Logic and Its Limits

by Patrick Shaw

Book Overview

This book grew out of the conviction, not in itself strange or startling, that the ordinary person can and should think straight rather than crooked.'

Patrick Shaw has written a commonsense introduction to the use of logic in everyday thought and argument. It explains some of the rules of good argument and some of the ways in which arguments can fail, drawing illustrations from a variety of contemporary and international sources, such as the
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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192892800
• ISBN13: 9780192892805
• Release Date: December 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction to informal logic

Shaw's "Logic and its Limits" is an excellent self-study text. It is clearly written and it succeeds in making logic enjoyable and understandable. Every significant point in the book is followed by excercises, which are answered in an appendix at the end of the book. Any student of philosophy would profit from working through the book.

informative

This book is a good, common sense discussion of logic for a layperson such as myself. Several examples of bad reasoning even come from another logic book, i.e. 'Thinking Straight'! However, I think Shaw is correct in his criticisms, which shows even academics in logic can make mistakes.I particularly like how he addressed a death penalty argument. It is often pointed out that foes of the death penalty wouldn't feel that way for the killers of their own family. Shaw points out that even if this was true, those people may later regret a decision that they made in anger, so this argument falls apart.The material necessarily makes the reading a little dry, but the effort is worthwhile.