Customer Reviews

The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book for my logic class. I'm 23, and I find it doesn't dumb down language or concepts for "younger" readers. Unfortunately, whomever I ordered this book from waited until the last possible minute to mail the book to me, so I was in class without a book for almost 4 weeks! But if your teacher requires this book, definitely buy it. It will probably be able to explain the concepts better than your professor can!

This book is informative and helped me understand how to rationally evaluate truth claims. I am using it for a course at a Christian university and despite it being written by someone not of my faith, I appreciated it for its intellectual value. This book would be great for any who are on debate teams or "argue" frequently about a mulitude of topics, as it teaches proper technique and helps to find holes in logic of opposing viewpoints.

I used this book for class up to Chapter 11, and it wasn't bad. There were lots of excerises, but there were only answers for 5/20 you do in the back of the book. its a good deal to buy from amazon because i bought it used and it worked great for me, i saved a little less than 75$ compare to buying it at the bookstore. So overall, this book is easy to understand and is better used for understanding concepts and definitions but not for excerises that practice what you learn in the chapters.

I wish this were mandatory reading for our species. If it were, we'd be so much better off. Of course, politicians, evangelicals, marketing consultants and a host of others who make their living leaching off the ignorant would be out of work.

This may be one of the best textbooks I read. If I were a member of a school board, I would definitely put this book into the curriculum. Well organized and fluently written with plenty of interesting quotes and cartoons, readers will easily finish the book and learn a lot, in particular Chapter 5 on Faulty Reasoning (Fallacy). One drawback is that the author had answered less than half of the many questions in the end of each chapter. Anyway, a good food for thought. Recommended.

My son needed this book for a class at college. It was perfect at a great price.

This is a college textbook. A large glossy paperback, it ranges from basic to some pretty advanced thinking. It is a tough read but a pretty good reference. It probably is great for classroom teaching.

Excellent from start to finish! Ordered and received new-like copy within two days! Will definitely check em out again!

Overall the text is good. I was glad to see Categorical logic given a decent treatment (cf. Bassham, Irwin, et al.), although evaluation used Venn instead of Aristotle. The chapters flow well and do not try to cover too much. Great support exercises throughout.

I was, however, upset by the religion-bashing in this text. While I have come to expect liberal bias from CT textbooks these days, and often enjoy pointing out errors in critical thinking in them, this was pushing it. The illustration on page 395 is a good example. Here the author compares superstitious beliefs (aliens, astology, and psychic powers) to scientific facts. Yet the accompanying illustration shows a man reading a Bible with a dinosaur looking over his shoulder. Why? These superstitions are not part of the Christian worldview, nor any religion that I know of (in fact, they are liberal beliefs!). I doubt this lapse in critical thinking would have gone unchallenged had it been a man with a Quran or a book on homosexual rights. Isn't this the kind of unreflective, shallow, and intolerant kind of message that religious people are accused of putting forth? I expect better of Oxford.

This was first time buying a book from Amazon and I am totally satiesfied with the books and the prices!