A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking (eBook)

David A. Hunter, PhD, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ryerson University, Canada. He has published numerous journal articles in his areas of research interest, which include the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and critical thinking.

Preface

Note to Instructors

Chapter 1 The Nature and Value of Critical Thinking

1. The Nature of Critical Thinking

2. Critical Thinking and Knowledge

3. Knowledge and Truth

4. Knowledge and Belief

5. Knowledge and Justification

6. Good Reasons are Sufficient and Acceptable

7. When Evidence Conflicts

8. Critical Thinking and Personal Autonomy

9. Critical Thinking in Practice

Chapter 2 Clarifying Meaning

1. The Place of Definitions in Critical Thinking

2. Assertion and the Assertion Test

3. Assertion Test

4. Constructing and Evaluating Definitions

5. Give a Slogan

6. Expand on the Slogan

7. Give Examples

8. Identify Contrasting Ideas

9. Thinking Critically about Frameworks

10. Clarifying Beliefs and Problems

11. Technical Definitions

12. Meaning in Advertisements

13. Critical Thinking in Practice

Chapter 3 Sufficient Reasons

1. Critical Thinking and Arguments

2. Identifying Premises and Conclusions

3. Dependent and Independent Premises

4. Sub-Arguments

5. Evaluating Logical Support

6. Missing Premises

7. Piling on Independent Premises

8. Critical Thinking in Practice

Chapter 4 Acceptable Reasons

1. Reliable Sources

2. Undermining and Overriding Evidence

3. Observation

4. Memory

5. Testimony

6. Advertising

7. News Reports

8. Measurement

9. Surveys

10. Critical Thinking in Practice

Chapter 5 Reasoning about Alternatives and about Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

1. Reasoning about Alternatives

2. The Meaning of Disjunctions

3. Reasoning by Denying a Disjunct

4. False Disjunctions

5. When are Disjunctions Acceptable?

6. Exclusive Disjunctions

7. How to Criticize Reasoning about Alternatives

8. Reasoning about Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

9. The Meaning of Conditionals

10. Valid Forms of Reasoning about Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

11. Invalid Forms of Reasoning about Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

12. Making Necessary and Sufficient Conditions Explicit

13. When are Claims about Necessary and Sufficient Conditions Acceptable?

14. Reasoning with Definitions and Standards

15. Necessary and Sufficient Causal Conditions

16. Reasoning with Causal Claims

17. Discovering Causal Conditions

18. Critical Thinking in Practice

Chapter 6 Reasoning by Analogy

1. Reasoning by Perfect Analogy

2. Is Reasoning by Analogy valid?

3. When is an Analogical Claim True?

4. Reasoning using Representational Analogy

5. Reasoning with Samples

6. When are Samples Representative?

7. Reasoning with Maps and Models

8. Critical Thinking in Practice

Chapter 7 Critical Thinking in Action

1. Thinking Critically about a Discipline

2. Identifying a Discipline's Sources of Evidence

3. Identifying a Discipline's forms of Reasoning

4. Critical Thinking Questions

5. Thinking Critically in your own Decision Making

6. Thinking Critically in Discussion

7. From Theory to Practice: applying what we have learned

Appendix A: Critical Thinking Mistakes

Appendix B: Critical Thinking Strategies

"A well-structured path of increasing diculty,
disseminated by useful examples and study cases taken from a
variety of disciplines as well as from common situations."
Zentralblatt MATH (of the previous edition)