Table of Contents

Preface
Origins, Preconceptions and Problems
Contexts of Dialogue
Argument Diagramming
Shorter Case Studies
Longer Case Studies
Fallacies, Faults, Blunders and Errors
Revising the Textbooks
A Theory of Begging the Question
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

This book offers a new theory of begging the question as an informal fallacy, within a pragmatic framework of reasoned dialogue as a normative theory of critical argumentation.

About the Author

DOUGLAS N. WALTON is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg and Fellow-in-Residence of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study. He is the author of numerous works on informal logic and argumentation, including Informal Fallacies

formal Logic

actical Reasoning

and Question-Reply Argumentation (Greenwood Press, 1989).

Reviews

?This study of a single argumentative fallacy should be of broad interest. Walton, having written extensively on informal logic and the traditional fallacies, is a master of the subject. Begging the question is seemingly one of the simpler fallacies, but one that is quite difficult to pin down. Walton exhibits excellent historical scholarship in tracing the origins of the label "begging the question" that has been applied to various circular arguments. The discussion of more than 100 examples said to exhibit the fallacy provides a framework for resolving many issues in informal logic. The key to understanding the sense in which apparently circular arguments are fallacious is the context of the dialogue in which the arguments appear. The bibliography surveys a wide range of relevant literature. This work will be of particular interest to those teaching or taking an introductory logic course. It should interest anyone concerned with effective argumentation, which is most everyone. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections.?-Choice

"This study of a single argumentative fallacy should be of broad interest. Walton, having written extensively on informal logic and the traditional fallacies, is a master of the subject. Begging the question is seemingly one of the simpler fallacies, but one that is quite difficult to pin down. Walton exhibits excellent historical scholarship in tracing the origins of the label "begging the question" that has been applied to various circular arguments. The discussion of more than 100 examples said to exhibit the fallacy provides a framework for resolving many issues in informal logic. The key to understanding the sense in which apparently circular arguments are fallacious is the context of the dialogue in which the arguments appear. The bibliography surveys a wide range of relevant literature. This work will be of particular interest to those teaching or taking an introductory logic course. It should interest anyone concerned with effective argumentation, which is most everyone. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections."-Choice