1-3 chapters

Question 1

Confirmation Bias

Answer 1

This is favoring information that conforms to your existing beliefs and discounting evidence that does not conform.

Question 2

Availability Heuristic

Answer 2

This is placing greater value on information that comes to your mind quickly. You give greater credence to this information and tend to overestimate the probability and likelihood of similar things happening in the future.

Question 3

Halo Effect

Answer 3

Your overall impression of a person influences how you feel and think about his or her character. This especially applies to physical attractiveness influencing how you rate their other qualities.

Question 4

Self-serving bias

Answer 4

This is the tendency to blame external forces when bad things happen and give yourself credit when good things happen. When you win a poker hand it is due to your skill at reading the other players and knowing the odds, while when you lose it is due to getting dealt a poor hand.

Question 5

Attentional bias

Answer 5

This is the tendency to pay attention to some things while simultaneously ignoring others. When making a decision on which car to buy, you may pay attention to the look and feel of the exterior and interior, but ignore the safety record and gas mileage.

Question 6

Actor-Observer Bias

Answer 6

This is the tendency to attribute your own actions to external causes while attributing other people’s behaviors to internal causes. You attribute your high cholesterol level to genetics while you consider others to have a high level due to poor diet and lack of exercise.

Question 7

Functional Fixedness

Answer 7

This is the tendency to see objects as only working in a particular way. If you don’t have a hammer, you never consider that a big wrench can also be used to drive a nail into the wall. You may think you don’t need thumbtacks because you have no corkboard on which to tack things, but not consider their other uses. This could extend to people’s functions, such as not realizing a personal assistant has skills to be in a leadership role.

Question 8

Anchoring Bias

Answer 8

This is the tendency to rely too heavily on the very first piece of information you learn. If you learn the average price for a car is a certain value, you will think any amount below that is a good deal, perhaps not searching for better deals. You can use this bias to set the expectations of others by putting the first information on the table for consideration.

Question 9

Misinformation Effect

Answer 9

This is the tendency for post-event information to interfere with the memory of the original event. It is easy to have your memory influenced by what you hear about the event from others. Knowledge of this effect has led to a mistrust of eyewitness information.

Question 10

False Consensus Effect

Answer 10

This is the tendency to overestimate how much other people agree with you.

Question 11

Optimism Bias

Answer 11

This bias leads you to believe that you are less likely to suffer from misfortune and more likely to attain success than your peers.

Question 12

List 11 of the cognitive bias’

Answer 12

• Confirmation bias
• Availability Heuristic
• Halo Effect
• Self-Serving Bias
• Attentional Bias
• Actor-Observer Bias
• Functional Fixedness
• Anchoring Bias
• Misinformation Effect
• Optimism Bias
• false consensus bias

Question 13

Correspondance Theory of Knowledge

Answer 13

States that when the contents of your mind coincide with the real object outside, then you have knowledge.

Question 14

Denotation

Answer 14

is the limited (and hopefully clearly defined meaning) of a term.

de means from; denotation means to distinguish “from”.

Question 15

Connotation

Answer 15

Meanings which are not clearly part of the definition of a term.

Con means “with”

Question 16

Definiendum

Answer 16

The term to be defined (endum–singular) or enda (plural) means “to be”

Question 17

Definiens

Answer 17

means the definition

Question 18

Prescriptive vs. Descriptive

Answer 18

¬ There’s a difference between what we call prescriptive vs. descriptive. Philosophy tends to be very prescriptive. Prescriptive has the idea of “should” (it’s an idea) and descriptive has the idea of “in fact” (involves thinking) and there is a gap between the two sometimes.

Question 19

Premises

Answer 19

¬ Premises: A series of claims that consist of reasons. These ideally establish a belief, position, or judgement also known as your conclusion.

Question 20

conclusion

Answer 20

the point of view, evaluation, judgement, or belief that the argument is attempting to demonstrate. Conclusion requires reasons, evidence, foundations, or supporting claims which make up the premises. Premises and conclusions are statements (propositions) that are true or false.

Question 21

Unsupported Claim

Answer 21

a statement that is offered without any supporting argumentation or evidence. They are extremely common and can be useful. Tells us what a person likes and believes.

Question 22

Conclusion indicator and premise indicator

Answer 22

provide direction and will guide you through arguments.

Ex, “therefore” commonly used to indicate the conclusion

Question 23

How to find conclusion

Answer 23

Finding the main pint is key to finding a conclusion

Question 24

Rhetorical questions

Answer 24

Sometimes people phrases statements as if they were questions, which is called rhetorical questions. It is used when the person believes the answer is already known and is perceived as obvious.

Question 25

Are commands statements

Answer 25

Commands are not statements because they are not capable of being true or false.

Question 26

Are emotive expressions statements

Answer 26

show a state of being positive or negative, but these communications are not evaluated as being correct or incorrect, true or false

Question 27

Descriptions

Answer 27

are declarations concerning how the world was, is, or will be which can either be true or false. Descriptions of events are not arguments.

Question 28

Explanations

Answer 28

trying to show why something is the way it is. An explanation identifies factors or causes

Question 29

Vague

Answer 29

meanings unclear

Question 30

Obscure

Answer 30

difficult to understand

Question 31

Reportive definitions

Answer 31

¬ definitions of the type that you find in an ordinary dictionary. Reportive definitions identify or report how a word is generally used.

Question 32

Multi-vocal

Answer 32

words having more than one meaning

Question 33

Stipulative defintion

Answer 33

Explaining what you personally mean by the word

Question 34

Ambiguity

Answer 34

occurs when the words being used have more than one meaning and it is not known which meaning is intended. Ambiguity is different from vagueness because each of the possible meanings is clear, the part unclear is which meaning is the right one intended.

Question 35

Neutral language

Answer 35

avoiding connotations so the focus is on what your words denote, not their associations

Question 36

Things to avoid using in arguments

Answer 36

Emotionally charged language
Euphemisms
Prejudicial language

Question 37

Scope

Answer 37

¬ the number of members of a group being referred to. A statement with the broadest scope is a universal statement. The scope needs to be consistently maintained throughout the argument.

Question 38

Unqualified vs. qualified statement

Answer 38

Unqualified: are statements that convey certainty about what is true. To be unqualified, a statement need not be true, all that matters is the strength of conviction of the person making the statement.

Qualified: backs down from an apparent guarantee of knowledge. It is quite common to combine limitations on scope and conviction in your arguments

Question 39

Standardization

Answer 39

allows you to have a visual representation of the argument such that each premise and conclusion is clearly demarcated.

Question 40

The S-Test

Answer 40

Satisfactory, sufficient, and support are the keys to the s-test. An argument is successful if these exist

Question 41

Rules for s-test

Answer 41

1. Consider each and every premise separately and then draw a conclusion about each one. Determine whether each is satisfactory (good reason to be true) and then defend answer. Whether satisfactory is usually hidden and needs further investigation
2. Examine the connection between the premises and the conclusion. Do the premises, if true, provide any reason to believe the conclusion is also true?
3. If the premises do support the conclusion, you then need to determine if the premises, when taken together as a whole, offer sufficient support to establish the conclusion

Question 42

Dependent premises

Answer 42

work together to support the conclusion. Want to examine these all together to assess their ability to offer support.

Question 43

What makes an argument complex

Answer 43

Having sub-arguments

Question 44

Historical generalizations

Answer 44

We talked about the idea that in the 18th century Enlightenment period, thinkers represented the mind as transparent. There was a great deal of optimism about human reason.

In the 19th century this optimism was undermined by a sense that we don’t always seem to really be acting according to reason but there is something hidden which – at least in part – determines our choices and behaviours.