Reasoning Books - Page 2

Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach

Douglas Walton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Informal Logic is an introductory guidebook to the basic principles of constructing sound arguments and criticizing bad ones. Non-technical in approach, it is based on 186 examples, which Douglas Walton, a leading authority in the field of informal logic, discusses and evaluates in clear, illustrative detail. Walton explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical responses. Among the many subjects covered are: forms of valid argument, defeasible arguments, relevance, appeals to emotion, personal attack, straw man argument, jumping to a conclusion, uses and abuses of expert opinion, problems in drawing conclusions from polls and statistics, loaded terms, equivocation, arguments from analogy, and techniques of posing, replying to, and criticizing questions. This new edition takes into account many new developments in the field of argumentation study that have occurred since 1989, many created by the author. Drawing on these developments, Walton includes and analyzes 36 new topical examples and also brings in recent work on argumentation schemes. Ideally suited for use in courses in informal logic and introduction to philosophy, this book will also be valuable to students of pragmatics, rhetoric, and speech communication.

The Elements of Reasoning

Ronald Munson, Andrew Black

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good, quick introduction to logic 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Munson and Conway do a very fine job in this little text, introducing the subject matter of logic with enough detail to get you started. There are, of course, lots of textbooks out there that go into lots more detail. But this one is about right if you want to pick it up and cover the basics on your own. You learn what an argument is and how to recognize them and analyze them, what the basic types of arguments are (deductive and inductive) and how they differ and how to assess each type for its success as an inductive argument and for its validity as a deductive argument. There is coverage of basic propositional logic and proofs, and coverage of categorical syllogisms and Venn diagrams. There are chapters on fallacies (though I have a minor quibble with them on which fallacies to include in an intro text, the chapter does give a good overview), on probabilistic reasoning, on causal reasoning, and on writing logically.

I assign this one as a basic text in my introduction to logic course -- largely because I can't see the point of assigning a big textbook that will cost them $90 when this one covers what I need, and I can supplement it with other materials of my own choosing. One advantage you would get from some of the more expensive texts (e.g. Hurley or Copi's introductory textbooks) is access to a computer based program that can guide you through problems. Otherwise, in terms of coverage and clarity, this text works quite well.

Editorial Review:

Do you know how to analyze then destroy an argument? THE ELEMENTS OF REASONING reveals the basic elements of structuring arguments, and then shows you how to analyze any argument for its weak points. THE ELEMENTS OF REASONING is also a handy reference tool that you can easily use in the future, no matter what setting you're in. That way, you can refresh your understanding of the concepts of introductory logic and argument analysis without having to purchase another book. It helps you get a great grade; it helps you in the future. Pick up THE ELEMENTS OF REASONING today!

The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought

Vincent Ryan Ruggiero

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Accessible and engaging, this unique text offers concrete, practice strategies for critical and creative thinking and includes many opportunities for practicing these fundamental skills.

 

The Art of Thinking introduces students to the principles and techniques of critical thinking, taking them step-by-step through the problem-solving process. Emphasizing creative and active thought processes, the author asserts that good thinking and problem-solving is based on learnable strategies. The book's four parts, “Be Aware,” “Be Creative,” “Be Critical,” and “Communicate Your Ideas,” present students with a process for solving problems and resolving controversial issues. Discussions of how to evaluate ideas and how to question long-held assumptions or biases help students look at concepts critically. This text can be used in freshman experience courses, freshman composition courses, and a wide array of other courses where instructors want to enhance students' critical thinking skills.

Problem Solving & Comprehension

Arthur Whimbey, Jack Lochhead

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent teaching material 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 18 people found this review helpful.

Excellent source for helping students with standardized tests.

The best learning resource in its field 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I have used Problem Solving and Comprehension since the early 1980's with student populations ranging from 9th graders preparing for the SAT/ACT to medical residents preparing for their boards. It serves well as a stand-alone text for individuals looking to improve their test-taking and problem-solving performance. However, It is really powerful when used with test-takers working in small groups, a group of two is best, in the interactive sessions described in the materials.

I've also use Problem-Solving and Comprehension in faculty and staff development sessions to help them become better tutors/facilitators in the area of study skills and test taking. I would, and do, recommend this book to anyone trying to improve test-taking performance.

Editorial Review:

Like previous editions, this 6th edition shows readers how to increase their analytical thinking & problem solving skills, leading to improved performance on tests, academic courses, and in jobs requiring analytic & prob solving skills.

Becoming a Critical Thinker: A User Friendly Manual (4th Edition)

Sherry Diestler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Teaching Students to THINK! 5 out of 5 stars.
53 of 58 people found this review helpful.

I first utilized this excellent book in undergraduate classes about a year ago.I enjoyed using it and it received accolades from the students, (once they realized that sometimes, thinking is WORK!)

