Microsoft Word - Editors' Introduction.docx


Editors’ Introduction  
 
One of the major recent events in our field has been the 2014 
publication of The Concept of Argument: A Philosophical 
Foundation (Springer), an English translation of Professor Har-
ald Wohlrapp’s Der Begriff des Arguments (2008). 
 A long time in development, this monograph provides a 
rich and thoughtful account of argument from a philosophical 
perspective. The breadth of detail in the book can create a num-
ber of challenges for readers unfamiliar with Wohlrapp’s work. 
So, in the interest of making it available to the wider audience 
that it deserves, a special panel was dedicated to discussing The 
Concept of Argument at the last conference of the Ontario Socie-
ty for the Study of Argumentation, in 2016. There, Professors 
Derek Allen, Trudy Govier, David Hitchcock, Ralph Johnson, 
and Katharina Stevens gave careful critical appraisals of some of 
the core ideas involved. Together, their presentations provided a 
fine introduction to this powerful and original conception of ar-
gument. 
 In this special issue, we are fortunate to be able to publish 
those panel papers, now fully revised, preceded by Wohlrapp’s 
own précis of his book. The order in which we present the pa-
pers, reflects the order of the chapters of the text on which each 
commentator is most focused: Allen (Chapters 1 and 4); Stevens 
(Chapter 5); Govier (Chapter 6); Johnson (Chapter 7); and 
Hitchcock (Chapter 10). 
 The December issue of Informal Logic will carry a full 
response from Professor Wohlrapp, which will further add to the 
understanding of his important work.