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Overview
The book concedes the postmodernist premise that bias is quite normal in everyday conversational arguments, and that a finding of bias should not, by itself, constitute grounds for criticizing an argument as critically deficient or fallacious. But the book strongly disagrees with the postmodernist conclusion that no standard of rationality can be brought to bear to condemn narrowly interest-based or one-sided arguments as biased. It is argued that in some cases narrow, one-sided partisanship in an argument is justifiably a basis for negative criticism of the worth of the argument.Synopsis
The book concedes the postmodernist premise that bias is quite normal in everyday conversational arguments, and that a finding of bias should not, by itself, constitute grounds for criticizing an argument as critically deficient or fallacious. But the book strongly disagrees with the postmodernist conclusion that no standard of rationality can be brought to bear to condemn narrowly interest-based or one-sided arguments as biased. It is argued that in some cases narrow, one-sided partisanship in an argument is justifiably a basis for negative criticism of the worth of the argument.
Booknews
Walton (philosophy, U. of Winnipeg) accepts that bias is a normal part of everyday conversational arguments, but disagrees with the postmodernist presumption that no standard of rationality can be found to criticize narrowly one-sided arguments. Walton uses a diverse set of examples, such as the abortion and pornography issues, to explain how bias can be used in policy debates. He also examines biased language in advertising, legal, and scientific arguments, to examine how biased language can be used in both pertinent and justifiably criticized ways. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)