Critical Thinking Unleashed
, by Cohen, Elliot D.
- ISBN: 9780742564329 | 0742564320
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 9/16/2009
From alcohol and drug addiction to rage on national highways and in airports, many human beings have kept themselves in perpetual turmoil and despair. From encroachment on individual rights and liberties to wars of attrition and mass genocide, human history has continually repeated itself due to a failure to see the light. Critical Thinking Unleashed seeks to cultivate the reasoning skills required to overcome such destructive human tendencies and live meaningful and productive lives in a democratic society.
Elliot D. Cohen is professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Humanities at Indian River State College in Florida. Author of fifteen books and numerous articles, including The New Rational Therapy: Thinking Your Way to Serenity, Success, and Profound Happiness, he is also editor-in-chief and founder of the International Journal of Applied Philosophy.
| Preface to the Student | p. xiii |
| Introduction: Freethinking | p. 1 |
| Kinds of Reasoning | |
| The Nuts and Bolts of Reasoning | p. 11 |
| Arguments | p. 11 |
| Statements That Do Not Form Arguments | p. 12 |
| Presenting an Argument versus Presenting a Good Argument | p. 14 |
| p. 15 | |
| Inductive and Deductive Arguments | p. 17 |
| p. 17 | |
| Identifying Premises and Conclusions in Arguments | p. 19 |
| p. 22 | |
| Deduction | |
| Deductive Reasoning | p. 25 |
| Basics of Deductive Reasoning | p. 25 |
| p. 27 | |
| p. 29 | |
| Hypothetical Syllogisms | p. 33 |
| The Vocabulary of Conditional Statements | p. 33 |
| Necessary versus Sufficient Conditions | p. 35 |
| p. 36 | |
| Forms of Hypothetical Syllogism | p. 37 |
| p. 46 | |
| Nonsyllogistic Conditional Arguments | p. 48 |
| p. 48 | |
| Setting Ordinary Language Arguments Up as Hypothetical Syllogisms | p. 49 |
| p. 56 | |
| Disjunctive Syllogisms | p. 59 |
| The Core Meaning of "Or" | p. 59 |
| Forms of Disjunctive Syllogisms | p. 60 |
| p. 65 | |
| Black or White Major Premises in Disjunctive Syllogisms | p. 67 |
| p. 69 | |
| False Dilemmas | p. 70 |
| p. 71 | |
| p. 75 | |
| Truth-Functional Logic | p. 77 |
| The Meaning of Truth-Functional Logic | p. 77 |
| Symbolizing Truth-Functional Connectives | p. 77 |
| Constructing Truth Tables to Define Truth-Functional Connectives | p. 79 |
| Using Truth Tables to Determine the Validity of Truth-Functional Arguments | p. 80 |
| p. 83 | |
| p. 84 | |
| Symbolizing and Analyzing Arguments in Ordinary Language | p. 84 |
| p. 87 | |
| Statement Forms | p. 89 |
| The Practical Import of Distinguishing Between Tautologous, Contingent, and Contradictory Statement Forms | p. 90 |
| p. 91 | |
| Material versus Logical Equivalence | p. 92 |
| Three Logical Equivalences | p. 92 |
| p. 93 | |
| Categorical Statements | p. 95 |
| Universal and Particular Quantifiers | p. 95 |
| Quantity and Quality | p. 96 |
| Standard Categorical Form Statements | p. 96 |
| p. 99 | |
| Translating Ordinary Language Statements into Standard Categorical Form | p. 100 |
| p. 102 | |
| p. 107 | |
| Existential Import | p. 109 |
| p. 111 | |
| Immediate Deductions | p. 113 |
| The Square of Opposition | p. 113 |
| p. 117 | |
| p. 120 | |
| p. 122 | |
| Other Immediate Inferences | p. 123 |
| p. 124 | |
| p. 126 | |
| p. 128 | |
| Making Multiple Immediate Deductions | p. 128 |
| p. 129 | |
| Categorical Syllogisms | p. 131 |
| The Basic Parts of a Categorical Syllogism | p. 131 |
| p. 132 | |
| Distribution of Terms | p. 133 |
| p. 134 | |
| Five Rules for Testing the Validity of Categorical Syllogisms | p. 134 |
| Fallacies in Categorical Syllogisms | p. 135 |
| p. 147 | |
| Formulating and Assessing Categorical Syllogisms in Ordinary Language: The Case for "All Wars Are Civil Wars" | p. 148 |
| p. 150 | |
| p. 151 | |
| Induction | |
| Generalization | p. 155 |
| Induction as Probabilistic Reasoning | p. 155 |
| The Defeasibility of Induction | p. 156 |
| Probability as Relative to Bearers of Evidence | p. 156 |
| p. 157 | |
| Induction as Reasoning beyond Direct Experience | p. 157 |
| Generalization | p. 158 |
| p. 161 | |
| p. 163 | |
| p. 165 | |
| p. 167 | |
| p. 168 | |
| Predictions | p. 169 |
| Magnifying Risks | p. 170 |
| p. 172 | |
| The Fallacy of Insisting on the Past | p. 172 |
| p. 173 | |
| The Fallacy of Ignoring the Past | p. 174 |
