Dr. Ralph H. Johnson (Ph.D. 1972) is now in his 40th year with the Department of Philosophy, University of Windsor. Johnson has been teaching courses devoted to the improvement of reasoning and thinking since he began at the University in 1966. In 1971, he along with his colleague, J. Anthony Blair, started a new approach to logic which they called informal logic. In 1977, Johnson and Blair published their text, Logical Self-Defense (3rd edition, 1993; U.S. edition, 1994). In 1979, Johnson and Blair founded the Informal Logic Newsletter, which became the journal, Informal Logic, in 1985. They have been its publishers and editors from the beginning.

Johnson’s main areas of research and publication are informal logic, the theory of argument and critical thinking. His articles have appeared in such journals as American Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, Argumentation, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Inquiry, Communication and Cognition, Teaching Philosophy, Protosociology, Dialogue and Informal Logic. In 1996, a collection of his articles and papers was published by Vale Press under the title The Rise of Informal Logic. In 2000, his book, Manifest Rationality: A Pragmatic Study of Argument, was published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Johnson has conducted seminars and workshops on informal logic and critical thinking across North America and in Europe.

In 1993, Johnson received a 3M Teaching Fellowship for outstanding university teachers, one of ten such awards conferred that year in Canada and has been listed in the Maclean’s University issue as one of the most popular teachers at Windsor. In 1994, he was awarded the rank of University Professor by the University of Windsor. In 2000, he was awarded the Distinguished Research Award by the International Society for the Study of Argumentation. In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Johnson is listed in Who’s Who in Canada.