It is "user-friendly", and the segments in each chapter are short but concise. There are numerous exercises after each section so that the student can put to immediate use, their newly acquired knowledge.

But I believe the highest praise came from the students that jokingly complained, "I can't think the same way anymore!" They had become "Critical Thinkers". And we can certainly use all of those that we can get!

Editorial Review:

For courses in Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, Rhetoric, Argumentation, and English courses which cover the Argumentative Essay. This text trains students to distinguish high-quality, well-supported arguments from arguments with little or no evidence to support them. It develops the skills required to effectively evaluate the many claims facing them as citizens, learners, consumers, and human beings, and also to be effective advocates for their beliefs.

Thinking and Deciding

Jonathan Baron

Amazon Price: $69.95 List Price: $69.95 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks By: Cambridge University Press Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $69.34

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Decisions, decisions, decisions 5 out of 5 stars.
33 of 35 people found this review helpful.

This is a _very_ impressive book. I can't imagine a more thorough overview of the study of human judgment, decisionmaking, and rationality.

It's hard to find a good single volume in this field. For the psychology of judgment and decisionmaking, there's Scott Plous's excellent book of that title. For the heuristics on which we seem to rely and the biases they seem to generate, there's the modern classic _Judgment Under Uncertainty_ by (the late) Amos Tversky and (recent Nobel prize winner) Daniel Kahneman. And there are other books devoted to special topics and subtopics.

But so far as I know, this is the only broad, general introduction to the entire field of thinking, how we do it, how we probably ought to do it, and the sorts of things we do it about.

The book is divided into three broad sections. "Thinking In General" covers just that: what thinking is, and the nature of rationality and logic. "Probability and Belief" introduces not only probability theory (including, importantly, Bayes's Theorem) but the various theories about what probability _is_, as well as hypothesis testing, correlation, and "actively open-minded thinking." The largest section, "Decisions and Plans," is eleven chapters long and covers everything else: uncertainty, utility, decision analysis, theories of morality fairness, and justice, and risk.

As you might imagine, Baron doesn't leave too many stones unturned. Heck, his bibliography alone is thirty-odd pages long.

The book is eminently readable. The third edition is aimed mainly at graduate students but I gather Baron still uses it in his undergraduate courses. If you're a lay reader interested in this field, you'll be able to read it on your own with no difficulty.

Editorial Review:

How should we think? What, if anything, keeps us from thinking that way? And how can we improve our thinking and decision making? The primary focus of Jonathan Baron's text is on the second question, but he considers all three in this lively three-part introduction to current research and theory. Part I offers a broad overview of thinking, including its role in problem solving and its relation to learning, intelligence, creativity, and logic. Part II deals with the formation of beliefs and the making of judgments. Part III concerns decisions, morality, intertemporal choice, and the choice of goals. In response to latest developments in decision making, Jonathan Baron has updated and expanded his important book, Thinking and Deciding and has also added a new chapter on fairness.

Succeed at IQ Tests: Improve Your Numerical, Verbal and Spatial Reasoning Skills

Philip Carter, Ken Russell

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Editorial Review:

IQ tests are a common feature of both the educational system and recruitment and selection procedures. Practicing the different types of tests can improve one's verbal, numerical, and spatial reasoning skills, boost confidence and improve IQ rating. Succeed at IQ Tests contains 400 questions, typical of those likely to appear in actual IQ tests. The questions are organized into 10 timed tests of 40 questions each. Each test includes a guide for scoring the results. In addition to providing practice for IQ test candidates, Succeed at IQ Tests provides readers with plenty of opportunity to exercise their minds for entertainment.

Critical Thinking

Moore

By: McGraw-Hill Education (ISE Editions) Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $35.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Rhetorical tricks exposed 4 out of 5 stars.
21 of 21 people found this review helpful.

This is a college textbook that I purchased because I was searching for a book that would review all the rhetorical tricks being used by politicians and special interest groups. For the past six years I've been simultaneously impressed and distressed with the increased sophistication being used to dodge discussing core issues and deceiving people. I believed I needed to further develop my awareness of when someone was using a rhetorical trick to avoid an issue or deceive the public, including myself. Once again excellent reader reviews helped me navigate to and choose this book and I was not disappointed! This book confronted many of the tricks being used by those in the media and using the media to get their message across while avoiding the truth.

First off, this book mostly focuses on only one aspect critical thinkers require, and that is identifying and rejecting rhetorical arguments. This book does not have any chapters that would help business people to filter out extraneous information and focus on critical factors even though in fast moving industries, this is a critical skill coming under the umbrella necessary to be labeled a critical thinker in the business world. A better title for this book would have been "Rhetorical Fallacies".

