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Topology in Informal Logic: Slippery Slopes and Black Holes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Norman Swartz
Norman Swartz
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Extract

The commonalities of Douglas Walton's Slippery Slope Arguments and James Davies's Ways of Thinking are obvious: both are written by Canadian philosophers; both lie within the broad field of informal logic; and both make appeals in support of dialogical reasoning. But there the similarities end. The former is the work of a prolific author writing a treatise focussing narrowly on one topic within informal logic; the latter is the product of a newcomer to book-writing, and his is a textbook intended for beginning students.

Type
Critical Notices/Études critiques
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Fall 1995 , pp. 797 - 806
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1995

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References

Notes

1 It would also have profited from a copy editor who was sensitive to misplaced modifiers. For example: “This technique developed into the technique used by Socrates in the early dialogues called the elenchus” (p. 23). And: “in an everyday discussion of a controversial topic like drug abuse by nonexperts” (p. 78).

2 Swartz, Norman, “A Guide for the Disputatious,” Dialogue, 30, 1–2 (1991): 123–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Walton, Douglas, Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

4 Walton points out that some informal logic texts treat the slippery slope argument exclusively as a fallacy. But then, true to his style, he repeats the point time and again (e.g., on pp. 2, 13, 15, 29, 103, 207, 242, 280, etc.).

5 For the latter, “issues-focussed” approach to slippery slope arguments, see Lamb's, DavidDown the Slippery Slope: Arguing in Applied Ethics (London: Croom Helm, 1988).Google Scholar Walton's and Lamb's books are remarkable complements of one another.

6 Popper, Karl, Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic Books, 1962), p. 35, italics added.Google Scholar