Critical Thinking  22381

Your guide to effective argument, successful analysis and independent study

  • Welcome to the book![rtoc]
    • What this book will help you to do
    • Thinking critically for yourself
    • Thinking critically online[/rtoc]
  • What is critical thinking (and why does it matter)?[rtoc]
    • The opposite of uncritical thinking
    • Scepticism and objectivity
    • The battle against bias
    • Fast and slow thinking
    • Allocating your attention
    • Your toolkit for critical thinking
    • What is critical thinking for?[/rtoc]

Part I: The Art and Science of Being Reasonable

  1. Understanding the reasons behind things[rtoc]
    • What is an argument? Persuasion through reasoning
    • Spotting arguments by searching for a conclusion
    • What isn’t an argument Information without reasoning
    • Explanations: the business of reasoning backwards
    • What isn’t an argument? Persuasion without reasoning[/rtoc]
  2. Spelling out arguments and assumptions[rtoc]
    • Premises and conclusions: the standard form
    • Reconstructing extended arguments
    • A step-by-step guide to reconstructing arguments
    • A few further words about assumptions
    • Putting it all together[/rtoc]
  3. Reasoning with logic and certainty[rtoc]
    • Introducing deductive reasoning
    • Valid and invalid arguments
    • Necessary and sufficient conditions
    • Two types of valid and invalid reasoning
    • Sound and unsound arguments[/rtoc]
  4. Reasoning with observation and uncertainty[rtoc]
    • Argument by induction
    • Introducing inductive force
    • Induction and everyday language
    • Addressing uncertainty through probability
    • Making use of samples
    • The problem of induction
    • Induction and falsification[/rtoc]
  5. Developing explanations and theories[rtoc]
    • Introducing abduction
    • Explanations, theories and hypotheses
    • Moving towards better explanations
    • Moving from evidence to proof
    • Correlation and causation
    • Conducting meaningful research[/rtoc]
  6. Assuming evidence and planning your reading strategy[/rtoc]
    • Engaging critically with primary and secondary sources
    • Creating a strategy for critical reading
    • Note-taking and critical engagement[/rtoc]
  • Intermission

Part II: Being Reasonable In An Unreasonable World

  1. Getting to grips with rhetoric[rtoc]
    • The power of language and rhetoric
    • Putting persuasion in context
    • Analysing a message in detail: emotion and human stories
    • Aiming for impartiality
    • Rhetorical devices[/rtoc]
  2. Seeing through faulty reasoning[rtoc]
    • Fallacious arguments and faulty reasoning
    • Fallacies, truths and hidden assumptions
    • Informal fallacies of relevance (red herrings)
    • Informal fallacies of ambiguity (linguistic fallacies)
    • Informal fallacies of presumption (material fallacies)
    • Two formal fallacies: affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent
    • The undistributed middle: a formal fallacy
    • From base rate neglect to Bayes’s theorem[/rtoc]
  3. Understanding cognitive bias[rtoc]
    • Four types of heuristic
    • When to trust heuristics and when to distrust them
    • Biases based on how things are presented
    • Biases born from over-simplification
    • Biases born from a lack of insight
    • Behavioural Economics and the research context[/rtoc]
  4. Overcoming bias in yourself and others[rtoc]
    • Attaching excessive significance to random events
    • Failing to consider things that didn’t happen
    • Over-estimating regularity and predictability
    • Humans: good at social situations, bad with numbers[/rtoc]
  5. Thinking critically about technology[rtoc]
    • From data to knowledge via fake news
    • Social proof and system biases
    • Time, attention and other people
    • Search, discovery and categories of knowledge
    • Practical tips for search, discovery and beyond[/rtoc]
  6. Putting it all together: critical thinking in study, work and life[rtoc]
    • Good writing in general
    • Good academic writing in particular
    • Writing and rewriting in practice
    • Getting the work done: what is holding you back?
    • Critical thinking and you
    • Ten commandments for critical thinking[/rtoc]
  • And finally …
  • Reading guide
  • Glossary
  • A synopsis of five valid forms of argument
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