The Critical Thinking Toolkit.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foresman, Galen A.

Contributor:

Fosl, Peter S.

Watson, Jamie C.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reasoning.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (377 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Hoboken : John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016.

Contents:

Intro

The Critical Thinking Toolkit

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Very Idea of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking in the formal and empirical sciences

Critical thinking, critical theory, and critical politics

Critical thinking, finitude, and self-understanding

Using this book

1 Basic Tools for Critical Thinking about Arguments

1.1 Claims

Beliefs and opinions

Simple and complex claims

Truth functionality

1.2 Arguments

Logic vs. eristics

Arguments vs. explanations

1.3 Premises

Enthymemes

Identifying premises

1.4 Conclusions

Argument structure

Simple and complex arguments

Identifying conclusions

2 More Tools for Critical Thinking about Arguments

2.1 Deductive and Inductive Arguments

Deduction

Induction

2.2 Conditional Claims

Necessary and sufficient conditions

Biconditional claims

2.3 Classifying and Comparing Claims

Comparing claims

Classifying single claims

2.4 Claims and Definitions

Lexical, stipulative, ostensive, and negative definition

Extension and intension

Generic similarities and specific differences

Definiens and definiendum

2.5 The Critical Thinkers "Two Step": Validity and Soundness/Cogency and Strength

Structure before truth

2.6 Showing Invalidity by Counterexample

Note

3 Tools for Deductive Reasoning with Categories

3.1 Thinking Categorically

Types and tokens

3.2 Categorical Logic

Quantity, quality, and standard form

Venn diagrams and the meaning of categorical claims

Distribution and its implications

Existential import

3.3 Translating English Claims to Standard Form

Implicit quantifiers

Individuals

Getting the verb right

Adverbials

Trust your instincts

A caveat

3.4 Formal Deduction with Categories: Immediate Inferences

Equivalences.

Conversion

Contraposition

Obversion

The Aristotelian and Boolean Squares of Opposition

3.5 Formal Deduction with Categories: Syllogisms

Categorical syllogisms

Major and minor terms

Mood and figure

The Venn diagram test for validity

Five easy rules for evaluating categorical syllogisms

Gensler star test

4 Tools for Deductive Reasoning with Claims

4.1 Propositional vs. Categorical Logics

Translating claims into propositional logic

Truth tables for claims

Testing for validity and invalidity with truth tables

Indirect truth tables

Strange validity

4.2 Common Deductively Valid Forms

Modus ponens

Modus tollens

Hypothetical syllogism

Disjunctive syllogism

Constructive and destructive dilemmas

4.3 Equivalences

Double negation

Tautology

Commutativity

Associativity

Transposition

Material implication

Material equivalence

Exportation

Distribution

DeMorgans Law

4.4 Formal Deduction with Forms and Equivalences

Three simple rules

4.5 Common Formal Fallacies

Affirming the consequent

Denying the antecedent

Affirming a disjunct

5 Tools for Detecting Informal Fallacies

5.1 Critical Thinking, Critical Deceiving, and the "Two Step"

5.2 Subjectivist Fallacy

5.3 Genetic Fallacies

5.4 Ad Hominem Fallacies: Direct, Circumstantial, and Tu Quoque

Direct

Circumstantial

Tu quoque

5.5 Appeal to Emotions or Appeal to the Heart (argumentum ad passiones)

Appeal to pity (argumentum ad misericordiam)

Appeal to fear (argumentum ad metum)

Appeal to guilt

5.6 Appeal to Force (argumentum ad baculum)

5.7 Appeal to Ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam)

Negative evidence and no evidence

5.8 Appeal to Novelty (argumentum ad novitatem)

5.9 Appeal to the People (argumentum ad populum)

Bandwagon

Appeal to snobbery.

Appeal to vanity

5.10 Appeal to Unqualified Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam)

5.11 Fallacy of Accident

5.12 False Dilemma

5.13 Semantic and Syntactic Fallacies

Ambiguity, two types: lexical and syntactic

Vagueness vs. ambiguity

Vagueness, two types: degree and context

Equivocation and fallacious amphiboly

5.14 Begging the Question (petitio principii)

5.15 Question-Begging Sentences

5.16 Missing the Point (ignoratio elenchi)

5.17 Fallacy of Composition

5.18 Fallacy of Division

5.19 Is-Ought Fallacy

5.20 Appeal to Tradition

5.21 Quoting Out of Context

5.22 Red Herring

5.23 Straw Man and Fidelity

5.24 Hasty Fallacization

5.25 A Brief Argument Clinic

Context

Charity

Productivity

Notes

6 Tools for Critical Thinking about Induction

6.1 Inductive vs. Deductive Arguments Again

6.2 Analogies and Arguments from Analogy

Criticizing analogies

6.3 Fallacies about Causation

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Correlation is not always causation

