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Book Reviews
Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric by Howard Kahane and Nancy Cavender
Howard Kahane and Nancy Cavender argue
that good reasoners avoid indifference, rationalization, wishful thinking and
wallowing in evil thoughts. Good reasoners compare their ideas with experience.
They figure out unstated assumptions and implications in an argument. They do
not assume that all the important, relevant information is contained in an
argument. They look for the strongest versions of arguments. They simplify to increase
understanding, not out of a craving for quick, simplistic, feel-good,
groupthink, media-bombardment solutions. They apply the lessons of history and
human psychology to reasoning.
There are at least three extremely
general ways bad things happen in arguments:
·
Irrelevant premises, including ad hominems.
·
Inadequate premises, for example, flat out false claims.
·
Premises given the wrong weight by readers.
The arrangement of fallacies is not as
clear and concise as it should be. Some of his fallacies are forms of other fallacies.
The slippery slope is a form of false cause. Guilt by association is a form of
ad hominem. Suppressed evidence is a form of straw person. The authors’
subjectivism is surprising, considering a role they seem to relish is telling
unpopular truths.
This work includes a nifty summary of flaws in the media and textbooks--better than many works of media criticism that are crammed with subjectivism, literary theories and postmodernist jargon. Image, access, power, money, trivia, infotainment, simplification, laziness, novelty, bad habits and interest groups, write the authors, drive Media and textbooks. The authors points out that exaggeration is often morally acceptable when used for satire. This work includes hilarious, well-chosen cartoons. Worth skimming. I reviewed an older edition.
Book review by J.T. Fournier.