INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING

CRITICAL THINKING Definitions History of Critical Thinking (CT) Universal Standards Fallacies

DEFINITIONS Critical Listening: Listening to maximize the accurate understanding of what others say.

DEFINITIONS Critical Reading: An active, intellectually engaged process of reading, interpreting and understanding text.

DEFINITIONS Critical Writing: Arranging our ideas in a logical order to express ourselves in a disciplined manner.

DEFINITIONS Critical Thinking: The art of thinking about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your thinking better.

HISTORY The Beginning: Socrates Early Years: Plato, Aristotle and other Greek philosophers Middle Ages: Francis Bacon Today: Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Harry Houdini and Carl Sagan

UNIVERSAL STANDARDS CLARITY ACCURACY RELEVANCE LOGIC Give me an example. How can we check that out? How does it affect the issue? Does this really make sense?

FALLACIES What is it? An argument that appears sound, at first glance, but contains a flaw in reasoning which makes it unsound.

FALLACIES Burden of Proof (a.k.a. Appeal to Ignorance) Two Wrongs Make a Right

FALLACIES Hasty Generalization Post Hoc Reasoning

FALLACIES Band Wagon (a.k.a. peer pressure) Guilt by Association

CRITICAL THINKING Definitions History of Critical Thinking (CT) Universal Standards Fallacies