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WGU D265 Critical Thinking Exam Questions
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Critical thinking - ✅✅primarily the ability to think carefully about thinking and reasoning—to criticize your own reasoning. "Criticize" here is not meant in the sense of being mean or talking down or making fun of. Instead, it is used in the sense of, for example, how a coach might take a critical stance toward a players' skills—he throws high every time, she does not lead with her foot, they ride too forward in the saddle, etc. "Critical" here means something more like "reflective," "careful," or "attentive to potential errors." Being curious and thinking creatively: - ✅✅not believing things are simple and settled, being willing to go the next step and think about all of the possible positions and arguments before settling into a position. Separating the thinker from the position: - ✅✅being able to discuss a position without attacking or judging the person holding the position, without getting caught up in our own attachment to the position or its antithesis, and without having our identities wrapped up in a particular viewpoint or opinion. Knowing oneself enough to avoid biases and errors of thought: - ✅✅being aware of the flawed patterns of reasoning we are disposed to engage in, being aware of cognitive biases and mental heuristics (rough rules that work well enough to survive but don't work in many cases) that we're prone as a species to have, all in the interest of counteracting these biases and flaws. Having intellectual honesty, humility, and charity: very important: - ✅✅being honest about what we know and how we know it, what evidence we have and what questions are not yet settled; being humble in recognizing the vast number of things we don't yet know or understand and in recognizing how very difficult it
is to truly know anything at all and so recognizing that the standards are high and we, most of the time, don't meet them (and that's okay); and being charitable or having the disposition to attribute the best intentions and most sophisticated positions and arguments that we can imagine to our opponents in arguments. Understanding arguments, reasons, and evidence: - ✅✅thinking carefully about thinking, about arguments and positions. Propositions - ✅✅statements that can be true or false. Non-propositions - ✅✅Sentences that are not statements about matters of fact (or fiction). They do not make a claim that can be true or false. They cannot be true or false Exhort - ✅✅to urge strongly, Example: Let's go to get dinner! Let's go hiking on Tuesday! Command - ✅✅give an authoritative order. Example: Go to the store later to buy me some cheese. Don't do that. Plead/Request - ✅✅ask for something from someone, often on the verge of begging. Example Would you please stop that? Please read me a bedtime story! Question - ✅✅something asked, a statement that requires an answer Example: What is the capital of Florida? How much do the pineapples cost?
so, it follows that, hence, thus, entails that, we may conclude that, implies that, wherefore, as a result Premise indicators - ✅✅have the general sense of "from this fact I am going to infer something else." Here are some common: Because, for, given that, in that, as, since, as indicated by Inference/Argument. - ✅✅is any purportedly rational movement from evidence or premises to a conclusion. Example: "I believe x, because of y, z, and w" or "Because a, b and c, we have to believe that d." bad argument premises - ✅✅is one where the premises fail to support the conclusion good argument's premises - ✅✅actually do support the conclusion. Deduction - ✅✅Arguments where the premises guarantee or necessitate the conclusion Induction - ✅✅Arguments where the premises make the conclusion probable Abduction - ✅✅Arguments where the best available explanation is chosen as the correct explanation Invalid Argument Structure - ✅✅is one where the premises do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion Ex: All crows are black. John is black.
Therefore, John is a crow Valid Argument Structure - ✅✅is an argument structure where the premises guarantee the conclusion Ex: Only crows are black. John is black. So, John is a crow. The Fallacy Fallacy - ✅✅when someone uses the fact that a fallacy was committed to justify rejecting the conclusion of the fallacious argument. Soundness/Sound Argument - ✅✅is about both structure and truth: you must have a good structure and true premises to make a sound argument Ex: T+T=T Unsound Argument - ✅✅conversely, is an argument that either is invalid or has at least one false premise Ex: T+F=F Validity - ✅✅is a property of an argument structure. It means this structure is such that if the premises of any argument with this structure are true then the conclusion of the argument must be true. Sound Argument - ✅✅All True Premises + Valid Structure = How is truth connected to propositions? - ✅✅Truth is a property of propositions. That is, only proposition can be true or false.
Informal Fallacy - ✅✅yields a defect in the arguments content which may also yield defect in its form. Equivocation Example: P1: A feather is light (weight) P2: What is light (color) cannot be dark C: Therefore, a feather cannot be dark. Fallacy - ✅✅a defect in reason that can be intentional or unintentional. Modus Ponens - ✅✅If X, then Y. X. Therefore, Y. The Fallacy Fallacy - ✅✅when someone uses the fact that a fallacy was committed to justify rejecting the conclusion of the fallacious argument. Begging the Question/Circular Reasoning - ✅✅when a statement is used to prove itself. we want our premise to provide a reason for accepting the conclusion. But if the premise is the same claim as the conclusion, then it cannot possibly provide a reason for accepting the conclusion! Genetic Fallacy - ✅✅occurs when an arguer critiques the origin of a claim or argument rather than the claim or argument itself Ad Hominem Fallacy - ✅✅instead of responding to (or attacking) the argument a person has made, one attacks the person directly. In short, one attacks the person making the argument rather than the argument itself.
