Doug Walton

For the rugby league footballer of the 1960s and '70s for Great Britain, Yorkshire, and Castleford, see Douglas "Doug" Walton

For the Canadian actor, see Douglas Walton (actor)

Douglas Neil Walton is a Canadian academic and author, well known for his many widely published books and papers on argumentation, logical fallacies and informal logic. Walton teaches logic, published numerous books, and has written many papers. He holds the Assumption Chair in Argumentation Studies and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric at the University of Windsor, Canada.

He gained his BA at University of Waterloo, Ontario (1964) and his PhD at University of Toronto (1972). He taught for many years at the University of Winnipeg, in Manitoba.

Walton's work has been used to better prepare legal arguments and to help develop artificial intelligence. His books have been translated worldwide and he attracts students from many countries to study with him. A festschrift honoring his work was published in 2010.^[1]

Most of Walton's books are about logical fallacies, some of them co-authored with John Woods. According to Frans H. van Eemeren, who calls this body of work the Woods-Walton approach, this is "the most continuous and extensive post-Hamblin contribution to the study of fallacies".^[2]

Books

The list of titles, from most recent to oldest are:

• Argumentation Schemes
• Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach
• Witness Testimony Evidence: Argumentation, Artificial Intelligence and Law
• Dialog Theory for Critical Argumentation
• Media Argumentation: Dialectic, Persuasion and Rhetoric
• Character Evidence: An Abductive Theory
• Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation
• Argumentation Methods for Artificial Intelligence in Law
• Abductive Reasoning
• Relevance in Argumentation
• Ethical Argumentation
• Legal Argumentation and Evidence
• Scare Tactics: Arguments that Appeal to Fear and Threats
• Appeal to Popular Opinion
• One-Sided Arguments: A Dialectical Analysis of Bias
• . (1997), Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority, University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, ISBN 0-271-01694-9  Paperback ISBN 0-271-01695-7 
• Appeal to Pity: Argumentum ad Misericordiam
• Historical Foundations of Informal Logic
• Argument Structure: A Pragmatic Theory
• Argumentation Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning
• Arguments from Ignorance
• Fallacies Arising from Ambiguity
• Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning
• A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy
• The Place of Emotion in Argument
• Plausible Argument in Everyday Conversation
• Slippery Slope Arguments
• Begging the Question: Circular Reasoning as a Tactic of Argumentation
• Practical Reasoning: Goal-Driven, Knowledge-Based, Action-Guiding Argumentation
• Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation
• Question-Reply Argumentation
• Informal Fallacies
• Courage: A Philosophical Investigation
• Arguer's Position: A Pragmatic Study of Ad Hominem Attack
• Criticism, Refutation, and Fallacy
• Physician-Patient Decision-Making
• Logical Dialogue-Games and Fallacies
• Ethics of Withdrawal of Life Support Systems
• Topical Relevance in Argumentation, and Brain Death: Ethical Considerations.

References

1. ^ Reed, Christoph; Christopher W. Tindale (2010). Dialectics, Dialogue and Argumentation: An Examination of Douglas Walton's Theories of Reasoning and Argument. London: College Publications. 
2. ^ F. H. van Eemeren (2001). Crucial concepts in argumentation theory. Amsterdam University Press. p. 154. ISBN 9789053565230. http://books.google.com/books?id=JpgfSPmaVFkC&pg=PA154. 

External links

• Personal webpage