Critical Thinking Study Question Collaboration Page

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Contents

Chapter 1: Thinking about Thinking

What are some of the opportunities and obstacles of trying to become a better critical thinking in the information age?

The information age is overwhelming precisely because the growth of research knowledge gives us both more good reliable knowledge and more apparent or questionable findings and theories. The information age gives thinkers today more information and more knowledge at their fingertips. However, having everything technological takes away the face-to-face conversations that are credible ways to become a better critical thinker.

How has the progress of research and "knowledge work" contributed to and complicated the pursuit of truth?

The progress of research and "knowledge work" contributes to the pursuit of truth by creating more answers and basis of knowledge. There are also more ways to look at the question with more knowledge available. It complicates the pursuit of truth by creating more information but not necessarily reliable and credible information.

What is epistemology? What are some of the values and limitations of logic in becoming a better thinker?

Epistemology is the study of the origins and grounds for knowledge. One of the values of logic is questioning the truth and therefore continually seeking knowledge. A limitation of logic would be it causes an inability to fully comprehend the emotional and moral aspects of the argument.

What does it mean to make your thought an object of thought?

An object of thought could be an issue, topic, or problem in your life. You are thinking about a topic, focused on that topic, until there is a resolution or something that that distracts you from that topic.

How can we describe thinking in ways that seem compatible with what we are learning from research on cognition and social conflict?

Cognition is linked to your personal interpretation of how you understand a concept. It deals with how an individual understands the material. Social conflict deals with assessing the situation correctly and approachs the situation from different critical viewpoints.

What is a persona and how does your persona affect the quality of your deliberations?

The persona is essentially the facade or character one tends to adopt within reflective discussions. As noted in the text one could be a "gadfly," which would entail "listening carefully for much of the discussion but then interjecting a particularly insightful or disarming question or series of questions." In short, one's persona is the general personality one develops within the context of the discussion, which would pertain to one's behavior towards others, the matter at hand, and other aspects of the conversation. Other examples provided include someone that "holds forth," one that "holds the fort," or someone that is a "synthesizer." Depending on one's persona, the quality of the deliberation will vary. The individual personas allow for different levels of quality based on what one takes out of the discussion, in addition to other variables.

What are the three main critical thinking virtues?

The three mail critical thinking virtues are sympathetic understanding, seeking knowledge, and inviting appraisal. Sympathetic Understanding is to be able to enter into a sypathetic unsderstanding of the views being offered. This requires you to understand the meaning of what has been said and the perspective from which it makes sense. Seeking Knowledge involves the following three questions about any view or argument: What is known? What is knowable? Who knows it? Inviting Appraisal is your openness to appraisal, both to giving ctitical appraisals and to receiving them.

Chapter 2: Making Reflective Moves

Understand and explicate terms and phrases such as: presumption, conversational implicature, burden of proof, rationales, claims, and logic chopping

Presumptions: Claims that are generally taken to be true or implied to be true within the context (not from the actual content) of the deliberation. All communication must take certain truths (presumptions) for granted. We presume what we do not question. Presumptions are the claims/ideas that are not "in play" in the discussion. Presumptions are good things to question, but not too early. They are partly determined by the interests of parties to the conversation, but also by the social and historical context of the discussion. They are one of the "structures" underlying spoken/written communication that help organize our thinking and exchanges. Specific presumptions that are made depend on the speaker's personalities, cultural values, and historical context. They are "non-logical" and pragmatic aspects of communication

Conversational implicature: A nonlogical inference constituting part of what is conveyed by a speaker in making an utterance in a context, without being part of what is actually said in the utterance.

Burden of proof: An obligation that is normally attributed to a speaker/writer to provide credible/plausible reasons for his/her major claims. This shifts as more compelling reasons are offered for different claims. In a discussion, it depends upon what is already presumed. One way to shift this is to undermine/question a presumption.

Rationales: Any set of premises or reasons which imply a conclusion when the truth of those premises is somehow a basis for accepting or understanding the conclusion (when on thing is said for the basis of another)

Claim: A statement about the world that is either true or false. They become conclusions of a thought process when we think we have support for them.

VICTORIA MANKILLER

Formatting changes: Erik Boisen

Explain and be prepared to distinguish arguments from explanations.

Arguments are reasons for believing a conclusion is true. If you are justifying a belief, the rationale is an argument.

Explanations are reasons for understanding how something came about. If you are trying to understand a fact, the rationale you offer is an explanation.

Victoria Mankiller

Review the key features of basic reconstructions and be prepared to give a basic reconstruction of a short argument.

Reconstructions are how we represent rationales in a piece of speech/writing.

PAGE 68 The key to good reconstructions is to follow these steps:

1. Map or highlight the rationales so that you can distinguish arguments from explanations and premises from conclusions explicitly.

2. Identify, distinguish, and separately reconstruct independent and dependent reasons for the main conclusion.

3. Fill in missing pieces of the argument and edit out unnecessary details.

4. Write out a summary of the rationales using good, clear, natural prose in a paragraph format. Be sure that your reconstruction makes it clear to the reader how various sub-arguments and explanations are organized in relationshiip to the overall point of the reasoning

Victoria Mankiller

Review the principles of fair interpretation.

