Critical Thinking Study Guide
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Return to Critical Thinking
Note: On concepts be sure to be able to identify, define, and explain the significance of each concept.
1st Discipline: Reflective Voice
- Five Disciplines of Thought
- Terms: Rationales, arguments, explanations, claim, premise, conclusion, reflective/deliberative context. (p. 3)
- Thinking in Stereo: what is it, what questions are asked at each level.
- Thought Experiment for finding reflective ideals: What do you need to count on when you begin a serious discussion with someone? What specific values and expectations should one have? What mutual obligations follow? p. 12 and following.
- Reflective ideals: sympathetic understanding, seeking knowledge, inviting appraisal.
2nd Discipline: Reconstruction
- Theory of Rationales - basic defintion of a rationale, distinction between argument and explanation.
- Distinguishing argument and explanation (skill of identification from exercise set "Distinguishing Argument from Explanation).
- 3 Criteria for Good Reconstruction.
- Reconstruction (skill) Might have a short argument to reconstruct.
- Distinguishing Deductive and Inductive arguments. (skill) also, give definitions and compare. (Handbook topic: "Logical Structure in Deductive and Inductive Reasoning")
- How do you show logical structure in deductive arguments? in inductive? in explanation? (Handbook topic: "Deductive Argument Forms" "Inductive Argument Forms", and "Form in Explanations".)
- Identify and give examples of basic deductive argument forms and formal fallacies.
- Validity. (esp. relation to truth.) Can a valid argument have a false conclusion? In a valid argument is the conclusion always true?
- Basic inductive patterns and inductive analogies.
- Understand discussion of "Why Mars is Red" in "Form in Explanation"
3rd Discipline: Critical Response
- 3 Techniques for assessing rationales. (skill)
- What is critical response?
- What is the difference between assessing rationales and giving a critical response?
- Ad hominem fallacy
- What factors should you consider in preparing a critical response to someone's rationales?
4th Discipline: Recognizing Knowledge
- What does is mean to define knowledge as "justified, true belief"?
- What is the "peer review" process and how does it contribute to the recognition of knowledge?
- Specific ways of avoiding deception from quantitative information: (use old textbook chapter and class notes)
- 1 What is a measure?
- 2 Percentages and rates
- 3 Linear vs. Non-linear relationships
- 4 Baseline
- 5 Surveys
- 6 Cognitive Bias
- 1 Anchoring
- 2 Framing
- 3 Hindsight bias
- 4 Fundamental attribution error
- 5 Confirmation bias
- 6 Self-serving bias
- 7 Probability
- 1 Definition,
- 2 Gambler's fallacy,
- 3 Predictive dreams
- 4 SI jinx
- 8 Causation
- 1 Regression analysis
- 2 Multiple regression analysis
5th Discipline: Seeing Complexity
- 1. Simplification as part of knowledge production
- 2. Systems, complex systems, chaotic systems (links, nodes, degrees of separation)
- 3. Coupling, buffering, feedback loops
- 4. degrees of separation
- 5. Konigsburg bridge problem
- 6. Baltimore syphilis epidemic
- 7. What do good managers of complex systems do?
- 8. Thin slicing and the return of intuition
- 9. Stereotyping