Monday, November 22, 2010
Logic & Critical Thinking
What is the best way to approach or deal with complicated claims? What is the best way to apply logic in order to construct sound arguments? What are logical fallacies in how can they wreck an argument? What other sorts of common errors do people make when creating arguments? What can science and philosophy do to help us in our arguments?
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A logical fallacy is, roughly speaking, an error of reasoning. When someone adopts a position, or tries to persuade someone else to adopt a position, based on a bad piece of reasoning, they commit a fallacy. The common errors which people make when making an argument are many but I could think of the following. Hope they are of some help.
ReplyDeleteAn error occurs when one statement is not logically connected to another. One common mistake which I’ve seen in most of the debates is that when the speaker raises an irrelevant issue to draw attention away from the central issue. Moreover, a fault occurs when the writer (or speaker) personally attacks his or her opponents instead of finding fault with their argument. At times while giving an argument an error occurs when the writer asserts a claim but provides no support for it. The most interesting and common error is that when two or more comparable things are judged according to different standards; often involves holding the opposing argument to a higher standard than the one to which the writer holds his or her own argument. Similarly there is a mistake in the argument when the writer tries to convince readers to accept an argument on the basis of his or her moral credentials. And lastly the one most of us make while writing term papers especially is when as writers we fails to qualify the applicability of the claim and assert that it applies to "all" instances instead of to "some" instances. (For e.g. sweeping statements such as all the women face discrimination at workplace in Pakistan)
And for dealing with the complicated claims try reading between the lines. Rather than accepting literally the stuffs spooned to us, we should filter out the arguments from the information, ‘X-ray’ the arguments and examine them in their skeletal logic.
Nida: see the link below:
ReplyDeletehttp://atheism.about.com/od/criticalthinking/Critical_Thinking_Using_Logic_and_Reason.htm
Fatima: see the link below:
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
logic and critical thinking go hand in hand. its when thinking critically you apply your brain to it along with the elements of critical thinking too. so logic is used simultaneously with critical thinking
ReplyDeleteLogic plays an immense role in critical thinking regardless of the specific content being taught. All human knowledge is connected to some logic and critical thinking can expose students to the cross-currents between scientific discovery, social change, and literary responses to each.
ReplyDeleteI also think that logic plays a very essential role in critical thinking. Evrything that a person learns or does has some kind of logic attatched to it. Thus even when a person thinks crtically logic is involved which makes his/her thinking more resonable and reflective.
ReplyDeleteInteresting answers to my query and i have seen the mentioned link. . . really did help me understand logic in context to critical thinking.
ReplyDelete