This book presents a clear and philosophically sound method for identifying, interpreting, and evaluating arguments as they appear in non-technical sources. It focuses on a more functional, real-world goal of argument analysis as a tool for figuring out what is reasonable to believe rather than as an instrument of persuasion. Develops a precise, step-by-step method for This book presents a clear and philosophically sound method for identifying, interpreting, and evaluating arguments as they appear in non-technical sources. It focuses on a more functional, real-world goal of argument analysis as a tool for figuring out what is reasonable to believe rather than as an instrument of persuasion. Develops a precise, step-by-step method for analyzing arguments about a variety of topics -- shows how to rewrite arguments in a format that makes them clearer and makes their evaluation easier; and then how to evaluate the rewritten argument. Illustrates methods by applying them to both serious and humorous arguments about different topics as they appear in a variety of contexts -- e.g., newspaper and magazine editorials and columns, short essays, informal reports of scientific results, etc.

Uses simple, relatively non-controversial examples to illustrate the basic ideas and concepts, and then offers more complicated and controversial examples for challenging applications. For anyone interested in identifying, interpreting, and evaluating arguments as they appear in non- technical sources.

For the purpose of being an introduction, this (2nd edition) book is good and useful. It is written in a clear and easy manner and gives exercises, explains and teaches soundness, strength, reconstruction, deduction, induction, and some more. It activates your bullshit detector against intentional or unintentional traps like vagueness, straw men, argument stoppers or abandonment of debate under presumtions of competing arguments being equally strong. If this isn't natural functioning for you, I For the purpose of being an introduction, this (2nd edition) book is good and useful. It is written in a clear and easy manner and gives exercises, explains and teaches soundness, strength, reconstruction, deduction, induction, and some more.

View Notes - Feldman Chapter 5 XX1 from ECON 100 at Simon Fraser University. Chapter 5 Feldman, Reason and Argument The Principle of Charity (again) Back at the beginning of the course, we looked.

It activates your bullshit detector against intentional or unintentional traps like vagueness, straw men, argument stoppers or abandonment of debate under presumtions of competing arguments being equally strong. If this isn't natural functioning for you, I would recommend this book since basic reason -logical thinking and handling truth, is vitaly important to learn in childhood but instead is taught at university. The copy I have has some major errors -- typographical and printing (sentences and parts of sentences are not printed and you can't figure out the meaning from the context.) There are sections about which my professor said 'I don't know what the author was trying to do here' and 'That section was incredibly confusing.' The author has a corny, annoying manner of naming people in his examples, 'X. Cute' in an exercise considering capital punishment, 'Ken B. Bribed' about a corrupt politician.

T The copy I have has some major errors -- typographical and printing (sentences and parts of sentences are not printed and you can't figure out the meaning from the context.) There are sections about which my professor said 'I don't know what the author was trying to do here' and 'That section was incredibly confusing.' The author has a corny, annoying manner of naming people in his examples, 'X. Vikrojka posteljnogo beljya polutorka. Cute' in an exercise considering capital punishment, 'Ken B. Bribed' about a corrupt politician.

This was required reading, and I'm no better for it.

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The work and materials from this site should never be made available to students except by instructors using the accompanying text in their classes. All recipients of this work are expected to abide by these restrictions and to honor the intended pedagogical purposes and the needs of other instructors who rely on these materials. This text presents a clear and philosophically sound method for identifying, interpreting, and evaluating arguments as they appear in non-technical sources. It focuses on a more functional, real-world goal of argument analysis as a tool for figuring out what is reasonable to believe rather than as an instrument of persuasion. Methods are illustrated by applying them to arguments about different topics as they appear in a variety of contexts — e.g., newspaper editorials and columns, short essays, informal reports of scientific results, etc. FeaturesNEW TO THIS EDITION • NEW - Clarifies, condenses, and simplifies the conceptual background for argument analysis. Pg.___ • NEW - Provides improved discussions of: • Induction.