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Daily Speculations The Web Site of Victor Niederhoffer & Laurel Kenner Dedicated to the scientific method, free markets, deflating ballyhoo, creating value, and laughter; a forum for us to use our meager abilities to make the world of specinvestments a better place. |
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5/24/04
The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi
Review by Saurabh Singal
The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi is a good book on critical thinking, presenting one's arguments and challenging an adversary's view. As the author remarks in the preface ,"I have written this book from the point of view of one who wishes to deceive, mislead or manipulate others. On the assumption that it takes one to know one, I have found that people are able to detect the misuse or abuse of logic if they are themselves the masters of the art of deception."
In chapter 4, "Presenting Your Case", devises like Appeal to Pity, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Tradition, Appeal to Precedent are introduced. In Chapter 5, "Attacking an Argument", there are examples of how to refute these same appeals to pity, authority, precedent etc. The author also shows how to undermine the opponent using ad hominem attack and the genetic fallacy.
Chapter 6 is about Counterattack and some of the sections are titled Appeal to Ignorance, Defense of Generalization, Quoting out of Context, Inconsistency, Red Herring, Appeal to Self-Interest.
Chapter 7 is titled Cause and Effect Reasoning, and after introducing the four kinds of causes (material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, final cause), the author illustrates Fallacies of Causal Reasoning like concomitant variation and post hoc fallacy.
This book is very useful and interesting reading.