Impulse is the catalyst of an argument and initiates the decisions that follow, says philosophy professor Christopher Tindale.

“Impulses do not arise from nowhere; they are related to past states,” he says. “I am interested in how the impulse for anything begins, and how our resulting arguments are directly affected by how we make choices.”

He will explore the origin of impulse as a stimulus for argumentation in a free public lecture entitled “Inventing Arguments” on Friday, October 26, at 2 p.m. in room 207, Essex Hall.

Dr. Tindale is the author of Reason’s Dark Champions, a study of sophistic argument, and director of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric, which is sponsoring Friday’s event.

— by Chantelle Myers