Notes on Logic and Critical Thinking Clark Wolf Iowa State University [email protected] Part I: Introduction to Argume
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LOGIC FROM AND LATE PROFESSOR OF TO S"etd) OF A THE SCIENCES IS WHICH OF FOR W. OF SIMPK1N THX THE
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LEGAL LOGIC BOOK SUMMARY Dr. Francis Julius Evangelista and Atty. David Robert C. Aquino Prepared by: Arellano, Charisse
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Notes on Logic and Critical Thinking Clark Wolf Iowa State University [email protected] Part I: Introduction to Arguments. “Logic gives great promise. For it provides a mastery of invention and judgment, as well as supplies ability to divide, define, and prove with conviction. It is such an important part of philosophy that it serves the other parts in much the same way as the soul does the body. On the other hand, all philosophy that lacks the vital organizing principle of logic is lifeless and helpless.” -John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, Book II Ch 6.
Introductory Remarks: Philosophical writing is made up of arguments, and learning philosophy involves learning how to make, understand, and evaluate arguments. But philosophers are not the only people who use arguments: whether you realize it or not, you are presented with arguments every day. Politicians try to persuade us, newspaper editorials urge us, friends and teachers present us with new information and alternative points of view. Whenever someone tries to persuade you to believe something, you are being offered an argument. Some arguments are good, and some arguments are bad: Good arguments are rationally persuasive: they provide us with good reasons to believe the conclusions they lead us to draw. Bad or fallacious arguments, on the other hand, do not provide with good reasons to believe their conclusions. When we are presented with a bad argument, we do not gain any good reasons to believe the conclusion. Still, some bad arguments are effectively persuasive: even though they do not provide good reasons for their conclusions, people are bamboozled into accepting these conclusions anyway. To say that such arguments are not rationally persuasive is to say that they provide no good reasons, no rational ground for believing that the conclusion is true. But we are not perfectly rational creatures, and we don’t always recognize when we’re being bamboozled. These notes will focus on some tools that may help us out: tools we can use to critically analyze arguments with which we are presented so that we will not easily be bamboozled. Since we are presented with arguments in many different contexts, these tools are valuable both in philosophical and in non-philosophical contexts. But since philosophical writing is almost entirely constituted by arguments, these tools of critical analysis are especially important for students of philosophy.
John of Salisbury, author of the quote you encountered at the beginning of this section, regarded logic as the science that studies making and evaluating good arguments. Philosophical writing without logic, he claimed, is dead: like a body without a soul, as he put it. Ideally, philosophical writing should be clear and precise; it should appeal to our desire for truth, not to our hopes or illusions. And good philosophical arguments should offer good reasons to believe the conclusions they offer us. We need to be able to distinguish good arguments from bad or fallacious ones. But how can we recognize when arguments are good? How can we avoid being taken in by arguments that are bad? In this unit, we will consider several varieties of argument, and standards for their evaluation. Objectives: -You should learn to recognize and distinguish arguments of several different types: deductive, inductive, and abductive. -You should learn to distinguish between the form and content of an argument. -You should learn do define key concepts: argument, premise, conclusion, evidence, rationally persuasive argument, fallacy, valid argument, invalid argument, inductive argument, abductive argument, conditional statement, circular argument, redundancy theory of truth. -You should learn to evaluate arguments, by distinguishing premises from conclusion, putting the argument in standard form, and critically examining the premises and the inference pattern.