ABSTRACT
The focus of this book is written and spoken ways of persuading us to do things and to believe things. Every day we are bombarded with messages apparently telling us what to do or not to do, what to believe or not to believe: buy this soft drink; eat that breakfast cereal; vote for Mrs Bloggs; practise safe sex; don’t drink and drive; don’t use drugs; boycott goods from this country or that; vivisection is murder; abortion is murder; meat is murder; aliens have visited the earth; the economy is sound; capitalism is just; genetically modified crops are safe; etc. Some messages we just ignore, some we unreflectively obey and some we unreflectively reject. Others we might think about and question, asking ‘why should I do, or
• Beginning to think critically 4
• Aspects of meaning 9 Rhetorical force • Implicature
• Standard form 10
• Identifying conclusions and premises 12 Identifying conclusions • Several points make the identification of conclusions an easier task • Identifying premises
• Arguments and explanations 18
• Intermediate conclusions 20
for doing what we are being enjoined to do, or for believing what we are being enjoined to believe: Why should I vote for Mrs Bloggs, or eat this particular breakfast cereal? Why should I believe that meat is murder, or that the economy is sound? When we ask for a reason in this way we are asking for a justification for taking the action recommended or accepting the belief – not just a reason, but a good reason – that ought to motivate us to act or believe as we are recommended to do. We might be told, for example, that Wheetybites are a nutritious, sugar-free, low-fat breakfast cereal; if this is so, and we want to eat a healthy breakfast, then we’ve been given a good reason to eat Wheetybites. If, on the other hand, we are given only state-of-the-art marketing techniques – for example, images of good-looking people happily eating Wheetybites with bright red strawberries out of fashionable crockery – then, although an attempt has been made to persuade us to buy Wheetybites, it would not appear that any attempt has been made to provide good reasons for doing so.
