Chapter Two

Question 1

Is anyone immune to category one barriers

Answer 1

No. No one is immune to category one barriers.

Question 2

To protect ourselves and out mental framework, what do we do?

Answer 2

We distort our own judgements and thereby raise our rise of error.

Question 3

What are the forms self-interested thinking takes?

Answer 3

-Accepting a claim solely because it advances, or coincides with, our interests.
-Accepting a claim for no other reason than that they help you save face.

Question 4

What are signs of self-interested thinking?

Answer 4

-Emotional insistence on their own point
-Clear rejection of all relevant evidence

Question 5

What are the consequences of self-interested thinking?

Answer 5

Can be self-destructive.
- Make mistakes in critical thinking that will decrease your chances of success.
-Leave you wide open to propaganda
- Leave you open to manipulation of your personal desires.

Question 6

How do you overcome the excessive influence of your own psychological needs?

Answer 6

• Watch out when things get personal
• Be alert to ways that critical thinking can be undermined.
• Ensure that nothing has been left out.

Question 7

What is selective attention?

Answer 7

Preferential treatment for some statements over others.
- We notice certain things and ignore others, usually without even being aware that we’re doing it.

Question 8

How do you remedy selective attention?

Answer 8

Make a conscious effort to look for opposing evidence.

Question 9

What is peer pressure?

Answer 9

Pressure to conform that comes from your peers.

Question 10

What are the type(s) of group pressure?

Answer 10

• Peer pressure
• Appeal to popularity
• Appeals to common practice

Question 11

What is appeal to popularity?

Answer 11

When an argument tries to support a conclusion on the basis of the mere popularity of a belief.

Question 12

What is appeals to common practice?

Answer 12

The pressure that comes from assuming that our own group is the best, the right one, the chosen one, and all other groups are not as good.

Question 13

What group pressure is the most powerful?

Answer 13

Appeals to common practice

Question 14

What are the consequences of group pressure

Answer 14

• Generates narrow-mindedness
• Resistance to change.
• Steryotyping

Question 15

How do you defend yourself against group thinking?

Answer 15

Always proportion your acceptance of a claim according to the strength of reasons.

Question 16

What is a world view?

Answer 16

A philosophy of life.
- A set of fundamental ideas that help is make sense of a wide range of important issues in life.

Question 17

What is subjective relativism?

Answer 17

The idea that the truth depends on what someone believes.

Question 18

What is a subjectivist fallacy?

Answer 18

Accepting the notion of subjective relativism or trying to use it to support a claim.

Question 19

What is the biggest problem with subjective relativism and social relativism?

Answer 19

Critics say that it’s self-defeating.

Question 20

What is Social Relativism?

Answer 20

The view that truth is relative to societies.
- Many use this to try and escape the difficulties of subjective relativism.

Question 21

What is philosophical skepticism?

Answer 21

The view that we know much less than we think we do or that we know nothing at all.
- People who believe this view are known as philosophical skeptics.

Question 22

What are the two main categories of hinderances to critical thinking?

Answer 22

1. Barriers that occur because of how we think.
2. Barriers that occur because of what we think.

Question 23

What is steryotyping?

Answer 23

Drawing conclusions about people based merely on their membership in some group.