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc

Neglecting a common cause

Oversimplified and contributing causes

Proximate, remote, and intervening causes

6.4 Inductive Statistical Reasoning

Sampling: random and biased

Stratification

The gamblers fallacy

Averages: mean, median, and mode

Distributions

6.5 Base Rate Fallacy

6.6 Slippery Slope and Reductio ad Absurdum

6.7 Hasty Generalization

6.8 Mills Five Methods

1.Method of Concomitant Variation

2.Method of Agreement

3.Method of Difference

4.Joint Method of Agreement and Difference

5.Method of Residues

7 Tools for Critical Thinking about Experience and Error

7.1 Error Theory

7.2 Cognitive Errors

Perceptual error

Memory

Stress and trauma

Projection

Transference

Confirmation bias

Denial

A little bit of knowledge ….

The fallacy of false consensus

Naïve realism

7.3 Environment and Error

Obstruction and distraction

Duration

Motion

Distance

Context and comparison

Availability error

7.4 Background and Ignorance

7.5 Misleading Language

Suspect the negative

Implications and connotations

Damning by silence or understatement

7.6 Standpoint and Disagreement

The mosaic of truth

Incommensurability and deep disagreement

8 Tools for Critical Thinking about Justification

8.1 Knowledge: The Basics

Ordinary belief and hinge propositions

Platos definition of knowledge

Chisholm and belief

8.2 Feelings as Evidence

Some important features of all types of feelings

The importance of distinguishing sense experience from emotion

8.3 Skepticism and Sensory Experience

The weaknesses of sense experience as evidence

The strengths of sense experience as evidence

8.4 Emotions and Evidence

The weaknesses of emotional experience as evidence

The strengths of emotional experience as evidence

Tips for eliminating the negative effects of emotions

8.5 Justifying Values

The role of moral values in arguments

Four common views of value judgment

Tools for reasoning about moral values

8.6 Justification: The Basics

Justification and the problem of access

No reasons not to believe

Beyond a reasonable doubt

Obligation and permission to believe

8.7 Truth and Responsible Belief

Why is responsibility relevant to belief?

Responsibility without truth

8.8 How Does Justification Work?

Claims as evidence

Experience as evidence

8.9 A Problem for Responsible Belief

Gettier cases

Processes and probabilities as justification

Varieties of externalism

8.10 Evidence: Weak and Strong

Direct and indirect evidence

Testimony as evidence

Strong enough evidence?.

Suppressed evidence fallacy

Four tips for recognizing "good" evidence

8.11 Justification: Conclusions

9 Tools for Critical Thinking about Science

9.1 Science and the Value of Scientific Reasoning

Useful, durable, and pleasant goods

An agreement engine

A path to knowledge

9.2 The Purview of Science

The limits of empiricism

What is and what ought to be

Different kinds of science

Critiques of science

9.3 Varieties of Possibility and Impossibility

Logical possibility

Physical possibility

Other types of possibility

9.4 Scientific Method

Causal explanation

Observation

Verification and falsification

Paradigms: normal and revolutionary science

9.5 Unfalsifiability and Falsification Resistance

Ad hoc hypotheses and the fallacy of unfalsifiability

Falsification and holism: hypothesis vs. theory

The "no true Scotsman" fallacy

9.6 Experiments and Other Tests

Controls and variables

Epidemiological studies

Personal experience and case studies

Blinding and double blinding

In vitro studies

Non-human animal studies

9.7 Six Criteria for Abduction

9.8 Bad Science

Junk science

Pseudo-science

Fringe science

Ideological science

10 Tools from Rhetoric, Critical Theory, and Politics

10.1 Meta-Narratives

Stories that govern stories plus a whole lot more

Governing, varying, and disintegrating narratives

10.2 Governing Tropes

Simile, analogy, metaphor, and allegory

Metonymy and synecdoche

10.3 The Medium is the Message

Exercises and study questions

10.4 Voice

10.5 Semiotics: Critically Reading Signs

Peirce and Saussure

Of virgins, ghosts, and cuckolds

The semiological problem

10.6 Deconstruction

Critique of presence

Undermining binaries.

The politics of deconstruction.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Foresman, Galen A. The Critical Thinking Toolkit

ISBN:

9781118981993

OCLC:

945072629