Straw Figure or Straw Man Fallacy - ✅✅happens when someone (willfully or mistakenly) misinterprets someone else's argument or position. The opponent's argument or position is characterized uncharitably so as to make it seem ridiculous or indefensible. It is a fallacy of relevance because the arguer is attacking an irrelevant argument Red Herring is Evasive - ✅✅this is to respond to a question with an answer irrelevant to the original question. Irrelevant Appeals - ✅✅The premises aren't relevant to the truth or falsity of the conclusion because whether or not the conclusion is true doesn't depend at all on whether or not the premises are true. Appeal to Authority - ✅✅but we trust authorities all the time about lots of things and we're right to do so. The fallacy is when we trust an authority on one subject (or perhaps someone who is not an authority on anything at all) to speak on another subject. Appeal to Force - ✅✅is an irrelevant appeal because it argues that some proposition is true, but uses as justification for the claim a threat on the listener. If you don't believe this, then you will suffer bad consequences. But that's not a reason to believe the proposition. That's a reason to make yourself believe it or to act as if you believe it Appeal to the People, to Popularity, Nose-Counting Fallacy, Bandwagon Fallacy, argumentum ad populum - ✅✅appealing to the popularity of a thing or idea or practice in order to justify that thing or idea or practice. In an argument, one
Normal arguments - ✅✅(arguments you'd find in a letter to the editor or in a social media post or on radio or tv) aren't like that—they have more premises, some of which don't directly support the conclusion, but instead support other premises. Independent Support - ✅✅when each premise seems like it's an argument for the conclusion on its own Conjoint Support - ✅✅When a premise doesn't seem to support the conclusion without the help of the other premises. A good test for conjoint support is to pretend one of the premises is false. syllogisms - ✅✅2 premises and 1 conclusion immediate inferences: - ✅✅1 premise and 1 conclusion. Indirect Support - ✅✅we find a premise offers indirect support for the main conclusion of the argument. In that case, we have to build a vertical pattern into our argument map that might look something like this diagram. Bias Impacts - ✅✅There are many different ways that desires, situations, and information-processing systems can cause people to lean toward one conclusion over others, and errors in the use of statistics can make a conclusion seem more believable than is justified Potential Impacts - ✅✅While the primary consequence to avoid in each form of bias is the forming of false beliefs, different forms of bias can cause negative
consequences in different ways and thus require different responses and precautions. Confirmation bias - ✅✅ignore evidence that undermines what is already believed and put extra weight on evidence that confirms what is already believed. Representativeness Heuristic - ✅✅makes people judge a situation by means of situations in memories that bear similarities to it, even if those similarities are not really relevant. Anchoring bias - ✅✅This causes people to put too much weight on the first information received when making further decisions. To reduce its influence, try to get larger sets of more objective data and not rely too much on personal anchors. Availability bias - ✅✅causes people to make judgments based on whichever examples come most readily to min System 1 thinking - ✅✅Thinking is subject to common kinds of cognitive biases. If we arrive at conclusions automatically, they can be heavily influenced by availability bias, confirmation bias, and so forth. System 2 thinking - ✅✅thinking before we arrive at all beliefs or make all decisions. In fact, it might not even be beneficial if it were possible, since too much deliberation can lead to analysis paralysis, causing no decision to be made due to weighing too many factors.
Evasive Red Herring - ✅✅This is to respond to a question with an answer irrelevant to the original question. Example of an evasive red herring is when politicians are asked about scandals they are involved in or controversial comments they have made. Rather than address controversies, they often change the subject. Irrelevant Appeals - ✅✅Any kind of appeal to a factor, consideration, or reason that isn't relevant to the argument at hand (but is used as a reason rather than as a mere distraction—A Red Herring is a distraction, not an irrelevant reason) is called an Irrelevant Appeal. The premises aren't relevant to the truth or falsity of the conclusion because whether or not the conclusion is true doesn't depend at all on whether or not the premises are true. Appeal to Unqualified Authority - ✅✅but we trust authorities all the time about lots of things and we're right to do so. The fallacy is when we trust an authority on one subject (or perhaps someone who is not an authority on anything at all) to speak on another subject. Appeal to Force - ✅✅An appeal to force is an irrelevant appeal because it argues that some proposition is true, but uses as justification for the claim a threat on the listener. Fallacy of Equivocation - ✅✅refers to this very fact: the same word is being used in two different senses (i.e., with two different meanings). So, unlike formal fallacies, identifying the fallacy of equivocation requires that we draw on our understanding of the meaning of words and of our understanding of the world, generally. Appeal to Popularity Fallacy - ✅✅Arguing that a claim must be true merely because a substantial number of people believe it.
