{"id":118,"date":"2008-05-13T21:51:35","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T01:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/13\/review-of-aristotle-and-an-aardvark-go-to-washington\/"},"modified":"2008-09-22T21:48:31","modified_gmt":"2008-09-23T01:48:31","slug":"review-of-aristotle-and-an-aardvark-go-to-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"Review of Aristotle and an Aardvark Go To Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aristotle_and_aardvark.jpg\"\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington:\u00a0 Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes, <\/em>by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein<\/p>\n

Abrams Image, New York, 2007.\u00a0 191 pages.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.aristotleandanaardvark.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.platoandaplatypus.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.abramsimage.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.hnabooks.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s a book about logic, explaining formal and informal fallacies.\u00a0 Doesn’t that sound delightful?\u00a0 Oh, perhaps I’m in the minority with that opinion.<\/p>\n

However, where your run-of-the-mill logic textbook will illustrate its points with p’s and q’s and made-up arguments, this book uses statements made by actual politicians to illustrate the fallacies.\u00a0 Where those don’t make the point clearly enough, they’ve also used jokes.<\/p>\n

The authors say themselves:<\/p>\n

“The field of logic — much of it rooted in the writings of the early Greeks — demonstrates what rules need to be followed to go from true propositions to correct conclusions.\u00a0 Or to put it the other way around, it shows how we can be tricked by logical fallacies, what logicians call formal fallacies.\u00a0 Epistemology instructs us in what we can deem knowable and why, including how we can sensibly talk about what we are able to know.\u00a0 That field has given rise to conceptual analysis, a rigorous technique for analyzing language and, well, digging out bullshit in all its varieties.\u00a0 As to rhetoric and psychology, they show how our minds and emotions can be manipulated by loaded language. . . .<\/p>\n

“But hold the phone!\u00a0 Lest anyone think this stuff is dry as a prairie patty, you should know that we are of the Philogag School of Philosophy, the school that maintains that any philosophical concept worth understanding has a great gag lurking inside it.\u00a0 As we shovel our way through the political patty field, we will uncover not only deceptions, but — more importantly — jokes that point at them and say ‘Gotcha!'”<\/p>\n

I challenge anyone to read this book without laughing out loud!<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

This review is posted on the main site at:<\/p>\n

www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/aristotle_aardvark.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington:\u00a0 Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein Abrams Image, New York, 2007.\u00a0 191 pages. http:\/\/www.aristotleandanaardvark.com\/ http:\/\/www.platoandaplatypus.com\/ http:\/\/www.abramsimage.com\/ http:\/\/www.hnabooks.com\/ Here’s a book about logic, explaining formal and informal fallacies.\u00a0 Doesn’t that sound delightful?\u00a0 Oh, perhaps I’m in the minority with that opinion. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-issues","category-humorous","category-nonfiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}