critical thinking & fallacies of reasoning

• critical thinking - thought process, allowing to make judgements, assess way we think, solve problems
• qualities of a critical thinker

  • inquistive
  • investigative
  • open-minded
  • evaluates information
• importance of critical thinking

  • in reading - recognize text & react to them intelligently
  • in writing - skills to create well-written text
• hasty generalization - generalizing about something with barely any evidence
• argumentum ad ignoratiam - to be true because not proven false
• slippery slope - claims that would lead to a major event, but a bad one
• circular reasoning - goes back to itself
• ad populum - based on popular belief
• fallacy of composition - claimed whole as true because a part of it is true
• ad baculum - human emotions, usually fear, threat, force
• ad hominem - attacked because of appearance
• false dilemma - one or two options despite multiple possibilities
• complex question - may accept or reject both, leaving one point satisfactory and one point not
• appeal to force - threat instead of reasoning
• appeal to pity - pity is used instead of logical reasoning
• appeal to consequence - believing something out is pointed out to show belief is fake
• bandwagon - what majority thinks
• anonymous authority - not mentioned or named
• false analogy - two concepts similar in other ways
• accident - applying general rule to a case that it does not apply to
• post hoc ergo propter hoc - after this, therefore because of this
• wrong direction - cause & effect reversed
• complex cause - reduced to one thing when there are other factors that contributed in the event
• irrelevant conclusion - concludes something else
• straw man - exaggerating other point, making it easy to refute
• affirming the consequent - draws conclusion if consequent is true, antecedent is also true
• denying the antecedent - consequent false, antecedent false
• inconsistency - argument contradicts one another