Great Books Bad Arguments

Author : Ali Almossawi
Publisher : The Experiment, LLC
Page : 66 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2014-09-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781615192267

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An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments: Learn the Lost Art of Making Sense (Bad Arguments) by Ali Almossawi Pdf

“This short book makes you smarter than 99% of the population. . . . The concepts within it will increase your company’s ‘organizational intelligence.’. . . It’s more than just a must-read, it’s a ‘have-to-read-or-you’re-fired’ book.”—Geoffrey James, INC.com From the author of An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language, here’s the antidote to fuzzy thinking, with furry animals! Have you read (or stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle). Here are cogent explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument, the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that actually fall short—plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise (the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn’t believe that gas emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn’t like the result (the argument from consequences). Once you learn to recognize these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere from congressional debate to YouTube comments—which makes this geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions.

Author : W. G. Runciman
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 137 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2010-02-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691144764

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Great Books, Bad Arguments by W. G. Runciman Pdf

Uniquely bringing together three different texts, Runciman (Trinity College, U. of Cambridge, UK) elucidates the problems with arguments in Plato's Republic, Hobbes's Leviathan, and Marx's Communist Manifesto, although they are viewed as great books. He focuses on passages that relate to ways to achieve and sustain harmony and order in human societies, and the mistakes they make in their arguments in similar areas. There is no index.

Author : Robert Arp,Steven Barbone,Michael Bruce
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 449 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2018-10-29
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781119167907

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Bad Arguments by Robert Arp,Steven Barbone,Michael Bruce Pdf

A timely and accessible guide to 100 of the most infamous logical fallacies in Western philosophy, helping readers avoid and detect false assumptions and faulty reasoning You’ll love this book or you’ll hate it. So, you’re either with us or against us. And if you’re against us then you hate books. No true intellectual would hate this book. Ever decide to avoid a restaurant because of one bad meal? Choose a product because a celebrity endorsed it? Or ignore what a politician says because she’s not a member of your party? For as long as people have been discussing, conversing, persuading, advocating, proselytizing, pontificating, or otherwise stating their case, their arguments have been vulnerable to false assumptions and faulty reasoning. Drawing upon a long history of logical falsehoods and philosophical flubs, Bad Arguments demonstrates how misguided arguments come to be, and what we can do to detect them in the rhetoric of others and avoid using them ourselves. Fallacies—or conclusions that don’t follow from their premise—are at the root of most bad arguments, but it can be easy to stumble into a fallacy without realizing it. In this clear and concise guide to good arguments gone bad, Robert Arp, Steven Barbone, and Michael Bruce take readers through 100 of the most infamous fallacies in Western philosophy, identifying the most common missteps, pitfalls, and dead-ends of arguments gone awry. Whether an instance of sunk costs, is ought, affirming the consequent, moving the goal post, begging the question, or the ever-popular slippery slope, each fallacy engages with examples drawn from contemporary politics, economics, media, and popular culture. Further diagrams and tables supplement entries and contextualize common errors in logical reasoning. At a time in our world when it is crucial to be able to identify and challenge rhetorical half-truths, this bookhelps readers to better understand flawed argumentation and develop logical literacy. Unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and a worthy companion to its sister volume Just the Arguments (2011), Bad Arguments is an essential tool for undergraduate students and general readers looking to hone their critical thinking and rhetorical skills.

Author : W. G. Runciman
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 138 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2010-02-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781400834587

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Great Books, Bad Arguments by W. G. Runciman Pdf

Why Plato, Hobbes, and Marx are great—despite their arguments Plato's Republic, Hobbes's Leviathan, and Marx's Communist Manifesto are universally acknowledged classics of Western political thought. But how strong are the core arguments on which they base their visions of the good society that they want to bring into being? In this lively and provocative book, W. G. Runciman shows where and why they fail, even after due allowance has been made for the different historical contexts in which they wrote. Plato, Hobbes, and Marx were all passionately convinced that justice, peace, and order could be established if only their teachings were implemented and the right people put into power. But Runciman makes a powerful case to the effect that all three were irredeemably naive in their assumptions about how human societies function and evolve and how human behavior could be changed. Yet despite this, Runciman insists that Republic, Leviathan, and The Communist Manifesto remain great books. Born of righteous anger and frustration, they are masterfully eloquent pleas for better worlds—worlds that Plato, Hobbes, and Marx cannot bring themselves to admit to be unattainable.

