How to Think Critically: A Concise Guide

by Jeff McLaughlin

Jeff McLaughlin’s How to Think Critically begins with the premise that we are all, every day, engaged in critical thinking. But as we may develop bad habits in daily life if we don’t scrutinize our practices, so we are apt to develop bad habits in critical thinking if we are careless in our reasoning. This book exists to instill good thinking attentiveness to word choice, avoidance of fallacies, and effective construction and assessment of arguments. With relatable and often amusing examples included throughout, the book adopts a degree of technical sophistication that is rigorous and yet still easily applied to ordinary situations. Readers are presented with a traditional step-by-step method for analysis that can be applied to all argument forms. Hundreds of exercises (with solutions) are included, as are several random statement generators which can be used to create thousands of additional examples. Venn diagrams, truth tables, and other essential concepts are presented not as definitions for academic study but as tools for better thinking and living.

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2014

Reviews

[The Conch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will teach how to frame and examine validity of argument.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much clarity about logic! Definitely going to make this a backbone of my Argumentation course.