RI Critical Thinking Unit A (Introduction) 2023

INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING Lecture 1

STARTING RIGHT ▪ Online learning can be challenging ▪ Suggestions: ▪ Making Time ▪ Right Space: Physically and Mentally ▪ Active Learning

PRELIMINARIES ▪ What is critical thinking? ▪ Why critical thinking?

WHAT? ▪ “KI students should be able to analyse and critique information and arguments, and determine their validity in a reasoned and substantiated manner. KI students should be capable of reflecting on their own thinking processes and demonstrate an awareness of how these processes could be improved” (Syllabus)

WHY? ▪ Allows for the careful evaluation and critique of one’s claim to knowledge ▪ To call something knowledge is to bestow some status and power upon it ▪ E.g.: “I believe that the Earth is round” vs “I know that the Earth is round” ▪ Qn: Which has greater implications for further knowledge and action?

UNIT A The Make-Up Of An Argument

UNIT A: THE MAKE-UP OF AN ARGUMENT ▪ Go to Y ouTube and search for “Monty Python Argument Clinic” ▪ Click on the one that is 3:07 long by “unmusedtails”

WHAT IS AN ARGUMENT? ▪ “An argument is a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition. ” ▪ “An argument is an intellectual process…” ▪ “… contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says” ▪ i.e. an argument is used to persuade the other of the conclusion(s) ▪ Reasons, aka premises, are offered for this purpose

EXAMPLES ▪ 1: “He must be older than he says he is. He told us he was thirty, but he has a daughter who is at least twenty-five years old.” ▪ Conclusion? ▪ Premises/ Reasons? ▪ 2. “The bus is late. It must have broken down.” ▪ Conclusion? ▪ Premises/ Reasons?

IDENTIFYING PROPOSITIONS ▪ Proposition: a sentence that has a truth-value, i.e. can be either true or false. ▪ Examples of Propositions: ▪ Wei Lin is in RI this year ▪ Today is Tuesday ▪ Software piracy is unethical and illegal ▪ Examples of sentences that are not propositions: ▪ Do not walk on the grass ▪ Is today Friday? Why are these not considered to be propositions?