there is a continuum from strong to weak (or good to bad, or cogent to non-cogent); the merit of an argument is not to be an all-or-nothing affair. Third, that logic must have standards which are “ user- 4 friendly ,” at least to the extent that participants in political argument must be able to decide whether they are satisfied in a particular case. FDL fails on all counts. Somewhat provocatively, Johnson says that he doesn ’ t think any normative theory can yet meet these conditions. In politics and elsewhere, argumentation is a practice with manifest rationality. When we present and respond to arguments, we offer reasons and respond to criticisms based on reasons. We must try to operate rationally and must be aware that that is what we are trying to do. For the practice of argumentation to function as it does, “ rationality must be done and be seen to be done. ” Argument s are inter-subjective, and an arguer must take his prospective audience into account. Arguments occur in public space: the practice of argumentation requires the support of a community. Someone who argues for a claim has an obligation to respond to criticisms of those arguments, even if he or she thinks that those criticisms are misguided. Johnson believes that argument is dialectical; an argument is put forward in an attempt to rationally persuade other people that a claim is true. Such an attempt at persuasion must take into account the context in which those other people find themselves and the related beliefs they are likely to have. Johnson suggests interestingly that we can think of argument as having two tiers. The first tier is that of the premises and conclusion: an argument is a good one if its premises are relevant and sufficient to support its conclusion and if those premises are themselves adequate. Johnson moves away from the acceptability condition for premises, in the direction of truth, but admits that he has not settled on a criterion for premise adequacy. (In this connection, he develops some interesting criticisms of Hamblin in Chapters Eight and Nine.) The second tier concerns attention to alternate positions and objections. How well does the arguer deal with and defuse well-known objections to the position? Distinguish his or her position from other positions on the issue? Respond to those other positions? Handle questions about consequences? We usually evaluate arguments only in terms of the premises and conclusion. The second tier is a whole new level, one that is clearly relevant to our practice of manifest rationality. Johnson ’ s two-tier analysis seems to be of great theoretical and practical value, and could usefully be imported into textbooks in the area. These are just a few of the many fascinating and useful discussions to be found in this volume. There is no need to say more, because Ralph Johnson ’ s work speaks so clearly for itself. Trudy Govier Calgary, Canada May, 1996 5 Intro duction T he prime motive for gathering Ralph H. Johnson ’ s essays under one cover is their clear articulation of the goals, concerns and problems of the discipline of informal logic. To my knowledge all of the published articles, even of the 1980s, are still in print. But some are obtainable only by special request of a journal back issue. Their availability, even their existence, is not nearly widely enough known, and this volume is dedicated to remedying that disservice to those currently working in the field of informal logic, critical thinking, argumentation, and practical reasoning. Three of these sixteen pieces appear here in print for the first time. The previously published pieces have appeared from 1980 to 1992 as chapters in collective works or as articles in journals, and these in turn published in Canada, USA, The Netherlands and Belgium. It is hoped that gathering this hitherto scattered material under one cover will contribute to a greater understanding of what informal logic is, and to an enhanced sense of the impact of Johnson ’ s ideas. A discipline of informal logic might exist today without the writings of Johnson and his frequent co-author, J. Anthony Blair. But it would almost certainly be quite different from what it actually is. The writings gathered here may be more nearly definitive of informal logic as a discipline than any other body of work available under a single cover. There are book- length treatments of important topics and problems in informal logic that manifest no small originality of thought, and are hence required reading for the serious informal logician. Govier (1987) and Freeman (1991) fall clearly into this category. But neither of these works is so explicitly concerned with the development and cultivation of informal logic as a discipline. Chief contender for this title would be the prodigious, wide-ranging, and high quality publications of Douglas Walton and John Woods, separately and jointly. But Woods and Walton, particularly in their earlier writing (e.g. the papers gathered in Woods and Walton 1989), seem considerably less concerned with developing informal logic as a separate discipline than with illuminating informal fallacies by using techniques and perspectives from formal, mathematical, and intuitionist logics. There are three loosely different types of chapter in this work. One is concerned with staking out territory for informal logic as a discipline, surveying what has been done, and estimating what most needs to be done. The first two chapters, co-authored with J. Anthony Blair, fit this category neatly, and Chapter Three fits it loosely by spelling out the teaching concerns of informal logic. The second is concerned with developing the theoretical underpinnings of informal logic, filling in the territory staked out with reasoned, constructive doctrine, and relating informal logic to collateral endeavors. Chapters Four through Six focus narrowly on developing these theoretical underpinnings, and Chapters Twelve through Fifteen relate informal logic mainly to recent writing on reasoning with some attention also to work in critical thinking. The third type of chapter focuses on other writers, and is here again of two sorts. Either spelling out certain positions in informal logic by contrast with other informal logicians, as in the chapters on Toulmin and Hamblin, or defending informal logic as an 6 endeavor against those questioning its advisability or even possibility, as in the chapters on Massey and McPeck. I will now introduce briefly one