How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning [Paperback]

Antony Flew (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

Practical reasoning and clear thinking are essential for everyone if we are to make sense of the information we receive each day. Being able to quickly know the difference between valid and invalid arguments, the contradictory versus the contrary, vagueness and ambiguity, contradiction and self-contradiction, the truthful and the fallacious, separates clear thinkers from the crowd. "How to Think Straight" lays the foundation for critical reasoning by showing many ways in which our thinking goes awry. Celebrated philosopher Antony Flew entertainingly instructs on the many and varied faults that occur in argument, the power of reason, how to challenge assertions and find evidence, and how not to be persuaded by half-truths. Flew also examines poor reasoning, and why we should be concerned with finding the truth. Lucid, terse, and sensible, with study questions and exercises to help along the way, this enlightening second edition will help you develop the skills necessary to argue and reason effectively by following a few simple, easy-to-remember directions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is well-written: the style is lean--one needs to read every sentence, no skimming or lapsing momentarily--but clear." -- Humanist in Canada, Winter 2001/2002

Product Details

• Paperback: 164 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; 2 Sub edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573922390
• ISBN-13: 978-1573922395
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What's a book review for, anyway?, November 17, 2005

By 

Carl Gruber (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning (Paperback)

Oh dear. It seems the Amazon book-review section has become another battleground for the IDers.

A few points in response:

1. The previous "review" is, in fact, nothing more than a stale old newspaper editorial that was copied and pasted here without any updating. This particular item dates from almost a year ago. At that time, though, Professor Flew publicly denied rumors that he had converted to theism, releasing a statement titled "Sorry to Disappoint, But I'm Still an Atheist" (Rationalist International Bulletin #137, 12 December 2004). Since then, however, he has been doing a coy little maybe-I-am-and-maybe-I'm-not fan dance about his supposed deism (not theism, please note). He's obviously enjoying all the attention he's been getting recently, and the last thing I want to do is deny an old man one last frolic in the limelight. But I don't think we should read too much into his latest pirouette.

2. Professor Richard Lewontin is hardly "stacking the deck" in his statement about the nature of science. Science simply *is* the search for materialistic explanations for natural phenomena. And it is precisely *because* science has adhered to this rigorously disciplined approach that it has been so spectacularly successful for the last 400 years. Science has nothing whatsoever to say about the existence of God, either pro or con. That's a question that lies completely outside the proper scope of science. (It's true that the discoveries of science, particularly in biology and geology, contradict biblical literalism. But then, biblical literalism is not synonymous with religion in general, or even with Christianity as a whole.)

3. For Intelligent Design to be considered a genuine scientific theory, capable of replacing Charles Darwin's very highly confirmed theory of evolution by natural selection, it must do more than just point to a few spots at the cutting edge of science (e.g., the emerging field of protobiology) where our knowledge is perforce a bit fuzzy. ID must do two things: it must do a better job than the reigning theory does of accounting for all the data, and it must make more accurate predictions than the reigning theory does. If ID doesn't do these two things, then it's utterly useless and cannot qualify as a scientific theory. And in fact, ID fails on both counts. How well does it account for all the data? Very poorly indeed. Has it made any accurate predictions? None whatsoever. Can it even generate any testable hypotheses? No. Basically, ID is just our old friend "The God of the Gaps", an old and dodgy maneuver whereby the arguer asserts that any natural phenomenon not currently explained by science must be the result of divine intervention. One glaring and amusingly ironic problem with this maneuver is that it puts God in a rather precarious and vulnerable position: Whenever science successfully explains a previously unexplained phenomenon, God (as defined by the IDers) is forced to retreat a little further, gradually disappearing as our scientific knowledge increases. The smart move, you'd think, would be to *avoid* putting God in a sure-lose situation.

Anyway, "How To Think Straight" is not one of Professor Flew's best books. It has its good points, but overall I agree with those who complain about its turgid, sloppy prose. I much prefer Flew's Dictionary of Philosophy, one of the best books of its kind.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flew on Thinking, December 21, 1999

By 

"chasebrown" - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning (Paperback)

Strangely enough, I agree with both of the previous reviews. Flew provides useful, practical insights into the practice of thinking. Unfortunately, Flew's own prose tends to slip into something that Orwell might have used in his examples of "vague and imprecise". Still, if you work at it, you will find some of the best ideas on thinking. It should also be noted that Flew does lean toward the right in his social ideas; but this book is not about social ideas. It is about thinking, and Flew's social preferences don't mean much here. Read it, if you really feel the need for help with Clear Thinking.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better Books Out There, May 26, 2005

By 

Craig Vieren (New Orleans, LA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning (Paperback)

Far from being "closely written," Flew's book is often flabby and clumsy. See T. Bachmann's review below for an example (and there are many more like it throughout the book). As other reviewers have noted below, there are plenty of much better introductions to critical reasoning. Try R. Feldman's "Reason and Argument," which may be the best intro to informal logic.