Do They Think You're Stupid?
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Product Description
Product Description
Originally published as "The Duck that Won the Lottery", this companion volume to "The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten" provides another rapid-fire selection of short, stimulating and entertaining capsules of philosophy. This time the focus is on the bad argumentative moves people use all the time, in politics, the media and everyday life. Each entry will be around 700 words and will take as its starting point an example of questionable reasoning from the media or literature. As with "The Pig", the aim is to give readers something to chew on and work through for themselves.
About the Author
Julian Baggini is the editor and co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine. His books include Do You Think What You Think YouThink? (with Jeremy Stangroom), What's It All About? - Philosophy and the Meaning of Life and The Pig That Wants to be Eaten, all published by Granta Books.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a book that exposes fallacies in arguments - using actual statements by prominent persons as examples. The book is made up of 100 chapters with 99 examples each making a short chapter; the 100th chapter is not an example but a summary and last word. Bagginni's first chapter examines the statement by a NASA astronaut, Eugene Cernan who was reported as having stated: "No one in their right mind can look in the stars and the eternal blackness everywhere and deny the spirituality of the experience, and the existence of a Supernatural Being." Calling it an "argument from incredulity" Baggini explains why this statement "manages to pack three dubious, but persuasive, punches." This is a book that will help develop clear thinking, but as the author warned, some of his arguments might deserve the same flaws he sees in those he analysed. In mitigation, he explains that a player might commit infringements that he might have called "foul" had the player been the referee instead. This is a fine, readable book partly because it carries mostly contemporary examples although there are some historical ones such as one made by Samuel Johnson (chapter 22). The examples spread over many subjects, from politics to religion, to science, philosophy and literary criticism.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book does for politics and the media what Bad Science did for quack medicine. The book is divided into 100 short articles - some of which are related to each other (this is a similar format to 30 second philosophies). This looks at what people say and if their rhetoric actually holds water. There are some excellent examples and I particularly liked the one about Donald Rumsfeld which made me laugh out loud until I found out he was right and my assumptions were wrong!
This is how philosophy and critical thinking should be taught. This is how to make sure that we are all part of an informed public. It is no use giving citizenship classes in schools and looking at science in society or the impact of the media when you can actually have concrete examples from everyday life, presented in an interesting and dynamic way.
This is how philosophy and critical thinking should be taught. This is how to make sure that we are all part of an informed public. It is no use giving citizenship classes in schools and looking at science in society or the impact of the media when you can actually have concrete examples from everyday life, presented in an interesting and dynamic way.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This brilliant stroll through logical fallacies, using real live examples is exactly how logical fallacies should be taught. After reading many good books on dissecting arguments, looking at logical fallacies and fallacious arguments, I have found this to be one of the most interesting books for the layman to learn about bad arguments.
The chapters are short enough to keep the interest of any reader, the lack of technical jargon is a dream and allows you to fully enjoy and appreciate the range of expose' as well as relax with the authors words, even allowing for the odd chuckle here and there, something not often found in a philosophy book.
No deep thinking required, no hard slog trying to retain hundreds of minutiae details, just learning made fun, lots of fun as Baggini exposes the fallacies in peoples arguments and we learn both not to make the same mistakes as well as being able to point these errors out to others the next time they argue their case from pure fallacious logic.
The chapters are short enough to keep the interest of any reader, the lack of technical jargon is a dream and allows you to fully enjoy and appreciate the range of expose' as well as relax with the authors words, even allowing for the odd chuckle here and there, something not often found in a philosophy book.
No deep thinking required, no hard slog trying to retain hundreds of minutiae details, just learning made fun, lots of fun as Baggini exposes the fallacies in peoples arguments and we learn both not to make the same mistakes as well as being able to point these errors out to others the next time they argue their case from pure fallacious logic.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
a deceitful book in an ugly tradition
I picked this book up because I'm fascinated and appalled by the misuse of logic, by the misrepresentation of opinions, by the way people in power (in the media as much as in... Read more
Published 3 months ago by A Customer
Critical thinking to combat faulty reasoning, spin and tricksy...
Faulty reasoning, spin and tricksy arguments are used around us all the time. Listing some 100 examples, Julian Bagginis book gives us some much needed tools to cut through some of... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Simon Laub
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