Informal Inference: Where Reason Meets Personhood

Dr. John Crosby, professor of philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, delivered a lecture during the spring 2011 semester on “Newman on the Personal Exercise of Reason” at Franciscan University. It was the fourth in a series of five lectures by Dr. Crosby on “The Christian Personalism of Blessed John Henry Newman.”  In this lecture, Dr. Crosby discusses Newman’s distinction between formal and informal logic, between narrowly defined terms inserted into nearly mathematical syllogisms and encountering truth in the full organic complexity of thought and reality.