| p. 175 | |
| Seeking Probability as an Antidote to Insisting On and Ignoring the Past | p. 175 |
| p. 176 | |
| Induction by Analogy: The Case of Animal Experimentation | p. 177 |
| p. 180 | |
| p. 181 | |
| Testimonials | p. 183 |
| Surfing the Internet to Keep Informed | p. 184 |
| p. 186 | |
| Mainstream Media as an Information Source | p. 186 |
| p. 187 | |
| Parroting: The Case of Judith Miller and the New York Times | p. 187 |
| p. 189 | |
| Inductive Hypothesis | p. 191 |
| Inductive Hypotheses | p. 191 |
| p. 193 | |
| The Scientific Method: The Case of O.J. Simpson | p. 194 |
| p. 207 | |
| p. 207 | |
| Causation | p. 209 |
| The Meaning of Causation | p. 209 |
| p. 211 | |
| Constant Conjunction | p. 212 |
| p. 214 | |
| Fear and Superstition as the Basis of Causal Judgment | p. 214 |
| p. 215 | |
| Mill's Methods of Establishing Causal Relationships | p. 215 |
| p. 220 | |
| Contrary-to-Fact Conditionals | p. 223 |
| p. 225 | |
| Behavioral and Emotional Reasoning | |
| Behavioral Reasoning | p. 227 |
| The Practical Syllogism | p. 227 |
| Behavioral Reasoning | p. 229 |
| A Basic Example: Bill O'Reilly's Rudeness Argument | p. 229 |
| p. 231 | |
| Reasoning Containing a Subargument: Adolph Eichmann's Refusal to Take Responsibility for His Nazi War Crimes | p. 232 |
| p. 235 | |
| Analyzing Extended Arguments: The Case of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq | p. 235 |
| p. 242 | |
| Refutation in Practical Reasoning | p. 247 |
| Deductive Falsification | p. 248 |
| p. 248 | |
| Insufficient Inductive Evidence | p. 249 |
| p. 250 | |
| p. 250 | |
| Reductio ad Absurdum | p. 251 |
| p. 252 | |
| Double Standards | p. 252 |
| p. 254 | |
| p. 254 | |
| Informal Fallacies in Practical Reasoning | p. 254 |
| Emotional Reasoning | p. 257 |
| Emotional Reasoning | p. 257 |
| What's in an Emotion? | p. 257 |
| p. 259 | |
| How to Identify an Emotion and Find Its Premises | p. 260 |
| p. 261 | |
| Refuting Irrational Premises in Emotional Reasoning | p. 262 |
| p. 262 | |
| Cognitive Dissonance | p. 263 |
| p. 264 | |
| Finding an Antidote to a Fallacious Premise in Emotional Reasoning | p. 264 |
| p. 268 | |
| p. 268 | |
| Logic-Based Stress Management | p. 269 |
| p. 271 | |
| Informal Fallacies | |
| Fallacies that Promote Self-Destructive Emotions | |
| Inferences from "Must," "Awful," and "Can't" | p. 275 |
| The Linguistic Theory of Emotions | p. 275 |
| Demanding Perfection | p. 275 |
| p. 277 | |
| p. 279 | |
| p. 281 | |
| Awfulizing | p. 281 |
| p. 285 | |
| p. 285 | |
| p. 287 | |
| Can'tstipation | p. 287 |
| p. 290 | |
| p. 293 | |
| p. 294 | |
| Damning Thoughts and Dutiful Worrying | p. 297 |
| Self-damnation and Damnation of Others | p. 297 |
| p. 298 | |
| p. 299 | |
| p. 299 | |
| p. 301 | |
| p. 301 | |
| p. 304 | |
| Global Damnation | p. 304 |
| p. 305 | |
| Dutiful Worrying | p. 306 |
| p. 308 | |
| p. 310 | |
| p. 310 | |
| Fallacy Syndromes | p. 311 |
| p. 313 | |
| p. 315 | |
| Learning to Speak the Rational Emotive Language | p. 316 |
| Fallacies that Impede Successful Interpersonal Relations | |
| Bandwagon Arguments | p. 319 |
| The Bandwagon | p. 319 |
| p. 322 | |
| p. 323 | |
| p. 325 | |
| p. 326 | |
| p. 328 | |
| Emotional Appeals | p. 331 |
| Appeal to Force | p. 331 |
| p. 335 | |
| Well Poisoning | p. 336 |
| p. 338 | |
| p. 340 | |
| Misuse of Pity | p. 340 |
| p. 343 | |
| p. 343 | |
| p. 343 | |
| Respect for Rational Self-determination | p. 344 |
| Irrelevant Appeals | p. 347 |
| Personal Attacks | p. 347 |
| p. 352 | |
| p. 352 | |
| Multiplying Wrongs | p. 352 |
| p. 354 | |
| Appeal to Ignorance | p. 355 |
| p. 358 | |
| Circular Reasoning | p. 358 |
| p. 360 | |
| Sweeping Generalization | p. 361 |
| p. 363 | |
| The Fallacy of Composition | p. 363 |
| p. 365 | |
| The Fallacy of Division | p. 366 |
| p. 368 | |
| p. 368 | |
| Sophistical Arguments | p. 371 |
| Fallacies of Ambiguity | p. 371 |
| p. 372 | |
| Lying versus Telling a Half-truth | p. 373 |
| p. 374 | |
| Lifting Out of Context | p. 374 |
| p. 377 | |
| p. 378 | |
| News Slanting | p. 379 |
| p. 382 | |
| Straw Man Fallacy | p. 383 |
| p. 384 | |
| Appendix Venn Diagrams | p. 387 |
| Using Venn Diagrams to Test Validity of Standard Form Categorical Syllogisms | p. 387 |
| p. 393 | |
| p. 394 | |
| p. 394 | |
| Index | p. 395 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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