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Critical Thinking
Book: Vaughn Lewis and McDonald Chris. The power of critical thinking. Canadian
(5th Edition Oxford University Press).
Problem Sets - Brightspace

Notes
Assesed rational standards (Beliefs)
Beliefs: Stylistic/Aesthetic, Psychological, Moral, Evolutionary

Psychological: anger, resentment, joy or experiences produce a belief

Sociological: how facts about society or social or even economic context produce
a belief

Historical: the role of certain historical facts or events in belief production

Evolutionary:

¿Cómo y porqué? las personas llegan a tener ciertas creencias. Que tanto es
verdad o falso.

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 Evaluar una creencia acorde a los tipos de detonantes, no es lo mismo que
evaluar una creencia acorde a si es verdadero o falso. Lo mismo pasa con la
evaluación de la formación de creencias con esos estándares. Lo que estamos
preocupados en este curso es precisamente eso, la diferencia.
Si hay razones por las cuales una creencia hace sentido, hay una rational basis. It
meets a rational standard.
The latin word ratio refers to reasoning and reasons.

Is a given belief true or false, plausible - likely to be true, implausible - not likely to
be true.
When thinking critically, our focus is the truth or falsity.
What makes something a good reason for holding a belief to be true.
Topic - neutrality allows you to apply it to any dimension of your life in which
beliefs figure.
Filosofía es abstracta - determinar si una evidencia justifica la verdad de una
creencia.
Cognitive bias.
We care about the truth of our beliefs, we care about the rational basis of those
beliefs.

We usually do not evaluate our beliefs, we just obey. uncounscious.

We can spet back and critically appraise them. We have the freedom to reflect
upon tthe truth and rationality of our beliefs.

We can choose the things we believe.

Si lo que piensas te hace sentir mal, es porque esta ligado a una creencia
negativa, no porque sea malo en verdad. Puedes cambiar esa creencia.

When you exercise being aware, you can choose.

Beliefs and reasons are understood as:

Claims

Statements

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 Propositions
Judgements

Assertions
Truth value candidates, or truth evaluable.

A statement can have the possibility of being true or false.

Questions dont assert anything. You dont make a claim. The ask for permission.

Whether something is the case or something is not the case.

Imperative?

Finding out if something is a statement or not

The boundaries of the claim are not the same as the sentences. Exercies the
difference and analyze the text.

Premises and important wording

Premise: any statement in an argument that supports - gives reasons for the truth
of the conclusion.

Conclusion: any statement in an argument supported by premises.

Argument: set of statements are intended to support or give.

Inference: reasoning - from premises to conclusion

Logic: the study of inference and reasoning. It does not exhaust the discipline of
critical thinking tough it is important to do it.

For example: If earth is flat, then earth is flat. Is perfectly fine so far as logic
goes, but its terrible from the point of view of critical thinking.

Figuring out if theres an argument:

1st step: numbering the text

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 2nd step: find the conclusion - it is what the other premises support. Sometimes it
may be the first sentence. Do all the other sentences support the conclusion?
YES. Verify. The premises are being used to support.
3rd step: distinguish the premises.

When it comes to critical thinking, the point is to find the truthfulness.

Connecting words: and, but, or.

Indicator words
They help us to see that theres an argument in a bit of the text.

Two kinds of these words, those that indicate premises and those that indicate
conclusions.

Because

In view of the fact

Given that

The reason being

Seeing that

For

As

As indicated by

Being that

Since

Assuming that

As indicated by

For the reason that

Due to the fact

THESE ARE PREMISE INDICATOR WORDS

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 Conclusion indicators

Therefore

Thus

Which implies that

Consequently

It follows that

We can conclude that

Hence

So

It must be that

As a result

Ergo

Which means that

In consequence

Deductive argument: an argument in which the premises are intended to

guarantee or ensure the truth of the conclusion

Inductive argument: the premises are intended only to make likely or probable the
truth of the conclusion.

Deductive argument: valid vs invalid

An argument in which the truth of all the premises makes necessary the truth
of the conclusion. If all the premises are true, then the conclusion should be
true.

An argument in which: if all the premises are true, then the conclusion must be
true.

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 an argument in which it is impossible for all the premises to be true and the
conclusion is false.

Deductively Invalid arguments

An argument in which the truth if all the premises does not make necessary
the truth of the conclusion.

