Cengage Advantage Books: Understanding Arguments An Introduction to Informal Logic

by Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Fogelin, Robert J.

• ISBN13: 9780495603955
• ISBN10: 0495603953
• Edition: 8th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-10
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing

Summary

The proven strengths of this argument text include the philosophy of language, analysis of arguments as they occur in ordinary language, and systematic examination of inductive arguments. The book covers statistical generalizations, statistical syllogisms, and inferences to the best explanation.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xv
How to Analyze Arguments	p. 1
Uses of Arguments	p. 3
What Arguments Are	p. 3
Justifications	p. 4
Explanations	p. 7
Combinations: An Example	p. 10
The Web of Language	p. 17
Language and Convention	p. 17
Linguistic Acts	p. 19
Speech Acts	p. 22
Performatives	p. 23
Kinds of Speech Acts	p. 26
Speech Act Rules	p. 28
Conversational Acts	p. 32
Conversational Rules	p. 34
Conversational Implication	p. 37
Violating Conversational Rules	p. 40
Rhetorical Devices	p. 42
Deception	p. 45
Bronston v. United States	p. 46
Summary	p. 48
The Language of Argument	p. 51
Argument Markers	p. 51
If..., then...	p. 53
Arguments in Standard Form	p. 55
Some Standards for Evaluating Arguments	p. 57
Validity	p. 57
Truth	p. 59
Soundness	p. 60
A Tricky Case	p. 60
A Problem and Some Solutions	p. 62
Assuring	p. 63
Guarding	p. 65
Discounting	p. 66
Evaluative Language	p. 69
Spin Doctoring	p. 72
The Art of Close Analysis	p. 77
An Extended Example	p. 77
Clerk Hire Allowance, House of Representatives	p. 77
Deep Analysis	p. 105
Getting Down to Basics	p. 105
Clarifying Crucial Terms	p. 109
Dissecting the Argument	p. 109
Arranging Subarguments	p. 111
Suppressed Premises	p. 116
Contingent Facts	p. 117
Linguistic Principles	p. 119
Evaluative Suppressed Premises	p. 120
Uses and Abuses of Suppressed Premises	p. 121
The Method of Reconstruction	p. 122
Digging Deeper	p. 125
An Example of Deep Analysis: Capital Punishment	p. 127
How to Evaluate Arguments: Deductive Standards	p. 139
Propositional Logic	p. 141
The Formal Analysis of Arguments	p. 141
Basic Propositional Connectives	p. 142
Conjunction	p. 142
Disjunction	p. 150
Negation	p. 150
Process of Elimination	p. 153
How Truth-Functional Connectives Work	p. 154
Testing for Validity	p. 156
Some Further Connectives	p. 160
Conditionals	p. 162
Truth Tables for Conditionals	p. 163
Logical Language and Everyday Language	p. 169
Other Conditionals in Ordinary Language	p. 172
Categorical Logic	p. 179
Beyond Propositional Logic	p. 179
Categorical Propositions	p. 180
The Four Basic Categorical Forms	p. 182
Translation into the Basic Categorical Forms	p. 184
Contradictories	p. 187
Existential Commitment	p. 189
Validity for Categorical Arguments	p. 190
Categorical Immediate Inferences	p. 192
The Theory of the Syllogism	p. 194
Appendix: The Classical Theory	p. 203
The Classical Square of Opposition	p. 205
The Classical Theory of Immediate Inference	p. 209
The Classical Theory of Syllogisms	p. 210
How to Evaluate Arguments: Inductive Standards	p. 213
Arguments to and from Generalizations	p. 215
Induction versus Deduction	p. 215
Statistical Generalizations	p. 219
Should We Accept the Premises?	p. 220
Is the Sample Large Enough?	p. 220
Is the Sample Biased?	p. 222
Is the Result Biased in Some Other Way?	p. 223
Statistical Applications	p. 225
Causal Reasoning	p. 231
Reasoning About Causes	p. 231
Sufficient Conditions and Necessary Conditions	p. 233
The Sufficient Condition Test	p. 236
The Necessary Condition Test	p. 237
The Joint Test	p. 238
Rigorous Testing	p. 240
Reaching Positive Conclusions	p. 242
Applying These Methods to Find Causes	p. 243
Normality	p. 243
Background Assumptions	p. 244
A Detailed Example	p. 245
Calling Things Causes	p. 249
Concomitant Variation	p. 250
Inference to the Best Explanation and from Analogy	p. 257
Inferences to the Best Explanation	p. 257
Arguments from Analogy	p. 267
Chances	p. 277
Some Fallacies of Probability	p. 277
The Gambler's Fallacy	p. 277
Strange Things Happen	p. 278
Heuristics	p. 279
The Language of Probability	p. 282
A Priori Probability	p. 283
Some Rules of Probability	p. 285
Bayes's Theorem	p. 291
Choices	p. 303
Expected Monetary Value	p. 303
Expected Overall Value	p. 306
Decisions Under Ignorance	p. 308
Fallacies	p. 315
Fallacies of Vagueness	p. 317
Uses of Unclarity	p. 317
Vagueness	p. 318
Heaps	p. 320
Slippery Slopes	p. 322
Conceptual Slippery-Slope Arguments	p. 322
Fairness Slippery-Slope Arguments	p. 325
Causal Slippery-Slope Arguments	p. 327
Fallacies of Ambiguity	p. 333
Ambiguity	p. 333
Equivocation	p. 337
Definitions	p. 343
Fallacies of Relevance	p. 353
Relevance	p. 353
Ad Hominem Arguments	p. 354
Appeals to Authority	p. 360
More Fallacies of Relevance	p. 364
Fallacies of Vacuity	p. 369
Circularity	p. 369
Begging the Question	p. 370
Self-Sealers	p. 375
Refutation	p. 381
What Is Refutation?	p. 381
Counterexamples	p. 382
Reductio Ad Absurdum	p. 386
Straw Men and False Dichotomies	p. 390
Refutation by Parallel Reasoning	p. 392
Areas of Argumentation	p. 401
Legal Reasoning	p. 403
Components of Legal Reasoning	p. 404
Questions of Fact	p. 404
Questions of Law	p. 405
The Law of Discrimination	p. 411
The Equal Protection Clause	p. 411
Applying the Equal Protection Clause	p. 412
The Strict Scrutiny Test	p. 413
The Bakke Case	p. 414
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke	p. 416
Legal Developments Since Bakke	p. 418
Burden of Proof	p. 430
Moral Reasoning	p. 433
Moral Disagreements	p. 433
The Problem of Abortion	p. 434
The "Pro-Life" Argument	p. 435
"Pro-Choice" Responses	p. 437
Analogical Reasoning in Ethics	p. 442
Weighing Factors	p. 444
"A Defense of Abortion,"	p. 446
"An Argument that Abortion Is Wrong,"	p. 459
Scientific Reasoning	p. 477
Standard Science	p. 477
Scientific Revolutions	p. 479
"Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference,"	p. 481
"Living with Darwin,"	p. 494
Religious Reasoning	p. 505
"Five Reasons to Believe in God,"	p. 506
"Seven Deadly Objections to Belief in the Christian God,"	p. 512
Philosophical Reasoning	p. 523
"Computing Machinery and Intelligence,"	p. 524
"The Myth of the Computer,"	p. 536
Credits	p. 543
Index	p. 545
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