Argumentation theory is a distinctly multidisciplinary field of inquiry. It draws its data, assumptions, and methods from disciplines as disparate as formal logic and discourse analysis, linguistics and forensic science, philosophy and psychology, political science and education, sociology and law, and rhetoric and artificial intelligence. This presents the growing group of interested scholars and students with a problem of access, since it is even for those active in the field not common to have acquired a familiarity with relevant aspects of each discipline that enters into this multidisciplinary matrix. This book offers its readers a unique comprehensive survey of the various theoretical contributions which have been made to the study of argumentation. It discusses the historical works that provide the background to the field and all major approaches and trends in contemporary research. Argument has been the subject of systematic inquiry for twenty-five hundred years. It has been graced with theories, such as formal logic or the legal theory of evidence, that have acquired a more or less settled provenance with regard to specific issues. But there has been nothing to date that qualifies as a unified general theory of argumentation, in all its richness and complexity. This being so, the argumentation theorist must have access to materials and methods that lie beyond his or her "home" subject. It is precisely on this account that this volume is offered to all the constituent research communities and their students. Apart from the historical sections, each chapter provides an economical introduction to the problems and methods that characterize a given part of the contemporary research program. Because the chapters are self-contained, they can be consulted in the order of a reader's interests or research requirements. But there is value in reading the work in its entirety. Jointly authored by the very people whose research has done much to define the current state of argumentation theory and to point the way toward more general and unified future treatments, this book is an impressively authoritative contribution to the field.
Classic work once again available. Offers step-by-step guidelines for identifying and analyzing arguments. It outlines a theory of good argument to use for purposes of evaluating and constructing arguments. It contains guidelines for constructing arguments and for preparing and writing essays or briefs. Special methods for interpreting and assessing longer arguments are provided. It gives guidelines to help filter out the more reliable information from newspapers and television news. Offers an array of devices to deal with the tricks and deceits of so much of today's advertising. Helps students improve their ability to recognize, interpret, and evaluate arguments and to formulate clear, well-organized arguments themselves. Secondary and college students, debate coaches, classroom instructors, community active people.
This book works through some of the theoretical issues that have been accumulating in informal logic over the past 20 years. At the same time, it defines a core position in the theory of argument in which those issues can be further explored. The underlying concern that motivates this work is the health of practice of argumentation as an important cultural artifact. A further concern is for logic as a discipline. Argumentative and dialectical in nature, this book presupposes some awareness of the theory of argument in recent history, and some familiarity with the positions that have been advanced. It will be of interest to academics, researchers, and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the disciplines of logic, rhetoric, linguistics, speech communication, English composition, and psychology.
We are pleased to release this digital 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 minor corrections. We have decided to make this the second volume in the series because it is such a compelling account of the formation of informal logic as a discipline, written by one of the founders of the field. The book includes essential chapters on the history and development of informal logic. Other chapters are key reflections on the theoretical issues raised by the attempt to understand informal argument. Many of the papers were previously published in important journals. A number of them were co-authored with J. Anthony Blair. Three of them have appeared only in the present book.
A world-renowned scholar and statesman, Dr. Ralph J. Bunche (1903—1971) began his career as an educator and a political scientist, and later joined the United Nations, serving as Undersecretary General for seventeen of his twenty-five years with that body. This African American mediator was the first person of color anywhere in the world to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the mid-1930s, Bunche played a key role in organizing the National Negro Congress, a popular front-styled group dedicated to progressive politics and labor and civil rights reform. A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership provides key insight into black leadership at the dawn of the modern civil rights movement. Originally prepared for the Carnegie Foundation study, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Bunche’s research on the topic was completed in 1940. This never-before-published work now includes an extended scholarly introduction as well as contextual comments throughout by Jonathan Scott Holloway. Despite the fact that Malcolm X called Bunche a “black man who didn't know his history,” Bunche never wavered from his faith that integrationist politics paved the way for racial progress. This new volume forces a reconsideration of Bunche's legacy as a reformer and the historical meaning of his early involvement in the civil rights movement.
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