L. Susan Stebbing (1885–1943)
Author of Thinking to Some Purpose
About the Author
Image credit: La France byzantine
Works by L. Susan Stebbing
Introducción a la lógica moderna 2 copies
A Modern Elementary Logic 2 copies
Logic in practice / 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Stebbing, Lizzie Susan
- Birthdate
- 1885-12-02
- Date of death
- 1943-09-11
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Cambridge (Girton College)
University of London (Bedford College) - Occupations
- philosopher
professor - Organizations
- Aristotelian Society (President, 1933-1934)
Mind Association - Relationships
- Johnson, William Ernest (teacher)
Day-Lewis, Cecil (co-author) - Short biography
- L. (Lizzie) Susan Stebbing was one of six siblings brought up by a guardian after the early death of their parents. Her early education was interrupted periodically by ill-health. She read history at Cambridge University, where she became so interested in philosophy (moral sciences) that she decided to pursue further study of it. She earned a master's degree at King's College London and later a D. Litt at Bedford College. In 1915, she became part-owner of a school for girls in Hampstead with her sister and two friends.
She taught there and also held positions at King's College and Bedford College, London, where she was named professor of philosophy in 1933. Her first book, A Modern Introduction to Logic, was published in 1930. With poet C. Day-Lewis, she wrote Imagination and Thinking (1936). Her other books included the popular and influential Thinking to Some Purpose (1939). She was active in the Aristotelian Society with Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and G.E. Moore, and was a founder of the journal Analysis. She died in 1943 at age 57. - Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- North Finchley, Middlesex, England, UK
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
The book is billed as a first aid kit of clear thinking.
This book is a highly accessible field guide to spotting and avoiding bad argumentation. There are so many ways that argumentation and thinking can go wrong. Among those that Stebbing discusses are poor choices of language and insufficient attention to meaning and definition. Another is what she called “potted thinking,” which is the mindless circulation of worn truisms that have the appearance of being reasoned statements and show more contributions but are really so devoid of actual, intentional application that they add very little sustenance to a discussion. Potted thinking is to actual thinking what potted meat is to actual meat (it’s where she got the term). She also warns of propaganda, emotional thinking, poor and misleading illustrations and analogies, exaggeration, appeals to the self-evidence of numbers, and digression.
She also has some hard words for charismatic speakers who spend more time “persuading” than they do “convincing.” The difference is that persuasion is a form of sophistry whereby weak arguments are inflated by moving audiences to beliefs based not on the soundness of the arguments but on the appeal of the presentation. Convincing an audience requires presenting them with the facts, completely, and without distortion. With guidance and time, an audience will work through sound arguments and become convinced of the truth. I understand and am maybe sympathetic to this view of rhetoric as being manipulative but 1) rhetoric is essential to argumentation, and 2) even the most transparent and logical argumentation is rhetorical in that it relies on first moving the audience to accept a particular way of understanding the relationship between statements and the conditions of the world that allow those statements to be true.
Stebbing is an interesting but overlooked historical figure. She can be placed squarely in the tradition of analytic philosophy, having been trained, in part, at Cambridge. She was also the first woman in the UK to have been appointed a full professor in philosophy at Bedford College. She was active between WWI and WWII and was apparently well respected in her time. show less
This book is a highly accessible field guide to spotting and avoiding bad argumentation. There are so many ways that argumentation and thinking can go wrong. Among those that Stebbing discusses are poor choices of language and insufficient attention to meaning and definition. Another is what she called “potted thinking,” which is the mindless circulation of worn truisms that have the appearance of being reasoned statements and show more contributions but are really so devoid of actual, intentional application that they add very little sustenance to a discussion. Potted thinking is to actual thinking what potted meat is to actual meat (it’s where she got the term). She also warns of propaganda, emotional thinking, poor and misleading illustrations and analogies, exaggeration, appeals to the self-evidence of numbers, and digression.
She also has some hard words for charismatic speakers who spend more time “persuading” than they do “convincing.” The difference is that persuasion is a form of sophistry whereby weak arguments are inflated by moving audiences to beliefs based not on the soundness of the arguments but on the appeal of the presentation. Convincing an audience requires presenting them with the facts, completely, and without distortion. With guidance and time, an audience will work through sound arguments and become convinced of the truth. I understand and am maybe sympathetic to this view of rhetoric as being manipulative but 1) rhetoric is essential to argumentation, and 2) even the most transparent and logical argumentation is rhetorical in that it relies on first moving the audience to accept a particular way of understanding the relationship between statements and the conditions of the world that allow those statements to be true.
Stebbing is an interesting but overlooked historical figure. She can be placed squarely in the tradition of analytic philosophy, having been trained, in part, at Cambridge. She was also the first woman in the UK to have been appointed a full professor in philosophy at Bedford College. She was active between WWI and WWII and was apparently well respected in her time. show less
About how to become more aware of one's decision making processes, particular particularly in regard to political and civic questions. Most of the examples are drawn from news reports and speeches regarding European politics of the mid 1930s. The highlight is a chapter where Stebbing dissects an anti-suffrage speech from 1910. The voice is that of a conversational and somewhat chiding lecture.
Thinking to some purpose: A manual of first-aid to clear thinking, showing how to detect illogicalities in other people's mental processes and avoid them in our own. by L. Susan Stebbing
I'm pretty sure this dusty tome is out of print. I bought a reprint from India. I think most modern educated people would find many of the concepts here to be platitudes, but the author writes very clearly (possibly at the apex of 20th-century grammar and usage), and the examples from 1930s UK political figures are fascinating; mostly because these important people and their prewar concerns were so overshadowed by what was to come.
This ISBN is for a 2022 edition. There is no ISBN for the 1951 Pelican paperback
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