Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Analytical Reading and Reasoning

by Larry Wright

Critical An Introduction to Analytical Reading and Reasoning, Second Edition, provides a nontechnical vocabulary and analytic apparatus that guide students in identifying and articulating the central patterns found in reasoning and in expository writing more generally. Understanding these patterns of reasoning helps students to better analyze, evaluate, and construct arguments and to more easily comprehend the full range of everyday arguments found in ordinary journalism.

Critical Thinking, Second Edition, distinguishes itself from other texts in the field by emphasizing analytical reading as an essential skill. It also provides detailed coverage of argument analysis, diagnostic arguments, diagnostic patterns, and fallacies.

Opening with two chapters on analytical reading that help students recognize what makes reasoning explicitly different from other expository activities, the text then presents an interrogative model of argument to guide them in the analysis and evaluation of reasoning. This model allows a detailed articulation of "inference to the best explanation" and gives students a view of the pervasiveness of this form of reasoning. The author demonstrates how many common argument types--from correlations to sampling--can be analyzed using this articulated form. He then extends the model to deal with several predictive and normative arguments and to display the value of the fallacy vocabulary.

Ideal for introductory courses in critical thinking, critical reasoning, informal logic, and inductive reasoning, Critical Thinking, Second Edition, features hundreds of exercises throughout and includes worked-out solutions and additional exercises (without solutions) at the end of each chapter. An Instructor's Manual--offering solutions to the text's unanswered exercises and featuring other pedagogical aids--is available on the book's Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/wright.

Genres: Philosophy, Logic, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Psychology

416 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2001

Reviews

[Heather Wednesday]

Larry Wright was my Critical Thinking professor. I ended up not being able to attend lectures due to sickness, but the book was extremely helpful. For me the material was some of the most natural I've ever come across and I think it has a lot to do with how the book was written. It's one of the few college texts I absolutely cherish.

I read the chapters backwards, however.

[Tynan Brooks]

A well-written textbook on critical thinking and reasoning; I'd especially recommend this to those learning how to read/understand others' arguments. I've picked up on most of this on my own, but it's always good to get a refresher.

[Mikhail Filatov]

I did not find any explanation in the book regarding the subject of "critical thinking" - after scrolling through it it seems that critical thinking ="logic without syllogisms or boolean algebra".

[Keegan Dunn]

How does this book not have a better rating? It has some failings, sure, but this systematic approach to effective reading and thinking is something I've never seen anywhere else. Converts average adult readers in to effective reasoners. I use the toolset in this book literally every day.

[Jessica]

well written and easy to understand the material