How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic

Posted: maestro on Feb 06 | Personal E-Book

Product Details

Paperback: 182 pages
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (November 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0826498949
ISBN-13: 978-0826498946
Format: PDF

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In this witty and infectious book Madsen Pirie provides a complete guide to using - and indeed abusing - logic in order to win arguments. He identifies with devastating examples all the most common fallacies popularly used in argument. We all like to think of ourselves as clear-headed and logical - but all readers will find in this book fallacies of which they themselves are guilty. The author shows you how to simultaneously strengthen your own thinking and identify the weaknesses in other people arguments. And, more mischievously, Pirie also shows how to be deliberately illogical - and get away with it. This book will make you maddeningly smart: your family, friends and opponents will all wish that you had never read it.

Publisher’s warning: In the wrong hands this book is dangerous. We recommend that you arm yourself with it whilst keeping out of the hands of others. Only buy this book as a gift if you are sure that you can trust the recipient.

Contents
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction ix
Abusive analogy
Accent
Accident
Affirming the consequent
Amphiboly
Analogical fallcy
Antiquitam, argumentum ad
Apriorism
Baculum, argumentum ad
Bifurcation
Blinding with science
The bogus dilemma
Circulus in probando
The complex question (plurium interrogationum)
Composition
Concealed quantification
Conclusion which denies premises
Contradictory premises
Crumenam, argumentum ad
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc
Damning the alternatives
How to Win Every Argument
Definitional retreat
Denying the antecedent
Dicto simpliciter
Division
Emotional appeals
Equivocation
Every schoolboy knows
The exception that proves the rule
Exclusive premises
The existential fallacy
Ex-post-facto statistics
Extensional pruning
False conversion
False precision
The gambler’s fallacy
The genetic fallacy
Half-concealed qualification
Hedging
Hominem (abusive), argumentum ad
Hominem (circumstantial), argumentum ad
Ignorantiam, argumentum ad
Ignorantio elenchi
Illicit process
Irrelevant humour
Lapidem, argumentum ad
Lazarum, argumentum ad
Loaded words
Misericordiam, argumentum ad
Nauseam, argumentum ad
Non-anticipation
Novitam, argumentum ad
Numeram, argumentum ad
One-sided assessment
Petitio principii
Poisoning the well
Populum, argumentum ad
Positive conclusion from negative premise
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Quaternio terminorum
The red herring
Refuting the example
Reification
The runaway train
Secundum quid
Shifting ground
Shifting the burden of proof
The slippery slope
Special pleading
The straw man
Temperantiam, argumentum ad
Thatcher’s blame
Trivial objections
Tu quoque
Unaccepted enthymemes
The undistributed middle
Unobtainable perfection
Verecundiam, argumentum ad
Wishful thinking
Classification of fallacies