About this topic
Summary Informal Logic is not an alternative to formal logic. It is, broadly, the normative philosophical study of reasoning, inference and argumentation in natural language. Informal logic seeks to provide advice to "real life" arguers in the hopes of enabling them to argue more reasonably, to avoid fallacies, and to achieve greater success in persuasion through cogent, well-reasoned argumentation. Another goal of informal logic is to improve the teaching of reasoning skills.  Some issues that might be considered distinctive to informal logic include: the metaphysical question of whether arguments are abstract objects, events, or something else, what makes arguments in natural languages good or bad, the relationship between argument and justification, theories of virtuous arguing, the nature of fallacies, the problem of deep disagreement between both peer and non-peer arguers, the nature of multi-modal arguments (arguments critically involving non-linguistic elements like images or sounds), and how to achieve more socially just norms and practices of everyday argumentation.
Key works Many of the interests now gathered under the banner of informal logic well predate the emergence of the field as a distinct area of study. Arguably, the tradition begins with Aristotle, the Organon and the Rhetoric both being of central relevance. The first section of Hansen & Pinto 1995 contains entries by writers like Locke, Whately, and Mill, all of whom are important for the history of informal logic. In the 20th century, Hamblin 1970, Toulmin 1958, and Perelman 1969 are considered seminal works in the field. Wellman 1971 is important because it is a point of continuity between the history of attempts in ethics to arrive at standards of good moral reasoning distinct from the canons of formal deductive logic, and informal logic's broader attempt to do the same. A good guide to the early history of informal logic can be found in Johnson 1996. It is also important to note the confluence between early work on critical thinking and informal logic. This is captured in Johnson 2012.
Introductions Walton 2008 and Govier 1991 are accessible textbooks by two of the field's most influential writers. Important technical treatments showcasing the current diversity of approaches within informal logic include the following: Pinto 2003, Tindale 2013, Johnson 2000, Freeman 2005, Walton et al 2008, Hitchcock 2006, Groarke 2015 and Finocchiaro 2013.
Related

Contents
5391 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 5391
  1. Towards a stronger concept of argument.Luis Felipe Bartolo Alegre - manuscript
    The standard definition of “argument” is satisfied by any series of statements in which one (of the statements) is marked as the conclusion of the others. This leads to the counter-intuitive result that “I like cookies, therefore, all swans are white” is an argument, since “therefore” marks “all swans are white” as the conclusion of “I like cookies”. This objection is often disregarded by stating that, although the previous sequence is an argument, it fails to be a good one. However, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. How To Argue (And How Not To).Danny Frederick - manuscript
    I distinguish arguments and arguing and I explain some important logical features of arguments. I then explain how philosophers have been misled, apparently by Euclid, into giving seriously mistaken accounts of arguing. I give a few examples. I then offer a seven-step guide on how to argue. After that, I conclude.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Any Dispute May Be Resolved By Argument But Rational People May Disagree About Anything.Danny Frederick - manuscript
    Two common claims in philosophy are that deep disagreements cannot, in principle, be resolved by argument and that normal disagreements will be resolved by argument. In each claim it is assumed that the parties to the disagreement are rational. I argue that both claims are false. The first fails to take account of refutations. The second fails to recognise the role of conjectures in the dynamics of the growth of knowledge. There is no disagreement such that it is impossible for (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. Lying in the Time of Crisis.Venkata Rayudu Posina - manuscript
    Beginning with an examination of the recent Nature News centered on Harvard-Lancet-Mehra et al. COVID-19 research scandal, I put forth suggestions--for further debate--to safeguard the integrity of science in a time of crisis. In particular, I identify a subtle form of lying published as Nature news. Subsequently, drawing on Scarry's book "Thinking in an Emergency", I argue that slow reasoning and quick action (called for by crises) are not mutually incompatible; thinking can be transformed into conscious-reflex action by way of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Coherence of Inferences.Matheus Silva - manuscript
