Mario's Philosophy
Terms
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- Values (logical reasoning)
- ideas that one thinks are worthwhile
- ⬢ Weak Sense vs. Strong Sense critical thinking
- o Weak sense critical thinking is when you defend your own arguments. Strong sense critical thinking is when you use your skills to evaluate and revise all claims and beliefs, particularly your own.
- ⬢ The Five Elements of Reasoning- IEAIC
- o Issue, Evidence, Assumption, Inference, Conclusion
- ⬢ Panning for Gold vs. Sponging Approach to critical thinking
- o Sponging Approach is taking in all the information. Panning for Gold Approach is taking in essential elements of thought and using them to structure coherent ideas, patterns of meaning.
- ⬢ The Two Types of Issues in Critical Thinking
- o Prescriptive: Start with should or ought, prescribing a specific course of action. o Descriptive: Describe something that already exist (Do not take a specific side).
- ⬢ Missing the Point
- o Mistake a statement for the conclusion, but it is not really the conclusion and the reader starts spinning their wheels and gets frustrated, and thus makes bad arguments.
- ⬢ Reverse Logic
- o Treating the reasons as an afterthought
- Ambiguity:
- A term that has multiple possible meanings, based on the context, and it is so uncertain that it would change the way you view the conclusion.
- Abstraction in Critical Thinking:
- A term becomes more and more abstract as it refers less and less to specific instances.
- ⬢ Context and Three Forms of Meaning
- o Context: Author’s background, traditional uses of the term within particular controversy and the words and statement preceding and following possible ambiguity. o Three Forms of meaning: 1. Synonyms 2. Examples 3. Definition by Specific Criteria
- ⬢ Loaded Language
- o Language that an author uses to stimulate a certain emotion.
- Reasoning:
- Process by which the author moves from the evidence to the conclusion
- Argument:
- The main point that the author is trying to make.
- Evidence:
- Evidence is ideas, facts, statistics, beliefs, etc. that are used to support a conclusion
- ⬢ The What and the Why of the matter
- o The what is the conclusion and the evidence is the why
- ⬢ Two Types of Arguments and the differences
- o Inductive: An argument in which if all the premises are true, then the conclusion probably follows o Deductive: An argument in which if all the premises are true, then the conclusion necessarily follows
- ⬢ Three Laws of Thought
- o Law of Identity: States that a term must have the same meaning throughout an argument. o Law of Contradiction: One cannot assert and deny the same thing of the same contender class. o Law of the Excluded Middle: A is either B or not B
- The Five Propositions: CHADC
- Catagorical Hypothetical Alternative Disjunctive Conjunctive
- Hasty Generalization
- A person draws a conclusion about a large group based on experiences with only a few members of the group
- ⬢ Two Notions that Determine Truth in Logic:
- o Consistency and Possibility
- Truth:
- A sentence is logically true if and only if it is impossible for it to be false; that is the denial of the sentence is inconsistent.
- Falsity:
- A sentence is logically false if and only if it is impossible for it to be true; that is, the sentence is inconsistent
- Consistency:
- A sentence is consistent if and only if it is possible that it is true. A sentence is inconsistent if and only if it is not consistent. That is, if and only if it is impossible that it is true
- Red Herring Fallacy
- When you throw an irrelevant issue into an argument in order to draw fire away from the additional argument as a distraction, leaving the original argument unresolved
- Indeterminacy:
- A sentence is logically indeterminate if and only if it is neither logically true nor logically false.
- Logical Equivalence:
- Two sentences are logically equivalent, if and only if, it is impossible for one sentence to be true while the other sentence is false; that is, if and only If it is impossible for the 2 sentences to have different truth values.
- ⬢ The Three Determinations of Possibility
- 1. Logical 2. Physical 3. Technological
- ⬢ Strengthening vs. Weakening arguments
- o To weaken the author’s argument, break down the assumption o To strengthen the author’s argument, shore up the assumption.
- Ad Hominem:
- An attack, or an insult on the person rather than directly on the person’s reasons.
- Slippery Slope:
- Making the assumption that a proposed step will set off an uncontrollable chain of undesirable events, when the procedures exist to prevent such a chain of evidence.
- Equivocation:
- A key word is used with two or more meanings in an argument, such that the argument fails to make sense once the shifts in meanings are recognized.
- Appeal to Emotion:
- Using loaded language to distract readers from the relevant reasons and evidence.
- Straw Person:
- Distorting our opponent’s point of view so that it is easy to attack; thus we attack a point of view that does not truly exist.
- Either or False Dilemma:
- Assuming only two alternatives when there are more than two.
- ⬢ Metaphor chain of reasoning
- o A train moving forward best describes reasoning. Issue, Evidence, Assumption, Inference, Conclusion(IEAIC)
- ⬢ Objective of Critical Thinking:
- o To judge the acceptability or worth of conclusions
- Begging the Question:
- An argument in which the conclusion is assumed in the reasoning
- Assumption:
- An unstated idea that the arguer takes for granted as the basis for linking the evidence to the conclusion.
- Trivial Assumption:
- An assumption that is self evident.
- Inference:
- The believing of one idea because it is well supported by other ideas.
- Values:
- Ideas that one believes to be worthwhile.
- Fallacy:
- An error in reasoning
- Syllogism:
- A standard argument form. ⬢ P>Q P Q
- proposition
- a unit of reasoning that is expressed in a declarative sentence.
- Conclusion
- the message the speaker or writer wishes you to accept
- Two types of Issues
- Prescriptive: what "should" be Descriptive: what "is"