Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“Excellent: explanations are very clear; end of section exercises reinforce the material in the text very effectively; diagrams and inset examples are also helpful” —Victoria Rogers, Indiana University- Perdue University Indianapolis “I really liked the way Waller uses a court of law to organize this text.” —Eli Kanon, University of North Florida “I have been using Waller's book (4th and 5th editions) for years and I find it is an excellent way to introduce critical thinking to students and to show the importance of it in daily life. I especially like how he reasons out in words truth table reasoning rather than simply teaching it as a plug and chug methods.” —Jean Miller, Virginia Tech “I like the pedagogy of the book. Having used it in the past, it worked quite well.” —Glenn Sanford, Sam Houston State University “The first half of the text focuses on how to recognize and construct a good argument, while the second half of the text deals with how to recognize and avoid bad arguments." —Chris Clayton, Portland Community College
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 A Few Important Terms Chapter 3 Ad Hominem Arguments Chapter 4 The Second Deadly Fallacy: The Strawman Fallacy Chapter 5 What’s the Question? Chapter 6 Relevant and Irrelevant Reasons Chapter 7 Analyzing Arguments Chapter 8 The Burden of Proof Chapter 9 Language and its Pitfalls Chapter 10 Appeal to Authority Cumulative Exercises One (Chapters 1 through 10) Chapter 11 Arguments by Analogy Chapter 12 Some Distinctive Arguments and Potential Pitfalls: Slippery Slope, Dilemma, and Golden Mean Arguments Chapter 13 Begging the Question Cumulative Exercises Two (Chapters 1 through 13) Chapter 14 Necessary and Sufficient Conditions Chapter 15 Scientific and Causal Reasoning Chapter 16 The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth Cumulative Exercises Three Chapters 1 through 16) Chapter 17 Thinking Critically about Statistics Chapter 18 Symbolic Sentential Logic Chapter 19 Arguments about Classes Key Terms Answers to Selected Exercises
