Product Description

Which are the logical tricks that will let you slip through the net when faced with awkward questions? How can you yourself use arguments to deflect difficult situations? Do you recognize all flaws in someone else's argument? This the book the BBC, Andrew Gilligan, Lord Hutton, Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell will not be able to ignore. This is an irresistible guide to clear thinking and understanding of the art of debate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144208 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 200 pages

A.C. Grayling, Introduction
‘Pungent... amusing and enticing.’

Humphrey Carpenter
‘The prize for ideas-ahead-of-their-time should probably go to Schopenhauer.’

About the Author
Anthony Grayling teaches philosophy at Birkbeck College, London and is a Fellow of St Anne's, Oxford. He has a regular column in The Times and Prospect. Arthur Schopenhauer was the first European philosopher to realise the value of Eastern philosophy and give it pride of place in his writings. Fascinated by human behaviour, he wrote extensively on human psychology - such as persuasion and the idea of the will - almost three quarters of a century before Freud. He was born in Germany, and, unusual for a German philosopher, wrote in lucid, ironic and elegant prose. The accessibility of writing led to his rediscovery, first in Britain later elsewhere, towards the end of his life.

Customer Reviews

Short, easy to read and extremely useful
This is, basically, a short primer on rhetorics: how to come off best in arguments, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong. In fact, despite being close to 200 years old, it would quite happily fit into the "Idiot's Guide" series: it is concise, understandable, witty and of great practical use.

In some respects, this book reads a bit like "The Art of War". It is a catalogue of 38 rhetorical "dirty tricks", which include diversion, obfuscation, over-generalisation, mis-categorisation, false syllogism, personal attack etc., with short explanations (from a couple of sentences to 3-4 pages) and illustrative examples. It's all very easy to absorb, and you can easily finish the whole thing in a couple of hours.

There is some argument over whether this book was intended as an out-and-out satire. Undoubtedly, having a dig at the academic establishment was one of the things on Schopenhauer's mind, and much of the book is tongue-in-cheek. This does not make it any less useful. The underlying theme is dead serious: if you cannot recognise and counter-act sophistry and demagoguery, you will end up getting bamboozled into accepting and maybe even endorsing logically unsound arguments - at best losing face, at worst getting conned. This stuff should be taught in schools!

Helping idiots expose themselves as real idiots is the most satisfying part!
I managed to read this book in no less than 2 nights and have already seen remarkable results. I have allowed myself the indulgence of signing up to the odd premium dating sites in order to a) find myself a genuine lady and b) to expose the scam artists.

As I've discovered there is a fine line between the two and this book has helped me keep a cool non-reactive head not allowing myself to let the other party win their argument and control over me.

I have learnt to "not give in" to another person's argument facilitating their own downfall from their own faulty reasoning.

Highly recommended for the price, worth a lot more in my opinion.

What ever I thought it was, it wasn't.
I wasn't too sure what to expect from this book after the other reviews. I can take my wit at a steady pace - I read and enjoyed The Pickwick Papers for goodness sake. But I failed to engage in this at all. I didn't hate it, I just couldn't face reading all of it. So maybe it got funnier or more interesting toward the end. But I doubt it.