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Lecture 18:
Revision
Critical Thinking

INF 113
Dr Lizette Weilbach &
Prof Machdel Matthee
Study unit: Introduction
to critical thinking

Study outcomes:

• Understand what is meant

by critical thinking
• Understand why and when
critical thinking is necessary
What is
critical
thinking?
Critical thinking

• What makes thinking critical and others uncritical?

• Critical/criticism/critic originates from the ancient Greek word, kritikos - being
able to judge, discern or decide
• “Being critical and thinking critically are not the same thing”

• “A critical judgment is more than a mere opinion. There have to be some

grounds for a judgement before we can call it critical.”
Core activities of CT
• Analysis (e.g. what are the assumptions of the claim, argument
or statement)
• Evaluation (e.g. check assumptions for validity and accuracy)
• Further argument (counterpoint, what other assumptions
might be true?, give your own response to the claim)

• - Leads to Informed action

Attitude • Fair- and open-minded

of a • Active and informed

• Sceptical

critical • Independent
• Brave
thinker
Study unit: Claims

Unit outcomes:
• The different types of claims
(14.1-14.4/2.1 in textbook)

• How to assess a claim (15.1

– 15.6/2.2 in textbook)
• Claims and assertions are statements that are supposedly true.

• Claims can be matters of fact (true or false) or matters of opinion

(truth is subjective).

• Types of claims:

Claims, • Predictions

Hypotheses
statements,
•

• Value judgements

assertions • Recommendations

• Definitions

• We cannot always say whether a claim is true or false, but we

can investigate whether it is justified.
• The strength of a claim has to do with
how much is being claimed, and/or
how forcefully it is worded.
• It is harder to justify a strong claim
Strong and than a weak one. Compare:
weak claims • Polar bears will be extinct by the
middle of the century
• Polar bears are an endangered
species.
Study unit: assessing claims;
grounds, reasons and evidence

Unit outcomes:
• Grounds, reasons and
evidence to support claims
• Assessing the credibility of
evidence
• Assessing statistical evidence
Grounds, reasons and evidence
• A claim is justified if is known to be true, but that is an ideal
situation. In most cases we must settle for something less than
knowledge, namely good reasons.
• Notice the difference between Reason as explanation vs Reason as
grounds for claiming something
• Compare:
• Sea levels around the world are rising because global warming is melting
the polar ice
• Global warming must be happening because the polar ice is melting and
sea levels are rising.
• Providing evidence for a claim is one of
the most commonplace forms of
reasoning
• Practically anything can be evidence: a
footprint, a bloodstain, a written or
spoken statement, a statistic, a chance
Evidence remark, an email, CCTV footage …..
• There are good and bad evidence just as
there are good and bad reasons. A bad
reason is one that does not justify the
claim or action for which it is given.
• Plausibility
• Reliability of our sources
• Reputation
• What gives a source reputation?
Credibility of • Perceptual ability
evidence • Could someone reasonably have seen or
heard something?
• people sometimes claim more than what they
can be expected to have seen or heard
• Expertise and knowledge
• E.g. an expert witness in a court case
Assessing statistical evidence
• Statistical data is a type of evidence that must be assessed for
credibility and reliability as follows:
• What is the source of the data; who provided it?
• What was the purpose for which it was collected?
• How was it collected; what was the methodology?
• Is it corroborated by and consistent with other available evidence?
• Is it relevant, plausible, informative?

• Presentation of data
Study unit: inference
and explanation
Unit outcomes:
• The use of evidence
to draw inferences
• The use of evidence
for explanation
• To infer means to draw a conclusion
from a source of information. The job of
the critic is to decide which inferences
are justified and which are not, on the
Uses of basis of the available information.
evidence:
Example 1
inference •
• If a flag is seen flying at half mast it
would be quite reasonable to infer that
someone has recently died. Is this a
safe inference?
Safe and unsafe inferences
• Why do we use the words ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ to describe
inferences? It is a recognition of the importance of careful
reasoning. An unsafe inference may not just be wrong; it may
have dire consequences. In a murder trial, a faulty inference
may mean that an innocent person go to prison. On the other
hand, if a guilty and violent person goes free through a not-
guilty verdict it leaves them to commit further serious crimes.
Regardless of the consequences, it is still important to refrain
from inferring too much.
Uses of evidence: explanation
• Explanations tell us why something is as it is, or how it has come about, what
has caused it.
• Arguments and explanations differ: Arguments are meant to give us reasons to
believe something which we did not know, or were less sure of, before hearing
the argument. Explanations work in the opposite direction: they take something
that we know or just assume to be true, and help us to understand it.
• Explanations need to be evaluated just as critically and carefully as inference.
- look for plausibility, scope and simplicity
- compare explanations
• There may be many possible explanations
for a situation/outcome.
• We are looking for the best possible
Judging explanation. What makes an explanation
better than others?
between • Two useful tests for judging an
alternative explanation:
explanations • its scope (how much it can explain)
• simplicity (the simplest possible
explanation)
Study unit: identifying
argument
Unit outcomes:
• Identifying arguments and their
components
• What constitutes a good argument
• Writing arguments in standard
form
• Mapping an argument
• Independent vs interdependent
reasons
What is an argument?
• In logic, an argument is defined as a set of sentences, one of which –
the conclusion – is claimed to follow from the others which are its
premises.
• Premises are reasons given to support or justify a conclusion. To say
that a conclusion follows from one or more premises (or reasons), is
just to say that if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be
true.
• In real life, arguments are used to persuade the audience of the truth
or the rightness of a claim by giving supportive reasons.
The form of an argument