Author : Ali Almossawi
Publisher : The Experiment, LLC
Page : 197 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2021-11-09
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781615198412

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An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language: Learn to Hear What's Left Unsaid (Bad Arguments) by Ali Almossawi Pdf

“This is a book for every thinking person, the perfect antidote to today’s culture wars.”—Hope Jahren The creators of An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments return with this desperately timely guide to how words can trick us. Learn to “hear” hidden bias, slant, and spin—from an irresistible cast of woodland creatures! Public discourse? More like public discord. The battle cries of our culture wars are rife with “loaded language”—be it bias, slant, or spin. But listen closely, or you’ll miss what Ali Almossawi finds more frightening still: words that erase accountability, history, even identity through what they leave unsaid. Speaking as wise old Mr. Rabbit, Almossawi leads us through a dark forest of rhetoric—aided by Orwell, Baldwin, and a squee-worthy cast of wide-eyed woodland creatures. Here, passive voice can pardon wrongdoers, statistics may be a smokescreen, gaslighting entraps the downtrodden, and irrelevant adjectives cement stereotypes. Emperor Squirrel isn’t naked; he has a clothes-free sartorial style. Mouse’s roof becomes flattened (Elephant’s foot just happens to be there at the time). And when keen-eyed Owl claims a foreign shore, he seems to be overlooking someone . . . Fans of Almossawi’s An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments couldn’t ask for a better primer on the less logical ways that words can trick us. It takes a long pair of ears to hear what’s left unsaid—but when you’re a rabbit in a badger world, listening makes all the difference.

Author : Ali Almossawi
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2017-04-04
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780735222236

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Bad Choices by Ali Almossawi Pdf

A relatable, interactive, and funny exploration of algorithms, those essential building blocks of computer science—and of everyday life—from the author of the wildly popular Bad Arguments Algorithms—processes that are made up of unambiguous steps and do something useful—make up the very foundations of computer science. But they also inform our choices in approaching everyday tasks, from managing a pile of clothes fresh out of the dryer to deciding what music to listen to. With Bad Choices, Ali Almossawi presents twelve scenes from everyday life that help demonstrate and demystify the fundamental algorithms that drive computer science, bringing these seemingly elusive concepts into the understandable realms of the everyday. Readers will discover how: • Matching socks can teach you about search and hash tables • Planning trips to the store can demonstrate the value of stacks • Deciding what music to listen to shows why link analysis is all-important • Crafting a succinct Tweet draws on ideas from compression • Making your way through a grocery list helps explain priority queues and traversing graphs • And more As you better understand algorithms, you’ll also discover what makes a method faster and more efficient, helping you become a more nimble, creative problem-solver, ready to face new challenges. Bad Choices will open the world of algorithms to all readers, making this a perennial go-to for fans of quirky, accessible science books.

Author : Roosevelt Montas
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2023-03-21
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780691224398

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Rescuing Socrates by Roosevelt Montas Pdf

A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life—and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities. Montás emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was twelve and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a PhD in English and comparative literature, serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and start a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college. Weaving together memoir and literary reflection, Rescuing Socrates describes how four authors—Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi—had a profound impact on Montás’s life. In doing so, the book drives home what it’s like to experience a liberal education—and why it can still remake lives.

Author : Alec Fisher
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2004-09-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0521654815

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The Logic of Real Arguments by Alec Fisher Pdf

Publisher Description

Author : Michael Bruce,Steven Barbone
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 435 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2011-08-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781444344417

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Just the Arguments by Michael Bruce,Steven Barbone Pdf

Does the existence of evil call into doubt the existence of God? Show me the argument. Philosophy starts with questions, but attempts at answers are just as important, and these answers require reasoned argument. Cutting through dense philosophical prose, 100 famous and influential arguments are presented in their essence, with premises, conclusions and logical form plainly identified. Key quotations provide a sense of style and approach. Just the Arguments is an invaluable one-stop argument shop. A concise, formally structured summation of 100 of the most important arguments in Western philosophy The first book of its kind to present the most important and influential philosophical arguments in a clear premise/conclusion format, the language that philosophers use and students are expected to know Offers succinct expositions of key philosophical arguments without bogging them down in commentary Translates difficult texts to core arguments Designed to provides a quick and compact reference to everything from Aquinas’ “Five Ways” to prove the existence of God, to the metaphysical possibilities of a zombie world

Author : Michael Shellenberger
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2020-06-30
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780063001701

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Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger Pdf

Now a National Bestseller! Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction. Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas. Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions. What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.

