I wrote a 376-page draft of an introductory informal logic textbook in the Spring of 2010. Although I have revised it once already, I anticipate further revision before I begin to think about publication. Currently the text is used exclusively by students in my Practical Logic (Philosophy 201) class at Loyola New Orleans. I wrote it because I decided that none of the logic texts on the market today combined all of the topics I wanted to cover, and most were missing several important topics I thought were important for introductory logic students.
- I. Introduction
- Chapter 1—What logic is, and why we need it
- II. Some basic forms of good reasoning, and their fallacious counterparts
- Chapter 2—Logic and the basic requirements of good reasoning
- Chapter 3—Better known premises and the fallacy of begging the question
- Chapter 4—Relevance and the fallacy of subjectivism
- Chapter 5—Reliable and unreliable testimony
- Chapter 6—Reason, emotion, and emotionalism
- III. Proof: Legitimate and illegitimate demands for it
- Chapter 7—All the relevant evidence and proof
- Chapter 8—The fallacy of ignoring relevant evidence
- Chapter 9—Shifting the burden of proof and the argument from ignorance
- Chapter 10—The pseudo-proof of crackpot conspiracy theories
- IV. The role of meaning in logic
- Chapter 11—The role of meaning, and fallacies of interpretation
- Chapter 12—Rules of definition
- Chapter 13—Settling definitional disputes
- V. Inductive logic
- Chapter 14—Induction and deduction
- Chapter 15—Inductive fallacies
- Chapter 16—Causal analysis
- VI. Deductive logic
- Chapter 17—Deductive validity and invalidity
- Chapter 18—Categorical syllogisms
- Chapter 19—Hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms
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