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Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach
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Description
Informal Logic is an introductory guidebook to the basic principles of constructing sound arguments and criticizing bad ones. Non-technical in approach, it is based on 186 examples, which Douglas Walton, a leading authority in the field of informal logic, discusses and compares in clear, illustrative detail. Walton explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical responses. Among the many subjects covered are: shapes of valid argument, defeasible arguments, relevance, appeals to emotion, personal attack, straw man argument, jumping to a conclusion, uses and abuses of expert opinion, problems in drawing conclusions from polls and statistics, loaded terms, equivocation, arguments from analogy, and techniques of posing, replying to, and criticizing questions. This new edition takes into account many new developments in the field of argumentation learn this have occurred since 1989, many created by the author. Drawing on these developments, Walton consists of and analyzes 36 new topical examples and in addition delivers in recent work on argumentation schemes. Ideally suited for use in courses in informal logic and introduction to philosophy, this book will in addition be valuable to students of pragmatics, rhetoric, and speech communication.

Customer Reviews
Customer rating is 5 of 5  Very practicable information   2010-02-02
By Jason
I found this book to be very logical, well laid out, and interesting. I had no problem reading through this book. In fact it was a breeze reading and I am now interested in reading more of the author's books on logic and argumentation. I would like to add that this is the first book on logic I have read. Additionally I found the information in the book to be very practicable/easy to put into use. I find myself unconsciously using techniques, from this book, for critical evaluation to criticize and evaluate the arguments used by others, and using the techniques for promoting open dialogue at work and in my other day to day interactions.

I think this book would be great to read in high school, though I am not implying it is "high school level" material. I highly recommend this book to anyone.
Customer rating is 4 of 5  use for LSAT prep ONLY If you have "extra time."   2009-11-06
By Chrissie Padilla (Orange County, CA)
I bought this book based on the fact I was told it would help me better understand Logic. It does/did but it is really dense and time consuming and I found that the last thing I wanted when preparing for the grueling LSAT was yet more dense material to digest. Looking back I would say read this book months before you even sit down to do real LSAT prep, so your brain can fully absorb the material and you can read it with out feeling overwhelmed. Good info just bad timing on my part.
Customer rating is 4 of 5  good college book   2009-09-01
By R. Sawyer
I bought this book from Amazon because it was, probably, $5 less than Borders and $10 less than my campus book store. I just completed my 2nd week of class and, so far, their is interesting content in the book. My only warning to future buyers...chapters are LONG, so brace yourself. One trick I came up with is ignore the charts/examples when reading each chapter. Just go over them later. I look forward to reading deeper over the next 14 Mondays.
Customer rating is 1 of 5  Overrated   2009-08-06
By Daniel R. O'Brien
This book's merits are largely confined to its treatment of the following subjects: the differences between the red herring and wrong conclusion fallacies; the argument from authority/appeal to expert opinion; and the lists of critical questions worth asking in numerous contexts of dialogue. The author's take on these subjects is, to the best of my knowledge, unique and creative. Whoever reads the book will come away with an enriched understanding of these topics.

Otherwise, the book is lacking in two main areas. First, it is the most redundant book I've ever read. Walton repeats himself ad nauseam on nearly every subject in the book, and he seems to find new and different ways of being repetitive as the book progresses. The book is 332 pages long and has enough substantive content for about 250 pages. Second, Walton's overriding thesis--which I take to be that many of the errors in argument that logicians have traditionally labelled fallacies are *not* in fact fallacies, but rather simply correctable and temporary missteps in argument--is quite puzzling. He seems to think that because these so-called fallacies occur in the everyday ebb and flow of dialogue between persons, inasmuch as the one who errs in committing the "fallacy" can always and every time step back and fix his error and augment his argument with no harm done, they are not really fallacies at all. Yet lots of arguments do not occur in this way at all; many occur in written documents or in conversations between persons in which the arguer in error doesn't have a chance to correct or doesn't realize his error. Walton's contrarian view of fallacies leads him to cast doubt, for example, on whether the post hoc fallacy is truly a fallacy (he sees it as an inherently weak argument that always requires outside bolstering). No logician would deny that an observed correlation can in fact be a causal relation in some cases, given proper outside evidence about this relation. Yet it doesn't follow from this that there are no post hoc fallacies! Some errors in argument are just too egregious to be labelled anything other than fallacies. Walton seems not to understand this. You will learn much more about the standards of logical reasoning from a traditional logic textbook.
Customer rating is 4 of 5  Very useful for LSAT preparation!   2009-02-10
By Stephan Schwartz (New York)
As a professional LSAT tutor/blogger in NYC, I can say that this book is very useful for LSAT prep. It clearly explains and demonstrate multiple examples of valid and invalid arguments. Walton is obsessed with logical fallacies and covers many of the common ones appearing on the LSAT.

When to read: Before you begin studying or when you need a break.


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