example of each of the three different kinds of chapter: One, Five, and Seven. No other writer or writers have surveyed the literature and defined the field of informal logic as have Johnson and Blair. One measure of the effectiveness of this work is that when they first read Chapter One as a paper in 1978 and first published it in 1980, a discipline of informal logic did not exist. Today one does. Lest I be accused of post hoc, please note that I claim a relation of influence here, not one of cause-effect. Informal logic is defined as “ that area of logic . . . which attempts to formulate the principles and standards of logic . . . necessary for the evaluation of argumentation . . . ” (p. 12 below). Johnson and Blair describe its main focus on argument in natural language and contrast this with the creation of artificial languages in formal logics. Such argument emerges from a dialectical process (e.g. debate of a substantial matter by two people of opposing viewpoints), and attention must be given to informal logical fallacies to develop its theory. The forms of argument we find in natural language are not captured by either the notions of valid form and sound argument of formal deductive logics, or the criteria for inductive strength. Hence if we want students in logic courses to deal effectively with arguments in natural language, teaching them formal logic is not a promising route. Their survey of theoretical informal logic literature 1953-1978 divides into one for monographs and journal articles. Only three monographs turn up as significant, a disappointing number for informal logic enthusiasts, but each of these (Toulmin 1958; Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958; Hamblin 1970) is of such significance as to be foundational literature for the field. The search for journal articles yields strong evidence of a trend. Only nine articles are found in the first 15 years of the period; in the subsequent ten years there are 58 articles, the majority appearing 1974-1978. Important areas of research interest turn out to be the theory of fallacy and the theory of argument. Their sample of textbooks 1946-1978 is also suggestive of a trend. Whereas the survey of journal articles may well contain everything they could find in English, we are not told how the sample textbooks were selected. From 1946-1969 only five counted as informal logic texts; from 1970-1978 there are 14 in this category. A signal merit of this Johnson-Blair survey is that we find not only a call for a logic more suited to everyday uses but also an analysis of the sample texts revealing common features indicating what in detail might be needed for this task. In revealing contrast to formal logic texts, informal logic texts typically lift actual arguments from popular print media to serve as examples for analysis and in exercises for students to analyze. Such actual arguments are aptly characterized by Johnson and Blair as “ rambling, confused, digressive, prolix discussions which are briar patches for the logician ” (p. 21 below). Innovations in the treatment of the informal fallacies are also encountered. Lists of fallacies are rearranged according to new categories, some old fallacies are dropped and new ones added. What Johnson and Blair find most exciting in the informal logic textbooks is that they attempt to deal with extended arguments, those the length of a newspaper or magazine editorial, or longer. Writers differ on whether one should attempt to lay bare structural detail or instead judge the argument on the basis of a summary. In some cases a missing conclusion must be supplied, in others missing premises. When the latter, the 7 premises must be formulated strong enough to serve for the task at hand, but not so strong as to commit the arguer to statements vulnerable to attack. Johnson and Blair close this survey and analysis with a provocative, detailed list of problems and issues in informal logic. Work of this sort establishes a need for theory in informal logic, and Chapter Five exemplifies those in which Johnson and Blair address this need. If the focus on argument in natural language distinguishes informal from formal logic, it is argument as dialectical that is characteristic of the Johnson-Blair version of informal logic from others. As dialectical, argument grows out of a process that must be taken into account, a process involving a questioner and respondent. Argument is purposive, and it begins when a proposition is challenged. Argument is contrasted with inference and implication, which are taken to be the main concern of formal deductive logic, a discipline that does not get a high approval rating from these authors. Where argument is dialectical, inference is monolectical (no other viewpoints need be taken into account). The purpose of argument is taken as rational persuasion, and while inference resembles argument in being purposive, it has a quite different purpose: to attain knowledge. Inference moves along one track whereas argument is more heterogeneous. From these important differences between argument and inference, the authors infer that the standards of argument will differ from those of inference. This brings us to their conception of argument criticism, where arguments are tested for their strength. Arguments are measured by the acceptability of their premises and the adequacy of the premise-conclusion connection. The key idea here is that of a community of model interlocutors, knowledgeable people familiar with the process of argumentation. Blair and Johnson explicitly reject the claim of traditional logicians that premises must be true, and indeed much argument in natural language proceeds with premises more easily fitted in the gray area if true and false are the poles of light and darkness. Yet since the effective arguer is obliged to find premises his audience will accept, our authors arrive at model interlocutors to avoid the relativism of an audience that might accept even patently false premises. Model interlocutors are legitimate participants in the process of argumentation. They are knowledgeable about the claims in question, reflective in that they question, challenge, and probe, and open-minded in being less biased and more willing to change an opinion. Further details of this community are then worked out, and the criterion for an acceptable premise is that members of this community raise no important questions about it. On connection-adequacy, Blair and