Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argument

Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argument
ISBN-10
0521379253
ISBN-13
9780521379250
Series
Informal Logic
Category
Philosophy
Pages
292
Language
English
Published
1989-07-28
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Author
Douglas N. Walton

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.

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