appeal to consequences fallacy - ✅✅is committed when one appeals to the bad (or good) consequences of accepting a claim as a reason to reject (or accept) it as true. Fallacy of Equivocation - ✅✅is committed when one's argument mistakenly uses the same word in two different senses. Fallacy of Appeal to Ignorance - ✅✅The fallacies of weak induction are all failures in reasoning about the messy world of cause and effect, contingent facts of the universe, and generalizations about kinds of things in the world. In each case, an argument is put forth using evidence incorrectly, or making bad predictions, or generalizing improperly. Clearly, this kind of argument cannot provide a justification for its conclusion. In other words, there are all sorts of (sort of) surprising facts about the pyramids, and nobody knows how to explain them Fallacy of Ignorance - ✅✅It can happen when an individual determines something is true based on the lack of evidence that it is not true, or a person determines something is false based on the lack of evidence that it is not false. Texas Sharpshooting Fallacy - ✅✅Instead of looking at the evidence and letting it determine what conclusion we develop, instead we're letting our fixed conclusion determine how we treat the evidence! It's backwards Post Hoc Argo Propter Hoc False Cause Fallacy - ✅✅Just because something regularly follows another thing, doesn't mean that it is caused by that other thing. As the saying goes, correlation does not imply causation. This happens when someone mistakes correlation for causation.
Hasty Generalization - ✅✅A fallacy in which a faulty conclusion is reached because of inadequate evidence. It's when one generalizes about a group of people or things or events, but one does so too quickly and without enough evidence or with too small of a sample. Fallacy of False Dichotomy - ✅✅is simply a disjunction that does not exhaust all of the possible options. In this case, the problematic disjunction is the first premise: Either I trust the word of a madman or I defend America (by going to war against Saddam Hussein's regime) indirect support - ✅✅We find a premise offers indirect support for the main conclusion of the argument. Paradigm example - ✅✅"1 is true" "why?" "because of 2". Or "Given that 2 is true, 1 follows independent support - ✅✅when each premise seems like it's an argument for the conclusion on its own. conjoint support - ✅✅when a premise doesn't seem to support the conclusion without the help of the other premises. A good test for conjoint support is to pretend one of the premises is false. Does this affect the inference(s) from the other premise(s) to the conclusion?
General-Specific - ✅✅When you see two premises where one premise is a general definition, a generalization, or a hypothetical or conditional, or a general principle, and the other premise is a specific claim about an individual under that generalization, those are almost certain to be a conjoint premise. Mapping Independent Support - ✅✅Without the other conjoint premises, it would be unclear why one conjoint premise should be taken as a reason for accepting the conclusion. Using Downward Braces - ✅✅if there are more than one conclusion for any given inference Conjoint Example - ✅✅Deductive arguments are more often than not conjoint support. This is just a rough and ready rule, but the way standard deductive arguments (without extra irrelevant premises) work is that the premises are all necessary for the inference to demonstrate the conclusion. basic argument terminology - ✅✅ Are sentences and propositions the same? - ✅✅No, Not the same Proposition Example - ✅✅Lunch is the most important meal of the day Non Proposition example - ✅✅Lets go get lunch what kind of bias is being demonstrated:
Distinguish "system 1 thinking" and "system 2 thinking": - ✅✅System 1: Thinking quick, automatic, and emotional System 2: Deliberate, effortful, and calculating "You should agree with my view on this, because if you don't, I will break your knees." - ✅✅Appeal to force fallacy "That view has to be correct because lots of people believe it." - ✅✅Appeal to popularity fallacy "My opponent has argued that we should ban phones from school. But he is an old grump, so we shouldn't take his argument seriously." - ✅✅Ad Hominem fallacy "The sign up there says that this store will give you a free mouse with your laptop purchase. But I don't have the time to take care of a pet right now, so I don't think this deal is valuable to me." - ✅✅Equivocation fallacy "You say that we should decrease the price of bus tickets. But nobody is talking about littering. There is a lot of garbage in the streets right now!" - ✅✅Red harring fallacy You say that we should decrease the price of bus tickets. But if we accept that those prices should go down, that would be embarrassing to the city council members who opposed the decrease. Since it will embarrass them, we shouldn't believe that it is true." - ✅✅Appeal to consequences fallacy
Main Conclusion: - ✅✅Final conclusion of the argument Example: "You should exercise regularly." Sub-Conclusion: - ✅✅Definition: A conclusion that is supported by a premise and, in turn, supports the main conclusion. Example: "Essential vitamins improve health." Explanation: This sub-conclusion supports the main conclusion that eating fruits improves health. Sub-Premise: - ✅✅Definition: A premise that supports a sub-conclusion. Example: "Eating fruits provides essential vitamins." Explanation: This sub-premise supports the sub-conclusion that essential vitamins improve health. What is an Argument Map? - ✅✅Definition: An argument map is a visual representation of the structure of an argument, showing the relationships between the main conclusion, premises, and sub-conclusions.
