Critical Thinking

Shamefully, most critical thinking textbooks are not particularly logical. They present mostly grab-bags of rules and fallacies linked together more by scholastic repetition than by reasoning. By contrast, Epstein's text is backed up by a rigorous, coherent theory of inference. The book is nonetheless utterly clear and non-technical, more so than any other informal logic or critical thinking text I have ever read. No time is wasted with pedantic verbiage or time-honored but useless distinctions (the reader is hard-pressed to even find the words "inductive" or "deductive"). All the basic elements of informal reasoning are covered: recognizing and reconstructing arguments, making claims precise, distinguishing validity and strength, recognizing valid forms, evaluating the plausibility of premises, recognizing fallacies, evaluating specialized types of arguments (analogies, generalizations, and cause-effect reasoning), and writing good arguments. It effectively incorporates teaching logic in writing through multiple short assignments, including ingenious cartoon exercises that force us to think carefully about how we reason about non-verbal data. Examples are mostly drawn from everyday life (diet, health, money, careers, and relationships) rather than specialized subjects. The supporting material for instructors is substantial, including dozens of quizzes and exams (however, this supporting material is unhelpfully organized, crammed into Word files that run over a hundred pages each). Over the last decade, I have read dozens of textbooks that try to teach critical thinking or informal logic. None of them come close to being as good as Epstein's Critical Thinking.

This workbook works because it uses relevant situations to get you thinking and using logic. Therefore you are more likely to learn because it makes better connections to previous knowledge, albeit some of it "out there" on a social limb.