Duck That Won the Lottery [Hardcover]

Julian Baggini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

This companion volume to "The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten" provides another rapid-fire selection of short, stimulating and entertaining capsules of philosophy. This time the focus is on the bad argumentative moves people use all the time, in politics, the media and everyday life. Each entry will be around 700 words and will take as its starting point an example of questionable reasoning from the media or literature. As with The Pig, the aim is to give readers something to chew on and work through for themselves.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'This book is like the Sudoku of moral philosophy: apply your mind to any of its "thought experiments" while stuck on the tube, and quickly be transported out of rush-hour hell' New Statesman on The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten"

About the Author

Julian Baggini is the editor and co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine. His books include Do You Think What You Think YouThink? (with Jeremy Stangroom), What's It All About? - Philosophy and the Meaning of Life and the bestselling The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, all published by Granta Books.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Granta Books (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 184708043X
• ISBN-13: 978-1847080431
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julian Baggini is the editor and co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine. His books include Do You Think What You Think YouThink? (with Jeremy Stangroom), What's It All About? - Philosophy and the Meaning of Life and The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, all published by Granta Books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touch a lucky paper duck in a Chinese restaurant and win!, October 25, 2008

By 

John Williamson "JargonTalk" (Bucks County, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Duck That Won the Lottery (Hardcover)

I like Julian Baggini's writing style. If you're unfamiliar with his works, he's possibly Britain's best-loved contemporary philosopher, and his work encompasses a wide range of interests and styles. He was awarded a PhD from University College London for his thesis on the philosophy of personal identity in 1996, then went on to found 'The Philosophers' Magazine' with Jeremy Stangroom, supporting himself with a portfolio of jobs that included teaching and, increasingly, journalism and writing.

His writing bore fruit in 2002, when five books he wrote, co-wrote or co-edited were published. In his newest offering The Duck That Won the Lottery, he presents us with a series of brief, thought-provoking and usually entertaining philosophical ideas to ponder. This is said to be the companion piece to his 2006 offering The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, an excellent book that I reviewed earlier. This one is a sequel that continues his exploration of philosophical problems through interesting sketches and thought experiments.

His focus this time is on the 'bad arguments' that people use all the time, in the media, on the 'Net, in politics, and in everyday life. There are a hundred of them, and each entry takes an example of questionable logic as its origin, from which the author examines the argument, then invites the reader to do the same with other examples, and he manages to do it with his characteristic precision and sense of humor.

The title alludes to 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' misleading notion that if you touched a lucky paper duck in a Chinese restaurant, then won the lottery, it was therefore the duck made you win. The 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' term is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this", and is a logical fallacy (of the questionable cause variety) which states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one."

And this analogy reminds this reader of a particular and familiar quotation:

"Even the skeptical mind must be prepared to accept the unacceptable when there is no alternative. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands."
~ Douglas Adams, in 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'

But isn't also possible to suppose that the duck was just a decoy?

Read this book, explore the examples, and become skilled at spotting 'un-flagrant contradictions', 'gambler's fallacies' and 'false dichotomies'. You'll be able to recognize media people (and spin doctors) carrying out the 'fallacy of the complex question' and 'implicit redefinitions of words.' You'll catch your associates 'loading the dice', and add 'slippery slopes', 'straw men' and 'post hoc fallacies' to your rhetorical arsenal.

Baggini's chapters may be familiar ground to some of his regular readers, especially in the UK. Many of them are based on ideas that the author wrote on the 'Butterflies and Wheels' Website, and still appear in their Dispatches section in his columns entitled "Bad Moves", where the author wrote columns on bad argumentative moves, noting that it was "an essential resource for detecting woolly arguments in all their guises."

If you find books like this stimulating, then you might also wish to look into some of his other works:

* What's It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life
* The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten
* Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind
* Making Sense: Philosophy behind the Headlines


Skepticism abounds here in 'The Duck That Won the Lottery', and affable criticism is dished out, mainly to journalists and others in the media, along with bloggers and 'Net mavens. Dr. Baggini offers us the chance to come across the trick of the spin doctors under controlled conditions, so that we might better recognize them in their natural environments, including in the politicians' speeches that abound today.

It's a worthwhile read, and remember, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's possible that it could be a decoy... or it just might be a duck.

5.0 out of 5 stars Logic 101 in an enjoyable way, June 19, 2011

By 

J. Davis (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Duck That Won the Lottery: 100 New Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher (Kindle Edition)

I really enjoyed The Duck That Won the Lottery from beginning to end. Julian Baggini lists exactly 100 statements and explains why they're logically questionable or even flat-out fallacies. He writes in an educational but entertaining way; this book is basically an enjoyable Logic 101 class, which I didn't think was possible. Baggini spares no one,even heroes, from his criticism of bad arguments.

There are no political or religious biases in the book; Baggini even praises Donald Rumsfeld at one point! His only bias is against poor reasoning. This is by far the best book on this neglected, but crucial, subject I have seen.

4.0 out of 5 stars It can gain you wisdom!, March 20, 2011

By 

Neveen Eed - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Duck That Won the Lottery: 100 New Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher (Mass Market Paperback)

This is book is a really good book and easy to follow, I liked the author's sense of humor in presenting his thoughts and at the same time conveying a helpful message. The book has 100 entry; each one talks about a different example of a bad arguement or fallacy. It really helps the reader learn how to catch a bad argument. He also relates political issues to everyday life experiences and that makes it applicable to use what you are reading in your own life. It teaches valuable lessons about the world, my favorite was about wishful thinking and people justifying their actions by saying that "if i didnt do it, someone else would've done it". from that I learned that I should be positive even if everything around me is corrupted. Yes, it's hard sometimes to think that I can change the whole world by a small action, but at least I'll be satisfied with my own actions. I would recommend that book to anyone who wants to look at the world and people's thoughts deeply.