Critical Thinking · A Concise Guide, 2nd Edition by Bowell, Tracy -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Copyright page Contents Preface to the first edition Preface to the second edition Introduction and preview 1 Why should we become critical thinkers?

Beginning to think critically: recognising arguments Aspects of meaning

Rhetorical force Implicature

Standard form Identifying conclusions and premises

Identifying conclusions Several points make the identification of conclusions an easier task Identifying premises

Arguments and explanations Intermediate conclusions Linguistic phenomena

Ambiguity Lexical ambiguity Syntactic ambiguity Vagueness Primary and secondary connotation Rhetorical questions Irony Implicitly relative sentences Problems with quantifiers Quantifiers and generalisations

Chapter Summary Exercises

2 Logic: deductive validity

The principle of charity Truth Deductive validity

How to judge validity Further examples

Conditional propositions Deductive soundness The connection to formal logic Argument trees Chapter Summary Exercises

3 Logic: inductive force

Inductive force

Probability

'All', 'most' and 'some' Soft generalisations: a reminder Inductive soundness Probability in the premises Arguments with multiple probabilistic premises Inductive force in extended arguments Conditional probability in the conclusion Evidence Inductive inferences

How representative is the sample?

A programme for assessment Chapter Summary Exercises

4 Rhetorical ploys and fallacies

Rhetorical ploys

Appeals to specific feelings

Appeal to novelty Appeal to popularity Appeal to compassion, pity or guilt Appeal to cuteness Appeal to sexiness Appeals to wealth, status, power, hipness, coolness, etc. Appeal to fear (also known as scare tactics)

The direct attack and hard sell Buzzwords Scare quotes Trading on an equivocation Trading on implicature Smokescreen (changing the subject)

Fallacies

Formal fallacies

Affirming the consequent of a conditional Denying the antecedent of a conditional Fallacy of deriving 'ought' from 'is' The base rate fallacy

Substantive fallacies

The fallacy of majority belief Common practice Ad hominem Ad hominem circumstantial Tu quoque Appeal to authority The perfectionist fallacy Conflation of morality with legality Weak analogy Causal fallacies

Post hoc ergo propter hoc Fallacy of mistaking correlation for cause Inversion of cause and effect

Epistemic fallacies

Appeal to ignorance Epistemic fallacy

Further fallacies

Equivocation Red herring Slippery slope Straw man Begging the question False dilemma

Chapter Summary Exercises

5 The practice of argument-reconstruction

Extraneous material Defusing the rhetoric Logical streamlining Implicit and explicit Connecting premises Covering generalisations Relevance Ambiguity and vagueness

Ambiguity Vagueness