Author : Robert Arp,Steven Barbone,Michael Bruce
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2018-09-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781119165798

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Bad Arguments by Robert Arp,Steven Barbone,Michael Bruce Pdf

A timely and accessible guide to 100 of the most infamous logical fallacies in Western philosophy, helping readers avoid and detect false assumptions and faulty reasoning You’ll love this book or you’ll hate it. So, you’re either with us or against us. And if you’re against us then you hate books. No true intellectual would hate this book. Ever decide to avoid a restaurant because of one bad meal? Choose a product because a celebrity endorsed it? Or ignore what a politician says because she’s not a member of your party? For as long as people have been discussing, conversing, persuading, advocating, proselytizing, pontificating, or otherwise stating their case, their arguments have been vulnerable to false assumptions and faulty reasoning. Drawing upon a long history of logical falsehoods and philosophical flubs, Bad Arguments demonstrates how misguided arguments come to be, and what we can do to detect them in the rhetoric of others and avoid using them ourselves. Fallacies—or conclusions that don’t follow from their premise—are at the root of most bad arguments, but it can be easy to stumble into a fallacy without realizing it. In this clear and concise guide to good arguments gone bad, Robert Arp, Steven Barbone, and Michael Bruce take readers through 100 of the most infamous fallacies in Western philosophy, identifying the most common missteps, pitfalls, and dead-ends of arguments gone awry. Whether an instance of sunk costs, is ought, affirming the consequent, moving the goal post, begging the question, or the ever-popular slippery slope, each fallacy engages with examples drawn from contemporary politics, economics, media, and popular culture. Further diagrams and tables supplement entries and contextualize common errors in logical reasoning. At a time in our world when it is crucial to be able to identify and challenge rhetorical half-truths, this bookhelps readers to better understand flawed argumentation and develop logical literacy. Unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and a worthy companion to its sister volume Just the Arguments (2011), Bad Arguments is an essential tool for undergraduate students and general readers looking to hone their critical thinking and rhetorical skills.

Author : Sarah Manguso
Publisher : Graywolf Press
Page : 104 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2017-02-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781555979591

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300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso Pdf

A brilliant and exhilarating sequence of aphorisms from one of our greatest essayists There will come a time when people decide you’ve had enough of your grief, and they’ll try to take it away from you. Bad art is from no one to no one. Am I happy? Damned if I know, but give me a few minutes and I’ll tell you whether you are. Thank heaven I don’t have my friends’ problems. But sometimes I notice an expression on one of their faces that I recognize as secret gratitude. I read sad stories to inoculate myself against grief. I watch action movies to identify with the quick-witted heroes. Both the same fantasy: I’ll escape the worst of it. —from 300 Arguments A “Proustian minimalist on the order of Lydia Davis” (Kirkus Reviews), Sarah Manguso is one of the finest literary artists at work today. To read her work is to witness acrobatic acts of compression in the service of extraordinary psychological and spiritual insight. 300 Arguments, a foray into the frontier of contemporary nonfiction writing, is at first glance a group of unrelated aphorisms. But, as in the work of David Markson, the pieces reveal themselves as a masterful arrangement that steadily gathers power. Manguso’s arguments about desire, ambition, relationships, and failure are pithy, unsentimental, and defiant, and they add up to an unexpected and renegade wisdom literature.

Author : Ali Almossawi
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 64 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Critical thinking
ISBN : 192511385X

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Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi Pdf

Author : Madsen Pirie
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2006-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0826490069

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How to Win Every Argument by Madsen Pirie Pdf

Deals with one fallacy, explaining what the fallacy is, giving and analysing an example, outlining when/where/why the particular fallacy tends to occur and finally showing how you can perpetrate the fallacy on other people in order to win an argument.

Author : Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780190627126

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Think Again by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Pdf

Subtitle in pre-publication: How to reason and argue--and why.