Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life

431 Pages·2009·4.12 MB·English

by  Nancy M. Cavender

L o g i c a n d
C o n t e m p o r a r y
R h e t o r i c
The Use of Reason in Everyday Life
ELEVENTH EDITION
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L o g i c a n d
C o n t e m p o r a r y
R h e t o r i c
The Use of Reason in Everyday Life
ELEVENTH EDITION
Nancy Cavender Howard Kahane
Professor Emeritus Late of
College of Marin University of Maryland
Baltimore County
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Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 12 11 10 09
In memory of Virginia Pittenger Tulenko
C
ONTENTS
Preface x
CHAPTER 1 GOOD AND BAD REASONING 1
1
Reasoning and Arguments 2
2
Exposition and Argument 4
3
Cogent Reasoning 6
4
Two Basic Kinds of Valid Arguments 9
5
Some Wrong Ideas about Cogent Reasoning 12
6
Background Beliefs 15
7
Kinds of Background Beliefs 15
8
Worldviews or Philosophies 16
9
Insufficiently Grounded Beliefs 18
10
Two Vital Kinds of Background Beliefs 23
11
Science to the Rescue 24
Summary of Chapter 1 27
CHAPTER 2 MORE ON DEDUCTION AND INDUCTION 31
1
Deductive Validity 31
2
Deductive Invalidity 34
3
Syllogisms 35
4
Indirect Proofs 37
5
Tautologies, Contradictions, and
Contingent Statements 37
6
Inductive Validity (Correctness) and Invalidity
(Incorrectness) 38
7
A Misconception about Deduction and Induction 42
8
Reasoning Cogently Versus Being Right in Fact 42
Summary of Chapter 2 43
vi
Contents vii
CHAPTER 3 FALLACIOUS REASONING—1 47
1
Appeal to Authority 48
2
Inconsistency 52
3
Straw Man 57
4
False Dilemma and the Either-Or Fallacy 57
5
Begging the Question 59
6
Questionable Premise—Questionable Statement 61
7
Suppressed (Overlooked) Evidence 61
8
Tokenism 64
Summary of Chapter 3 64
CHAPTER 4 FALLACIOUS REASONING—2 73
1
Ad HominemArgument 73
2
Two Wrongs Make a Right 75
3
Irrelevant Reason (Non Sequitur) 79
4
Equivocation 80
5
Appeal to Ignorance 83
6
Composition and Division 84
7
Slippery Slope 84
Summary of Chapter 4 85
CHAPTER 5 FALLACIOUS REASONING—3 93
1
Hasty Conclusion 93
2
Small Sample 94
3
Unrepresentative Sample 94
4
Questionable Cause 95
5
Questionable Analogy 99
6
Questionable Statistics 101
7
Questionable Uses of Good Statistics 103
8
Polls: An Important Special Case 105
9
False Charge of Fallacy 108
Summary of Chapter 5 110
CHAPTER 6 PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPEDIMENTS TO
COGENT REASONING: SHOOTING
OURSELVES IN THE FOOT 123
1
Loyalty, Provincialism, and the Herd Instinct 124
2
Prejudice, Stereotypes, Scapegoats,
and Partisan Mind-Sets 126
viii Contents
3
Superstitious Beliefs 129
4
Wishful Thinking and Self-Deception 130
5
Rationalization and Procrastination 132
6
Other Defense Mechanisms 136
7
The Benefits of Self-Deception, Wishful
Thinking, and Denial 138
8
The Pull of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal 140
9
Lack of a Good Sense of Proportion 143
Summary of Chapter 6 145
CHAPTER 7 LANGUAGE 151
1
Cognitive and Emotive Meanings 151
2
Emotive Meanings and Persuasive
Uses of Language 152
3
Other Common Rhetorical Devices 159
4
Language Manipulators 165
5
Language Revision 170
Summary of Chapter 7 175
CHAPTER 8 EVALUATING EXTENDED ARGUMENTS 181
1
The Basic Tasks of Essay Evaluation 182
2
The Margin Note and Summary Method 190
3
Extended Evaluation of an Argument 190
4
Dealing with Value Claims 195
5
Evaluating Ironic Works 201
Summary of Chapter 8 204
CHAPTER 9 WRITING COGENT (AND PERSUASIVE)
ESSAYS 207
1
The Writing Process 207
2
Preparing to Write 208
3
Writing the Essay 209
4
Supporting Reasons Effectively 213
Summary of Chapter 9 231
CHAPTER 10 ADVERTISING: SELLING THE PRODUCT 233
1
Promise and Identification Advertisements 234
2
Things to Watch Out for in Advertisements 236
3
The Upside of Ads 246
Contents ix
4
Marketing Strategies 247
5
Political Advertising 254
Summary of Chapter 10 265
CHAPTER 11 MANAGING THE NEWS 271
1
The Media and the Power of Money 272
2
News-Gathering Methods Are Designed
to Save Money 286
3
Misdirection and Lack of Proportion 288
4
News Reporting: Theory and Practice 289
5
Devices Used to Slant the News 299
6
Television, Film, and Electronic Information Sources 305
7
The Non-Mass Media to the Rescue 310
8
Recent Developments 312
Summary of Chapter 11 317
CHAPTER 12 TEXTBOOKS: MANAGING WORLDVIEWS 323
1
High School History Textbooks 324
2
Social Studies (Civics) Textbooks Minimize
the Great Gulf between Theory and Practice 331
3
Textbooks and Indoctrination 333
4
Textbooks and Politics 335
5
Censorship 341
6
Textbooks Fail to Give Students Genuine
Understanding 350
7
Postscript on College Texts 351
Summary of Chapter 12 353
APPENDIX MORE ON COGENT REASONING 359
1
More on Cause and Effect 359
2
Scientific Method 360
3
Calculating Probabilities and Fair Odds 363
Answers to Starred Exercise Items 368
Bibliography 375
Glossary 385
Indexes 391
Credits 411