The Death Of Argument

The present work is a fair record of work I've done on the fallacies and related matters in the fifteen years since 1986. The book may be seen as a sequel to Fallacies: Selected papers 1972-1982, which I wrote with Douglas Walton, and which appeared in 1989 with Foris. This time I am on my own. Douglas Walton has, long since, found his own voice, as the saying has it; and so have I. Both of us greatly value the time we spent performing duets, but we also recognize the attractions of solo work. If I had to characterize the difference that has manifested itself in our later work, I would venture that Walton has strayed more, and I less, from what has come to be called the Woods-Walton Approach to the study of fallacies. Perhaps, on reflection "stray" is not the word for it, inasmuch as Walton's deviation from and my fidelity to the WWA are serious matters of methodological principle. The WWA was always conceived of as a way of handling the analysis of various kinds of fallacious argument or reasoning. It was a response to a particular challenge [Hamblin, 1970]. The challenge was that since logicians had allowed the investigation of fallacious reasoning to fall into disgraceful disarray, it was up to them to put things right. Accordingly, the WWA sought these repairs amidst the rich pluralisms of logic in the 1970s and beyond.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

A Good Death is a candid and provocative account of the experiences of many terminally ill people Dr Rodney Syme has assisted to end their lives. Over the past thirty years Syme has challenged the law on voluntary euthanasia—at first clandestinely and now publicly—risking prosecution in doing so. He again risks prosecution for writing this book. A Good Death is a moving journey with those who came to Syme for help, and a meditation on what it means in our culture to confront death. It is also a doctor's personal story about the moral dilemmas and ethical choices he faces working within the grey areas of the law. In this important book, Rodney Syme argues for the end of the unofficial 'conspiracy' of silence within the medical profession and the decriminalisation of voluntary euthanasia in Australia. Through Syme's determination to tell the stories of those who he has assisted to die with dignity, A Good Death also draws wider lessons of value for those who find themselves in a similar situation.

This volume details the development and initial evaluation of a supplemental literacy course intended to support at-risk high school students in the US. Developed using design based research (DBR), the course combines argument writing and knowledge building literacy routines to support academic literacy development. Acknowledging the demand for US students to meet academic literacy standards that emphasize explanatory and argumentative writing, the text foregrounds knowledge building as key to effective writing development. Chapters trace the development and implementation of course literacy routines designed using DBR and use whole-class and individual case studies to demonstrate how informational reading, discussion, and argument writing become an activity system to support literacy development. Ultimately, the text has important implications for literacy course design, and the use of knowledge building analysis and DBR in research. The text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators in higher education with an interest in academic literacy education, writing and composition, and secondary education more broadly. Those specifically interested in methodologies relating to classroom teaching and learning as well as argumentation and argument writing will also benefit from this book.

A philosopher refutes our culturally embedded acceptance of death, arguing instead for the desirability of anti-aging science and radical life extension. Ingemar Patrick Linden’s central claim is that death is evil. In this first comprehensive refutation of the most common arguments in favor of human mortality, he writes passionately in favor of antiaging science and radical life extension. We may be on the cusp of a new human condition where scientists seek to break through the arbitrarily set age limit of human existence to address aging as an illness that can be cured. The book, however, is not about the science and technology of life extension but whether we should want more life. For Linden, the answer is a loud and clear “yes.” The acceptance of death is deeply embedded in our culture. Linden examines the views of major philosophical voices of the past, whom he calls “death’s ardent advocates.” These include the Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Lucretius, and Montaigne. All have taught what he calls “the Wise View,” namely, that we should not fear death. After setting out his case against death, Linden systematically examines each of the accepted arguments for death—that aging and death are natural, that death is harmless, that life is overrated, that living longer would be boring, and that death saves us from overpopulation. He concludes with a “dialogue concerning the badness of human mortality.” Though Linden acknowledges that The Case Against Death is a negative polemic, he also defends it as optimistic, in that the badness of death is a function of the goodness of life.