Critical Thinking

With its new glossary and appendix material, novel real-life examples and freshly created summary boxes, Arp and Watsons second edition of Critical Thinking is now the most incisive (and still affordable) introduction to the subject matter. Philosophy majors, law school aspirants, students taking the GRE, of if you just want to improve your reasoning skillsthis is the book for you. -- Kevin Decker, Professor of Philosophy, Eastern Washington University, USA Well-explained, clearly laid out and hip, this is one of the bestif not the bestcritical thinking textbooks on the market today. Critical Thinking comes close to hitting the ideal balance between explanation and meaningful practice, making this book the whole package -- Adam Barkman, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Redeemer University College, Canada Engagingly written with a good mix of academic and real life examples and exercises, this textbook by Arp and Watson is a great option for a wide range of logic courses. Covering all of the terrain required by a logic text, this book does a very nice job of taking on what can be dauntingly formal topics in a way that doesnt feel so abstract and obscure. Unlike many other logic books, this text does a much more thorough job on inductive logica topic seriously neglected in too many logic booksand includes a much welcomed section on putting all of the critical thinking skills learned together. Highly recommended. -- Benjamin W. McCraw, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina Upstate, USA This is a great text for any critical thinking or introductory logic course. Jamie and Rob have a way of explaining key words and ideas simply and clearly, providing examples that students observe in everyday life. -- Matt Stanfill, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Pensacola State College, USA Critical Thinking balances clarity, detail and a user-friendly approach for students with the kind of rigor and care instructors will welcome. As a thorough introduction to basic tools of logic, probability and scientific reasoning, this text is a winner. -- Robert Bass, Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, USA Watson and Arp have built an accessible portal for students learning logic and its basis in human language and expression. In addition to serving courses on formal logic, the text provides straightforward and clear supplements for instructors who teach college writing with a focus on argumentation. In particular, its sections on the challenges of inductive reasoning and logical fallacies will prove especially helpful for showing undergraduates how to better analyze evidence and critique arguments. -- Ray Bossert, Assistant Professor of English and Writing Center Director, Notre Dame of Maryland University, USA In this book, Robert Arp and Jamie Watson provide the tools to overcome one of the greatest deficits in the developed world: that of critical thinking. -- Jai Galliott, Senior Research Associate, The University of New South Wales, Australia

Robert Arp teaches Logic at the University of Missouri, USA and is a Researcher and Analyst for projects with the US Army at Ft. Leavenworth. He is the author of An Evolutionary Account of Creative Problem Solving (2008), co-author of Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology (2011) and 101 Ideas that Changed the Way We Think (2013). Jamie Carlin Watson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Broward College, USA.

Preface to the Second Edition Part I: The Basics of Good Reasoning 1. The Basic Tools of Reasoning 2. Evaluating Arguments Part II: Deductive Reasoning 3. Thinking and Reasoning with Categories 4. Basic Propositional Logic 5. Truth Tables 6. Rules of Inference Part III: Inductive Reasoning 7. Probability and Induction 8. Inductive Arguments 9. Experiment and Inference to the Best Explanation 10. Informal Fallacies 11. Putting it All Together 12. Reasoning on Graduate Entrance Exams Glossary Index