    It is usually accepted that deductions are non-informative and monotonic, inductions are informative and nonmonotonic, abductions create hypotheses but are epistemically irrelevant, and both deductions and inductions can’t provide new insights. In this article, I attempt to provide a more cohesive view of the subject with the following hypotheses: (1) the paradigmatic examples of deductions, such as modus ponens and hypothetical syllogism, are not inferential forms, but coherence requirements for inferences; (2) since any reasoner aims to be coherent, any inference (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. Conditionals all the way down.Matheus Silva - manuscript
    It is commonly accepted that unconditional statements are clearer and less problematic than conditional ones. This article challenges this belief by proposing that all unconditional statements can be reduced to conditional ones since epistemic justification is inherently conditional in nature. The distinction between unconditional and conditional statements is similar to the distinction between assumptions and premises, which is an idealization that results from our attempts to limit epistemic complexity. This has perplexing consequences: (1) since any ordinary statement can be viewed (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. The carneades argumentation framework: Using presumptions and exceptions to model critical questions.Douglas Walton with Chris Reed - manuscript
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Relevance in the law: A logical perspective.Author unknown - manuscript
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Examination dialogue: An argumentation framework for critically questioning an expert opinion.Douglas Walton - manuscript
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  10. Visualization tools, argumentation schemes and expert opinion evidence in law.Douglas Walton - manuscript
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  11. Common knowledge in argumentation.Douglas Walton & Fabrizio Macagno - manuscript
    Studies in Communication Sciences, 6, 2006, 3-26 . [link to online version posted].
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  12. Begging the question is not a fallacy.John Woods - manuscript
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  13. Chapter XIII. Erotetic Reasoning.Anna Brożek - unknown - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 99:279-306.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. Critical Thinking: A Guide to Evaluating Information. [REVIEW]Jim Gough - unknown - Eidos: The Canadian Graduate Journal of Philosophy 3.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Fallacy, What Fallacy? Theaetetus and the Instances of Knowledge.Fraser Landry - unknown - Eidos: The Canadian Graduate Journal of Philosophy 4.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Anonymous Arguments.Andrew Aberdein - forthcoming - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice:1-13.
    Anonymous argumentation has recently been the focus of public controversy: flash points include the outing of pseudonymous bloggers by newspapers and the launch of an academic journal that expressly permits pseudonymous authorship. However, the controversy is not just a recent one—similar debates took place in the nineteenth century over the then common practice of anonymous journalism. Amongst the arguments advanced by advocates of anonymous argumentation in either era is the contention that it is essential if the widest range of voices (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. Rhetoric of “stakeholding.”.David M. Berube - forthcoming - Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Alban BOUVIER, L'argumentation philosophique. Etude de sociologie cognitive.M. Bourdeau - forthcoming - Revue Internationale de Philosophie.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Argumentation: a new paradigm?M. M. Carrilho - forthcoming - Revue Internationale de Philosophie.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. El sector informal.Jacques Charmes - forthcoming - Humanitas.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Descartes et l'argumentation philosophique, sous la direction de Frederic Cossutta.E. Danblon - forthcoming - Revue Internationale de Philosophie.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. Thinking & reasoning.Michael E. Doherty - forthcoming - Thinking and Reasoning: Soucial Judgement Theory.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. On systems of rhetoric+ reprinted from'philosophy and rhetoric'vol 1, issue 3, pg 131-44, 1968.D. Ehninger - forthcoming - Philosophy and Rhetoric.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. The Toulmin Brief.Emily Friedrich - forthcoming - Argumentation.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Toward a feminist poetic of critical thinking.James W. Garrison & A. Phelan - forthcoming - Philosophy of Education.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  26. Forthcoming, Inquiry, Summer 2004.Darren Grant & Melayne Morgan McInnes - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. Diálogos na dissertação escolar: um estudo sobre os enunciados de senso comum e de polêmica/Dialogues at the scholarly argumentative text: an analysis of consensual and polemical enunciates.Rinaldo Guariglia - forthcoming - Bakhtiniana.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  28. Meta-argumentation modelling I: Methodology and techniques.Dov Guido Boella, Leendert der Torre M. Gabbavany & Serena Villata - forthcoming - Studia Logica.
