From the Editors 

In This Issue 

In his article, "Towards a Research 
Agenda for Informal Logic and Critical 
Thinking," Mark Weinstein argues that the 
recent concern for informal logic and 
critical thinking be redirected from its 
general philosophical focus toward a grea.ter 
appreciation of the particulars of practlce 
in the various domains of human 
understanding. 

In "Perhaps by Skill Alone," Connie 
Missimer contrasts what she terms the 
Character View of critical thinking-the 
view that certain character traits are 
necessary for critical thinking-with the 
Skill View-the view that a critical thinker 
is someone who practices the skills of a 
critical thinker. Missimer argues that the 
Skill View, which has for the most part been 
disparaged by theorists, is in fact correct. 

Typically, we would run two other ar-
ticles. However, we have chosen to make 
room for a comprehensive bibliography of 
recent work on informal logic compiled by 
our Assistant, Hans V. Hansen, with the 
assistance ofJ. A. Blair. Frankly, we think 
this bibliography is worth the price of the 
issue, for not only is it the most complete 
and up-to-date informal logic bibliography 
we know of, but as well it contains an in-
dex, thus making it far more useful to the 
researcher. We expect it, and its future up-
dates, to be an indispensable research tool 
for scholarship in informal logic. 0 

Ave atque vale 

Finally, and with great regret, the 
editors announce the departure of two 
valued members of staff, Professor Peter 
Wilkinson and Hans Hansen. Each has put 

his unique imprint on the operation of the 
journal, as those of you who ~ave cor-
responded with either of them wIll know. 

Professor Wilkinson has been the 
Managing Editor of Informal Logic, and its 
predecessor, informal logic ~ewsl~t~er, 
almost since its inception. In thIS positlOn, 
he has spent countless hours on a variety 
of often mundane and almost always 
thankless tasks such as doing the books, 
responding to inquiries about subscriptions, 
overseeing the mailing, and many other 
duties too numerous to catalog here. He has 
done all this for no real compensation save 
that of helping us (and you) and we are 
deeply grateful to him. Peter, it would ~ot 
have been possible without you. We WIsh 
you all the best in your retirement .. 

Hans V. Hansen has been our aSSIstant 
for the last two and a half years. When he 
came on the job, he faced the dau?ting ~sk 
of regularizing the editorial operatIon whIch 
was not efficiently organized and behind 
schedule. He set about the task of getting 
us back on schedule with characteristic 
energy and imagination and very quickly 
became an essential member of our opera-
tion. Hans was a quick study and became 
an invaluable source of ideas and sugges-
tions about editorial matters, as well as 
handling correspondence and the entire pro-
duction side. It was our good fortune that 
Hans came along when he did and we will 
miss him. The good news is that he has 
agreed to remain on as a Consulting Editor, 
a fact that you will see reflected on the new 
masthead in the next issue. Hans, we are 
in your debt for your unstinting service. 

In the next issue we have an announce-
ment about new faces at Informal Logic for 
1991. 0