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Preface | |
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What Is an Argument? (And What Is Not?) | |
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What Is an Argument? | |
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Argument and Opinion | |
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Argument and Indicator Words | |
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Where and How Do You Find Arguments? | |
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Why Are Arguments Important? | |
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What Isn't an Argument? | |
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Argument and Explanation: What's the Difference? | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Pinning Down Argument Structure | |
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Standardizing an Argument | |
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Subarguments | |
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General Strategies for Standardizing Arguments | |
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Further Tools for Understanding Arguments: Location, Scope, and Commitment | |
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Location of Conclusions | |
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Scope of Conclusions and Premises | |
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Commitment, in Conclusions and Premises | |
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Patterns in Arguments | |
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Unstated Premises and Conclusions | |
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Unstated Premises | |
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Unstated Conclusions | |
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An Interesting Sideline: The Question of Visual Arguments | |
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Charity and Accuracy in Argument Interpretation | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Looking at Language | |
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Language and Its Emotional Connotations | |
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Emotionally Charged Language | |
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Euphemism | |
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Language and Clarity | |
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Ambiguity | |
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Semantic Ambiguity | |
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Syntactic Ambiguity | |
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Ambiguity and Argument: The Fallacy of Equivocation | |
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Vagueness | |
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Definitions | |
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Ostensive Definitions | |
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Reportive, or Lexical, Definitions | |
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Stipulative Definitions | |
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Persuasive Definitions | |
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Operational Definitions | |
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An Application: Arguments about What is Natural | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Good Arguments: An Introduction | |
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The ARG Conditions | |
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More on the R and G Conditions | |
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Deductive Entailment | |
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Conductive Support | |
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Inductive Support | |
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Analogy | |
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Using the ARG Conditions to Evaluate Arguments | |
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Failing on the (A) Condition | |
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Failing on the (R) Condition | |
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Failing on the (G) Condition | |
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Satisfying All Three Conditions | |
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The Significance of Argument Evaluation | |
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The Challenge of Argument | |
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Confirmation Bias | |
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Cogency, Soundness, and Validity | |
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Evaluating Arguments and Constructing Your Own Arguments | |
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The Dialectical Context | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Premises: What to Accept and Why | |
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The Dilemma of Premises | |
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When Premises Are Acceptable | |
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Premises Supported by a Cogent Subargument | |
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Premises Supported Elsewhere | |
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Premises Known a Priori to Be True | |
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Common Knowledge | |
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Testimony | |
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Proper Authority | |
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Accepting Premises Provisionally | |
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Summary of Acceptability Conditions | |
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When Premises Are Unacceptable | |
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Easy Refutability | |
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Claim Known a Priori to Be False | |
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Inconsistency between Premises | |
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Vagueness or Ambiguity | |
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The Fallacy of Begging the Question | |
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Summary of Unacceptability Conditions | |
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Internet Sources | |
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Dating of Material | |
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Evaluate the Content of the Material You Find | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Acceptability of Premises | |
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Unacceptability of Premises | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Working on Relevance | |
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Understanding Relevance | |
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Relevance and the ARG Conditions | |
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Fallacies Involving Irrelevance | |
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The Straw Man Fallacy | |
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The Ad Hominem Fallacy | |
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The Fallacy of Guilt by Association | |
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Fallacious Appeals to Popularity | |
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Fallacious Appeals to Ignorance | |
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A Related Theme: The Burden of Proof | |
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Emotional Appeals, Irrelevance, and Distraction | |
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Other Fallacies Involving Relevance | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Deductive Arguments: Categorical Logic | |
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Deductive Relationships | |
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Four Categorical Forms | |
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Natural Language and Categorical Form | |
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The Universal Affirmative: A | |
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The Universal Negative: E | |
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The Particular Affirmative: I | |
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The Particular Negative: O | |
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Venn Diagrams | |
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Rules of Immediate Inference | |
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Conversion | |
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Contraposition | |
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Obversion | |
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Contradictories | |
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Summary of Rules of Immediate Inference | |
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Contrary and Contradictory Predicates and False Dichotomies | |
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Categorical Logic: Some Philosophical Background | |
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The Categorical Syllogism | |
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The Rules of the Categorical Syllogism | |
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Distribution of Terms | |
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The Middle Term and the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle | |
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Rules of the Categorical Syllogism | |
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Applying Categorical Logic | |
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Enthymemes | |
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Enthymemes and Sorites | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Deductive Arguments: Propositional Logic | |
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Definition of the Basic Symbols Used in Propositional Logic | |
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Testing for Validity by the Truth Table Technique | |
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The Shorter Truth Table Technique | |
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Translating from English into Propositional Logic | |
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Not | |
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And | |
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Or | |
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If Then | |
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Further Points about Translation | |
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Both … and … | |
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Neither … nor … | |
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Implies that … | |
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Provided That … | |
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Only if… | |
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Necessary Condition | |
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Sufficient Condition | |
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Necessary and Sufficient Conditions | |
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Unless | |
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Simple Proofs in Propositional Logic | |
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Valid Moves in Propositional Logic | |
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Examples of Simple Proofs | |
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When You Cannot Construct a Proof | |
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Conditional Proof | |
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Propositional Logic and Cogent Arguments | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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An Introduction to Inductive Arguments | |
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Philosophical Background | |
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Inductive Generalizations | |
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The Sample and the Population | |
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Samples | |
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Problems of Sampling: Size and Representativeness | |
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Improving a Sample | |
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Stratified Sampling | |
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An Illustrative Case | |
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Guidelines for Evaluating Inductive Generalizations | |
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Statistical Syllogisms | |
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Language Problems in Contexts of Inductive Argument | |
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Pseudoprecision | |
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Questionable Operational Definitions | |
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Common Errors in Inductive Reasoning | |
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The Biased Sample | |
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Hasty Generalizations | |
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Anecdotal Arguments | |
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The Fallacies of Composition and Division | |
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Composition | |
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Division | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Causal Inductive Arguments | |
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Causation and Meaning | |
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Distinguishing Between Correlation and Cause | |
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Associations and Links | |
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Causal Reasoning: Mill's Methods | |
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Background Knowledge and Inference to the Best Explanation | |
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An Illustrative Mystery | |
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Errors in Causal Reasoning | |
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The Post Hoc Fallacy | |
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Confusing Correlation and Cause | |
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Objectionable Cause | |
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Begging the Question in a Causal Account | |
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Causal Slippery Slope Arguments | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Analogies: Reasoning from Case to Case | |
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The Nature and Functions of Analogy | |
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Analogy and Consistency | |
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Treating Similar Cases Similarly | |
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Case-by-Case Reasoning and Issues of Classification | |
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Refutation by Logical Analogy | |
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Some Points of Method and Critical Strategy | |
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Inductive Analogies | |
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Further Critical Strategies | |
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Loose and Misleading Analogies | |
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The Fallacy of Faulty Analogies | |
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The Fallacy of Two Wrongs Make a Right | |
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The Fallacy of Slippery Assimilation | |
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The Fallacy of Slippery Precedent | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Conductive Arguments and Counterconsiderations | |
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The Nature of Conductive Arguments | |
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Counterconsiderations and Conductive Arguments | |
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Evaluating Conductive Arguments | |
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Counterconsiderations in Other Contexts | |
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Recalling the Confirmation Bias | |
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Chapter Summary | |
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Review of Terms Introduced | |
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Notes | |
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Summary of Fallacies | |
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Answers to Selected Exercises | |
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Index | |