reply to Griffin 

I am happy to take note of the information sent 
along by Professor Griffin. It is interesting to learn that 
the Principle of Charity has been enunciated in other 
contexts - e.g., as a rule for translators proposed by 
Wilson. However, I am mainly interested in its use by 
informal logicians as a principle of argument analysis. It 
is clear that such is not the use to which Wilson's principle 
is geared. Hence I would like to amend my original 
assertion to read: "So far as I am aware, the first mention 
of this principle as a principle of argument analysis is to be 
found in Thomas's ... " 

~ Ralph Johnson 

teaching note 

A System of 
Rational Appi'aisal 

Robert Binkley 
University of Western Ontario 

editors's note 

A couple of years ago, Professor Robert Binkley 
shipped us a bundle of material from a logic course he 
was teaching at the time. We've dug out yet another 
useful item from that bundle: his graphic for his "System 
of Rational Appraisal." We've added a few comments of 
our own. 

1. System of rational appraisal. The flow chart 
above the cartoon represents the whole appraisal system in 
broad strokes. The first four boxes - Discourse, Surface 
Analysis, Classified Non-argument and Representation of 
Surface Structure - are spelled out in fuller detail on the 
second page, in the "Surface Analysis Flow Chart" (see 
below). 

7 

To us the most striking feature of this chart is its 
distinction between "surface analysis" and "depth ana-
lysis". We may have it wrong, but we take this to refer 
to the distinction between what someone's discourse may 
be made out to mean when taken literally, or better, when 
the person is taken at his word (which may certainly allow 
and call for interpretation), and what we may safely infer 
the person's underlying or deeper message is. Irony and 
sarcasm are perhaps the clearest examples of discourse 
whose meaning may be missed by a surface analysis. 
Humour is another. 

A "surface" argument may be so wildly illogical that 
literal interpretation would be not only uncharitable, but 
stupid: such illogic could only be the product of wit; 
hence the need for depth analysis and its verdict: "No 
serious argument intended here. It's a joke." (Without 
this distinction Binkley's cartoon would be seen as an 
example of a logical fallacy. So it's vitaL) 

The unclosed side-boxes - "Charity, Fidelity and 
Discrimination" and "Relevance, Sufficiency and Accept-
ability" - merit glosses. 

By "Charity" and "Fidelity", we presume that 
Binkley was referring to the Principles of Charity and 
Fidelity found in, among other places, Scriven's 
Reasoning. The Principle of Fidelity means that the cri-
tic must be faithful to the original argument; the Principle 
of Charity requires that one provide the best possible 
interpretation 9f the argument; and the Principle of Dis-
crimination (though not explicity so referred to by Scri-
ven) requires the critic to "go to the heart of the matter", 
i.e., give prominence to the strongest criticisms and not nit-
pick or waste time on minor points. 

About "Relevance", "Sufficiency", and "Accept-
ability", since they come from our text, we can add this: 
we hold in Logical Self-Defense that in a logically good 
argument the premises are relevant to the conclusion, 
together they provide sufficient support for the conclu-
sion, and each must be worthy of acceptance by the 
audience of the argument. 

2. Surface Analysis Flow Chart. This is pretty self-
explanatory, but we have one comment of explanation and 
one caveat. At the bottom of the chart the path of analysis 
branches, going to either "Draw Diagram" or "Standardize", 
or to both. By "diagram" we believe Binkley had in mind 
tree diagrams of argument structure such as those used in 
Scriven's Reasoning and Thomas's Practical Reasoning in 
Natural Language. By "standardize" he is referring to the 
system introduced in Logical Self-Defense consisting of 
writing the premises above the conclusion they are put 
forward to support, and numbering them for convenience 
of reference (P1, P2, P3, etc.). The point of making the 
two alternative argument-structuring methods available is 
that tree·diagramming is easier and more perspicuous for 
longer and more complicated arguments, standardizations 
can be made immediately for simpler arguments, and a 
standardization can be written up off a tree diagram. 
(Metanote: We have come to think the standardizing tech-



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nique is too cumbersome; this undermines the benefits of 
its convenience to the reader.) 

