Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation

Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation presents the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners. The book teaches by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed. Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton shows how arguments can be reasonable under the right dialogue conditions by using critical questions to evaluate them. The book teaches by example, both in the text itself and in exercises, but it is based on methods that have been developed through the author's thirty years of research in argumentation studies.

• Based on solid research on argumentation and informal logic representing the state of the art method and techniques
• Uses realistic dialogues featuring examples of political, scientific and legal argumentation familiar to students both from university and everyday life
• Instead of simply rejecting everyday arguments as fallacious on an intuitive basis, offers guidelines for pinpointing their strengths and weaknesses