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| Preface | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Justification | |
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| "Critical Thinking" | |
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| Reasons, Arguments, and Logic | |
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| Recognizing Arguments in Ordinary Language | |
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| More on Identifying Arguments | |
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| Maintaining Coherent Belief | |
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| Validity and Soundness | |
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| Considering the Possibilities | |
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| Inductive Strength | |
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| Constructing and Analyzing Arguments | |
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| Identify the Conclusion and the Premises | |
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| Fill in Connecting Premises | |
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| More on Validity | |
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| Some Patterns That Will Not Validate an Argument | |
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| Clarify | |
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| Evaluate the Premises | |
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| Construction and Analysis: Examples | |
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| Some Examples of Argument Analysis | |
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| Arguing for a Should Conclusion | |
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| Some Related Patterns | |
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| Arguing for a Should Conclusion: Points to Cover | |
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| Ties: A Slight Complication | |
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| The Relationship of This to Formal Validity | |
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| Examples | |
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| Uncertainty (A Big Complication) | |
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| Evaluative Terms | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| An Extended Example | |
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| Address to the Nation Announcing Allied Military Action in the Persian Gulf | |
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| Matters of Meaning | |
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| Words, Context, Meaning, and Reference | |
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| Vagueness | |
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| Ambiguity | |
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| Lexical Ambiguity | |
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| Syntactic Ambiguity | |
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| Contextual Ambiguity | |
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| Ambiguity in Argument | |
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| How to Point Out an Equivocation | |
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| Summary of Important Concepts | |
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| Kinds of Unclarity | |
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| Equivocation | |
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| Connotation and Suggestion | |
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| Euphemism | |
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| Connotation in Place of Content | |
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| Overblown Jargon | |
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| "Loaded" Verbs | |
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| Context and Emphasis | |
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| Writing and Speaking | |
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| Gender Bias | |
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| Example | |
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| Informal Fallacies | |
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| Unwarranted Assumptions | |
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| False Dilemma (Black-and-White Thinking) | |
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| False of Misleading Presuppositions | |
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| Straw Man | |
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| Slippery Slope | |
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| Inconsistency | |
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| Begging the Question (and Circular Argument) | |
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| Irrelevant Appeals | |
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| Argument Forms That Are Not Validating | |
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| Appeal to Irrelevant Authority | |
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| Ad hominem Argument (Attacking the Person) | |
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| Appeal to Force | |
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| Appeal to Pity | |
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| Argument from Ignorance (ad ignorantiam) | |
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| (Beside the Point) Ignoration elenchi | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| Analogy | |
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| Descriptive (Non-Argumentative) Uses of Analogy | |
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| Arguments Employing Analogy | |
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| Ideal Use of Analogy | |
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| Design Argument | |
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| Inductive Model | |
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| Less Articulate Uses of Analogy | |
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| Usual (Even Less Articulate) Uses of Analogy | |
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| Criticisms of Arguments Based on Analogies | |
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| Analogy in Law | |
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| Analogy in Logic (Refutation by Analogy) | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| Understanding and Explanation | |
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| Why | |
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| How and Why | |
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| Because | |
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| Explanans and Explanandum | |
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| Kinds of Explanations: A Deeper Look | |
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| Explanations Involving General Claims | |
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| Causal Explanations | |
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| Teleological Explanations | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| Evaluating Explanations | |
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| Inference to the Best Explanation | |
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| A Mystery | |
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| Explanatory Theories | |
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| Finding the Best Explanation | |
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| Justifying New Explanatory Theories | |
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| Evaluating Theories | |
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| Content | |
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| Scope | |
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| Theoretical Integration | |
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| The Theory Should Be Unfalsified | |
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| Alternatives Should Be Ruled Out | |
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| Criticism of an Inference to the Best Explanation | |
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| The Copernican Revolution | |
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| Background | |
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| Elements of the Pre-Copernican Consensus | |
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| Copernicus | |
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| Galileo | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| Generalization and Causal Inference | |
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| Arguments That Generalize | |
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| Criticizing Arguments That Generalize | |
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| Arguments with Causal Conclusions | |
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| Criticizing Arguments With Casual Conclusions | |
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| Some Things to Look at when Evaluating Statistical Information | |
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| Correlation of Broad Trends | |
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| Compared to What? | |
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| Regression to the Mean | |
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| Consider the Dropout Rate | |
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| Visibility | |
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| Simpson's Paradox | |
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| Consider the Right Statistic | |
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| Make Sure That the Quality of Statistics Compared Is Uniform | |
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| Averages Hide a Lot of Information | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| Testing Causal Explanations | |
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| Comparing Predictions of Theories | |
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| Causes and Correlations | |
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| Fully Controlled Experiments | |
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| Problems with Controlled Experiments | |
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| Less Than Ideal: Statistical Studies | |
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| Problems with Statistical Studies | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| Decision Making | |
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| Framing the Decision Problem | |
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| Decisions with Known Outcomes | |
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| Satisficing | |
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| Elimination by Aspects | |
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| Multi-attribute Utility Theory | |
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| Summary: Decisions with Known Outcomes | |
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| Decisions with Uncertainty About the Outcome | |
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| Eliminate Unsatisfactory Choices | |
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| Eliminate Dominated Actions, if There Are Any | |
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| Maximin and Maximax | |
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| The Expected Utility Method | |
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| Summary: Decisions with Uncertain Outcomes | |
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| Decision Making: Some Special Issues | |
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| Creativity and Social Conformity | |
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| Money and Value | |
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| Game Theory | |
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| Chapter Summary | |
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| Some Special Cases of Validity | |
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| The Conclusion Is a Premise | |
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| The Conclusion Is a Logical Truth | |
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| The Premises Are an Inconsistent Set of Statements | |