PHIL 2100 Study Guide - Final Guide: Extraordinary Rendition, List Of Fallacies, Critical Thinking
13 Feb 2019
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PHIL 2100 critical thinking
Lecture 1
Where do you beliefs come from?
● Parents family
● Friends community
● Places of worship
Our lives are defined by our actions and choices and our actions and choices are defined by our
thoughts and beliefs
● If we don't choose our beliefs carefully, we're giving up control of our own lives
○ To critically examine your beliefs is to critically examine your life
Reasoning Errors
We all want to think that our acceptance of each of our views is well reasoned
● However, we often make mistakes in our judgments, draw wrong conclusions and form
wrong opinions about people and issues
Cognitive bias
● is a common source if such reasoning errors and it has been extensively studied by
psychologists
● We judge facts differently depending on how they are presented to us
● Consider the following
○ The struggling company managed to save 300 out of 1000 jobs
○ The company is laying off 700 of their 1000 workers
● Euphemisms are used to take advantage of or exploit this particular cognitive bias -
using other words to describe a particular event as good or bad
○ Enhanced interrogation methods = torture
○ Pro-choice vs pro-life = abortion
○ Extraordinary rendition - CIA agents torture in different country
○ Collateral damage - civilian deaths in war
● Minimize negative effects of a phrase
In general, we tend to overestimate how common dramatic events are and underestimate
effects of boring events
Critical thinking
● The systematic evaluation and formulation of beliefs by rational standards
● It provides us the tools to analyze claims views and beliefs particularly the arguments
that support such claims
Statement
● A sentence that expresses a claim or an assertion is called a statement
● The “something” (claim or an assertion) that a statement expresses is called a
proposition
● A proposition is whatever can be asserted or denied
● A statement is a sentence or part of a sentence that expresses something true or false
Argument
● An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition
● The connectedness is such that some of the statements serve as reasons or premises
for one statement which is the conclusion
●The conclusion is the claim or assertion that the argument is intended to establish
●The premises are the statements that are presented as reason for the conclusion
Premise 1. To be a lawyer you must pass bar exam
Premise 2. Cousin vinny is a lawyer
Conclusion: vinny passed bar exam
Lecture 2.1 - argument basics
Two main parts
● Premise and a conclusion
Inference
● The process of reasoning from premises to conclusion
● Whenever a conclusion is drawn from some premises, we can say inference has
occurred
Conclusion indicators
● Thus
● In conclusion
● Therefore
Premise indicators
● Since
● Because
● Given that
Standardizing argument
● Standardizing an argument means writing the premise and conclusion in standard form
Explanation
● Explains an account intended to show how something came to be a fact
● These are not disputable
● An argument has reasons to support a claim that is controversial
Enthymemes
● Is a statement in which one or more premises or the conclusion are left out of the
argument.
Lecture 3.2 - deductive arguments
Persuading or reasoning?
Good arguments appeal to reason they that it is reasonable to accept the conclusions given the
premises
Persuasion is not always based on reasoning a good persuader may appeal to emotions
prejudices fears and sometimes may employ deliberate falsehoods
Deductive validity
● A deductive argument that succeeds in providing conclusive support for its conclusion is
said to be valid
● Validity has to do with correct reasoning
● If the conclusion follows from the premises, tje argument inference is judged valid
Soundness
● A deductively sound argument with true premises is said to be sound
● Two conditions for soundness
○ Must be deductively valid
○ The premises must be true
● Argument can be unsound in two ways
○ It may have false premises
○ It may be deductively invalid
Evaluating soundness
● Are the premises true?
● Do those premises lead to this conclusion
These are two separate issues
● You can have false premises that still support the conclusion
● You can have a true premises that don't support the conclusion
Cogency inductive arguments
● an inductive argument is intended to provide a probable support of it's conclusion
○ Most canadians like hockey
○ Adam is a canadian
○ So, adam probably likes hockey, eh?
● Or
○ I'm 6’4 which is taller than most people
○ so , i'm likely taller than your brother
● Note
○ The conclusion is not guaranteed in inductive reasoning
○ We're just offering support or evidence that the conclusion i s probably true,
given the evidence (premises)
Document Summary
Our lives are defined by our actions and choices and our actions and choices are defined by our thoughts and beliefs. If we don"t choose our beliefs carefully, we"re giving up control of our own lives. To critically examine your beliefs is to critically examine your life. We all want to think that our acceptance of each of our views is well reasoned. However, we often make mistakes in our judgments, draw wrong conclusions and form wrong opinions about people and issues. Is a common source if such reasoning errors and it has been extensively studied by psychologists. We judge facts differently depending on how they are presented to us. The struggling company managed to save 300 out of 1000 jobs. The company is laying off 700 of their 1000 workers. Euphemisms are used to take advantage of or exploit this particular cognitive bias - using other words to describe a particular event as good or bad.
