Cengage Advantage Books: Understanding Arguments, Concise Edition [Paperback]

CENGAGE ADVANTAGE BOOKS: UNDERSTANDING ARGUMENTS, CONCISE EDITION, 1E uses everyday life experiences to teach the basics of informal logic. By taking out the non-essential instruction, this edition hones in on the argument construction involved in day-to-day life, and how to do it better. Plus, to round out the discussion, CENGAGE ADVANTAGE BOOKS: UNDERSTANDING ARGUMENTS, CONCISE EDITION, 1E includes a three-chapter overview of formal logic as well.Preface. PART I: HOW TO ANALYZE ARGUMENTS. 1. Uses of Arguments. What Arguments Are. Justifications. Explanations. Combinations: An Example. 2. The Web of Language. Language and Convention. Linguistic Acts. Speech Acts. Performatives. Kinds of Speech Acts. Conversational Acts. Conversational Rules. Conversational Implication. Rhetorical Devices. Summary. 3. The Language of Argument. Argument Markers. If . . . , then. Arguments in Standard Form. A Problem and Some Solutions. Assuring. Guarding. Discounting. Evaluative Language. 4. The Art of Close Analysis. An Extended Example. Clerk Hire Allowance, House of Representatives. Chapter 5. Deep Analysis. Getting Down to Basics. Clarifying Crucial Terms. Dissecting the Argument. Arranging Subarguments. Some Standards for Evaluating Arguments. Validity. Truth. Soundness. Suppressed Premises. Contingent Facts. Linguistic Principles. Evaluative Suppressed Premises. Uses and Abuses of Suppressed Premises. The Method of Reconstruction. An Example of Reconstruction: Capital Punishment. PART II: HOW TO EVALUATE ARGUMENTS: DEDUCTIVE STANDARDS. 6. Propositional Logic. The Formal Analysis of Arguments. Basic Propositional Connectives. Conjunction. Disjunction. Negation. Process of Elimination. How Truth-Functional Connectives Work. Testing for Validity. Some Further Connectives. Conditionals. Truth Tables for Conditionals. Logical Language and Everyday Language. Other Conditionals in Ordinary Language. 7. Categorical Logic. Beyond Propositional Logic. Categorical Propositions. The FourlĂ*