 The influence of informal logic courses on the enormous numbers of students that enrol in them require that we at least qualify Rescher’s remark (2005, p. 22) that: “The fact is that philosophy has little or no place in American popular (as opposed to academic) culture... philosophy nowadays makes virtually no impact on the wider culture of North America.” The extent to which informal logic’s attempt to broadly instill good reasoning habits within public education and public discussion and debate is difficult to judge. 