Thinking to Some Purpose

'I am convinced of the urgent need for a democratic people to think clearly without the distortions due to unconscious bias and unrecognized ignorance. Our failures in thinking are in part due to faults which we could to some extent overcome were we to see clearly how these faults arise. It is the aim of this book to make a small effort in this direction.' - Susan Stebbing, from the Preface Despite huge advances in education, knowledge and communication, it can often seem we are neither well-trained nor well practised in the art of clear thinking. Our powers of reasoning and argument are less confident that they should be, we frequently ignore evidence and we are all too often swayed by rhetoric rather than reason. But what can you do to think and argue better? First published in 1939 but unavailable for many years, Susan Stebbing's Thinking to Some Purpose is a classic first-aid manual of how to think clearly, and remains astonishingly fresh and insightful. Written against a