The Elements of Reasoning

The Powers of Reasoning.

Elemental Questions.

Pluto and Plato.

Fine Language and Geometry

Ethos, Logos, and Pathos.

The End of Reasoning.

Internal and External Reasoning: An Example.

Rhetorical Inventions Beyond “For or Against.”

Reasoning Practice.

2.Invention: Places, Paths, and Structures of Reasoning.

An Introduction to the Specific Elements.

Places of Reasoning: Topoi.

Paths of Reasoning: The Stases.

Structures of Reasoning.

From Invention to Judgment.

Stases and Time.

Reasoning Practice.

3.Conjectures: Places to Begin.

The Primary Stasis.

A Trove of Conjectural Claims.

How to Spot a Conjectural Claim.

Three Types of Conjectural Claims.

Reasoning Practice.

4.Definitions: They Can Change Everything.

Rhetoric and Definitions.

Dictionary Definitions.

Neologisms.

Stipulative Definitions.

Specific Means of Defining.

Reasoning Practice.

5.Causes and Consequences: A Sense of How the World Works.

How Could This Happen?

Reasoning from Effect to Cause.

Reasoning from Cause to Effect.

Antecedence-Subsequence.

Post-Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc.

Chance as a Causal Factor.

Chance and Causality, Myth and Cosmology.

Some Guideline for Causal Reasoning.

Causality and the Ends of Reasoning.

Reasoning Practice.

6.Values: Judgments Grounded in Nature and Consequences.

Criteria.

Supporting Value Claims: Nature and Consequences.

One Example of Claims about Value: Music.

Another Example: Family Farms.

Weighting Criteria.

Guidelines for Reasoning about Values.

Reasoning Practice.

7.Procedures and Proposals: Actualizing the Potential for Change.

Ready?

“Houston: We Have a Problem.”

A Modest Proposal.

Feasibility, Plausibility, Credibility.

Guidelines for Reasoning about Procedures and Proposals.

Reasoning Practice.

8.Becoming a Citizen Critic: Where Rhetoric Meets the Road.

Diversions of Reasoning.

Spectator Culture, Consumer Culture, Democratic Culture.

Reasoning to Invoke Citizen Critics.

What Is a Citizen? And a Citizen of What?

The Enthymemes of This Book.

Reasoning Practice.

Index.