Novel Arguments

Novel Arguments
Author: Richard Walsh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 210
Release: 1995-09-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521471459

Novel arguments argues that innovative fiction - by which is meant writing that has been variously labeled postmodern, metafictional, experimental - extends our ways of thinking about the world, and rejects the critical consensus that, under the rubrics of postmodernism and metafiction, homogenizes this fiction as autonomous and self-absorbed. Play, self-consciousness, and immanence - supposed symptoms of innovative fiction's autonomy - are here reconsidered as integral to its means of engagement. The book advances a concept of the "argument" of fiction as a construct wedding structure and content into a highly evolved and expressive experimental form. Close readings of five important innovative novels by Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Robert Coover, Walter Abish, and Kathy Acker show how they articulate matters of substance, social engagement, and ideological currency by virtue of the act of innovation. Walsh deftly argues for a new understanding of fictional cognition at the theoretical level, and, in an act of great critical creativity, discards altogether the flattening totalities of received postmodern formulations.

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments: Learn the Lost Art of Making Sense (Bad Arguments)

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments: Learn the Lost Art of Making Sense (Bad Arguments)
Author: Ali Almossawi
Publisher: The Experiment, LLC
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2014-09-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1615192263

“This short book makes you smarter than 99% of the population. . . . The concepts within it will increase your company’s ‘organizational intelligence.’. . . It’s more than just a must-read, it’s a ‘have-to-read-or-you’re-fired’ book.”—Geoffrey James, INC.com From the author of An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language, here’s the antidote to fuzzy thinking, with furry animals! Have you read (or stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle). Here are cogent explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument, the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that actually fall short—plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise (the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn’t believe that gas emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn’t like the result (the argument from consequences). Once you learn to recognize these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere from congressional debate to YouTube comments—which makes this geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions.

The Logic of Real Arguments

The Logic of Real Arguments
Author: Alec Fisher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2004-09-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521654814

Publisher Description

36 Arguments for the Existence of God

36 Arguments for the Existence of God
Author: Rebecca Goldstein
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2011-02-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307456714

From the author of The Mind-Body Problem: a witty and intoxicating novel of ideas that plunges into the great debate between faith and reason. At the center is Cass Seltzer, a professor of psychology whose book, The Varieties of Religious Illusion, has become a surprise best seller. Dubbed “the atheist with a soul,” he wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum—“the goddess of game theory.” But he is haunted by reminders of two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his teacher Jonas Elijah Klapper, a renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianism, and an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius, heir to the leadership of an exotic Hasidic sect. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and intellectually captivating, 36 Arguments explores the rapture and torments of religious experience in all its variety.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Author: Jaron Lanier
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2018-05-29
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1250196698

AS SEEN IN THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY THE SOCIAL DILEMMA A WIRED "ALL-TIME FAVORITE BOOK" A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK "THE CONSCIENCE OF SILICON VALLEY"- GQ “Profound . . . Lanier shows the tactical value of appealing to the conscience of the individual. In the face of his earnest argument, I felt a piercing shame about my own presence on Facebook. I heeded his plea and deleted my account.” - Franklin Foer, The New York Times Book Review “Mixes prophetic wisdom with a simple practicality . . . Essential reading.” - The New York Times (Summer Reading Preview) You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that we’re better off without them. In Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Lanier, who participates in no social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for all of us to leave these dangerous online platforms. Lanier’s reasons for freeing ourselves from social media’s poisonous grip include its tendency to bring out the worst in us, to make politics terrifying, to trick us with illusions of popularity and success, to twist our relationship with the truth, to disconnect us from other people even as we are more “connected” than ever, to rob us of our free will with relentless targeted ads. How can we remain autonomous in a world where we are under continual surveillance and are constantly being prodded by algorithms run by some of the richest corporations in history that have no way of making money other than being paid to manipulate our behavior? How could the benefits of social media possibly outweigh the catastrophic losses to our personal dignity, happiness, and freedom? Lanier remains a tech optimist, so while demonstrating the evil that rules social media business models today, he also envisions a humanistic setting for social networking that can direct us toward a richer and fuller way of living and connecting with our world.

