Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life [Paperback]

Nancy M. Cavender (Author), Howard Kahane (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0495804118 | ISBN-13: 978-0495804116 | Publication Date: February 9, 2009 | Edition: 11

This classic text has introduced tens of thousands of students to sound reasoning using a wealth of current, relevant, and stimulating examples all put together and explained in a witty and invigorating writing style. Long the choice of instructors who want to "keep students interested", LOGIC AND CONTEMPORARY RHETORIC: THE USE OF REASON IN EVERYDAY LIFE, 11E combines examples from television, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and our nation's political dialogue. The text not only brings the concepts to life for students, but also puts critical-thinking skills into a context that students will retain and use throughout their lives. This is a book you can actually count on students to read.

Product Details

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing; 11 edition (February 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0495804118
• ISBN-13: 978-0495804116
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Neither Recommended Nor Refused, July 16, 2010

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life (Paperback)

I want to think better of this book. I want to say it approaches rhetoric and public discourse in a manner useful for freshman comp and other introductory classes. But reading through, I find so many limits that my qualms battle my love of rhetoric. The sad fact is, I can neither recommend nor oppose this book. I can only spell out my qualifications.

This book's first edition appeared at a time when mathematical modeling dominated logic. It posited that the issues we face in life seldom conform to numerical precision. Sometimes we must consider ideas that cannot be abstracted from their context, or do not exist independently from the language in which we present them. Though that concept is no longer controversial, too few undergraduates still really understand it.

Unfortunately, this book emphasizes identifying others' faulty reasoning over constructing new, valid arguments. After two short chapters on sound reasoning, the authors launch into over a hundred pages on spotting fallacious reasoning, and why people cling to bad ideas. The authors pause a little on use of language and writing, before a long excoriation of how admen, news media and textbooks obscure important debates.

I support everything the authors say. Undergraduates need to know this content, much of which I never learned until I was in grad school. But everything is out of balance. The authors put logic "out there," and touch fleetingly on the answer to bad public discourse: good personal reasoning. Only when students can reason for themselves can they resist abuse of logic, much less answer back to it.

This lopsidedness comes across strongest in the critical thinking exercises. Consider this, from the chapter on advertizing: "Examine a political commercial for the visual effects, the pacing, and other nonverbal elements, and analyze how they either enhance a candidate's image or undermine it (in a negative ad)." I'm not sure I could do that, much less an undergraduate armed only with this mere outline of the salient parts.

Howard Kahane, who wrote the first edition alone in 1971, died in 2001. Nancy Cavender presumably keeps sources timely in new editions. But if so, she needs to police her process. To cite just two examples, a text box in Chapter 12 makes three references to content not in the text. An anecdote about Britney Spears refers to evidence on a dress; her story must have been subbed for Monica Lewinsky, and the editing left visible scars.

These examples stick in my brain, but are not exhaustive. The index and bibliography are hit-or-miss, the footnotes have only a casual relationship with some of the text, and the authors admit much of the text recaps other books. Much of chapter 12 is cribbed, if not plagiarized, from James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me. I know mistakes happen, but holy moley, in a college text that lists for nearly $100, I expect better.

Parts of this book are quite good. If the authors dropped the lame classroom exercises and listed the book for a reasonable price, I bet they'd find a good general audience. But I struggle to imagine how I could make this book useful in a course. Maybe a class on political discourse or media analysis could use this book. But it just lacks what my gen-ed students need in the classroom.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor Editing in Revisions for 11th Edition, August 12, 2009

By 

Jeffrey Brand (Decatur, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life (Paperback)

I have just begun reading the new edition for my Fall courses and I am very disappointed. I have used earlier versions of the text for a number of years. On pages 32 and 35 there are attempts to update the examples by substituting the recent presidential election for the previous one. In doing to the commentary is now wrong. Most of the changes and updates are quite minimal so far in my reading, and to make such obvious errors shows a lack of author effort and limited efforts by the editor to make certain the text is accurate.

It is going to be difficult for me to trust the examples in this text with two early and glaring errors. I would expect some correction and information about others so I or my students do not have to identify them in class. I doubt that the last edition is available for substitution so close to my semester. This kind of problem reduces my confidence in this text and others by this publisher.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get it if you can, August 19, 2010

By 

Bruce Bain "Romans 9:33/Remember Jackie Robinson" (Englewood, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life (Paperback)

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I would acknowledge what other reviewers indicate, which is that this book, in its 11th Edition, may have identifiable faults and inconsistences. However the earlier editions are very useful. I have a copy of the Third Edition, and it is an excellent introduction to logic.

For example, on the very first page, the author breaks down the information as to the ARGUMENT, the PREMISE, and the CONCLUSION.

The author, Howard Kahane, expedites the learning of logic by eliminating all of the unnecessary rhetoric which frequently pads the books about the subject. A like new copy sells for over fifty dollars on the used market, and I think the book is worth it because the author teaches by examples, and many examples for what he teaches fill the book. This avoids the flawed, but common methodology by which authors teach only the technical aspect of logic but give few real world examples of the arguments.

Morevoer, the author also teaches about Logical Fallacies, and shows moreover, how to analyze "extended arguments". This is important, of course, because one has to cultivate the method for reducing long sentences or paragraphs, down to reduced statements to get the rudimentary premise and so forth.

. The book is worth the money. There are far more bad books published, on the subject of logic.

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