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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 168
EAN num: 9780521379250
ISBN number: 0521379253
Label: Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 310
Printing Date: July 28, 1989
Publishing house: Cambridge University Press
Sale Popularity Level: 94828
Studio: Cambridge University Press
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This is an introductory guide to the basic principles of constructing good arguments and criticizing bad ones. It is nontechnical in its approach, and is based on 150 key examples, each discussed and evaluated in clear, illustrative detail. The author explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound argument strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical questions for responding. Among the many subjects covered are: techniques of posing, replying to, and criticizing questions, forms of valid argument, relevance, appeals to emotion, personal attack, uses and abuses of expert opinion, problems in deploying statistics, loaded terms, equivocation, and arguments from analogy.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
This book gives the most frequently used type of arguments that you may encounter in various situations and examines the problems with arguments that are used in, amoung other settings, popular media. If you've never studied logic before, you'll listen to the news and/or politicians in a new and positively critical way after reading this book.
Rated by buyers -
This text is tough to beat as a resource with which to build a foundation for critical thought. The author clearly presents each topic of focus while emphasizing key points and utilizing examples to ensure the information finds a home in the reader's mind. The format and style of this work contribute to its readability and make it ideal as a reference once the very first pass has been made. One's only imaginable complaint might be that the text is unnecessarily lengthy with regard to some explanations. Then again, these instances might not be seen in this light when a concept has to be revisited as a refresher or further clarification outside of the initial reading. As far as basic logic/argumentation texts are concerned, this is amongst the best that are currently available.
Rated by buyers 
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This book is really impressive. Although I would not state that it is a "beginner's course" to argumentation, it is certainly for those seeking to understanding argumentation in all its forms in a friendly and accessible format. Further, this book's greatest strength is its use of examples and situational argumentation from present day. Through the use of many examples, the reader is able to better grasp each point the author seeks to make. Each argumentation style is properly illustrated with a helpful example. After one reading, I was able to listen to people in discusion or argument and identify fallacies or validities.
If you are seeking a book that catalogs many of the most common uses of argumentation, and their limitations, then this is the book for you. Further, this is a great book for anyone trying to understand the gap between deduction and induction!
Rated by buyers -
The title is an example of overly aggressive questioning and a fallacious endeavor to end debate by labeling anyone who disagrees a dunce. In a courtroom the question would be disallowed on the legal grounds that it is argumentative. In the newsroom, the boardroom, and just about any other type of room where people gather to discuss issues, that type of question is asked every day.
Walton clearly (but ponderously) explains why questions of this type (and questions and arguments of many other types) are just plain wrong and shouldn't be tolerated. He not only explains why they're wrong, unlike other books on informal logic that I've read, he gives advice on how to answer them.
As a professional who spent 32 years asking questions and making arguments in a courtroom, I wish that I had read this book at the beginning of my career rather than at the end.
Walton does tend to beat a dead horse, however. Although repetition is the surest method of teaching, as a rule of thumb, three repetitions of a point should suffice.
One other minor quibble. He is occasionally guilty of faulty analysis himself. In analyzing the hunter/anti-hunter debate, he said that the hunter's reply about meat eaters being in a poor position to criticize hunting was a weak argument. He found very little parallel between slaughtering innocent wild animals and eating hamburgers. The parallel is this: The objective of hunting is to eat what you kill. (If you're not dedicated to this proposition, stay out of the woods). In order to eat the hamburger, somebody has to slaughter the innocent cow for you. The difference between the hamburger eating anti-hunter and the venison eating hunter is who killed the food and whether they did it for sport or a paycheck.
Rated by buyers -
I think tis book did help me to thunk better. i can now buy some stuff and not be ripped off. Because i did'nt understand all of it, i doesnt matter because i tried and it gave me confident to not be ripped off.
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