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Notes On Logic and Critical Thinking

This document introduces logic and critical thinking skills. It notes that arguments are a key part of philosophy and everyday life, used to persuade others. The author aims to provide tools to analyze arguments critically to distinguish good arguments that provide rational reasons from bad or fallacious ones that may effectively persuade without reason. John of Salisbury is quoted saying logic gives mastery over philosophy by organizing it and preventing philosophy from being lifeless without logical principles. The objectives are to learn to recognize different types of arguments and evaluate them by examining premises and inferences.

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Akif Jamal
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151 views

Notes On Logic and Critical Thinking

This document introduces logic and critical thinking skills. It notes that arguments are a key part of philosophy and everyday life, used to persuade others. The author aims to provide tools to analyze arguments critically to distinguish good arguments that provide rational reasons from bad or fallacious ones that may effectively persuade without reason. John of Salisbury is quoted saying logic gives mastery over philosophy by organizing it and preventing philosophy from being lifeless without logical principles. The objectives are to learn to recognize different types of arguments and evaluate them by examining premises and inferences.

Uploaded by

Akif Jamal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Notes on Logic and Critical Thinking

Clark Wolf
Iowa State University
[email protected]

Part I: Introduction to Arguments.

“Logic gives great promise. For it provides a mastery of invention and judgment, as well
as supplies ability to divide, define, and prove with conviction. It is such an important
part of philosophy that it serves the other parts in much the same way as the soul does
the body. On the other hand, all philosophy that lacks the vital organizing principle of
logic is lifeless and helpless.”
-John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, Book II Ch 6.

Introductory Remarks:

Philosophical writing is made up of arguments, and learning philosophy involves


learning how to make, understand, and evaluate arguments. But philosophers are not
the only people who use arguments: whether you realize it or not, you are presented
with arguments every day. Politicians try to persuade us, newspaper editorials urge us,
friends and teachers present us with new information and alternative points of view.
Whenever someone tries to persuade you to believe something, you are being offered
an argument.

Some arguments are good, and some arguments are bad: Good arguments are
rationally persuasive: they provide us with good reasons to believe the conclusions
they lead us to draw. Bad or fallacious arguments, on the other hand, do not provide
with good reasons to believe their conclusions. When we are presented with a bad
argument, we do not gain any good reasons to believe the conclusion.

Still, some bad arguments are effectively persuasive: even though they do not provide
good reasons for their conclusions, people are bamboozled into accepting these
conclusions anyway. To say that such arguments are not rationally persuasive is to say
that they provide no good reasons, no rational ground for believing that the conclusion
is true. But we are not perfectly rational creatures, and we don’t always recognize when
we’re being bamboozled.

These notes will focus on some tools that may help us out: tools we can use to critically
analyze arguments with which we are presented so that we will not easily be
bamboozled. Since we are presented with arguments in many different contexts, these
tools are valuable both in philosophical and in non-philosophical contexts. But since
philosophical writing is almost entirely constituted by arguments, these tools of critical
analysis are especially important for students of philosophy.
John of Salisbury, author of the quote you encountered at the beginning of this section,
regarded logic as the science that studies making and evaluating good arguments.
Philosophical writing without logic, he claimed, is dead: like a body without a soul, as he
put it. Ideally, philosophical writing should be clear and precise; it should appeal to our
desire for truth, not to our hopes or illusions. And good philosophical arguments should
offer good reasons to believe the conclusions they offer us.

We need to be able to distinguish good arguments from bad or fallacious ones. But
how can we recognize when arguments are good? How can we avoid being taken in by
arguments that are bad? In this unit, we will consider several varieties of argument, and
standards for their evaluation.

Objectives:
-You should learn to recognize and distinguish arguments of several different
types: deductive, inductive, and abductive.
-You should learn to distinguish between the form and content of an argument.
-You should learn do define key concepts: argument, premise, conclusion,
evidence, rationally persuasive argument, fallacy, valid argument, invalid
argument, inductive argument, abductive argument, conditional statement,
circular argument, redundancy theory of truth.
-You should learn to evaluate arguments, by distinguishing premises from
conclusion, putting the argument in standard form, and critically examining the
premises and the inference pattern.

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