===1) The principles of clarity- A charitable interpretation is one in which the interpretor has tried to reconstruct the argument in it's best light by assuming that it's author was intelligent, well-intentioned, and in posession of at least some insight. It is more important to get the best representation of the argument rather than try to determine what the author is trying to say. ===2) The principle of fidelity - Being "faithful" to the text requires that you scruptuously avoid making inferences about the author's meaning without good textual and contextual evidence. The best textual evidence is the author's own words and contextual evidence is often invaluable. ===3) The principle of inclusion - Summarizing and putting together the reconstruction of the core of an argument and incorporating as much relevant information as possible into the argument. (OTHERS ADD TO THIS)

Understand the difference between Conversational Interpretive Strategies and Rationale Engagement Strategies and be prepared to apply them in particular cases.

The differences: 1. Conversational/Interpretive Strategies (CIS) = are based on an assesment we make about how to get involved based our judgment about the immediate context of the discussion. 2. Rationale Engagement Strategies (RES) = are more narrowly focused on techniques for questioning, criticizing, or affirming an argument or explanation.

Chapter 3: Sherlock’s Logic – Deductive and Inductive Inferences in Everyday Reflection

Understand and explicate the terms and phrases such as:

Within categorical logic, understand and apply terms such as: contradictories, contraries, subcontraries, subalterns.

CONTRADICTORIES-Contradictories have opposite truth values. If one is, the other must be false. CONTRARIES-Contraries cannot both be true, but can both be false. SUBCONTRARIES-Subcontraries cannot both be false, but can both be true. SUBALTERNS-From true A or E proposition, you can infer a true I or O proposition.

Within propositional logic, understand the main components of the logical system (claims or propositions, connectives, parentheses, brackets, and braces), the five main valid argument patterns, and how the valid argument patterns determine validity.

In propositional logic, apply the valid argument patterns to simple formalized arguments to determine validity.

From the part of the chapter on induction, describe the difference between inductive argument structures and deductive ones. In what situations would one choose inductive reasoning over deductive? What is a hasty generalization?

Explain the nature and structure of analogical arguments. How do they persuade?

Chapter 4: Tell me Why . . .Or How . . . Explanation and Causation in Reflective Practice

Give examples of the wide range of types of explanatory questions.

Why is Mars red? The truth of the matter is that Mars is red because it is covered in iron oxide, but this isn't very explanatory since we will immediately wonder, "Why is Mars covered in iron oxide?" One explanation is that iron oxide comes from water interacting with iron in the planet's rocks. This explanation points to clues such as long empty channels that may have formed from an abundance of water. Water suffused with iron deposits might have gotten into the hydro cycle, dispersing iron oxides in raindrops all over the planet. Another theory points to the fact that the very soil of Mars is made up of iron, suggesting that impacts from meteorites could be responsible for the amount of iron on the planet. The interesting thing about this theory is that it does not require the presence of water. Doing an experiment it was found that super oxide irons could be formed simply from the presence of the planet's atmosphere and UV radiation. Neither of these explanations are sufficiently strong to resolve doubt about the process that produced the iron oxides that make Mars red. Each has their own strength in explanation though, the first points to obvious physical clues while the second used the scientific method and conducted an experiment

Sam Burke

What are the main features of good explanations?

Good explanations offer the most probable account of how something works, comes about, or fits together. While we sometimes talk as though explanations begin with the search for truth and end with discovery, it is more precise to say that explanations begin with doubt and end with the cessation of doubt

Sam Burke

What are the competing explanatory accounts of the redness of Mars?

What’s the difference between a “why” question and a “how” question?

Do explanations need to connect to “ultimate purposes”? Be prepared to present both points of view.

Can you see “causation”?

What’s the difference between a necessary and sufficient condition?

Identify four of Mill’s methods and be prepared to explain each.

What is “inverse” and “direct” variation?

What is a “correlation coefficient”?

What is the fallacy of “complex cause”? “common cause”?

Chapter 5: “We Don’t Get Fooled Again” – Uses and Misuses of Numerical and Statistical Information

What are some of the difficulties that people face when trying to use and discuss numeric and statistical information?

What is “innumeracy”?

Idenify the main kinds of problems understanding and thinking about numeric and statistical information, including problems of context, large numbers, compounding, linearity, baseline, surveys and sampling, odds, probability, correlation, and cause.

Why is it that wasting a billion dollars might not be such a big deal for the Federal Government?

Identify and explain these terms: representative sample, depressive realism, sample space, sampling error, the law of large numbers, gambler’s fallacy, bell curve, multiple regression analysis,

What is the Sports Illustrated jinx? Do you think it’s real? Why or why not?

Chapter 6 – The Way Up is the Way Down – Thinking Through Complexity.

Give an example of how sciences simplify things to build models and be prepared to say something about the limits of a simple model of causality.

What is network theory?

What does “six degrees of separation” mean?

Complex systems: inerrelatedness, 1965 New York City power outage (sig. of), coupling/decoupling.

Be prepared to give your own examples of complex networks.

Buffering, redundant systems, pos/neg feedback (examples of).

The Beer Game (sig. of), Partner system for police (sig. of).

Political ideologies as clusters in a political network.

Gottman’s work, significance, critical variables, Intransparency.

Dorner’s work. Characteristics of good managers

Chaos vs. Complexity. Characteristics of chaotic system. The weather.

Practical lessons from chaos theory for critical thinking.

Thin-slicing. Sig. of.

Intuition, sig. and problems of.







What do researchers on socio-linguistics and conflict tell us about the role of gender in deliberative communication?

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