Hard Thinking: The Reintroduction of Logic to Everyday Life

(Paperback)

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Too many college students lack the power to reason and argue effectively. Hard Thinking allows students to rebuild their confidence in the possibility of objective reasoning, by challenging contemporary cliches about the limits of objectivity and the relativity of value judgements. An entertaining, clearly written text for courses in logic, rhetoric, critical thinking, and English composition, Hard Thinking presents dialogues that reproduce commonly used 'argument stoppers' (Who are you to think that you know the truth Isn't it all relative Isn't it all subjective), and subjects them to scrutiny. The text teaches students how to avoid the pitfalls of 'soft' or sloppy thinking, enabling them to be better readers, better arguers, and more critical consumers of quantitative data.

Reviews

Mullen effectively combines logic, epistemology, and good old fashioned common sense. The dialogues and examples are telling; the explanations clear and to the point. The book articulates, defends, and exemplifies all the important features of 'hard thinking'. Many texts purport to aid in the teaching of thinking; this one will clearly succeed. -- Harvey Siegel, University of Miami
Not only does Mullen's text challenge students to do some hard thinking, but it explains why they should and it shows them how. . . . [T]he text includes strong chapters on both traditional and modern formal logic. As a result, this book should prove suitable for a wide variety of courses. -- Bruce Umbaugh, Webster University
Ideally a logic text should encourage not only criticism of thinking, but critical thinking itself. To its great credit, Hard Thinking does both. -- Nicholas Rescher

Author Bio

John D. Mullen is professor of philosophy at Dowling College in Oakdale, New York. He is the co-author, with Byron Roth, of Decision Making: Its Logic and Practice (Rowman & Littlefield, 1992).