A timely and accessible guide to 100 of the most infamous logical fallacies in Western philosophy, helping readers avoid and detect false assumptions and faulty reasoning You’ll love this book or you’ll hate it. So, you’re either with us or against us. And if you’re against us then you hate books. No true intellectual would hate this book. Ever decide to avoid a restaurant because of one bad meal? Choose a product because a celebrity endorsed it? Or ignore what a politician says because she’s not a member of your party? For as long as people have been discussing, conversing, persuading, advocating, proselytizing, pontificating, or otherwise stating their case, their arguments have been vulnerable to false assumptions and faulty reasoning. Drawing upon a long history of logical falsehoods and philosophical flubs, Bad Arguments demonstrates how misguided arguments come to be, and what we can do to detect them in the rhetoric of others and avoid using them ourselves. Fallacies—or conclusions that don’t follow from their premise—are at the root of most bad arguments, but it can be easy to stumble into a fallacy without realizing it. In this clear and concise guide to good arguments gone bad, Robert Arp, Steven Barbone, and Michael Bruce take readers through 100 of the most infamous fallacies in Western philosophy, identifying the most common missteps, pitfalls, and dead-ends of arguments gone awry. Whether an instance of sunk costs, is ought, affirming the consequent, moving the goal post, begging the question, or the ever-popular slippery slope, each fallacy engages with examples drawn from contemporary politics, economics, media, and popular culture. Further diagrams and tables supplement entries and contextualize common errors in logical reasoning. At a time in our world when it is crucial to be able to identify and challenge rhetorical half-truths, this bookhelps readers to better understand flawed argumentation and develop logical literacy. Unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and a worthy companion to its sister volume Just the Arguments (2011), Bad Arguments is an essential tool for undergraduate students and general readers looking to hone their critical thinking and rhetorical skills.
Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle).
With this book as your guide, we will discuss the following: Learn what a logical fallacy is Learn the proper structure of a logical argument Over 75 examples common logical fallacies Explanations of the fallacies, and the flaws in their ...
“This is a book for every thinking person, the perfect antidote to today’s culture wars.”—Hope Jahren The creators of An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments return with this desperately timely guide to how words can trick us.
Great Books, Bad Arguments is not only lucid, but like the best detective fiction, keeps the reader guessing until the very end."--Gareth Stedman Jones, King's College, University of Cambridge "Spirited and provocative.
The Sea Battle and the Master Argument: Aristotle and Diodorus Cronus on the Metaphysics of the Future. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995. Psellos, Michael. Theologica, Vol. I., edited by P. Gautier. Leipzig: Teubner, 1989. Sedley, David.
Now a National Bestseller! Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades.
But, as in the work of David Markson, the pieces reveal themselves as a masterful arrangement that steadily gathers power.
Walton gives a clear method for analyzing and evaluating cases of ad hominem arguments found in everyday argumentation.
With Bad Choices, Ali Almossawi presents twelve scenes from everyday life that help demonstrate and demystify the fundamental algorithms that drive computer science, bringing these seemingly elusive concepts into the understandable realms ...
Subtitle in pre-publication: How to reason and argue--and why.