Making Up Your Mind (Broadview Library of Logic and Critical Thinking) - Softcover

Mutti, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551114275 ISBN 13: 9781551114279

Publisher: Broadview Press, 2002

Synopsis

This focused text is directed consistently towards teaching students to write their own arguments so as to better understand their own thoughts and present them to others in a clear written form. The text also provides a distinctive discussion of the role of emotion in argument under the concept of "emotional intelligence," and includes a wide range of exercises. In introducing students to the nature of argument (and especially ethical argument), Making Up Your Mind features a comprehensive introduction to the logical forms of assertions and the most common forms of expression in English. The book then shows how to use all the main terms of argument, and provides a brief introduction to the most common forms of syllogism. The deductive and inductive aspects of argument are treated, and students are taught a basic technique of testing arguments for validity. Making Up Your Mind provides an argument outline, which can be used to organize virtually any ethical argument. This argument outline also provides a realistic context in which to study the most important informal fallacies and learn how to avoid them. In its closing chapters, the book discusses the nature of good evidence and good sources of evidence and their role in argument. Included are discussions of scientific method, the logical form of arguments about causal theories, and arguments from analogy.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Mutti teaches in the Department of Philosophy at San Francisco State University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1551114275
• ISBN 13: 9781551114279
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 179