In Defense of Informal Logic

This book is distinguished from others on the market by its determination to base what it has to say on samples of actual argument. Outstanding features of the book include: criticism of logical theory for encouraging faulty and misleading readings of an argument; an approach to the informal fallacies and the enthymeme that is based on the recognition of the limitations of the requirement that an argument be reconstructed as a sequence of premises and conclusion; a treatment of certain paradoxes and of the Geltier problem that argues that there is something to resolve only because of the unwarranted assumption that formal logic is taken to have applications to fields other than itself; an emphasis on developing an alternative conflict resolution conception of argumentation. Many of the essays in this book are written in response to what other scholars in the field have said. However, the book addresses anyone who wonders, as the author does, about what can be achieved by argumentation and why it can be achieved