Critical Thinking - Concise Edition

by William Hughes, Jonathan Lavery

A top-selling introduction to good reasoning, in a new succinct and inexpensive format.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Logic, Psychology

296 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2004

About the author

William Hughes is Professor of Gothic Studies at Bath Spa University and a past Joint President of the International Gothic Association. His publications include Beyond Dracula (2000), That Devil's Trick: Hypnotism and the Victorian Popular Imagination (2015) and Ecogothic (2013), the latter co-edited with Andrew Smith. Hughes is also the founding editor of Gothic Studies, the refereed journal of the International Gothic Association.

Reviews

[Warren Wulff]

A slow read only because critical thinking is hard! It’s a good introduction to critical thinking skills that would benefit humanity for us all to have. Having read this book doesn’t automatically make one an expert, as you realize it’s practice and exposure to argument that makes one sharper at knowing the difference between strong and weak positions.

I would add that this book is very dated and geographically-specific for its examples. Namely, Ontario-focused and using topics relevant to geopolitically-savvy adults in late 1980s Canada: GST-implementation, the abortion and capital punishment debates, the Meech Lake Accord, communism in the northern Ontario labour movement, Ontario teacher strikes, the popularity of the Mulroney government - they’re all here! It’s a time capsule for Canada from a very particular era. If you remember this time and these events, then you’ll do fine.

[Albert]

An introduction to critical thinking. The books goes through some basic terminology in an expansive way. Whereas some of the concepts are certainly useful, the overall feeling is that the book could have been compressed significantly. Moreover, I realized that the differences between editions are extremely minor (in case somebody contemplates buying a second-hand older version).

Unfortunately I have not and will most likely not read the forth and last part. And thus my review should be taken as a critique of the first 3 parts (up to chapter 11). I do not think this is an interesting enough book for self-teaching, although I must confess I have not read other books on the topic. If philosophy is what interest you, though, many other introductory books will expand your intellect in a much more efficient manner

[Amelia and John]

I appreciated the inclusion of legal reasoning as someone who works in the field.

The book itself was not very well-structured in my opinion, especially the introduction. But the content was appreciable.

Examples were sometimes vague and hard to apply but for the most part they helped to grasp the content in the chapters.

[Damien A.]

Great reference textbook

[Katerina]

Read this for class. Good at explaining but used some strange examples...

[Eurik]

Never finished it completely, bit too ecyclopediac for a front to cover read. But useful, nonetheless.

[Aidan 18]

read it for university, a lil boring but informative haha

[Shaikha Alshimmari]

Good book
Explains different types of reasoning and arguments