Enhancing the Diagramming Method in Informal Logic
Enhancing the Diagramming Method in Informal Logic

Summary/Abstract: The argument diagramming method developed by Monroe C. Beardsley in his (1950) book Practical Logic, whcih has since become the gold standard for diagramming arguments in informal logic, makes it possible to map the relation between premises and conclusions of a chain of reasoning in relavively complex ways. The method has since been adapted and developed in a number of directions by contemporary informal logicians and argumentation theorists. It has proved useful in practical applications and especially pedagogically in teaching basic logic and critical reasoning skills at all levels of scientific education. I propose in this essay to build on Beardsley diagramming techniques to refine and supplement their structural tools for visualizing logical relationship in a number of categories not originally accommodated by the method, including dilemma and other disjunctive and conditional inferences, rediction ad absurdum arguments, efforts to contradict arguments, and logically circular reasoning, with suggestions for improved diagramming of logical structures.

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