Description
Book SynopsisI am convinced of the urgent need for a democratic people to think clearly without the distortions due to unconscious bias and unrecognized ignorance. Our failures in thinking are in part due to faults which we could to some extent overcome were we to see clearly how these faults arise. It is the aim of this book to make a small effort in this direction. - Susan Stebbing, from the Preface
Despite huge advances in education, knowledge and communication, it can often seem we are neither well-trained nor well practised in the art of clear thinking. Our powers of reasoning and argument are less confident that they should be, we frequently ignore evidence and we are all too often swayed by rhetoric rather than reason. But what can you do to think and argue better?
First published in 1939 but unavailable for many years, Susan Stebbing''s Thinking to Some Purpose is a classic first-aid manual of how to think clearly, and remains astonishin
Table of Contents
Foreword to the Routledge Edition, Introduction to the Routledge Edition, Preface to the 1939 Edition, 1. Prologue: Are the English Illogical?, 2. Thinking and Doing, 3. A Mind in Blinkers, 4. You and I: And You, 5. Bad Language and Twisted Thinking, 6. Potted Thinking, 7. Propaganda: An Obstacle, 8. Difficulties of an Audience, 9. Illustration and Analogy, 10. The Unpopularity of Being Moderate, 11. On Being Misled by Half, and Other Fractions, 12. Slipping Away from the Point, 13. Taking Advantage of Our Stupidity, 14. Testing our Beliefs, 15. Epilogue: Democracy and Freedom of Mind, Index
