Board members (executive) 2011-13
Derek Allen , President
Jim Freeman, Vice President
Donald Hatcher , Treasurer
| Mark Battersby | Robert Ennis | Maurice Finocchiaro | Geoff Goddu | Michael Scriven | Dale Turner | Frank Zenker |
Organizers of sessions at APA divisional meetings:
Kevin Possin (central), George Boger (eastern), Wanda Teays (pacific)
Previous board members
| Dan Cohen | Robert H. Ennis | Maurice Finocchiaro | Jim Freeman | |Susana Nuccetelli | Michael Scriven | Tom Solon | Dale Turner |
| Sharon Bailin |Tony Blair |Trudy Govier | Leo Groarke | Hans Hansen |David Hitchcock | Ralph H. Johnson |John Hoaglund | Connie Missimer | Gerald M. Nosich | Harvey Siegel |
Past presidents
2007-2005 Maurice A. Finocchiaro, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
2005-2001 Robert H. Ennis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
2001-1995 co-presidents: Sharon Bailin, Simon Fraser University;
Connie Missimer, Independent Scholar
1995-1991Jonathan E. Adler, Brooklyn College & Graduate School, CUNY
1991-1989 Lenore Langsdorf, Southern Illinois University
1989-1987 Mark Weinstein, Montclair State University
1987-1985 John Hoaglund, Christopher Newport University
1985-1983 David Hitchcock, McMaster University
Director Profiles
Dan Cohen - Although I once wrote an article entitled "Argument is War… and War is Hell," my interests in argumentation theory, critical thinking and informal logic try to shift the focus away from the adversarial aspects. In Arguments and Metaphors in Philosophy (2004), I explored the ways that metaphors function both in arguments and as arguments, and, conversely, the ways that arguments serve as metaphors. My more recent work has been in developing Virtue Argumentation Theory to help answer questions not just about how to argue, but when and why and with whom to argue. I completed my B.A. in Philosophy and Mathematics from Colby College in 1975, the Appalachian Trail that same year, and my Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1983, before returning to Colby College in Waterville, Maine where I am now the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Philosophy and Integrative Liberal Learning. I served on AILACT's Board from 2003 to 2005, and as the Book Review Editor for Informal Logic from 2002 to 2008.
|email Dan Cohen| back to top|
Robert Ennis - Bob Ennis has been interested in critical thinking for his entire professional career, having tried to teach critical thinking when he was a high school science teacher, and having written for his PhD thesis, "The Development of a Critical Thinking Test". When he was at Cornell, he and his associates did empirical studies of children's and adolescents' grasp of deductive logic, resulting in a critique of Piaget's logic and Piaget's claims about logical thinking in adolescence . Ennis' work in critical thinking and informal logic has been in the areas of conceptualizing critical thinking, assessing critical thinking (including the writing of some critical thinking tests), problems in infusing critical thinking in subject matter areas, teaching critical thinking at the college level (including writing a critical thinking text) and argument appraisal strategy--with special attention to assumption ascription, subject-matter specificity, the distinction between induction and deduction, the alleged cultural bias of critical thinking, and the role in argument of qualifiers like 'probably' and 'probable'. He is now working on the concepts, test validity and cause, and has recently promoted an AILACT reaction to proposals to assess critical thinking at higher education levels. His articles, books, etc. are listed on his web site, http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis. He served as AILACT's President from 2001 to 2005, and is currently Director of Special Projects (resulting in a list of places for advanced study in informal logic and critical thinking on AILACT'S web site), and monitor of our listserv, AILACT-D. He was on the Cornell University faculty from 1958-1970, and the University of Illinois faculty from 1970 through 1994, and is now an Illinois Professor Emeritus, living in Sarasota, Florida.
|email Robert Ennis| back to top|
Maurice A. Finocchiaro - Maurice Finocchiaro is a graduate of MIT (B.S., 1964) and UC Berkeley (Ph.D., 1969); now Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; author of Galileo and the Art of Reasoning (Dordrecht, 1980), Arguments about Arguments (Cambridge, 2005), and Defending Copernicus and Galileo: Critical Reasoning in the Two Affairs (Dordrecht, 2010), among other books; currently working on a book entitled Meta-argumentation; former Vice-president (1986-88, 2003-05) and President (2005-07) of AILACT; member of the editorial boards of Informal Logic, Argumentation, and Inquiry:Critical Thinking across the Disciplines; and recipient of the 2008 Distinguished Scholarship Award from the International Society for the Study of Argumentation.
|email Maurice Finocchiaro| back to top|
James B. Freeman - James B. Freeman is Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College of The City University of New York. He has been a regular contributor at informal logic/critical thinking/argumentation conferences for many years and is a reviewer for both Informal Logic and Argumentation. His principal publications are Thinking Logically: Basic Concepts for Reasoning (Prentice Hall, 1988, 1993), Dialectics and the Macrostructure of Arguments: A Theory of Argument Structure (Foris Publications, 1991), Acceptable Premises: An Epistemic Approach to an Informal Logic Problem (Cambridge, 2005), and "Systematizing Toulmin's Warrants:An Epistemic Approach" (Argumentation19 (2005), 331-346). He has published a number of papers in Informal Logic, Argumentation, and various edited volumes. He has been the Editor of the AILACT Newsletter for three years and has completed one term as AILACT Director at Large.
|email James B. Freeman | back to top|
Susan Nuccetelli - Susana Nuccetelli is co-author of How to Think Logically (Penguin Academics, Longman 2007), editor of New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge (MIT Press 2003), and co-editor of Themes from G. E. Moore (Oxford 2007), Philosophy of Language: The Central Topics (Rowman & Littlefield 2008), and The Blackwell Companion to Latin American Philosophy (forthcoming Dec. 2009). Her articles on ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of language, have appeared in Analysis, Metaphilosophy, Inquiry, and other journals. She is Professor of Philosophy at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota.
|email Susan Nuccetelli | back to top|
Michael Scriven - Michael Scriven is author of an early informal logic and critical thinking textbook, Reasoning, co-author with Alec Fisher of Critical Thinking: Its Definition and Assessment, and co-editor with Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell of Volumes I and II of Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science; and author of many journal articles and conference presentations. Currently, Director of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Evaluation, and Associate Director of the Evaluation Center, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo; Former Member and Current Chair, AILACT Essay Prize Jury. He is a current member of the AILACT Board of Directors.
|email Michael Scriven | back to top|
Dale Turner - Dale Turner is the Associate Dean for Academic Programs and a member of the Department of Philosophy in the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences at State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He received his Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from California State University, Fullerton in 1987 and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Riverside in 2000. His primary areas of research include argumentation and fallacy theory, the nature of deep disagreement, the role of argument in public reason, and philosophical issues in education. Turner's work in these areas includes numerous conference presentations, journal articles, and co-editing special issues of the journals Argumentation and Informal Logic. Turner is a member of several professional organizations including the American Philosophical Association, the Philosophy of Education Society, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking, and the Ontario Society for the Study of Argument. He has long-standing teaching interests in critical thinking, epistemology, philosophy of education, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and the philosophy of childhood. He is a current member of the AILACT Board of Directors.
|email Dale Turner | back to top|