Introduction to Critical
Thinking and Logic
Thinking Critically about the Logic of
Arguments
Logic and critical thinking together make up the systematic study of
reasoning, and reasoning is what we do when we draw a conclusion on
the basis of other claims.
In other words, reasoning is used when you infer one claim on the basis of
another.
For example, if you see a great deal of snow falling from the sky outside
your bedroom window one morning, you can reasonably conclude that it’s
probably cold outside.
Or, if you see a man smiling broadly, you can reasonably conclude that he
is at least somewhat happy
In both cases, you are reasoning from evidence to a conclusion.
We use reasoning all the time, but sometimes we make a mess out of it.
Whether a line of reasoning is good or not is definitely more than “just a matter
of opinion.” Surely the reasoning in the following arguments is not compelling:
* My four-year-old niece says that the planet Mars is smaller than Jupiter. It must
thereby be the case that Mars is smaller than Jupiter.
* Some women are baseball fans. And some mothers are baseball fans. Thus, all
women are mothers.
* An earthquake occurred in San Francisco five minutes after the senator’s speech
there. Thus that senator’s voice causes natural disasters.
But the reasoning in the next set of
arguments is better, yes?
* All bears are mammals. Grizzlies are bears. Thus grizzlies are mammals.
* If Jimmy Carter was the U.S. President, then he was a politician. Carter was
indeed the U.S. President. Thus, Carter was a politician.
* It has rained in Seattle, Washington every year for the past 100 years. Thus
it will probably rain there next year
The study of logic and critical thinking are designed to
make us better at recognizing good from bad lines of
argumentation.
An argument consists of one or more statements, called premises, offered as reason
to believe that a further statement, called the conclusion, is true.
Technically speaking, premises and conclusions should be made up of statements
A statement is a sentence that declares something to be true or false.
They are thus sometimes called declarative sentences. A sentence is a
grammatically correct string of words, and there are many kinds of sentences other
than statements. Questions (e.g., “What is your name?”), commands (e.g., “Turn to
page three”), and exclamations (e.g., “Ouch!”) are all grammatically correct
sentences that are not statements.
In this course, the words “statement” and “sentence”
can—in many contexts—be used interchangeably. This
is so because all statements are sentences (although
not all sentences are statements). So we can refer to
“Bellevue is in Washington” as both a statement
(because it declares something to be true) and a
sentence (because it is a grammatically correct
sequence of words conveying a meaning).
An argument can have any number of premises, but technically speaking
there is one conclusion per argument. Thus, an argument splits into two
distinct parts:
1. One or more premises offer evidence for the truth of the conclusion.
2. The conclusion is supported by the premise or premises.
Here is an argument:
All dogs are mammals.
No mammals are birds.
Thus, no dogs are birds.
The conclusion seems well supported by the two premises. However, things
are not so good in the following argument:
Some cats are animals.
Some animals are fish.
Hence, some cats are not fish.
In both examples above, the arguments contained two premises and one conclusion,
but in the second argument immediately above, the premises by themselves do not
offer good reason to believe the conclusion—even if though the premises are true!
Sometimes the conclusion of an argument can be used as a premise of a following
argument, making a chain of arguments. Still, to be precise, each argument or specific
line of inference contains one and only one conclusion, although each may contain
varying number of premises. For instance:
1. All dogs are mammals.
2. All mammals are animals.
3. Thus, all dogs are animals.
4. Scooby-Doo is a dog.
5. Thus, Scooby-Doo is an animal.
6. No animals are plants.
7. All trees are plants.
8. Thus, Scooby-Doo is not a tree.
Here the first argument in the chain has lines 1
and 2 as premises, and has line 3 as its
conclusion. The second argument then uses
line 3 as a premise and uses it with line 4 to
conclude in line 5 that Scooby-Doo is a dog.
The third argument then uses line 5 as a
premise, hooks it up with lines 6 and 7, and
uses the trio together to infer line 8 as the final
conclusion.
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Prepared by : ENGR. CANDELLEN BIADOMA-TOLEDO,MIM
