The Fool's Progress

Being Logical is subtitled ‘A guide to good thinking.’ How quaint in this era of truthiness. The author sets out his task early, by explicitly seeking to emulate The Elements of Style, but for logic.

That may be setting the bar a bit high, but this is a good book nonetheless. The first chapter relates general terms to logic, and is an introduction to logical thought. The second and third chapters are the meat and potatoes of logical thinking, including notation and arguments. Most interesting to me were the last two chapters, which are guides to avoid illogical arguments. The fourth chapter explores sources of illogical thinking, and the last chapter the illogical arguments themselves. Somewhere I have a copy of The Art of Always Being Rights (from the UK) by Schopenhauer; perhaps I should bookend the logic with some jawboning rhetoric.

Seriously, the chapters on illogic are worth the purchase price of this slim little volume alone. Anyone wanting to write seriously should read and re-read those chapters.