Phil 401 Readings Course

Title:

ADVANCED ARGUMENTATION:

Legal Argument, Communication, Public Value

argumentation = df The action or operation of inferring a conclusion from propositions premised; methodological employment or presentation of arguments; logical or formal reasoning.

O. E. D., Second Edition.

Course Prerequisite: Phil 115, Elementary Logic.

Description: Advanced argument analysis.

Students will read a series of arguments. Each argument communicates public value in law and jurisprudence. The series itself gives an historical overview of the methodological debate that surrounds communication and public value in law.

Students from any academic major, who wish to immerse themselves in the study of models for good argumentation, will benefit from the course.

Readings will include selections from these sources:

Plato Gorgias

Francis Bacon Atlantis

Barbara Shapiro Beyond Reasonable Doubt and Probable Cause

Richard Posner The Problems of Jurisprudence

Frontiers of Legal Theory

Overcoming Law

Public Intellectuals: a Study of Decline

John Dewey The Public & Its Problems

Louis Menand The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America

American Studies

" Lexington," the Economist

Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, Legal Affairs Columnist

Lionel Trilling: The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent

Ha Jin: War Trash

Students will make extensive use of reference tools, including:

Oxford English Dictionary,Second Edition

The New York Public Library Desk Reference

The Oxford Essential Desk Reference

The Chicago Manual of Style

The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States

Information and comments, please contact: cassandra.pinnick@wku.edu