“Bad Arguments” (a book by Ali Almossawi)

I received a new book today as a present[i]: “(An illustrated book of) Bad Arguments” (Ali Almossawi 2013) [ii]. I wish I’d had it for the critical thinking class I just completed! Here’s the illustration it gives for “hasty generalization”.

The author allows it to be accessed here, I just discovered.

But it’s not just a clever book of cartoons: it does a better job than most texts in its conception of bad inductive arguments. Recall my post, “A critical Look at Critical Thinking”–prior to the start of my class–in which I explained why critical thinking is actually a sophisticated affair that philosophers have never fully sorted out. (We may teach it before “baby (symbolic) logic”, but it’s really very grown-up.) I gave my recommendation there as to where probability ought to enter in understanding bad (inductive) arguments, and Almossawi’s conception is in sync with mine[iii]. The inductive qualification is on the mode of inferring, rather than on the conclusion (or inferential claim H) itself*. The difference might seem subtle, but I swear it’s at the heart of many contemporary controversies about statistical inference, and the most serious among them.