Why read Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent?

Book cover of Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent

Book description

When should I change my mind? What can I believe and what must I doubt? In this new "philosophy of good reasons" Wayne C. Booth exposes five dogmas of modernism that have too often inhibited efforts to answer these questions. Modern dogmas teach that "you cannot reason about values" and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Deirdre N. McCloskey

Author

Booth was a professor of English at the University of Chicago and a president of the Modern Language Association. Surprisingly, he wrote this elegant book showing that Cartesian doubt as the basis of science (or of anything else) is silly, not a dogma that anyone can actually live by. Like the other books here, he shows even science to have—or course—a “rhetoric,” that is, “the art of discovering good reasons, finding what really warrants assent because any reasonable person ought to be persuaded by what has been said.”

From Deirdre's list on The best books on the rhetoric of science (from a distinguished professor).