Customer Reviews

Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life (Philosophy)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Howard Kahane's "Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric" literally changed my life when I was assigned it in college over 20 years ago. Prof. Kahane has set down nearly every possible trick, deception, or error that could possibly come up in public--or private--discourse. In this new edition the reader will find many recent examples of the improper use of rhetoric from news articles, public speeches, advertising, and media "observations." Despite the rather functional title, Kahane has written a readable, entertaining, enjoyable book. As in most textbooks, there are exercises at the end of each chapter, but when was the last time you wanted to share such "brain teasers" with friends? This book does have one drawback--you'll again never be able to sit through advertisements, political speeches, or journalistic commentaries without noticing flawed reasoning, dirty tricks, and irrelevancies. If everybody would read this book, we'd all be better off--except for big business and government; they'd be in *big* trouble. Educational and fun.

The book itself is great and easy to understand. Just about anyone is able to pick this book up, read it, understand the arguments, and then realize when and where fallacious reasoning is used. My only problem comes with the exercises the book gives. While it is nice that questions and arguments are given where you are supposed to find the fallacy or determine whether it is a good or bad argument, at the same time, out of 28 questions, the book only gives the answers to four questions (in a given exercise at the end of the third chapter). It would be nice if a book that cost over $50.00 gave answers to all the exercise questions it asked, so that people like me, who learn easier by seeing the answer and question together, will have examples to learn and check answers. Besides that, its a great book.

This is an excellent book, with no axe to grind--other than promoting clear thinking. It covers a lot of ground, is accessible, yet not superficial. I have used it in class for years in its various editions, and the examples, discussion, and even cartoons are always of the best quality. Students love this book, and for good reason.

Of course, Kahane always annoys adherents of astrology, etc. Maybe that was it.

What I mean by this is that there are better books on critical thinking out there, one in particular that I read immediately before this one is 'Logical Self-Defense'. My impression of this book was that it was biased to the left. When I checked up on a Bible quote from proverbs (prov. 14:15) that I didn't remember (listed on the first page of the appendix), it turns out that none of the five bible versions that I checked had the quote worded in that way. It was as if it was 'interpreted' and rewritten to suit the context of the book. Some causal claims that are made in the book are dubious, at least to me. It covers a wide range of topics, but I think it comes off as a 'jack of all trades and master of none'. I thought the section on Fallacies was terrible. You can find better information about fallacies from T. Edward Damers book 'Attacking Faulty Reasoning' and Gary Curtis' website www_fallacyfiles_org just to name two. I noticed that even though Kahane was contributor to the Journal of Informal Logic, hardly any material contributed by his peers was included in this text. I find that odd. Logic (formal and informal), Critical Thinking, Argumentation, Rhetoric and Persuasion are all closely related. Additionally, one example of bias to add to the other two by two other reviewers is the example the book used about the Italian Prime Minister who was elected that owns a media empire. The insinuation was the he had unfair influence due to his ability to use his media empire to promote himself. The political groups he defeated were socialist and communist coalitions with their own media empires (in fact you have to pay a tv tax of 104 euro for the privilege of watching the three socialist / communist government owned tv stations) and another possibility for his win may be that the people may have been tired of paying high taxes and not getting much in return.

Kahane and Cavender have one of the best critical thinking textbooks that I have seen. The use of political cartoons and the chapters on the news media and advertising always pique student interest. The text is lively and not afraid to show opinion where the opinion is well reasoned. The attacks on psuedo-scientific reasoning at least challenge students conceptions and prompt discussion.

As a community college teacher, I used this book very successfully with my students. We found the critical thinking principles clearly explained and the many examples invaluable. For students working their way through complex problems in logic and language, this book is a user-friendly must.

There is a bit of bias here, but it's mostly obvious and the author is quick to point out that he isn't trying to be free of bias - he's trying to teach you to spot it in others so that you can reach good conclusions. All in all, it's an excellent primer on logic and reason, and high school / college students would do well to read this book before trying to sort out what they read/hear/see on TV/newspapers/magazines/books.

The authors fail at every turn to display an unbiased view of the world which every critical thinker does best to attain. Instead of being objective and raising questions in a philosophical way, they use their fallacy recognition to present an emotionally charged counter-attack. The authors are outraged at fallacious reasoners and even use emotional language in describing the view of one such reasoner as a "goody-goody idea". One might consider these authors unqualified to write such a book intended to promote objective reasoning. I suggest a more logical and unbiased work on the subject, such as _The_Art_of_Deception_.

Starting on page 97, the book talks about the "We don't ban cars" argument in regards to the gun control debate. The authors call this a questionable analogy because "Handguns serve few legitimate purposes in private hands; AK-47s and the like, none at all; restricting their use would make relatively little difference in most of our lives."

In addition, solutions for the end-of-chapter exercises had no given solutions, making it difficult for study in a politics class like the one I'm taking with this book.

While the book is an enjoyable read, the biases of the authors leave a bad aftertaste, leading me to only give the book two stars instead of what would be maybe four. For casual readers who aren't using this as a textbook, I'm sure that better books are out there.