Tens of thousands of students have learned to be more discerning at constructing and evaluating arguments with the help of Patrick J. Hurley. Hurley’s lucid, friendly, yet thorough presentation has made A CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC the most widely used logic text in North America. In addition, the book’s accompanying technological resources, such as CengageNOW and Learning Logic, include interactive exercises as well as video and audio clips to reinforce what you read in the book and hear in class. In (...) short, you’ll have all the assistance you need to become a more logical thinker and communicator. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

In this paper I examine five distinctions between deductive and inductive arguments, concluding that the best of the five defines a deductive argument as one in which conclusive favorable relevance to its conclusion is attributed to its premises, and an inductive argument as any argument that is not deductive. This distinction, unlike its rivals, is both exclusive and exhaustive; permits both good and bad arguments of each kind; and is both useful and needed in evaluating at least some arguments.

This paper defends the view that the classification of an argument as being deductive ought to rest exclusively upon psychological considerations; specifically, upon whether the argument's author holds certain beliefs. This account is justified on theoretical and pedagogical grounds, and situated within a general taxonomy of competing proposals. Epistemological difficulties involved in the application of psychological definitions are recognized but claimed to be ineliminable from the praetice of argumentation. The paper concludes by discussing embryonic arguments where the author's relevant beliefs (...) are not sufficiently fine-grained so as to accord the argument deductive or inductive status. (shrink)

Intended for the first course in logic, The Power of Logic (POL) is written with the conviction that logic is the most important course that college students take. POL preserves the balance between informal and formal logic. Layman;s direct and accessible writing style, along with his plentiful examples, imaginative exercises, and POL;s accompanying Logic Tutor make this the best text for logic classes today.day.

I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than ...

Simple Logic succeeds in conveying the standard topics in introductory logic with easy-to-understand explanations of rules and methods, whilst featuring a multitude of interesting and relevant examples drawn from both literary texts and contemporary culture.