How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic - Madsen Pirie

Good introduction to logic.

This book is ideal for a young person about to go to college to study law or politics. Its coverage of the logical structure of arguments is pretty comprehensive and there are some amusing examples. My main concern about the book is that it is rather too academic. The author sees an argument as being judged independently on its merits. He ignores a crucial factor of any argument - the identity of the person who makes it. The credibility of the arguer is crucial to determining how much trust to place in the argument. Although ad hominem (against the man) remarks are regarded as a fallacy - I am not convinced. Criticism is an important piece of information. If I am to invest my money in a bank, I would be less happy to take advice from someone whose competency has been criticised. If a man is on trial for murder, the bad character of the only witness against him will be relevant.

Indeed, here is the real challenge for the advanced student: read the book, and for every so-called fallacy find an example where the argument would be the rational choice. In other words, fnd the fallacy in the assertion that there is a fallacy.

Mildly entertaining

I purchased this book in the hope that it was going to provide an insight into winning arguments in the business world; sadly I am disappointed. If all you want is an entertaining read then it may be OK as the book provides review of different ways people may formulate an argument, if you want to know how to win an argument in the business there are other books around that are much better.

This book is pathetic, don't buy

It tries to be funny and it isn't. It tries to be scholar "cool" and fails miserably at it.

Plus some remarks around with political bias. I wonder what the author thinks about people reading a book about Logic doing fallacies in the examples.

There are many other books on Logic better than this one.

Entertaining & informative

Little do you realise how the wool is pulled over your eyes! This book mercilessly exposes every trick in the politicians/meida/relegious book, explaining clearly what is wrong with the logic, and how you have been deceived.

When I rule the world (any time now ...) this will be required reading.

Updates an invaluable guide to spotting faulty logic

We've all been in the situation where some smart-alec produces an argument, often as a joke, which everyone knows must be wrong but where nobody can quite see the mistake.

More seriously, I suspect most of us have seen debates where one side appears to have much more evidence to support their case, until someone comes along who presents the other side of the argument so much better that everyone is convinced - at least until after the superior speaker has won the vote/verdict/board or council decision, by which time it is too late.

Madsen Pirie's book is a masterly and very entertaining guide to the different tricks which people can use to make their argument sound much stronger than it really is, how to spot them, and what the holes in their logic are.

He lists the logical fallacies which, by accident or design, can lead people to support false conclusions.

Unfortunately, as Madsen Pirie points out, knowing why the argument you are listening to is wrong does not always make it easy to defeat the person advancing it. Arguments "ad baculum" (by threat of force) do not go away if you prove the person making the threat to be wrong, irrelevant humour, if it is funny enough, can carry away a valid argument on a gale of laughter, and emotional appeals can be extremely hard to stop with mere logic.

Nevertheless, to be able to understand why an argument is wrong is a useful start - if you don't know yourself you have little chance of persuading anyone else. And this book is really helpful at showing you how to see where faulty logic is in play.

This book is an updated version of a book published in the mid 1980's with the title "The Book of the fallacy - a training manual for intellectual subversives." The new text is about 95% common with the earlier version, although it has a few updated concepts such as "Thatcher's Blame."

Very sadly the new book does not include the highly amusing cartoons which illustrated the original version. That is almost the only fault I can find with it - a criticism which would be covered under the chapter of the book on "Trivial objections."