SSH 105 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Bes, Soundness, Insomnia

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Sciences and Humanities
• Course: SSH 105
• Professor: Andrew Hunter

Document Summary

You come into this world without opinions or beliefs, and now your head is overflowing with them. Some of your beliefs truly inform you and some blind you. This kind of question, a question about the quality of your beliefs, is the fundamental concern of critical thinking. Critical thinking: the systematic evaluation or formulation of beliefs or statements by rational standards: critical thinking is systematic because it involves distinct procedures and methods, not just gut feelings. It"s used to evaluate existing beliefs and formulate new ones. It evaluates beliefs in terms of how well they are supported by reasons: critical thinking focuses on not what causes a belief, but whether it is worth believing. While sociology and psychology study why we believe what we believe, critical thinking is about which beliefs are worth having. We assume a belief is worth having provided its most likely true.