Clearly: critical thinking

By cookiejar

Unravel the secrets of sharp thinking in a Wiki-style adventure that delves into reasoning and wonky thinking. Navigate your path through a labyrinth of ideas and examples, where every click offers insight. Whether you're a curious explorer or a seasoned thinker, Clearly equips you with the tools to strengthen your decision-making skills and develop the art of clear, coherent thought. Join the fun, challenge your brain, and pick a path in this journey to reasoning mastery!

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: cookiejar
• Release date: Feb 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224586745

Book preview

Clearly

Clearly

critical thinking wiki

R A Kenyon

Cookiejar

Copyright © 2024 by Roger Alan Kenyon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Contact: [e-mail]. Cover art: Freepik Premium.

The characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

There are three kinds of people: those who can count, and those who cannot.

George Carlin

Contents

What This Isn’t

Start Here

Wiki Entries

About the Author

What This Isn’t

This isn’t a textbook. There are no quizzes. There are no chapters, either. There are paths to follow—or not (some entries are found by exploring). This is a wiki on critical thinking. It has a lot of examples. Fun stuff, mostly. Learn how to spot good thinking or catch wonky thinking. You’ll find plenty of wonky on TV commercials and in what your cousins tell you. This is your learning adventure, after all.

Start Here

Choose your path, and move at your pace. Learn how to separate reasoning from fallacies—and soon, you’ll catch politicians, commercials, and those cousins in wonky thinking!

Reasoning

Induction

Deduction

Fallacies

Non-Argument

Wiki Entries

A Posteriori and A Priori

A posteriori and a priori are ways of knowing. A posteriori knowledge is based on experience. A priori knowledge does not require sensory experience to be known to be true. It is based on reasoning rather than observation. For example, I look outside to see whether it is raining, but I know by definition that rain is water.

Accent

Accent is a fallacy in which changing stress on a critical element interprets the rule narrowly and changes the meaning of the rule. This can seem to make a prohibition more permissive. Stressing the factor to be excluded implies that all else is admissible.

Mother said we shouldn’t throw stones at the cat. She didn’t say anything about throwing apples.

Perhaps people are born equal, but that does not mean they are equal as adults, so there is no reason to give them all an equal vote.

Accident

Accident (also known as Sweeping Generalization) is a fallacy of treating a general rule as absolute and using an exception to that rule to draw an absurd conclusion or refute the rule. Accident seeks to reject a general rule by pointing out an exceptional case as evidence of the rule’s inadequacy.

Cutting people is a crime; surgeons cut people with scissors and knives, so surgeons are criminals.

Freedom of speech is the law of the land. Therefore, your friend acted within his rights when he shouted ‘‘Fire! Fire!’’ in that crowded theatre, even though it was only a joke.

The process is to treat a general rule [most birds can fly] as rigidly absolute [all birds can fly], offer an exception [a penguin is a bird], and then conclude that the general rule is incorrect [birds can’t fly].

Accident is fallacious because it treats a conditional rule (most, some, usually) as absolute (all, every, only).

The sign says ‘no parking,’ so the ambulance should not park here. Well, obviously, parking is allowed. [Treats ‘no parking’ as allowed for no one, ignores emergency vehicles as a permissible exception, concludes that parking is permitted, implying for everyone.]

Keri claims that we must repay what is owed. But suppose a man lends you a rifle for hunting, goes insane, then asks for the rife back? It would be wrong to put a lethal weapon into the hands of a madman, so Keri is wrong and we don’t have a duty to repay what is owed.

Accident is similar to refuting an argument by showing a counter-example. However, the fallacy of Accident treats the general rule as rigidly absolute. It offers an exception that is an impractical extreme or applies the rule under circumstances that make it irrelevant (meaning the rule does not apply when other factors are considered).

Some people use the phrase an exception that proves the rule incorrectly. To ‘prove’ meant to ‘test’ or establish quality, such as in proving the temper of a sword. The phrase an exception that proves the rule uses ‘prove’ in this sense. The exception puts the general rule to the test and, if the exception has merit, refutes it.

Advice

Advice is a type of Non-inference that recommends a future decision or course of conduct. Advice is guidance or recommendation concerning prudent future action, typically given by someone regarded as knowledgeable or authoritative.

Hanging a balloon or paper bag will make wasps go elsewhere since they are territorial.

Before purchasing a puppy, visit the breeder. Ask to see the mother, and be suspicious if you are not allowed. Of course, never buy from a chain store; that only encourages puppy mills.