Douglas Walton, Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation

M. Lewiński

doi:10.1007/s10503-008-9111-1

Argumentation Mar 2009 Open Access

Douglas Walton, Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation

M. Lewiński

Abstract

Writing a good introductory textbook on argumentation and critical thinking is no easy task.What a model reader of such a book-that is, an undergraduate novice in the problematic of argumentation-needs, is probably a somewhat authoritative guidance to the field.''Authoritative'' means that a textbook should be based on clearly laid out, easily comprehensible and theoretically consistent principles, or fundamentals.''Guidance'' means that at the same time it should not present a ready-made closed doctrine, but instead leave enough room for students' own critical judgment and creativity.These two general requirements that a good textbook should meet are to a certain extent conflicting and hence the need for a skillful balancing of them: being too authoritative, or fundamental, would go exactly against the spirit of critical thinking; being too critical, open-minded and inconclusive would go against the goal of an introductory textbook.This underlying difficulty in argumentation textbook-writing is suggested by the very title of Douglas Walton's Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation.The primary goal of this textbook is ''to sharpen [a] critical attitude'' of its readers by means of ''a basic entry-level introduction to fundamentals'' (p.xi).This introduction, as Walton projects, ''is meant to be an advance over the many other textbooks on the market today that lack the kind of depth needed by a textbook that is based on an established scholarly discipline' ' (p.xi).Quite undeniably, Fundamentals provide some basic methods of critical analysis of everyday argumentation in a way which adroitly avoids the two aforementioned pitfalls of either a principled dogmatism or an inconclusive criticism.Nevertheless, I would like to argue that if it leans towards one of these dangerous extremes, then it

Journal: Argumentation
Published: 2009-03-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10503-008-9111-1
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Topics: argument
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Douglas Walton, Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation

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