How to Win Every Argument

How to Win Every Argument
Author: Madsen Pirie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2015-03-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 147252697X

In the second edition of this witty and infectious book, Madsen Pirie builds upon his guide to using - and indeed abusing - logic in order to win arguments. By including new chapters on how to win arguments in writing, in the pub, with a friend, on Facebook and in 140 characters (on Twitter), Pirie provides the complete guide to triumphing in altercations ranging from the everyday to the downright serious. He identifies with devastating examples all the most common fallacies popularly used in argument. We all like to think of ourselves as clear-headed and logical - but all readers will find in this book fallacies of which they themselves are guilty. The author shows you how to simultaneously strengthen your own thinking and identify the weaknesses in other people arguments. And, more mischievously, Pirie also shows how to be deliberately illogical - and get away with it. This book will make you maddeningly smart: your family, friends and opponents will all wish that you had never read it. Publisher's warning: In the wrong hands this book is dangerous. We recommend that you arm yourself with it whilst keeping out of the hands of others. Only buy this book as a gift if you are sure that you can trust the recipient.

Arguments, Stories and Criminal Evidence

Arguments, Stories and Criminal Evidence
Author: Floris J. Bex
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2011-02-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9400701403

In this book a theory of reasoning with evidence in the context of criminal cases is developed. The main subject of this study is not the law of evidence but rather the rational process of proof, which involves constructing, testing and justifying scenarios about what happened using evidence and commonsense knowledge. A central theme in the book is the analysis of ones reasoning, so that complex patterns are made more explicit and clear. This analysis uses stories about what happened and arguments to anchor these stories in evidence. Thus the argumentative and the narrative approaches from the research in legal philosophy and legal psychology are combined. Because the book describes its subjects in both an informal and a formal style, it is relevant for scholars in legal philosophy, AI, logic and argumentation theory. The book can also appeal to practitioners in the investigative and legal professions, who are interested in the ways in which they can and should reason with evidence.

What Is the Argument?

What Is the Argument?
Author: Maralee Harrell
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2016-10-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262529270

Exploring philosophy through detailed argument analyses of texts by philosophers from Plato to Strawson using a novel and transparent method of analysis. The best way to introduce students to philosophy and philosophical discourse is to have them read and wrestle with original sources. This textbook explores philosophy through detailed argument analyses of texts by philosophers from Plato to Strawson. It presents a novel and transparent method of analysis that will teach students not only how to understand and evaluate philosophers' arguments but also how to construct such arguments themselves. Students will learn to read a text and discover what the philosopher thinks, why the philosopher thinks it, and whether the supporting argument is good. Students learn argument analysis through argument diagrams, with color-coding of the argument's various elements—conclusion, claims, and “indicator phrases.” (An online “mini-course” in argument diagramming and argument diagramming software are both freely available online.) Each chapter ends with exercises and reading questions. After a general introduction to philosophy and logic and an explanation of argument analysis, the book presents selections from primary sources, arranged by topics that correspond to contemporary debates, with detailed analysis and evaluation. These topics include philosophy of religion, epistemology, theory of mind, free will and determinism, and ethics; authors include Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Ryle, Fodor, Dennett, Searle, and others. What Is the Argument? not only introduces students to great philosophical thinkers, it also teaches them the essential skill of critical thinking.

The Dead Father

The Dead Father
Author: Donald Barthelme
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2014-05-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466857307

The Dead Father is a gargantuan half-dead, half-alive, part mechanical, wise, vain, powerful being who still has hopes for himself--even while he is being dragged by means of a cable toward a mysterious goal. In this extraordinary novel, marked by the imaginative use of language that influenced a generation of fiction writers, Donald Barthelme offered a glimpse into his fictional universe. As Donald Antrim writes in his introduction, "Reading The Dead Father, one has the sense that its author enjoys an almost complete artistic freedom . . . a permission to reshape, misrepresent, or even ignore the world as we find it . . . Laughing along with its author, we escape anxiety and feel alive."

Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Jury

Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Jury
Author: Michael S. Lief
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 609
Release: 2012-12-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1471108546

In the hands of a skilled trial lawyer, the closing argument offers the courtroom's greatest dramatic possiblilities. It is the advocate's last opportunity to convince the jury of their version of the "truth" before the defendent's fate is sealed. Every argument included here is a finely crafted verbal work of art - they represent the modern-day, highest form of an ancient profession and art: that of the storyteller. The only available collection of great closing arguments - complete with insightful analysis and biographical profiles of the lawyers involved - this fascinating volume gathers the passionate finales of the most celebrated cases in history. Included are the climactic closes to the Nuremberg War Trials; Gerry Spence's crusade against the Kerr-McGee Nuclear Power Plant after the mysterious death of Karen Silkwood; Vincent Bugliosi's successful prosecution of cult leader Charles Manson and his followers; the astounding acquittal of John Delorean despite video evidence of his offences and the prosecution resulting from the Mai Lai massacre.