Critical Thinking

Question 1

Define argument

Answer 1

a set of propositions (which can be true of false), one of which is the conclusion and the remainder are premises.

Question 2

Define Deductive Validity.

Answer 2

an argument is deductively valid if it would be impossible for the premises to be true but for the conclusion to be false.

Question 3

Define Deductive Soundness.

Answer 3

when an argument is both deductively valid and the premises are all true.

Question 4

What different types of rhetorical ploys are there?

Answer 4

• appealing to emotion and desire
• trading on implicature (implying something without asserting it)
• trading on equivocation (non-rational persuasion by exploitation of vagueness or ambiguity)

Question 5

What’s the principle of charity?

Answer 5

When reconstructive arguments, aim for the best possible reconstruction, make it as strong as it can be, without being overly charitable.

Question 6

4 things to do when reconstructing …

Answer 6

• Apply the principle of charity
• Eliminate any ambiguities.
• Eliminate vague terms in our reconstructions. This is because we are clarifying what the arguer has said, and vague terms threaten clarity. Also vague terms have a rhetorical power.
• Eliminate rhetoric as it is a non-argumentative form of persuasion

Question 7

Define Rational Persuasiveness.

Answer 7

When an argument is deductively valid and that person has good reason/evidence to believe the premises.

Question 8

What to do if I i don’t know if an argument is sound or not?

Answer 8

Comment on its rational persuasiveness.

Question 9

What is a formally fallacious argument? Give the examples of formally fallacious arguments.

Answer 9

When there is an inappropriate connection between the premises and the conclusion, a failure of logical connection.

• Affirming the consequent
• Denying the antecedent
• Deriving ought from is

Question 10

What is affirming the consequent?

Answer 10

It is associated with conditionals and when they are not interpreted correctly.

	P1: If P then Q
	P2: Q         
	--------------------
	C: P

e.g.,
P1: If someone is in Glasgow, they are in Scotland
P2: I am in Scotland
————————————————————————-
C: I am in Glasgow

Question 11

What is denying the antecedent?

Answer 11

P1: If P then Q.
P2: Not-P
————————
C: Not-Q

e.g.,
P1: If there is a person then there is a problem.
P2: There is no person.
————————————————————————-
C: There is no problem.

Question 12

What is deriving ought from is?

Answer 12

Making claims about what ought to be on the basis of what is.

C: We should overthrow capitalism.

Question 13

What is a substantive fallacy?

Answer 13

When one of the premises has an unjustified or false assumption. These arguments are unsound.

Question 14

Ad Hominem

Answer 14

either responding to an argument by attacking the person who has made it, or, by rejecting a particular claim because of dislike for the person who has made it.

Question 15

Ad Hominem Circumstantial

Answer 15

Involves rejecting of discounting someones arguments in favour of something on the grounds that they would benefit from doing/believing it.

Question 16

Tu quoque

Answer 16

this involves rejecting or discounting someone’s arguments in favour of acting/not acting in a certain way, on the grounds that they themselves do not act/do act in this way.

Question 17

Majority Belief

Answer 17

This is the fallacy of concluding on the basis of the fact that most people believe some proposition, p, that p is true.

Question 18

Conflating Morality & Legality

Answer 18

This involves assuming that anything legal must be moral, or, that anything illegal must be immoral.

Question 19

Illegitimate Appeal to Authority

Answer 19

This involves making an unjustified appeal to an alleged authority in order to support a claim.

Question 20

Perfectionist

Answer 20

This involves rejecting/discounting someone’s arguments in favour of a proposal to address a problem, on the grounds that it won’t completely solve that problem.

Question 21

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Answer 21

This occurs when we mistakenly infer that an event, X, caused another event, Y, merely on the basis of the fact that Y occurred after X.

Question 22

Correlation for Cause

Answer 22

This involves mistakenly taking the fact that one type of event/state of affairs, X, is always or usually found in conjunction with another type of event/state of affairs, Y, to be sufficient to establish that X causes Y.

Question 23

Weak Analogy

Answer 23

This involves assuming that, because one thing is similar to another in one respect, it is similar to it in all relevant respects.

Question 24

Epistemic Fallacy

Answer 24

This arises when we make the mistaken inference that, because someone believes that p, they must also believe that q on account of the fact that p and q are about the same thing or person, even though the way they refer to the thing or person is different.

Question 25

Which 5 fallacies don’t fit into formal or substantive fallacies?

Answer 25

Straw Man

False Dilemma

Slippery Slope

Red Herring

Begging the Question

Question 26

Straw man

Answer 26

Straw man arguments misrepresent, distort, simplify, or exaggerate the position of an opponent so that they become easier to refute.

Question 27

False dilemma

Answer 27

This is the technique of limiting the options on a particular issue to just two, when in fact there are more options. The arguer sets up a dilemma where none in fact exists.

Question 28

Slippery Slope

Answer 28

Slippery Slope: this technique is employed when an arguer wrongly assumes that to permit or forbid a certain course of action will inevitably lead to the occurrence of further related and undesirable events, without providing good reasons to suppose that the further events will indeed follow.

Question 29

Red Herring

Answer 29

Red Herring: this technique involves inferring a conclusion from a premise that is strictly irrelevant to it, but in a way that has the potential to fool the audience into accepting the inference.

Question 30

Begging the question

Answer 30

Begging the Question: an argument commits the fallacy of begging the question when the truth of its conclusion is assumed by one or more of its premises, and the truth of the premises depend for their justification on the truth of the conclusion.