So don't buy this book to help you hone your skill in deciding what issues to focus on at work and how to drill-down to essential issues necessary to make good decisions. I highly recommend this book if you are looking to minimize the ability of ever-increasingly sophisticated rhetoric to mislead you. I also now enjoy the fact that I can name most of the rhetorical tricks being used in an attempt to deceive us. This book is a fast read, with many examples that help clarify the principles; many of these examples are humorous. I'll definitely keep this book as a reference to name the ploy being attempted.

Because the book is a textbook, the new price is ridiculous. I bought this used through Amazon and had an excellent experience; easily getting a barely marked-up book from a student at a very fair price - ya gotta love Amazon!

A grammar of motives

Kenneth Burke

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Kenenth Burke lays out the Dramatistic Pentad 5 out of 5 stars.
29 of 29 people found this review helpful.

"A Grammar of Motives" was published in 1945 as the first volume in a proposed trilogy "On Human Relations" that was never completed; the second volume "A Rhetoric of Motives" was published and their are several pretenders for the third volume, but "A Symbolic of Motives" was never written. Burke's guiding question in this volume is set up in his introduction: "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it?" Burke is concerned with the basic forms of thought in terms of the attribution of motive which he sees as a pivotal part of human interaction present in everything from bits of gossip to systematically elaborated metaphysical structures, although his focus is on more traditional realms such as legal judgment, poetry, fiction, politics, science and the news.

The importance of this volume in terms of rhetorical criticism is Burke's development of the dramatistic metaphor/method in general, and the basic terms of analysis with the dramatistic pentad: Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, and Purpose. Ultimately, Burke is interested in the purely internal relationship fo these five terms including "their possibilities of transformation, their range of permutations and combinations." Part One "Way of Placement," establishes the relationship between "Container and Thing Contained," works through all the "Antinomies of Definition" for the key term SUBSTANCE, and then considers the possibilities of "Scope and Reduction." Part Two on "The Philosophic Schools" looks at the elements of the pentad, "Scene," "Agent in General," "Act," "Agency and Purpose." Part Three offers Burke's thoughts "On Dialectic" as the process by which motives are interpreted.

Because the pentad is the Burkeian concept that best lends itself to rhetorical criticism it has been used more often than anything else to be found in his writings. However, this misses the original import of these constructs, which was to get to the basic process of human thought. In this regard "A Grammer of Motives" establishes a foundation for looking at much more than the speeches of politicians. We are reminded by Burke's epigram "ad bellum purificandum" that his goal "is to eliminate the whole world of conflict that can be eliminated through understanding." Burke's work is central to the study of rhetoric and social theory, and while I have always preferred his earlier pre-war "trilogy," his reconstituted critical vocabulary in this volume provides a foundation for reconsidering his earlier works as well as following the progression in "A Rhetoric of Motives."

Editorial Review:

About this book Mr. Burke contributes an introductory and summarizing remark, "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it? An answer to that question is the subject of this book. The book is concerned with the basic forms of through which, in accordance with the nature of the world as all men necessarily experience it, are exemplified in the attributing of motives. These forms of though can be embodied profoundly or trivially, truthfully or falsely. They are equally present in systematically elaborated or metaphysical structures, in legal judgments, in poetry and fiction, in political and scientific works, in news and in bits of gossip offered at random."

De Bono's Thinking Course

Edward De Bono

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Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A collection of skills rather than a well-organised course 3 out of 5 stars.
9 of 12 people found this review helpful.

If you can read this book through, the one thing that may really stick in your mind should be the large number of acronyms brought forth by the author:-

PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting)
APC (Alternatives, Possibilities, Choices)
CAF (consider all factors)
C&S (Consequence & Sequel)
EBS (examine both sides)
ADI (Agreement, Disagreement, Irrelevance)
OPV (Other People's Views)

etc etc, all skills supposed to enhance readers' ability to think, to jump out of perceptions and patterns of thinking that the author regards as the biggest block against our creativity. Ironically, the author had reserved only 18 pages for his renowned "Laternal Thinking", that he had gone thru related methods of "Stepping Stone" (treat an idea of its movement value instead of just its judgement value), "Escape" (think of alternatives for things we take for granted) and "Random stimulation" (open ourselves to influence other than those we directly look for).

What had been written so far might seem rather a collection of jargons than an organised passage with clear objectives. However, I assure you that you will get the same bad feeling from reading the book. Perhaps the author had published so many books that it became too hard for him to write a new one with original, flesh, and practical examples and ideas at all. In that case you really want to read something from de Bono, the "Six Thinking Hats" is a much better choice.

Editorial Review:

De Bono's Thinking Course outlines the tools of thinking in a practical, easy-to-follow manner and shows readers how to use those tools constructively. Dr. de Bono's techniques encourage broader, more expansive thinking that leads to better problem solving and more effective thinking, no matter what the context.