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The Critical Thinker

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The Critical Thinker

First Edition   Lederer, © 2016, 274 pages

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About the Author

Peter Lederer person
Peter Lederer is an English instructor from Southern California. He earned his BA and MA in English from San Diego State University, where he specialized in American Literature and Literary Theory. The Critical Thinker is his third book. His previous works include How to Be a Critic: The Academic Art of Interpreting Literature and Film (2011) and Analyzing Argument: A Guide to Critical Reasoning (2012). He has taught English at San Diego Mesa College, the University of San Diego, and UCSD. He has been teaching Critical Reasoning and Writing at Grossmont College for the last nine years. His research and interests are diverse, including film analysis, philosophy, theology, and American politics. He is a generalist who relies on an interdisciplinary approach in his work and methodology.

Description

The Critical Thinker: Examining the Fallacies of Our Convictions is the attempt to provide a clear guide to reasoning and analyzing classic arguments. It is a text and a reader that makes use of analytic philosophy, reductionism, objectivism, and common sense to analyze the way we reason, use language, and argue. Part I of the text is an introduction to the analysis of language and rhetoric, as well as an exploration of the common logical errors committed by arguers; inductive and deductive reasoning are explained. Part II focuses on classic arguments concerning morality, free will, economics, and the existence of God; this section examines the concepts of writers such as Kant and Marx, Bertrand Russell and Ayn Rand, as well as contemporary philosophers, such as Sam Harris and Alfred R. Mele. Part III is a reader containing important works from more than a dozen of the most influential thinkers, including Plato, Hume, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

The text is traditional in the way that it examines rhetoric and argument; however, it proves to be an interesting and controversial read because of some of its conclusions. Many readers will find its existential approach disquieting and its unorthodox tone frank and unfamiliar. The text, though, won't fail in its mission to raise important questions of doubt as readers explore the tenacity of our own, often inept, beliefs

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