Author: Douglas N. Walton
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Keywords: series, logic, language, bias, analysis, sided, arguments, dialectical, one
Number of Pages: 295
Published: 1999-08
List price: $55.50
ISBN-10: 0791442675
ISBN-13: 9780791442678

We often feel that an argument should be doubted or held as suspicious because it has a bias. But bias isn’t always wrong. It is a normal phenomenon in advocacy argumentation, and in many cases it is to be expected. Yet sometimes bias can be quite harmful in argumentation. In this book, bias is defined as one-sided advocacy of a point of view in argumentation. It is shown to be harmful, or properly subject to critical condemnation, only when the dialogue exchange is supposed to be a balanced, two-sided exchange of viewpoints. The book concedes the postmodernist premise that bias is qu

Author: Douglas N. Walton
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Keywords: argument, emotion, place
Number of Pages: 312
Published: 1987-12-31
List price: $21.95
ISBN-10: 0271008539
ISBN-13: 9780271008530

Appeals to emotion -- pity, fear, popular sentiment, and ad hominem attacks -- are commony used in argumentation. Instead of dismissing these appeals as fallacious wherever they occur, as many do, Walton urges that each use be judged on its merits. He distinguished three main categories of evaluation. First, is it reasonable, even if not conclusive, as an argument? Second, is it weak and therefore open to critical questioning for argument? And third, is it fallacious? The third category is a strong charge that incurs a critical buren to back it up by citing evidence from the given text and con

Author: Douglas N. Walton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Keywords: argumentation, critical, handbook, logic, informal
Number of Pages: 310
Published: 1989-07-28
List price: $34.99
ISBN-10: 0521379253
ISBN-13: 9780521379250

This is an introductory guide to the basic principles of constructing good arguments and criticizing bad ones. It is nontechnical in its approach, and is based on 150 key examples, each discussed and evaluated in clear, illustrative detail. The author explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound argument strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical questions for responding. Among the many subjects covered are: techniques of posing, replying to, and criticizing questions, forms of valid argument, releva

Author: Douglas Walton
Publisher: Routledge
Keywords: argumentation, theory, studies, presumptive, schemes, reasoning
Number of Pages: 232
Published: 1995-12-01
List price: $60.00
ISBN-10: 080582071X
ISBN-13: 9780805820713

Recent concerns with the evaluation of argumentation in informal logic and speech communication center around nondemonstrative arguments that lead to tentative or defeasible conclusions based on a balance of considerations. Such arguments do not appear to have structures of the kind traditionally identified with deductive and inductive reasoning, but are extremely common and are often called "plausible" or "presumptive," meaning that they are only provisionally acceptable even when they are correct. How is one to judge, by some clearly defined standard, whether such arguments are correct or no

Author: Douglas Walton
Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ
Keywords: authority, arguments, opinion, expert, appeal
Number of Pages: 296
Published: 1997-01-01
List price: $34.95
ISBN-10: 0271016957
ISBN-13: 9780271016955

Designed to be a pragmatic approach, based on developments in argumentative theory, and analyzing appeal to expert opinion as a form of argument. The book identifies the requirements that make an appeal to expert opinion a reasonable or unreasonable argument.

Author: Mr. Douglas Walton
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Keywords: amp, communicati, rhetoric, studies, arguments, hominem
Number of Pages: 240
Published: 1998-09-01
List price: $38.50
ISBN-10: 0817309225
ISBN-13: 9780817309220

In the media, in the courtroom, and in everyday confrontation, ad hominem arguments are easy to put forward as accusations, are difficult to refute, and often have an extremely powerful effect on persuading an audience. Although ad hominem arguments have been around for a long time, now more than ever, the problem of how to deal with them in a critically balanced way is a matter of concern for public discourse in a democracy. Douglas Walton presents a clear account of the structure of the ad hominem argument and how that structure can be used to evaluate specific cases of this type of argument

Author: Douglas Walton
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Keywords: ignorance, arguments
Number of Pages: 326
Published: 2009-09-18
List price: $33.95
ISBN-10: 027101475X
ISBN-13: 9780271014753

Arguments from Ignorance explores the situations in which the argument from ignorance (also known as the lack-of-knowledge inference, negative evidence, or default reasoning) functions as a respectable form of reasoning and those in which it is indeed fallacious. Douglas Walton draws on everyday conversations on all kinds of practical matters in which the argumentum ad ignorantiam is used quite appropriately to infer conclusions. He also discusses the inappropriate use of this kind of argument, referring to various major case studies, including the Salem witchcraft trials, the McCarthy hearing