Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking

Rating:
Summary: Basic critical thinking made easy
Review: Ruggiero sets down a good basis for beginning critical thinkers and is innovative in his categorizing of logical errors. His explanations of knowledge and relativism are insightful and great for a basic overview of those particular topics. He nearly contradicts himself in a few places, that is the only major flaw in this text. I agree with many things in this book and disagree with a few things too, but I believe that this book will open up the world of critical thinking and philosophy for anyone who is just beginning to delve into those areas. The readability of this book also adds to its appeal. I encourage anyone reading this book to reflect and reread much of it and practice critical thinking by not taking Ruggiero's word for everything, check it out for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Basic critical thinking made easy
Review: Ruggiero sets down a good basis for beginning critical thinkers and is innovative in his categorizing of logical errors. His explanations of knowledge and relativism are insightful and great for a basic overview of those particular topics. He nearly contradicts himself in a few places, that is the only major flaw in this text. I agree with many things in this book and disagree with a few things too, but I believe that this book will open up the world of critical thinking and philosophy for anyone who is just beginning to delve into those areas. The readability of this book also adds to its appeal. I encourage anyone reading this book to reflect and reread much of it and practice critical thinking by not taking Ruggiero's word for everything, check it out for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Beyond Feelings is an Effective, Educational Tool
Review: This is a book in informal logic. It initially sets out to explain how our opinions are influenced by our environment (the process of socialization), and then proceeds to explain the logical stuff, which is the core of the book. There is a lot of content here, and every chapter could be expanded upon significantly with further clarifications and examples. However, the mission of the book is to give an introduction to the subject, and it succeeds in this mission. I used this book to teach a critical thinking course. I liked it and so did the students. It may seem a little dry at times, because the content is so condensed, but the book is quite effective nevertheless.

Rating:
Summary: Instructional Tool
Review: This is an excellent book for teaching and learning the basics of critical thinking.