In Defense of Informal Logic

Front Cover
Springer Science & Business Media, 2000 - Philosophy - 224 pages
My impulse when I decided to collect into a single volume the essays on topics in logical theory and related subjects that I have written in the last fifteen years was to borrow from the title of a work by Sextus Empiricus, and call my collection "Against the Logicians." Although the essays address a variety of problems that interest me, the thread that runs through them is a scepticism about how logicians see things. So, the title appealed to me. However, I had second thoughts and chose instead a title of one of my own essays, "In Defense of Informal Logic", which emphasizes my support for other approaches. Although my criticisms of logical theory are designed to cut deeply, I do not want to be unresponsive to the needs that it is supposed to satisfy. However, my position that we have adequate resources for critically analyzing a particular argument and 00 not need a theory of argumentation, will not completely satisfy those who think that there is a need for it. So, I want them to know that I am taking their concerns seriously.
 

Contents

THE CASE OF THE MISSING PREMISE
6
BEGGING WHAT IS AT ISSUE IN THE ARGUMENT
16
THE FALLACY IN THE TREATMENT OF THE AD BACULUM AS A FALLACY
29
IN DEFENSE OF RHETORIC
42
TOWARDS A MORE DYNAMIC CONCEPTION OF ARGUMENT 59 650
59
Notes
109
HOW TO OVERCOME THE LIMITATIONS OF
125
THE APPLICATION OF LOGIC TO FIELDS OTHER THAN ITSELF
139
THE GETTIER PROBLEM AND THE PARABLE OF TEN COINS
154
THE UNBEARABLE VAGUENESS OF BEING
169
PHILOSOPHICAL DISPUTATION AS TRANSFORMATIVE
185
References
209
Name Index
217
Copyright

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