Reason1, reason2,
…….
Conclusion

R1: Ships appear to sink out of sight as

they sail away.

C: The earth cannot be flat

• All the statements in an argument are
claims. Some of the claims might be known
facts, but other may be predictions,
recommendations, hypothesis or opinions.
• Some of the claims in an argument might
Arguments be false – either out of ignorance or deceit.
• An argument presents reasons and a
conclusion. It does not guarantee that
either the reasons or conclusion are true.
It is still an argument even if the claims in it
turn out to be false.
•R1, R2, R3 ….Rn /C
•We say that:
• R1, R2, …. Are true and C follows
Standard from them or
form of an • C is true as a consequence of R1, R2,
… being true or
argument • Because R1, R2, … are true, C must be
true as well or
• C can be inferred from R1, R2, …..
• The reasons in the previous example are
interdependent – if one of them is
How reasons unwarranted then the argument will fail.
It is the combination of them that leads
relate to to the conclusion – they are all necessary
for the conclusion to follow.
conclusion
• Interdependence is indicated as follows:

R1, R2, R3 C
• The reasons are independent of
each other. Each offer a
separate line of reasoning to
How reasons the conclusion. The one does
relate to not rely on the truth of the
conclusion other. The diagram will then
look like this:
R1 R2

C
Study unit: analysing
argument: complex arguments
and interpretation

Unit outcomes:
• Analysing complex arguments
• How to identify conclusions
(main and interim
conclusions)
• Procedures for identifying
and interpreting arguments
R1 R2
IC: intermediate conclusion

MC: Main conclusion

IC

R3 MC
R1 and R2 are indirect reasons
R3 and IC are direct reasons
Analysing complex arguments – a
strategy

• First select what you think is the main conclusion;

• Then look for the direct reasons that support it;
• Then look for reasons that support the direct reasons.
• i.e. work backwards from what you think is the main conclusion.
Conclusions

• In a longer argument it is easy to mistake a reason for a

conclusion, or an intermediate conclusion for the main
conclusion or to misunderstand the direction of the
argument altogether.
• It is to avoid this kind of misinterpretation that you need
the skill and confidence in argument analysis.
Identifying conclusions
• The conclusion of an argument is often marked by the word ‘so’ or
‘because’ or its equivalent (argument indicators)
• But often there is no such word present:
Example:
• Tax rises are not vote winners. Every time a government has raised
taxes in the last four decades, their poll ratings have fallen.
The principle of charity

• The rule that says we should interpret a supposed argument in a

favourable way – that is, as a good argument rather than a poor one.
• So if we have X therefore Y or Y therefore X , and we can see that X is
a good reason for believing Y, but Y is not a good reason for believing
X, then on the principle of charity we should accept the first
interpretation and not the second.
Study unit:
Assumptions
Unit outcomes:
• The role of unstated
assumptions in
arguments
• How to recognize implicit
assumptions and how to
include them in argument
analysis
Assumptions

• It is a claim or belief that is accepted as true even if it has

not been proven or justified. (Presumption)
• Assumptions can be implicit or explicit
• In many if not most arguments the premises themselves
are not more than assumptions. Unless a premise is a
known fact, the best that can be said of it is that it is an
assumption.
Deep rooted assumptions

• Many arguments make assumptions based on strong beliefs,

strict laws, political leanings, or shared cultural attitudes and
loyalties that we grow up with and keep for a lifetime.
Realising when an argument rests on assumptions which we
take more or less for granted, and rarely question, is an
important part of critical thinking and intelligent debate.
Study unit: Evaluating
argument

