Introduction to Logical Thinking

Introduction to Logical Thinking Mrs. Lodato

Your Information:NamePhone #Year in SchoolMajorWhat does it mean to be logical?

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical Thinking

A set of skills and strategies for making reasonable decisions about what to do or believe.

Reasonable: to use disciplined intelligence to solve a problem or arrive at a conclusion.

Critical thinking, then, is concerned with:

Our ability to make decisions Our ability to arrive at well-founded conclusions Our ability to examine beliefs Our ability to uncover assumptions Our ability to evaluate claims

What is an assumption?

Assumption

A claim that is accepted and believed to be true with no evidence offered (with no argument offered)

What is a claim?

Claim

A statement that is either true or false Anything that expresses a statement that is either

true or falseDeclarative statementPhraseSingle wordRhetorical Questions

What are some obstacles to critical thinking?

Obstacles Our history (includes our belief systems) Egocentricity (favor our beliefs, values, etc.) Wishful thinking Culture and Ethnocentricity (favor the beliefs, values,

traditions of ones ethnic group) Peers Emotional State Health Reliance on Authority

Workbook Assignment

Workbook Assignment Go to the ‘Letter to the Editor’ page of a local newspaper Find a letter to the editor from a reader Carefully read through the letter Identify the main point the author is trying to make What evidence does the author offer? Is the author a good critical thinker? Why or why not? Explain in detail. Cut the letter out of the newspaper and tape it on a sheet of paper. Insert that into your workbook immediately after Activity One. Your evaluation

of the letter must be on the same or next page of the workbook. The evaluation does not have to be typed.

What does the Heaven’s Gate example have to do with critical thinking?