The Critical Thinking Toolkit

The Critical Thinking Toolkit is a comprehensive compendium that equips readers with the essential knowledge and methods for clear, analytical, logical thinking and critique in a range of scholarly contexts and everyday situations.

• Takes an expansive approach to critical thinking by exploring concepts from other disciplines, including evidence and justification from philosophy, cognitive biases and errors from psychology, race and gender from sociology and political science, and tropes and symbols from rhetoric

• Follows the proven format of The Philosopher's Toolkit and The Ethics Toolkit with concise, easily digestible entries, "see also" recommendations that connect topics, and recommended reading lists

• Allows readers to apply new critical thinking and reasoning skills with exercises and real life examples at the end of each chapter

• Written in an accessible way, it leads readers through terrain too often cluttered with jargon

• Ideal for beginning to advanced students, as well as general readers, looking for a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to critical thinking

Autorentext

Galen Foresman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, USA. His research interests include ethics, philosophy of punishment, philosophy of religion, and philosophy as it applies to pop culture. He is the author of several book chapters and the editor of Supernatural and Philosophy (Wiley Blackwell, 2013). Peter S. Fosl is Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Chair of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Transylvania University, USA. A David Hume Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, his research interests include skepticism and the history of philosophy, as well as topics in politics and religion. He is author or editor of many books, including The Big Lebowski and Philosophy (Wiley Blackwell, 2012), The Philosopher's Toolkit, 2nd ed. (Wiley Blackwell, 2010), and The Ethics Toolkit (Wiley Blackwell, 2007). He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Open Access academic journal Cogent OA: Arts & Humanities. Jamie Carlin Watson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Broward College, USA. His primary research is in the social epistemology of epistemic advantage and expertise, especially as they influence testimony in practical fields such as medicine and business. He has published articles in journals such as Episteme and Journal of Applied Philosophy, and is the co-author of Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Reasoning Well, 2nd ed. (2015), What's Good on TV? Understanding Ethics through Television (Wiley Blackwell, 2011), and Philosophy Demystified (2011).

Klappentext
"The Critical Thinking Toolkit is a smart, well-written guide to critical thinking that will have students (and instructors) wondering how they got by without it for so long. Not only is this volume a key resource for those new to the study of critical thinking, but I suspect that copies will also find their way into the grateful hands of students in any academic discipline that requires the ability to think clearly and discerningly." Troy Jollimore, California State University, Chico The Critical Thinking Toolkit is a comprehensive compendium that equips readers with the essential tools and methods for clear, analytical, and logical thinking in a range of scholarly contexts and everyday situations. Following the format of The Philosopher's Toolkit and The Ethics Toolkit, this volume contains concise, easily digestible entries, incisive insights that deftly connect sub-topics, and carefully-curated recommendations for further reading. This interdisciplinary guide takes a holistic approach to critical thinking by collecting related concepts from disparate fields in one indispensable volume. In addition to basic logic, the authors cover topics such as evidence and justification from philosophy, cognitive biases and errors from psychology, race and gender from sociology and political science, tropes and symbols from rhetoric, and much more. Directed exercises and real-world examples at the end of each chapter enable readers to directly engage with these concepts, methods, and skills in application. Ideal for general readers and students alike, this sophisticated yet accessible introduction to critical thinking gives readers the knowledge they need to become discerning, engaged, and empowered thinkers in the world today.

Zusammenfassung
The Critical Thinking Toolkit is a comprehensive compendium that equips readers with the essential knowledge and methods for clear, analytical, logical thinking and critique in a range of scholarly contexts and everyday situations.

• Takes an expansive approach to critical thinking by exploring concepts from other disciplines, including evidence and justification from philosophy, cognitive biases and errors from psychology, race and gender from sociology and political science, and tropes and symbols from rhetoric
• Follows the proven format of The Philosopher's Toolkit and The Ethics Toolkit with concise, easily digestible entries, see also recommendations that connect topics, and recommended reading lists
• Allows readers to apply new critical thinking and reasoning skills with exercises and real life examples at the end of each chapter
• Written in an accessible way, it leads readers through terrain too often cluttered with jargon
• Ideal for beginning to advanced students, as well as general readers, looking for a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to critical thinking

Inhalt

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction

The Very Idea of Critical Thinking 1

Critical thinking in the formal and empirical sciences 2

Critical thinking, critical theory, and critical politics 4

Critical thinking, finitude, and self-understanding 5

Using this book 5

Basic Tools for Critical Thinking about Arguments

1.1 Claims 7

Beliefs and opinions 8

Simple and complex claims 9

Truth functionality 10

1.2 Arguments 11

Logic vs. eristics 12

Arguments vs. explanations 12

1.3 Premises 13

Enthymemes 14

Identifying premises 14

1.4 Conclusions 16

Argument structure 16

Simple and complex arguments 16

Identifying conclusions 17

More Tools for Critical Thinking about Arguments

2.1 Deductive and Inductive Arguments 19

Deduction 20

Induction 21

2.2 Conditional Claims 22

Necessary and sufficient conditions 23

Biconditional claims 25

2.3 Classifying and Comparing Claims 26

Comparing claims 26

Classifying single claims 28

2.4 Claims and Definitions 29

Lexical, stipulative, ostensive, and negative definition 30

Extension and intension 30

Generic similarities and specific differences 31

Definiens and definiendum 31

2.5 The Critical Thinker's Two Step: Validity and Soundness/Cogency and Strength 32

Structure before truth 33

2.6 Showing Invalidity by Counterexample 35

Tools for Deductive Reasoning with Categories

3.1 Thinking Categorically 39

Types and tokens 39

3.2 Categorical Logic 40

Quality, quantity, and standard form 40

Venn diagrams and the meaning of categorical claims 42

Distribution and its implications 44

Existential import 45

3.3 Translating English Claims to Standard Form 46

Implicit quantifiers 46

Individuals 47

Getting the verb right 47

Adverbials 48

Trust your instincts 50

A caveat 50

3.4 Formal Deduction with Categories: Immediate Inferences 50

Equivalences 51

Conversion 52

Contraposition 53

Obversion 56

The Aristotelian and Boolean Squares of Opposition 58

3.5 Formal Deduction with Categories: Syllogisms 63

Categorical syllogisms 64

Major and minor terms 64

Mood and figure 65

The Venn diagram test for validity 66

Five easy rules for evaluating categorical syllogisms 69

Gensler …