Review
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“Excellent: explanations are very clear; end of section exercises
reinforce the material in the text very effectively; diagrams and
inset examples are also helpful” —Victoria Rogers, Indiana
University- Perdue University Indianapolis
“I really liked the way Waller uses a court of law to organize
this text.” —Eli Kanon, University of North Florida
“I have been using Waller's book (4th and 5th editions) for
years and I find it is an excellent way to introduce critical
thinking to students and to show the importance of it in daily
life. I especially like how he reasons out in words truth table
reasoning rather than simply teaching it as a plug and chug
methods.” —Jean Miller, Virginia Tech
“I like the pedagogy of the book. Having used it in the past, it
worked quite well.” —Glenn Sanford, Sam Houston State University
“The first half of the text focuses on how to recognize and
construct a good argument, while the second half of the text
deals with how to recognize and avoid bad arguments." —Chris
Clayton, Portland Community College
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About the Author
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In This Section:
I. Author Bio
II. Author Letter
I. Author Bio
Dr. Bruce N. Waller is Chair of the Department of Philosophy
and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University. He received
his Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. His other works include Consider Ethics: Theory, Readings,
and Contemporary Issues, Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict,
You Decide! Current Debates in Criminal Justice, You Decide!
Current Debates in Contemporary Moral Problems, You Decide!
Current Debates in Introductory Philosophy, You Decide! Current
Debates in Ethics, Coffee and Philosophy: A Conversational
Introduction to Philosophy with Readings, and Against Moral
Responsibility.
II. Author Letter
Dear Colleagues,
I’ve taught a wide range of philosophy courses, including Intro
to Philosophy, Bioethics, Logic, and Ethical theory. All those
courses are fun and I’ve been lucky to have students who seem to
genuinely enjoy studying philosophy. The course I teach most
often, Critical Thinking, is the course my students usually enjoy
the most. It’s a course in which you can actually watch students
become significantly more confident and more effective in
critical thinking. Above all, it is a course in which students
never pose that dreadful philosophical query: Is this course
really relevant to my life?
It’s no accident that courtroom dramas dominate popular
television. The courtroom an ideal setting for the careful study
of critical thinking: first, because students find the setting
interesting and have no doubt of its importance; and second,
because so many key issues in critical thinking are played out in
jury deliberations. Jurors must be able to detect misleading and
ambiguous statements, separate relevant from irrelevant material,
keep in mind who does and does not bear the burden of proof,
understand the judge’s instructions, weigh the strengths and
weaknesses of appeals to authority, and not only identify
fallacies but also understand and appreciate legitimate
arguments.
The 6th edition of Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict, like
the previous editions, uses the courtroom and the jury room as a
laboratory for work on critical thinking. But as in earlier
editions, it is clear that the critical deliberations of the
courtroom are not the only place that critical thinking is
important, and they are certainly not the settings in which most
students will use their critical thinking skills most of the
time. Critical thinking is also important in evaluating
commercials, deciding how to vote and considering major social
issues. Thus while Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict, 6th
editionuses the courtroom and the jury room to study and exercise
critical thinking skills, the great majority of the examples and
exercises come from other sources: advertisements, political
campaigns, letters to the editor, editorials, and ordinary
discussions.
There are new exercises and examples in every chapter of the new
edition, but the most significant change from earlier editions is
more attention to cooperative critical thinking. The adversarial
system that dominates legal proceedings and drives political
campaigns is often valuable. Adversarial argument is by no means
the only type of argument, discussion and inquiry we pursue, and
even the legal process has in many cases moved toward more
cooperative proceedings. And of course, in discussions among
friends and family and colleagues, we often find a cooperative
discussion, which seeks shared benefits and emphasizes common
goals, more valuable than an adversarial process which results in
winners and losers.
I would be delighted to hear from anyone reviewing, teaching, or
studying this book, and am always happy to receive suggestions
for improvements as well as new examples for analysis. My email
is bnwaller@ysu.edu.
Cheers,
Bruce N. Waller
Youngstown State University
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