The Thinking Toolbox

A fabulous follow-up to The Fallacy Detective, The Thinking Toolbox has been a delightful addition to our logic studies this year. Again, I appreciate the formatting of these books - a quick lesson with examples and cartoons followed by a quiz. The quiz is typically 10-15 scenarios that relate to topics from the current and previous chapters. So, students circle back around to previous material on a regular basis. This book has a generous and light-hearted way of covering subjects like the difference between friendly, respectful arguing and angry, disrespectful arguing. The word "argument" generally gets a bad rap, but it isn't necessarily negative. It's how we argue that determines whether it's a positive or negative conversation. The book also covers scenarios when it is not appropriate to argue and when pointing out the logic in a situation is counter-productive. This is a lesson we could all probably stand to learn! The examples range from silly to serious and frequently targeting political, theological, and cultural issues: the existence of God, evolution, and taxes.

A side note: These books do have a political and religious bias. It isn't overwhelming. I just see it popping up in the use of particular examples. Examples regarding the existence of God are obviously biased toward faith and belief, rather than atheism (which is fine with us, since we believe in God). This book presents a sample conversation near the beginning that seemed to favor young-earth creationism. One could easily extend the example, though, to discuss responses to the arguments presented. The authors do not take a position, though they do discuss how the creationist was able to make his argument better by planning for the responses of the evolutionist. It's a valuable lesson about looking at your own argument from the opposite perspective. Overall, it's not enough to stop me from recommending this book to others.