    In this paper, we introduce the methodology and techniques of meta-argumentation to model argumentation. The methodology of meta-argumentation instantiates Dung’s abstract argumentation theory with an extended argumentation theory, and is thus based on a combination of the methodology of instantiating abstract arguments, and the methodology of extending Dung’s basic argumentation frameworks with other relations among abstract arguments. The technique of meta-argumentation applies Dung’s theory of abstract argumentation to itself, by instantiating Dung’s abstract arguments with meta-arguments using a technique called flattening. (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. Editorial: A Dialogue on Logic.Sven Ove Hansson - forthcoming - Theoria.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  30. Feminist Perspectives on Argumentation.Catherine E. Hundleby - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Feminists note an association of arguing with aggression and masculinity and question the necessity of this connection. Arguing also seems to some to identify a central method of philosophical reasoning, and gendered assumptions and standards would pose problems for the discipline. Can feminine modes of reasoning provide an alternative or supplement? Can overarching epistemological standards account for the benefits of different approaches to arguing? These are some of the prospects for argumentation inside and outside of philosophy that feminists consider. -/- (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  31. The recent development of informal logic.Ralph H. Johnson & J. Anthony Blair - forthcoming - Informal Logic: The First International Symposium.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  32. The nature and classification of fallacies.Howard Kahane - forthcoming - Informal Logic: The First International Symposium. Ca: Edgepress.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  33. Case-based Reasoning and the Deep Structure Approach to Knowledge Representation, in Proceedings of the Third International Conference on.Andrej Kowalski - forthcoming - Artificial Intelligence and Law.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Reflections on the genetic fallacy.Thelma Z. Lavine - forthcoming - Social Research: An International Quarterly.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  35. Persuasion by our art is always linked with our science—in the exhaustiveness of our research.Yvonna S. Lincoln - forthcoming - Mind.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  36. Essentials of Dialogism: Aspects and Elements of a Dialogical Approach to Language.Per Linell - forthcoming - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  37. Why be critical?(Or rational or moral?) On the justification of critical thinking.Christine McCarthy - forthcoming - Philosophy of Education.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  38. Critical thinking without logic: Restoring dignity to information.John McPeck - forthcoming - Philosophy of Education.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. Persuasion and the Dependence Effect.Reese Miller - forthcoming - Business Ethics in Canada.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  40. Interface rhetoric.Andrew Morrison & Even Westvang - forthcoming - Kairos.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. Informal Provability, First-Order BAT Logic and First Steps Towards a Formal Theory of Informal Provability.Pawel Pawlowski & Rafal Urbaniak - forthcoming - Logic and Logical Philosophy:1-27.
    BAT is a logic built to capture the inferential behavior of informal provability. Ultimately, the logic is meant to be used in an arithmetical setting. To reach this stage it has to be extended to a first-order version. In this paper we provide such an extension. We do so by constructing non-deterministic three-valued models that interpret quantifiers as some sorts of infinite disjunctions and conjunctions. We also elaborate on the semantical properties of the first-order system and consider a couple of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. Testing for critical thinking.H. Petrie - forthcoming - Philosophy of Education.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. Formal and informal decision-making at EU level.Florin Popa - forthcoming - Cogito.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Some antistrophes to the'rhetoric'+ reprinted from'philosophy and rhetoric'vol 1, issue 3, pg 145-64, 1968.R. Price - forthcoming - Philosophy and Rhetoric.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. O ensino da escrita argumentativa na perspectiva dialógica/The teaching of argumentative writing in the dialogic perspective.Regina Braz da Silva Santos Rocha - forthcoming - Bakhtiniana.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  46. The ancient argumentative game.S. Rubinelli - forthcoming - Topoi.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  47. The philosophical and pragmatic significance of informal logic.Michael Scriven - forthcoming - Informal Logic: The First International Symposium.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  48. The 3rd tokyo conference on argumentation.Takeshi Suzuki - forthcoming - Argumentation.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  49. Teaching Visual Rhetoric.Caryn Talty - forthcoming - Kairos.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. Arguments that aren't arguments.in Contrast To - forthcoming - Informal Logic: The First International Symposium.
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 5391