SSH Flashcards
What is an assertion?
A declarative sentence that is intended to make a claim of some sort. Sometimes these are called statements or propositions
What is a premise?
It is a statement that is offered in support of a conclusion
What is a conclusion?
It is a statement that is held to be supported by a premise or premises.
What are the common impediments to critical thinking?
Category 1: Hindrances that arise because of how we think.
Category 2: Hindrances that occur because of what we think.
Category 1 Impediments to Critical Thinking
(a) Self-Interested thinking:
Self-Interested thinking: Accepting a claim solely on the
grounds that it advances, or coincides with, our interests.
Category 1 Impediments to Critical Thinking
b) Group Thinking:
Peer pressure
Fallacy: an argument form that is both common and defective.
* Fallacy of appeal to popularity/appeal to the masses
* Fallacy of appeal to common practice
* Fallacy of appeal to tradition
* Genetic fallacy
Category 2 Impediments to Critical Thinking
What are the 3 key ingredients in propositional knowledge?
Propositional knowledge (knowledge-that) “Thomas knows that Canada is a parliamentary democracy.”
In this course, our central concern is with Propositional Knowledge
3 key ingredients in propositional knowledge:
1. Belief – To know that p you must believe p.
2. Truth – To know that p, your belief that p needs to be true.
3. Justification – To know that p, your true belief that p must to justified
What is realtivism?
The view that propositions have a truth- value, but that what
this is depends upon (i.e. is relative to) some person or social group.
Subjective Relativism (The Subjectivist Fallacy)
The view that the truth-value of a proposition depends solely upon what
someone believes
Social Relativism
The view that the truth-value of a proposition depends solely upon (is relative to)
societies or groups
Subjectivist fallacy
Accepting the notion of
subjective relativism or using
it to try to support a claim.
Deductive argument
An argument intended to provide logically conclusive support for its conclusion.
Inductive argument
An argument in which the premises are intended to provide probable, not conclusive,
support for its conclusion
When does a deductive argument valid
It succeeds when its provides such decisive logical support and invalid when it fails to provide it.
what makes a inductive argument strong?
An inductive argument that succeeds in providing probable—but not conclusive—
logical support for its conclusion is said to be strong.
* An inductive argument that fails to provide such support is said to be weak
why are inductive arguments not truth-perserving?
the truth of the conclusion, can not be guaranteed by the truth of the premises.
Deductive validity
An argument is deductively valid if and only if it is not
possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion
false
i.e., if all the premises were true, the conclusion would
have to be true too.
An argument is deductively invalid if and only if it is not
deductively valid.
Deductive soundness
An argument is said to be deductively sound if and only
if (1) it is deductively valid and (2)all its premises are
true
Inductive strength
An argument is inductively strong if and only if the
conclusion is probably true, assuming the premises are true.
An argument is inductively weak if and only if it is not
inductively strong
Not all deductively valid arguments have true premises and
true conclusions.
* In fact, a valid argument may have any of the following
combinations
- True premises and true conclusion
- False premises and true conclusion
- False premises and false conclusion
Two Types of Conflict:
2 statements can be inconsistent – i.e. can’t both be true, but
could both be false. E.g. “Today is Monday” and “Today is
Wednesday” are inconsistent.
* 2 statements can be contradictories - i.e. can’t both be true, but
(also) can’t both be false. E.g. “There is a Covid-19 virus” and
“There is not a Covid-19 virus” are contradictories
What is a fallacy?
It is a faulty pattern of inference because the premises don’t provide adequate support for the conclusion
Irrelevant premises
irrelevant premises have no bearing on the truth of the conclusion
unacceptable premises
unacceptable premises may be relevant to the truth of the conclusion, but are dubious for other reasons
Conditional Statements
A conditional statement is a statement of the form
If p, then q.
Examples:
* If it rains, then the picnic will be cancelled.
* If Jones didn’t commit the murder, the butler did.
Conditionals are compound statements composed of two parts:
- The antecedent – what follows the word “if”
- The consequent – what follows the word “then”
Disjunctive Statements
A disjunctive statement is a statement of the form
Either p or q
What are some valid conditional argument patterns?
Affirming the antecedent
Denying the consequent
Hypothetical syllogism
What is a valid disjunctive pattern?
Disjunctive syllogism
What are some invalid conditional argument patterns
Denying the Antecedent
Affirming the Consequent
The genetic fallacy
The fallacy of relevance
Arguing or assuming that a claim is true or false solely because of its orgin.
The fallacy of composition
The fallacy of relevance
Arguing or assuming that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole.
The fallacy of division
The fallacy of relevance
Arguing or assuming that what’s true of the whole must be equally true of the parts.
The fallacy of appeal to person (ad hominem fallacy)
The fallacy of relevance
Arguing that we should reject a claim solely because of the person who made it
Three types of ad hominem fallacy
Character- attack on the person
Circumstance-Points on the person’s circumstances
Tu Quoque- Claiming the person is hyprocritcal and the claim is inconsistent with something else.
The fallacy of Equivocation
When a word or expression Is used in two different senses in an argument . Typically, one premise uses the word in one way, and another premise uses the word in a different way.
The appeal to popularity
Arguing that a claim must be true simply because it is a popular belief
The appeal to common practice
Arguing that someone should be done a certain way simply it Is commonly done that way.
Appeal to tradition
Arguing that a claim must be true simply because it is part of a tradition.
Appeal to ignorance
An argument which states or assumes a claim like this:” we don’t know that p is true , therefore p is false”
Appeal to emotion
This fallacy occurs when emotions(guilt, anger,pity) are appealed to, instead of relevant reasons in a argument
Red Herring
This fallacy occurs when irrelevant factors are introduced during a argument.
The fallacy of begging the question
Attempting to prove a conclusion by using that same conclusion as a premise. (Sometimes the
conclusion is worded differently when it is used as a premise, and sometimes it is implici
The fallacy of false dilemma
The fallacy of false dichotomy occurs when the premise(s) claim or assume that a choice between two
alternatives is exhaustive or exclusive or both, when the choice is not.
The Slippery Slope Fallacy
This occurs when an argument claims or assumes that taking a particular step will inevitably lead to a further,
undesirable step or step
The Fallacy of Hasty Generalization
When an argument concludes something about a group or set on the basis of an inadequate
sample size
The Fallacy of Faulty Analogy
We often reason by analogy: by comparing one thing to another.
Specifically: we conclude something about the target by comparing it to the analogue
An argument commits the fallacy of faulty analogy when the analogue fails to be both relevantly-
similar and sufficiently-similar to the target
Simple Statement
Contains no other statement as a component part. (We
represent it with a letter, like “P”
Complex Statement
Contains at least one other statement as a component part
Logical Operator
special expressions which work to combine simple statements
into complex ones: AND, OR, IF…THEN, NO
