The Power of Critical Thinking
Effective Reasoning about Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims
7th Edition
Published in October 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
600 pages
978-0-19-760537-0 (ISBN)
Description
The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims, Seventh Edition, provides the broadest range of tools to show students how critical thinking applies in their lives and the world around them. It explores the essentials of critical reasoning, argumentation, logic, and argumentative essay writing while also incorporating important topics that most other texts leave out, such as "inference to the best explanation," scientific
reasoning, evidence and authority, visual reasoning, and obstacles to critical thinking.
reasoning, evidence and authority, visual reasoning, and obstacles to critical thinking.
Reviews / Votes
This is a very good introductory Critical Thinking textbook. It comes from a Philosophical approach to the subject that focuses primarily on argument evaluation, and it does this very well. In particular, the treatments of deductive reasoning and explanation are excellent and some of the best I've seen in a textbook." - Adam Rosenfeld, University of North Carolina Greensboro The quality of the book is high to excellent. It is strong in its comprehensiveness and simplicity. Ample blank margins greet the student's needs to take notes. . . . the text is educated without being pedantic." James A. Stieb, Drexel University.More details
Edition
7th Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Revised edition
Dimensions
Height: 254 mm
Width: 203 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-19-760537-0 (9780197605370)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Lewis Vaughn is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including Philosophy: Here and Now, Fourth Edition (2022), Bioethics, Fourth Edition (2020), The Power of Critical Thinking, Sixth Edition (2019), and Living Philosophy, Third Edition (2021), all published by Oxford University Press.
Content
Preface
PART 1. BASICS
1. The Power of Critical Thinking
2. Obstacles to Critical Thinking
3. Making Sense of Arguments
PART 2. REASONS
4. Reasons for Belief and Doubt
5. Media Manipulation: Fake News, Bias, and Advertising
6. Fallacies and Persuaders
PART 3. ARGUMENTS
7. Deductive Reasoning: Propositional Logic
8. Deductive Reasoning: Categorical Logic
9. Inductive Reasoning
PART 4. EXPLANATIONS
10. Inference to the Best Explanation
11. Judging Scientific Theories
12. Critical Thinking in Morality and the Law
Appendix A: The Truth About Philosophy Majors
Appendix B: Essays for Evaluation
Appendix C. Answers to Exercises
Appendix D. Answers to Self-Assessment Quizzes
Appendix E. Critical Thinking and Writing
Notes
Glossary
Credits
Index
PART 1. BASICS
1. The Power of Critical Thinking
2. Obstacles to Critical Thinking
3. Making Sense of Arguments
PART 2. REASONS
4. Reasons for Belief and Doubt
5. Media Manipulation: Fake News, Bias, and Advertising
6. Fallacies and Persuaders
PART 3. ARGUMENTS
7. Deductive Reasoning: Propositional Logic
8. Deductive Reasoning: Categorical Logic
9. Inductive Reasoning
PART 4. EXPLANATIONS
10. Inference to the Best Explanation
11. Judging Scientific Theories
12. Critical Thinking in Morality and the Law
Appendix A: The Truth About Philosophy Majors
Appendix B: Essays for Evaluation
Appendix C. Answers to Exercises
Appendix D. Answers to Self-Assessment Quizzes
Appendix E. Critical Thinking and Writing
Notes
Glossary
Credits
Index