This classic text has introduced tens of thousands of students to sound reasoning using a wealth of current, relevant, and stimulating examples all put together and explained in a witty and invigorating writing style. Long the choice of instructors who want to "keep students engaged," LOGIC AND CONTEMPORARY RHETORIC: THE USE OF REASON IN EVERYDAY LIFE, 12E, International Edition combines examples from television, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and our nation's political dialogue. The text not only brings the concepts to life for students but also puts critical-thinking skills into a context that students will retain and use throughout their lives.
This best-selling text introduces students to the topic of good reasoning in a way that is relevant to everyday life. Written in a lively, non-pedantic style, the book uses up-to-date illustrative examples taken from the media (TV, newspapers, magazines), public school textbooks, advertisements, etc., as well as from the best comic strips (Calvin and Hobbes, Doonesbury, etc.), cartoons from The New Yorker magazine, and the best political cartoonists (Levine, Tom Toles, etc.).
'Ben Burgis understands that in order to persuade people to join a political movement, you have to master the techniques of rigorous argumentation. He masterfully exposes the cheap sophistry of right-wing 'philosophy' and shows why there's still a place for logic and reason in political discourse. This is a crucial handbook for those who want to 'crush' and 'destroy' the Ben Shapiros of the world.' Nathan Robinson, Editor, Current Affairs Many serious leftists have learned to distrust talk of logic and logical fallacies, associated with right-wing "logicbros". This is a serious mistake. Unlike the neoliberal technocrats, who can point to social problems and tell people "trust us", the serious Left must learn how to argue and persuade. In Give Them an Argument, Ben Burgis arms his reader with the essential knowledge of formal logic and informal fallacies.
A Theory of Contemporary Rhetoric describes, explains, and argues the overarching theory of contemporary rhetoric. This current view of rhetoric brings together themes in the communication arts, including political literary criticism; bi- and multi-lingualism; multimodality; framing as an artistic and sociological device for composition and interpretation; literacy in the digital age; and the division between fiction and ‘non-fiction’ in language/literature studies. Chapters explore the implications of rhetoric for particular aspects of the field. Discussions throughout the book provide illustrations that ground the material in practice. As an overarching theory in the communication arts, rhetoric is elegant as a theoretical solution and simple as a practical one. It asks such questions as who is speaking/writing/composing? to whom? why? what is being conveyed? and how is it being conveyed? Acknowledging the dirth of recent works addressing the theory of rhetoric, this book aims to fill the existing theoretical gap and at the same time move the field of language/literature studies forward into new territory. It provides the keynote theoretical guide for a generation of teachers, teacher educators and researchers in the fields of English as a subject; English as a second, foreign or additional language; and language study in general.
This indispensable text brings together important essays on the themes, issues, and controversies that have shaped the development of rhetorical theory since the late 1960s. An extensive introduction and epilogue by the editors thoughtfully examine the current state of the field and its future directions, focusing in particular on how theorists are negotiating the tensions between modernist and postmodernist considerations. Each of the volume's eight main sections comprises a brief explanatory introduction, four to six essays selected for their enduring significance, and suggestions for further reading. Topics addressed include problems of defining rhetoric, the relationship between rhetoric and epistemology, the rhetorical situation, reason and public morality, the nature of the audience, the role of discourse in social change, rhetoric in the mass media, and challenges to rhetorical theory from the margins. An extensive subject index facilitates comparison of key concepts and principles across all of the essays featured.
Critics have raved about this delightful book Allen addresses the muddleheadedness (or "dumbth") that pervades all segments of American life and work, and offers 81 "rules" for good thinking.
Responding to skeptics within higher education and critics without, James Crosswhite argues powerfully that the core of a college education should be learning to write a reasoned argument. A trained philosopher and director of a university-wide composition program, Crosswhite challenges his readers—teachers of writing and communication, philosophers, critical theorists, and educational administrators—to reestablish the traditional role of rhetoric in education. To those who have lost faith in the abilities of people to reach reasoned mutual agreements, and to others who have attacked the right-or-wrong model of formal logic, this book offers the reminder that the rhetorical tradition has always viewed argumentation as a dialogue, a response to changing situations, an exchange of persuading, listening, and understanding. Crosswhite’s aim is to give new purpose to writing instruction and to students’ writing, to reinvest both with the deep ethical interests of the rhetorical tradition. In laying out the elements of argumentation, for example, he shows that claiming, questioning, and giving reasons are not simple elements of formal logic, but communicative acts with complicated ethical features. Students must learn not only how to construct an argument, but the purposes, responsibilities, and consequences of engaging in one. Crosswhite supports his aims through a rhetorical reconstruction of reason, offering new interpretations of Plato and Aristotle and of the concepts of reflection and dialogue from early modernity through Hegel to Gadamer. And, in his conclusion, he ties these theoretical and historical underpinnings to current problems of higher education, the definition of the liberal arts, and, especially, the teaching of written communication.
What distinguishes the study of rhetoric from other pursuits in the liberal arts? From what realms of human existence and expression, of human history, does such study draw its defining character? What, in the end, should be the purposes of rhetorical inquiry? And amid so many competing accounts of discourse, power, and judgment in the contemporary world, how might scholars achieve these purposes through the attitudes and strategies that animate their work? Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy: The Living Art of Michael C. Leff offers answers to these questions by introducing the central insights of one of the most innovative and prolific rhetoricians of the twentieth century, Michael C. Leff. This volume charts Leff ’s decades-long development as a scholar, revealing both the variety of topics and the approach that marked his oeuvre, as well as his long-standing critique of the disciplinary assumptions of classical, Hellenistic, renaissance, modern, and postmodern rhetoric. Rethinking Rhetorical Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy includes a synoptic introduction to the evolution of Leff ’s thought from his time as a graduate student in the late 1960s to his death in 2010, as well as specific commentary on twenty-four of his most illuminating essays and lectures.
