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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 | |