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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Critical Thinking And Informal Logic: Neuropsychological Perspectives, Paul Thagard
Critical Thinking And Informal Logic: Neuropsychological Perspectives, Paul Thagard
OSSA Conference Archive
This article challenges the common view that improvements in critical thinking are best pursued by investigations in informal logic. From the perspective of research in psychology and neuroscience, human inference is a process that is multimodal, parallel, and often emotional, which makes it unlike the linguistic, serial, and narrowly cognitive structure of arguments. Attempts to improve inferential practice need to consider psychological error tendencies, which are patterns of thinking that are natural for people but frequently lead to mistakes in judgment. This article discusses two important but neglected error tendencies: motivated inference and fear-driven inference.
Are There Methods Of Informal Logic?, Hans V. Hansen, Daniel H. Cohen
Are There Methods Of Informal Logic?, Hans V. Hansen, Daniel H. Cohen
OSSA Conference Archive
This presentation seeks to understand informal logic as a set of methods for the logical evaluation of natural language arguments. Some of the methods identified are the fallacies method, deductivism, warrantism and argument schemes. A framework for comparing the adequacy of the methods is outlined consisting of the following categories: learner- and user-efficiency, subjective and objective reliability, and scope. Within this framework, it is also possible to compare informal and formal logic.
Inference As Growth: Peirce’S Ecstatic Logic Of Illation, Philip Rose, John Woods
Inference As Growth: Peirce’S Ecstatic Logic Of Illation, Philip Rose, John Woods
OSSA Conference Archive
For Peirce, logic is essentially illative, a relation of inferential growth. It follows that inference and argumentation are essentially ecstatic, an asymmetrical, ampliative movement from antecedent to consequent. It also follows that logic is inherently inductive. While deduction remains an essential and irreplaceable aspect of logic, it should be seen as a more abstract expression of the illative, semiological essence of inference as such.
The Formal Failure And Social Success Of Logic, William Brooke, Andrew Aberdein
The Formal Failure And Social Success Of Logic, William Brooke, Andrew Aberdein
OSSA Conference Archive
Is formal logic a failure? It may be, if we accept the context-independent limits imposed by Russell, Frege, and others. In response to difficulties arising from such limitations I present a Toulmin-esque social recontextualization of formal logic. The results of my project provide a positive view of formal logic as a success while simultaneously reaffirming the social and contextual concerns of argumentation theorists, critical thinking scholars, and rhetoricians.
Whose Toulmin, And Which Logic? A Response To Van Benthem, Yun Xie, Minghui Xiong, Hans V. Hansen
Whose Toulmin, And Which Logic? A Response To Van Benthem, Yun Xie, Minghui Xiong, Hans V. Hansen
OSSA Conference Archive
In a recent paper, “One Logician’s Perspective on Argumentation”, van Benthem expressed his reservations on Toulmin’s diagnosis and abandonment of formal logic, and argued that Toulmin was wrong for leading the study of argumentation apart from formal approach. In this paper we will try to reveal two se-rious misunderstandings of Toulmin’s ideas in his discussions, and thereby make an apology for Toulmin.