Our caveat is this. Lately it has been striking us that 
much of the discourse that has a persuasive turn or flavour 
and that we have been presenting to our students as argu-
ments to be analyzed, in fact may not have the credentials 
of pondered, organized and backed-up thought which 
should be demanded of discourse before it is honoured by 
the application of careful, serious, probing - such as 
Binkley's chart provides for. Hence we are not sure 
whether Binkley's advice: "Argument? If in doubt, treat 
as argument" should be followed. (This caveat opens a bit 
of a Pandora's Box, by the way. Much, if not most, of 
daily discourse, both unrecorded and reproduced in the 
media, is at best proto-, or pseudo-, or semi-argumentation. 
If it should not be analyzed as if it were argumentation, 
should it not be analyzed at all? Should all that persuasive 
discourse be allowed to flow by without any critical scru-
tiny? If it merits assessment, but the tools of argument 
analysis should not be those used, then how is it to be 
evaluated? What is it, if not argument? Furthermore, if 
informal-fallacy analysis is one's favoured tool of criticism, 
and fallacies are flaws in arguments, then whither fallacy 
analysis? Or, is this quasi-argumentation just the true do-
main of fallacy analysis?) ~~ 

~,. 

conference notice 

AAPT 

The American Association of Philosophy Teachers 
will sponsor the Fourth National Conference-Workshop 
on Teaching Philosophy. The conference will be held at 
Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, 
between August 4-8, 1982. A wide variety of workshops 
having to do with teaching philosophy will be offered. 
Among the areas to be covered are: philosophy for child-
ren, philosophy in high schools, two-year college philo-
sophy, introductory philosophy, logic, informal logic, 
logic with computers, ethics, bioethics, business ethics, 
professional ethics, applied philosophy, philosophy and 
computers, death and dying, feminism, films, publishing on 
teaching, improving lecturing or discussion skills, teaching 
techniques, and ANYTHING else imaginative, innovative 
and interesting. 

A special feature of the Fourth National Conference-
Workshop on Teaching Philosophy will be a Plenary Session 
on "Evaluating Philosophy Teaching," which will raise 
questions and offer insights into what it is teaching philo-
sophy aims to do and how to determine success and failure 
in reaching our goals. 

10 

Second International Symposium on Informal Logic 

A reminder that the Second International Symposium 
on Informal Logic is scheduled for June 20-23, 1983 at 
the University of Windsor (Windsor, Ontario, Canada). 

The program will cover theory and teaching of 
informal logic/critical thinking. It is time to start thinking 
about that paper you would like to submit for the program. 
And it's none too soon to mark the date on your calendar 
and clear the time (and funds) to be able to attend. Con-
venors: Blair & Johnson. 

Copies of the proceedings of the First International 
Symposium - Informal Logic - are still available from 
Edgepress, Box 69, Point Reyes, California 94956 for 
$9.95 plus $ .55 postage (California residents add state 
tax of $ .60). ~~ 

announcement 

An Informal Logic Workbook 

The project to assemble a collection of examples 
into a workbook that can be used by instructors and 
students for teaching and learning reasoning skills was 
completed in August. Kate Parr (M.A., Windsor 1981) 
ran the project and wrote and edited a lot of the 
Workbook. Material and analyses were collected and 
produced by alumni of Windsor's informal logic course: 
Frank Carlone, Karol Dycha and Leo Raffin. Joyce Mussio 
typed and retyped drafts all summer. 

The Workbook runs to 97 pages, and is divided 
roughly into three parts. The first part uses examples and 
succinct advice designed to help learn how to detect argu-
ments, restate rhetorical questions, identify missing con-
clusions, do tree diagrams of argument structure, and 
identify missing premises. There are 66 examples in this 
part, half of which have answers provided by the authors. 
The second part is a roster of arguments which contain 
informal fallacies. There are 44 examples here, and the 
authors provide their own critiques of all the examples in 
this section. The third part consists of 33 unanalyzed 
arguments, most of which, the authors believe, contain 
fallacies. At the back of the Workbook there is an alpha-
betical guide to common fallacy names, and a collection of 
the defining conditions of 24 common fallacies taken from 
Johnson and Blair's Logical Self-Defense. An index to the 
fallacies in the third part is available to instructors only. 

The Workbook was designed by students as a learning 
aid for students as well as a teaching aid and source of