Ralph Johnson (philosopher)

Ralph H. Johnson
Born	1940 (age 76–77) Detroit, Michigan
Occupation	Professor
Known for	One of the founding members of the informal logic movement in North America

Ralph Henry Johnson (born 1940) is a Canadian American philosopher, born in Detroit, Michigan. Johnson has been credited as one of the founding members of the informal logic movement in North America, along with J. Anthony Blair who co-published one of the movement's most influential texts, “Logical Self-Defense,” with Johnson. Alongside its founder, Blair, Johnson co-directed the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric at the University of Windsor. As Johnson and Blair write in the preface to the newest edition of Logical Self-Defense on the influential nature of the text:

"We might note that the theoretical perspective introduced in Logical Self-Defense has proved quite influential among textbook authors. It is to be found in modified form in A Practical Study of Argument by Trudy Govier, in Attacking Faulty Reasoning by T. Edward Damer, in Logic in Everyday Life and Open Minds and Everyday Reasoning by Zachary Seech, in Thinking Logically by James B. Freeman, and in Good Reasoning Matters by Leo Groarke and Christopher W. Tindale."

He earned an Honors Bachelor of Arts at Xavier University and received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 1972. He has been a University Professor and University Professor emeritus at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, where he had taught since 1966. He retired in Fall 2006 after 39 years, during which he served two terms as Head of Department. Ralph H. Johnson was a co-founder of the Newsletter of Informal Logic which has since become the Journal of Informal Logic in 1985, he also served as its co-editor along with J. Anthony Blair since its inception.

He has been a co-chair for the International Symposium on Informal Logic in Windsor in 1978, 1983, and 1989. Ralph H. Johnson has lectured and published widely on informal logic, fallacy theory, argumentation, and critical thinking. He is a founding member and has been a previous member of the Executive Committee of the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking (AILACT); as well as of the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking (NCECT), and of the Canadian Research Group on Argumentation (Carga). In 2004 he co-founded the Network for the Study of Reasoning, a cluster of Canadian experts researching the theory and its applications of reasoning and argument. He has given workshop presentations and has been a consultant on informal logic and critical thinking across the United States and Canada.

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