Unit outcomes:
• Flawed arguments and what
a fallacy is
• How to identify the flaws in
arguments
• Different types of common
fallacies
Flaws and fallacies
• A good or a sound argument satisfies two rules:
1. the reasons are true or justified
2. the conclusion follows from the reasons
• An argument where one of the reasons is not true/justified or where the
conclusion does not follow from the reasons, is flawed or has flaws in reasoning
or contains ‘reasoning errors’.
• There are two main ways in which you can find fault with an argument. 1) You
can challenge the truth of one or more of the reasons; and/or you can show
that, 2) whether the reasons are true or not, the conclusion does not follow
from them.
1. check the credibility of the claims
2. identify reasoning errors: find fallacies
Conclusions vs reasons
A useful metaphor for an argument is a
see-saw, or balance arm, with reasons
on one side and the conclusion on the
other. If the conclusion is too strong or
asserts too much the reasons may not
have sufficient weight to support it.
For an argument to be sound the
reasons must outweigh the
conclusion.
Fallacy example: Appeal to history
The technology for detecting forgeries has improved in recent years.
Unfortunately, the skills and techniques of the forgers have always kept
pace with the newest improvements. So we are going to see ever-
increasing amounts of counterfeit money in circulation.

• It assumes what has been true in the past remains true now, or in
the future.
Classic fallacies: Cause and correlation
• The post hoc fallacy is an example of the more general cause-correlation
fallacy – confusing correlation with cause.
• A correlation is any observed connection between two claims or two
facts. For instance, if there were an observed upward trend in violent
crime in a city, at a time when sales of violent computer games were on
the increase, it would be right to say there was some correlation between
the two trends. It would also be tempting to conclude that the games
were at least a factor in causing the actual violence to increase. This is
plausible. But the plausibility of an explanation does not make it true. It
can only be posited as a reasonable hypotheses but not safely inferred.
When you go into business you
can either adopt ethical
More practices or you can make a
fallacies: profit. Herbco has declared
Restricting itself to be an ethical company,
the options so if you want to see good
returns, you really need to invest
your money somewhere else.
• To challenge the holder of an
opinion rather than the argument
More itself
fallacies:
personal The principal wants to introduce more
physical exercises in the LO classes.
attack And this from a person who smokes
and does not do any physical
exercises at all.
• It assumes what it is effectively
going to conclude – it starts and
More finishes with more or less the
fallacies: same claim:
circular
argument Women should be able to choose to
terminate a pregnancy, so abortion
should be legal.
More fallacies: slippery slope
Chewing gum should be banned, like it is in Singapore The streets there are
not only free of all those sticky grey patches, but of litter of any kind. The
trouble with chewing bum is that it does not end there. Young people – and
not only the young see the disfigured pavements, and it blunts their senses.
They smoke in doorways and strew the ground with cigarette ends. Kids grow
up thinking “Why should I care? What is the point of me taking my litter home
or looking for a waste bin?” Soon the streets are littered with discarded food
trays, empty cans, broken glass, shopping trolleys and the walls are covered in
graffiti. It breeds a culture of hostility and violence, and before you know it
you have gangs roaming your neighbourhood.
• An argument is flawed if the reason or
reasons given are untrue, or give
inadequate support to the conclusion
• Some common flaws are:
• Arguing from a particular case to a general
conclusion
Summary • Relying too heavily on anecdotal evidence, or
past experience
• Mistaking a correlation for a cause
• Circular reasoning
• Restricting the options
• Slippery slope
• Personal attack
Study unit: further
argument

Unit outcomes:
• how to respond to an
argument with
further argument.
• With any argument, you are entitled to agree or
disagree with the author.
• On the basis of that, you will want to contribute by
either further supporting or challenging the
argument’s claims and reasons.
When given an argument, put some of your own ideas
Further •
on the table, either supporting or challenging the
argument •
author’s conclusion.
Remember to distinguish between your feelings
(emotional response) and the soundness of the
argument
• As you engage critically with an argument, you must
always remain open to an argument’s soundness and
be willing to reconsider your own position accordingly.
• Further argument goes beyond evaluation:
it’s your opportunity to be creative and put
some of your own ideas on the table,
either supporting or challenging the
Developing conclusions.
further • It is not any argument, it must relate
argument directly to the text you are working on.
• Evaluation of an argument often leads to
further argument (not always clear where
the one ends and the other begins)
• Step 1: Identify the issue or debate to which the target claim
belongs.
• Step 2: Decide on the side you propose to take, at least
provisionally.

Steps to • Step 3: Extract from the documents the supposed facts,

evidence, opinions, and supporting reasons you consider

develop a most relevant and list them. It is a good idea to list them
under headings such as ‘for’, ‘against’, and ‘neutral’; in

further relation to the target claim. Think about how you will assess
them critically.

argument • Step 4: Map out your argument in note form; the main
argument and supporting arguments corresponding to
paragraphs. Include the counter-claims and counter-
arguments, analogies that you intent to include and the way
in which you plan to respond them.
• Step 5: Revise your argument by analysing and evaluating it.