Introduction
Part 1: Fundamentals of Good Reasoning
A. Basic Components of Arguments
- Arguments, Premises, and Conclusions
- Premise Indicators, Serial and Convergent Premises, and Argument Diagrams
- Dependent/Linked Premises
B. Obstacles and Core Concepts
- Systems of Belief and Kinds of Audiences
- Biases and Conflicts of Interest
- Confirmation Bias, Total Evidence Requirement, and Falsificationism
- Relevance: Contextual Relevance: Straw man, Red Herring, and Moving the Goalposts
- Acceptability: Burden of Proof and Conditions of Premise Acceptability
- Assessing Online Sources and Debunking
Part 2: Basics of Formal Reasoning
- Validity, Soundness, Sufficiency, and Inductive vs Deductive Arguments
- Conditional Reasoning 1: Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens.
- Hidden Assumptions, Enthymemes, and Making Inductive Arguments Valid
Part 3: Relevance, Acceptability, and Relativity Revisited: How to Mislead without Lying
- Vagueness, Ambiguity, Fallacies of Equivocation, Composition, and Division
- Failures of Relevance 1: Ad Hominem, Genetic Fallacy, Poisoning the Well, Tu Quoque, Argument from Ancient Wisdom/Tradition, Naturalistic Fallacies
- Failures of Relevance 2: Ad Populum (Appeal to Popularity), Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Unqualified Authority
- Misleading with Language: Comparisons, Weasel Words, Enthymemes, and Other Rhetorical Tricks
- Relativity: Misleading with Numbers 1
Part 4: Inductive Reasoning and Common Argument Structures
- Generalizations and Associated Problems: Part 1
- Generalizations, Polls, and Measurement Errors: Part 2
- Statistical Syllogisms and Mean, Median, and Distribution
- Causal Reasoning 1: Mill’s Methods and Common Errors
- Causal Reasoning 2: Abductive Reasoning and More Common Errors
- Pseudoscience vs Science: Examples and Causes of Belief
- Scientific Reasoning and Clinical Trial Design
- Causal Reasoning 3: Arguments from Ignorance and Personal Incredulity, and Anomaly Hunting