Includes bibliographical references and indexes

Contents:

Good and Bad Reasoning --Reasoning and Arguments --Exposition and Argument --Cogent Reasoning --Two Basic Kinds of Valid Arguments--Some Wrong Ideas about Cogent Reasoning--Background Beliefs --Kinds of Background Beliefs --Worldviews or Philosophies--Insufficiently Grounded Beliefs --Two Vital Kinds of Background Beliefs --Science to the Rescue --More on Deduction and Induction--Deductive Validity --Deductive Invalidity--Syllogisms --Indirect Proofs--Tautologies, Contradictions, and Contingent Statements--Inductive Validity (Correctness) and Invalidity (Incorrectness) --A Misconception about Deduction and Induction --Reasoning Cogently versus Being Right in Fact --Fallacious Reasoning--1 --Appeal to Authority --Inconsistency --Straw Man --False Dilemma and the Either-Or Fallacy --Begging the Question --Questionable Premise--Questionable Statement --Suppressed (Overlooked) Evidence --Tokenism --Fallacious Reasoning--2 --Ad Hominem Argument --Two Wrongs Make a Right --Irrelevant Reason (Non Sequitur) --Equivocation --Appeal to Ignorance --Composition and Division --Slippery Slope --Fallacious Reasoning--3 --Hasty Conclusion --Small Sample --Unrepresentative Sample--Questionable Cause --Questionable Analogy --Questionable Statistics --Questionable Uses of Good Statistics --Polls: An Important Special Case --False Charge of Fallacy --Psychological Impediments to Cogent Reasoning: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot --Loyalty, Provincialism, and the Herd Instinct.