The Logic of Real Arguments

The author asserts a "novel method" for handling "complex, important, and hard to handle" arguments. This assertion is an academic's conceit. While his device of employing what he calls the "Assertibility Question" shows promise, his technique of suppositional reasoning which is largely ignored by other scholars in this field, is ignored for a reason: it is not useful.
Although the study of argument is a fascinating and rewarding endeavor, which the author warmly conveys particularly well in an appendixed explanation of scientific method and modal logic, he fails to leave us with an improved methodology for evaluating logic in real arguments. Provides excellent examples of 'scientific' arguments--e.g. Pascal's Wager, Karl Marx's show more challenge to lowering wages, Hume's induction from experience, Karl Popper's falsifiability test, Kuhn's idea of a paradigm. show less