From the Editors 

We have found that sometimes the ar-
ticles in a given number of this journal ar-
range themselves into a theme; but equally 
often, as in this issue, they illustrate the 
range of assorted interests the journal serves. 

The question of when one proposition 
is relevant to another as a premise suppor-
ting a conclusion is as vexing as it is cen-
tral to the analysis and assessment of 
arguments. Even the judgement that a text 
of discourse contains an argument seems to 
presuppose a judgment of propositional 
relevance, and relevance is a norm of argu-
ment appraisal. Yet the analysis of such 
relevance has been elusive. George Bowles 
tackles this challenge in his paper, "Prop-
ositional Relevance." 

We have long maintained a distinction 
between the subject of informal logic-
focused primarily on norms of argument 
analysis and appraisal (see Bowles's arti-
cle)-and the activity of critical thinking-
understood as the exercise of a moral and 
intellectual virtue. The two come together 
in the classroom, but not always to the 
satisfaction of instructors who want to teach 
critical thinking. In "A Problem Solving 
Interpretation of Argument Analysis," 
David Bernstein gives a critical thinking 
spin to a traditional unit in the informal logic 
curriculum. 

Douglas Walton is one of the best known 
and respected scholars in argumentation and 
fallacy theory, so we are pleased to publish 
James B. Freeman's critical review of 
Walton's recent book, Informal Logic: A 
Handbook for Critical Argumentation 
(1989). 

Our experience-which might be 
untypical-is that instructors trained in the 
humanities are more cavalier about testing 
than those with a background in a empirical 
research methods. When large classes force 

us to turn to multiple-choice tests, we rush 
in where angels fear to tread. Peter A. 
Facione, who has chaired the Ad Hoc 
Committee on Testing Critical Thinking for 
the American Philosophical Association's 
Committee on PreCollege Philosophy, 
offers us all a helping hand in his Teaching 
Note, "Thirty Great Ways to Mess Up a 
Critical Thinking Test." 

In Critical Thinking: Evaluating Claims 
and Arguments in Everyday Life, Brooke 
Moore and Richard Parker's innovation was 
to treat in a central way the analysis and 
evaluation of un argued claims and persua-
sion. J. E. Parks-Clifford reviews the 
second edition of Moore and Parker's text. 
Moving to a quite different region of infor-
mal logic's interdisciplinary domain, 
Claude Gratton reviews a posthumous col-
lection of Professor Chaim Perelman's 
essays, published in their original French, 
titled Rhetorique. 

New Rates 

As we have noted in this column on 
other occasions, this journal is funded 
almost entirely by its subscribers, and 
published at cost. With Volume XIII we 
must (with regret) raise our rates. By the 
way, for individual subscriptions this will 
actually be only a return to the Volume IX 
price. It is no longer possible for us to 
finance the journal at the lower rate at which 
we published (with difficulty) Volumes X, 
XI and XII. We would add the supplication: 
please, please remit when you are billed. 
It's vital that we maintain our cash flow in 
order to pay typesetter, printer, and post of-
fice, all of whom insist on cash on the bar-
relhead. Subscribers who have already paid 
for Volume XIII at the old rate will not be 
charged the difference. 0