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Practical Reasoning In Natural Language 4/e
Stephen N. Thomas
Published October 1996 by Prentice Hall
Copyright 1997, 504 pp., Paper
ISBN: 0-13-678269-8
List Price:
$83.00
Inventory Status:
In-Stock
   
Summary

Written especially for beginners, this basic manual/workbook shows how to analyze and evaluate any passage of reasoning or argumentation as it actually occurs in natural language contexts — e.g., books, articles, essays, speeches, editorials, conversations. KEY TOPICS: This book presents a general method of “natural logic”by which the logical structure of any argument —Scientific, philosophic, mathematical, political, religious, ethical, legal, “inductive”, “deductive”, modal, semantic, syntactic, evidentiary, etc. — can be graphically represented without; employing traditional methods used in logic textbooks (e.g. truth-tables, Venn diagrams, etc.). It shows how these techniques can be used to analyze a situation involving many pros and cons, and to identify the argument in discourse where the reasoning is obscure, complex or disorganized.

Features

  • Presents a general method of “natural logic”by which the logical structure of any argument —Scientific, philosophic, mathematical, political, religious, ethical, legal, “inductive”, “deductive”, modal, semantic, syntactic, evidentiary, etc. —can be graphically represented without; employing traditional methods used in logic textbooks (e.g. truth-tables, Venn diagrams, etc.) Pg.___
  • Shows how these techniques can be used to analyze a situation involving many pros and cons, and to identify the argument in discourse where the reasoning is obscure, complex or disorganized. Pg.___
  • Contains optional Notes to Advanced Readers throughout where appropriate. Pg.___
Table of Contents

PREFACE TO THE INSTRUCTOR.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

I. BASIC ANALYSIS OF REASONING.

1. What Is Reasoning.

2. Reasons and Conclusions.

3. Determining the Logical Structure of a Reasoned Discourse.

4. Analyzing the Structure of Longer and More Complicated Arguments.

II. BASIC EVALUATION OF REASONING.

1. What Is Good Reasoning?

2. Semantic Clarification.

3. Conditional Relationships.

4. Some Valid Steps of Reasoning Using Conditional and Other Relationahips.

5. The How and Why of Supplying Suppressed Premises.

III. CLARIFYING OBSCURE REASONING.

1. Analyzing Muddy Reasoning or Confused Exposition.

IV. INFORMAL FALLACIES.

1. Common Mistakes in Reasoning.

2. Additional Common Mistakes in Reasoning.

3. More Common Mistakes in Reasoning.

V. PRACTICAL DECISION MAKING.

1. Making Decisions Logically: Reasons For Actions and Reasons Against Actions.

2. Reasons Against the Validity of Other Reasons.

VI. ANALYZING MEDIA EDITORIALS.

1. Analyzing Reasoning Expressed in Contemporary Editorial Style.

VII. ANALYZING PHILOSOPHICAL REASONING.

1. Analyzing Long Linked Arguments.

2. Analyzing Disorganized or Confused Complex Reasoning.

Index.



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