An argument in which even if all the premises

Sample deductive arguments

Every cat is a member of the genus Felis

Roger is a cat

Therefore, Roger is a member of the genus felis

Assume the truth of the presmises and see if the conclusion is true? Yes the
conclusion has to be true.

1+2=3

3=1+1+1
So 1+2=1+1+1

Validity is not the same as truth

Just because an argument is valid does not mean that either its premises or
conclusion are actually true.

All validity means is IF the premises are true, THEN the conclusion must be.

A valid argument can have

False premises and a true conclusion

False premises and false conclusion

Some false, some true and all its variants

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 Truth-preservation, Entailment and logically
following
Valid arguments are said to be “truth-preserving” because their conclusions
preserve the truth of the premises.

Is this argument valid? Apparently it is?

The pope exists

The pope does not exist

Therefore, cliff is immortal

Soundness and Validity

If an argument is valid and has true premises it is called sound. - Validity and Truth
of premises.
Sound or Unsound.

Our solar system is heliocentric.

Therefore, our solar system is heliocentric.

Fallacy

Inductive argument - the premises are not making certainly truth conclusions -
just likely or probable the truth of the conclusion.
Strong vs. Weak
all inductive arguments are deductively invalid, since their premises do not
guarantee the truth of their conclusions.
Inductive arguments differ in strong or weak.

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 Strong inductive arguments have premises that make their conclusions highly
likely to be true; weak arguments involve premises that make their conclusions
unlikely to be true.
Stronger and weaker are relative terms: an inductive argument may be stronger
than another but no “strong”.
Any inductive argument in which IF the premises are TRUE, then is likely or
probabble that the conclusion is true. - we dont talk about them as being sound.

Also called: Inductively strong argument.

Examples: Pregnancy tests are 97.4% accurate.
I got a positive reading on my test.

Therefore, im likely to be pregnant.

Cogency
Any inductive argument in which it is strong and in which premises are true.

Cogency is the inductive version of soundness for deductive arguments.

How to evaluate arguments

1. Finding out if the argument is deductive or inductive (are almost always

invalid)

2. Finding out if the argument gives good reasons for accepting the conclusion.

A method of evaluation
If the truth of the premises necessitate the truth of the conclusion, then the
argument is deductive and valid.

If not… then, if the truth of the premises make the truth of the conclusion likely or
probable. Then the argument is inductive and strong.
If not, then, if the argument is intended to offer premises that guarantee the truth
of the conclusion, but fail to, then it is invalid.

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 If the argument is intended to offer premises that make probable, likely the truth of
the conclusion, but fail to, then is weak.

Rule 1: If the form of the argument makes it look deductive or inductive, then
assume the argument is intended to be interpreted as it looks.
Rule 2: If the indicator words wake the argument look deductive or inductive, then
assume it is intended to be interpreted as it looks.

Indicator words

Deductive:
It necessarily followa

Inductive
Odds are that

Missing premises
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Patterns of arguments

Critical thinking examines how we think, which is why it can apply to many
different subjects. Critical thinking studies the form of our reasoning.

Abstraction.

Validity is a formal property of arguments.

Rules for symbolizing:

All claims should be symbolized by letters

If two claims

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 Conditional claims - if p then q
Two antecedent

Diagramming - asignarle números a las premises y a las conclusiones para

obtener cierto orden en el argumento. M
Method:

1. Diagram sub arguments

2. Diagram main argument

3. Combine the two diagrams

4. Sub conclusions are in circles inscribed in squares.

When claims conflict

If a claim conflicts with our backround information then we have good reason to
doubt it.

Background information
We should proportion our belief to the evidence

The more evidencce for a claim has in its favor

Impaiment - deterioro
Nuestra percepción y memoria son constructivas, lo que significa que lo que
percibimos y recordamos es hasta cierto punto grado fabricado por nuestra
mente.

Si nuestros poderes de percepción están de alguna manera afectados o

impedidos, tenemos razones para dudar de ellos.
Fallacious arguments

When an argument doesnt succeed, the problems will be that

The premises are false

The reasoning is faulty

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 or both

Certain tupes of defective arguments are used frequently.

These are known as fallacies, and such arguments are said to be fallacious.

Two general categories

Those that have irrelevant

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