Good Arguments An Introduction to Critical Thinking

This book proceeds from CT in everyday life to sophisticated critical thinking in academic fields, with chapters which clearly outline the types of evidence in science, the social sciences, and the humanities. Unlike most other books, it offers a clear description of CT as the comparison of formulas of CT. Chapter topics include issue, conclusion, and reason; how to create alternative arguments; deciding to accept an argument; assumptions and implications; prescriptions; deliberations; experiment, correlation, and speculation; and problem solving by way of review. For a lifetime of thinking critically, reading the good arguments of others, and creating your own—across a wide spectrum of subjects.

 1. Welcome to the Community of Thinkers.

 2. The Basics: Issue, Conclusion, and Reason.

 3. How to Create Alternative Arguments.

 4. Deciding to Accept an Argument: Compare the Evidence.

 5. Warranted Inference: Where Reasons and Conclusion Join.

 6. Other Connections: Assumptions and Implications.

 7. Prescriptions.

 8. Evaluating Alternative Arguments in Light of Their Evidence, and Theories of Critical Thinking Compared.

 9. How to Follow Complex Arguments.

10. Deliberations.

11. Experiment, Correlation, and Speculation.

12. Flimsy Structures.

13. Problem Solving by Way of Review.

14. The Dialogue: How to Construct Alternative Arguments.

15. The Research Paper: A Simple Guide.

Glossary.

Index.