Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic

by Robert J. Fogelin, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Now in its seventh edition, UNDERSTANDING ARGUMENTS has proven itself as an exceptional guide to understanding and constructing arguments in the context of a student's academic success and subsequent professional career. Its tried and true strengths include multiple approaches to the analysis of arguments, providing a variety of important tools; a thorough grounding on the uses of language in everyday discourse; and chapters in the latter half of the book that apply abstract concepts to concrete legal, moral, and scientific issues.

Genres: Philosophy, Logic, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Education, Reference, Business

619 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[AZ ZA]

related to this course:

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue
https://www.coursera.org/course/think...

[Hom Sack]

At times abstract, but on the whole easy to understand. Having case examples help immensely. The best part of the book is part five "Areas of Argumentation": legal, moral, scientific, religious, and philosophical reasonings. Some of which is rather detailed and complex, but nevertheless worth the effort. Most interesting is the chapter on scientific reasoning in which convincing arguments are given that natural selection is not entirely true, that not all changes come from evolution but from design (not necessarily from "intelligent design").

[Amal Shoeib]

Well, The book honestly didn't fulfil my prophecy that It would teach me how to win arguments and to squash people with my strong argumentative claims. Howeve, it taught me that I should never waste my time on invalid o trivial arguments which are petty much most of the arguments going on nowadays. There are usually many fallacies in the premises people usually use to defend their point and I would never recognize them if it wasn't for this book. At some point the book was really childish, but I survived.

[Colin]

A terrible mash up of poor grammar and poor logic passed off as a study in Rhetoric. Read Plato instead.

[Maya]

I honestly was not impressed with this book at all...It wasn't bad exactly, but it wasn't great either.

[Rhi]

course reading that was pretty awesome. actually enjoyed it :)

[Denise]

Reading this for an online refresher course in critical thinking. Some chapters can be found for free via google books. So far, I'm not impressed and prefer my old dog eared 8th edition copy of Critical Thinking by Brooke Noel Moore and Richard Parker.

[Luz Cmartinez]

solo quiero leerlo....como lo hago.

[Kåre]

Helt klar formidling af svært og somme tider kedeligt emne.
Overraskende, så stor udvikling, der åbenbart er og har været i dette helt grundlæggende fag. Også overraskende, at der ikke er konsensus om det hele.
Jeg læser i forbindelse med to coursera kurser. Bogen er grundbog for fire coursera-kurser. Når jeg nu har læst bogen, vil jeg ikke tage to af kurserne.

[Bent Andreassen]

Good and important book.

[Noor Sargent]

4.5
Highly recommended for a easy introduction to Logic and arguments structure.

[Aarav]

A book about logic that somehow makes you feel both smarter and deeply aware of how often you’ve fallen for terrible arguments. It’s like a crash course in spotting BS, whether it’s in political debates, online discourse, or your own desperate attempts to justify buying another book you definitely don’t have shelf space for. Read this in tandem with the Duke MOOC

[Koziołek]

read that for classes, not really my department but as a coursebook it performs well I guess. As I didn't read it for my pleasure I can't give more than just "liked it" but anyway, I liked it. Pretty easy to get. And the only problem for me is that the book doesn't contain key to the exercises.

[Kit]

Pretty good book on informal reasoning.

The mobile devices digital software chosen by the publisher was horrid, but the material itself was excellent.

[Manni Chen]

want to read

[Lucas Mateus]

Awesome!