Johnson indicate that premises must be both relevant and provide sufficient support to the conclusion. So the arguer must meet three kinds of objection: that the premises are not acceptable, that they are irrelevant, and that they insufficiently support the conclusion. The authors make the strong claim that an argument is incomplete if common, known objections to the premises or conclusion are not considered, and it is again our model interlocutors who decide what needs considering. Chapter Ten on Toulmin, in which Johnson examines not the monograph Toulmin (1958) cited earlier but the textbook Toulmin (1979), exemplifies those on other writers. Johnson is warmly sympathetic to Toulmin ’ s goals. He indicates how Toulmin not only rejects the geometrical model of formal deductive logic but also provides an alternative in the jurisprudential model, where the assessment of argument as practiced in courts of law (in a sense a dialectical process) is carried out. But the differences on how these goals are 8 to be achieved are considerable. Toulmin ’ s methods may not have received so sympathetic yet searching a critique by an informal logician until Freeman (1991). Freeman seems actually to have taught courses with the Toulmin (1979) text, whereas Johnson at the time of his critical review tells us he had not. Toul min’ s basic scheme of argument involves a claim, data serving as evidence for it, and a warrant that licenses an inference from the data to the claim. What are the facts may be debated, a warrant that is challenged may need back-up, the modality of the argument is stated explicitly, and a rebuttal of the argument would have to be responded to. Johnson generally accepts this scheme, though he does find serious problems with it. Confining premises to statements of fact seems unduly restrictive, unless Toulmin has an extraordinarily elastic conception of fact. Much of the argument we deal with involves normative claims and value judgments, and it isn ’ t clear how Toulmin ’ s scheme would capture this type of material, or whether it would at all. Scrutinizing Toulmin ’ s examples, Johnson finds some premises that are difficult to classify as factual statements. More troublesome yet is the warrant. Toulmin gives ten somewhat different descriptions of warrant. Examining his examples, Johnson concludes that warrants are either general statements or rules which tend to make the arguments deductive. One problem with this is that in some cases it may saddle the arguer with a considerably stronger claim than he needs to establish his conclusion. In some cases it seems that particular statements would serve as well as general. For Toulmin, warrants are field- dependent, so that what counts as a warrant in medicine might not count at all in the field of law. Johnson expresses uncertainty about what counts as a field. And how do we deal with arguments where the evidence for the claim straddles fields? Applying this scheme to Toulmin ’ s problems, Johnson notes that for a given problem the warrant may be formulated in different ways. So we face the difficulty of deciding what description it fits under as well as deciding what field it belongs to. Finally Johnson observes that it would be cumbersome to apply this method to longer or extended arguments. This is a brief sampling of what follows. There is enormously provocative material here, not only for logicians, formal and informal, but also for those working in related ares in philosophy, argumentation, speech communications, pragmatics, rhetoric, and linguistics. Teachers of courses in critical thikning and practical reasoning will also encounter here many ideas to stimulate a probing and deeper understanding of their work. John Hoaglund Newport News June 1996 9 I. Informal Logic 10 Chapter One The Recent Development of Informal Logic T he purpose of this chapter is to contribute to an overview of the recent development of informal logic. Part 1 is an introduction consisting of three brief sections: (A) the informal logic point of view; (B) a short historical background; and (C) a statement of our approach. Part 2 is a survey of the developments in informal logic from 1953 to 1978. In Part 3, after summarizing these developments, we attempt to formulate the central issues and problems with which informal logic must deal. 1. Introduction A. Point of View The label “ informal logic ” means different things to different people. To many it refers to the lists of informal fallacies and the various descriptions and classifications of these fallacies – the tradition which began with Aristotle ’ s On Sophistical Refutations and which has most recently been examined critically by C. L. Hamblin in his monograph, Fallacies (1970). To others it designates the subject matter of a certain sort of introductory logic course (or a segment of such a course) which employs various non-formal techniques (often but not always including the study of fallacies) to try to teach elementary reasoning skills. To still others, especially recently, it has come to mark off a field of logical investigation distinct from formal deductive logic. No doubt there are other ways in which informal logic is used. Indeed, we expect some would consider the label a contradiction in terms, for since they understand by logic the study of formal systems, informal logic would be a logical impossibility. In the face of such disparate conceptions of informal logic, how is this field to be defined? There are at least two ways in which an area of inquiry might be characterized: in terms of the approach or methodology employed in it, and in terms of the subject matter. We think informal logic is best specified in terms of its subject matter, for there is no single approach shared by everyone whose work may be identified as belonging to it. At the same time we must warn that there is no uncontroversial way to demarcate precisely the subject matter of informal logic. The reason for this is clear enough. The field is simply too undeveloped at this stage for a clear definition to be possible. The kinds of questions being raised, the kinds of problems being addressed, represent a diverse range of issues. Nevertheless, when they are set down side by side there emerges a coherence – admittedly loose – that can be seen to constitute a broad but distinctive area of inquiry. We submit the following list of attitudes, drawn from the general literature, as characterizing the informal logic point of view.