Logic and psychology---some history and a future?

A number of trends in the psychology of learning and teaching point to a need to revivify the logical basis of the theory of argument. A split developed between formal and informal logical approaches to the study of argument in the 50s. The issues relate to historical shifts in the agenda of logic---from a concern about the assurance of communication to a concern with the foundation of mathematical truth. This talk argues that it is time to reappraise the split and to resuscitate the traditional logical model of communication as a basis for a theory of educational discourse, but with the benefit of modern formal insights about distinctions between object- and meta-level reasoning.

Keith Stenning