Book Abstracts 

Werkmeister, W.H. (1948). An Introduction to 
Critical Thinking: A Beginner's Text in Logic. 
Johnsen Pub. Co. 

The book is indeed a beginner's text essential-
ly in the Aristotelian tradition. But it also deals 
extensively with the uses and abuses of language 
as encountered in fallacious reasoning and propa-
ganda. It also presents at length the more recently 
developed formal presentation of arguments and 
of statistical methods. The book culminates in a 
discussion of the nature and use of hypotheses. 
But what characterizes the book throughout are 
the numerous examples following each chapter 
for the student's analysis. It is indeed an introduc-
tion to critical thinking. The guiding theme 
throughout is that error in belief and mistakes in 
reasoning can be devastating in all of our endeav-
ors, and that therefore rational criteria in the eval-
uation of all opinions and prospective beliefs are 
as essential in everyday life as they are in our sci-
ences. 

Ennis, Robert H. Ordinary Logic. Originally pub-
lished by Prentice-Hall in 1969, but now available 
from Illinois Critical Thinking Project, 13\0 S. 
6th St., Champaign, IL 61820; phone: (217) 
333-2446. 

This short deductive logic book presents ele-
mentary propositional logic, class logic, and the 
use and interpretation of logic in everyday situa-
tions. A simple minimally-symbolic system is 
presented for propositional logic, and a modified 
intuitive Euler-circle system is used for class logic. 

Technical terminology and technical appara-
tus are kept to a minimum. Furthermore, the book 
avoids counter-intuitive interpretations of the log-
ical operators, such as the material-implication, 
interpretation of the "if-then" relationship, and ex-
tensional interpretations of class relationships. 

Thcre are frequent exercises to which answers 
are provided, facilitating self-teaching. 

Meiland, Jack W (1981). College Thinking: How 
to Get the Best Out of College. Nal-Dutton. ISBN 
0-451-62655-9 paper. 

College Thinking introduces students to argu-
mentation within the context of inquiry rather 
than persuasion. It focuses on the construction of 
arguments by students rather than on the criticism 

INFORMAL LOGIC 
XY.2, Spring 1993 

of others' arguments. Students need to be taught 
explicitly what arguments are for and how to create 
them. So, as a preparation, the book explains the 
rationale of intellectual inquiry. It maintains that 
argumentation is much more than simply stating 
some reasons and must include the examination of 
reasons through objections and replies and through 
discussion of alternative positions. Two chapters 
treat the writing of argumentative papers and give 
principles and concrete examples. Later chapters 
explore the aims and methods of the humanities, 
the social sciences, and the natural sciences. 

Walton, Doug (989). Informal Logic: A Hand-
book for Critical Argumentation. Cambridge 
University Press. ISBN 0-521-37032-9 cloth, 
ISBN 0-521-37925-3 paper. 

informal Logic is an elementary guidebook to 
the basic principles of constructing good argu-
ments and criticizing bad arguments. The reader 
is guided along through the use of a case study ap-
proach based on one hundred and fifty key exam-
ples, each discussed and evaluated in clear, 
illustrative detail. 

The practical methods applied to these cases 
are based on a pragmatic theory of argument as a 
reasoned interactive dialogue, outlined in the first 
chapter. According to this theory, every argument 
has two sides, and the rules of dialogue prescribe 
how each side should respond to the moves of the 
other side, in order to take part in a critically rea-
soned discussion. 

Both correct and faulty uses of arguments are 
explained, including many important kinds of errors, 
lapses, blunders, sophistical tactics, fallacies, and 
other key failures of argument. Correct uses of ar-
guments are based on argumentation schemes, in-
cluding sound argument strategies for reasoned 
persuasion, and critical questions for responding. 

Among the subjects covered are: techniques 
of questioning, replying to questions, criticising 
questions, valid argument forms, relevance, ap-
peals to emotion in argument, personal attack, 
uses and abuses of expert opinion in argument. er-
rors and problems in using statistics, linguistic 
difficulties posed by the use of loaded terms in ar-
gument, equivocation, slippery slope arguments, 
and arguments from analogy.