Welcome to an essential guide on Introduction to Critical Thinking and Arguments, a fundamental skill for academic success and everyday reasoning. Understanding how arguments are constructed, identifying their components, and distinguishing them from other forms of communication is crucial for evaluating information effectively. This article will break down these core concepts, helping you sharpen your analytical abilities.
What is Critical Thinking and Why Arguments Matter
Critical thinking involves the careful and systematic evaluation of information to form a judgment. At its heart, critical thinking often involves analyzing arguments. An argument is defined as a group of statements, one or more of which (the premises) are claimed to provide support for, or reasons to believe, one of the others (the conclusion).
Arguments are composed of one or more premises and a conclusion. Premises are statements offered as evidence, while the conclusion is the statement the premises intend to prove or support. Being able to correctly identify these parts is the first step in analyzing any argument.
Distinguishing Sentences and Statements in Critical Thinking
Before diving deeper into arguments, it's important to understand the building blocks: statements. A statement is a sentence that can be viewed as either true or false. It expresses a claim that is either factual or opinion-based, but importantly, it has a truth value.
- Red is a colour. (True statement)
- Canada is in South America. (False statement)
- God does not exist. (Controversial statement)
Not all sentences are statements. Questions, commands, and greetings, for example, cannot be true or false, so they are not statements.
Identifying Premises and Conclusions in Arguments
In any argument, some statements serve as evidence, and one statement is the main point being argued. The statements that set forth the reasons or evidence are called premises. The statement that the evidence is claimed to support or imply is the conclusion.
For example:
- All film stars are celebrities. (Premise)
- Majid Michel is a film star. (Premise)
- Therefore, Majid Michel is a celebrity. (Conclusion)
In this example, the first two statements clearly support the third.
Using Indicator Words to Find Premises and Conclusions
Identifying premises and conclusions is often made easier by indicator words. These are words or phrases that provide clues about which parts of a passage are premises and which are conclusions.
Common Premise Indicators:
- Since
- For
- Seeing that
- Inasmuch as
- Because
- Given that
- Considering that
- As
- In view of the fact that
- As indicated by
- Judging from
- On account of
- May be inferred from
- For the reason that
- Owing to
Example: Expectant mothers should never use recreational drugs, since the use of these drugs can jeopardize the development of the fetus.
Common Conclusion Indicators:
- Therefore
- Accordingly
- Entails that
- Wherefore
- We may conclude
- Hence
- Thus
- It must be that
- It follows that
- Consequently
- For this reason
- Implies that
- We may infer
- So
- As a result
Example: Tortured prisoners will say anything just to relieve the pain. Consequently, torture is not a reliable method of interrogation.
Understanding the Inferential Claim
An inferential claim is simply the assertion that a passage expresses a certain kind of reasoning process. It's the claim that something supports or implies something else, or that something follows from something.
This claim is an objective feature of an argument, grounded in its language or structure, rather than the subjective intentions of the arguer.
Explicit vs. Implicit Inferential Claims
Inferential claims can be either explicit or implicit.
- Explicit inferential claim: This is usually asserted by premise or conclusion indicator words. For instance, the word “thus” in an argument clearly signals that an inference is being made.
Example: Mad cow disease is spread by feeding parts of infected animals to cows, and this practice has yet to be completely eradicated. Thus, mad cow disease continues to pose a threat to people who eat beef.
- Implicit inferential claim: This exists if there's an inferential relationship between statements in a passage, but no indicator words are present.
Example: The genetic modification of food is risky business. Genetic engineering can introduce unintended changes into the DNA of the food-producing organism, and these changes can be toxic to the consumer.
Here, the first statement is the conclusion, supported by the following two premises, even without explicit indicators.
What Is Not an Argument? Recognizing Non-Argumentative Discourse
Not every passage of text or spoken statement constitutes an argument. To distinguish arguments from nonarguments, remember the basic test: A passage is an argument if it contains two or more statements, and one (the conclusion) is claimed to be supported by the others (the premises). Here are five types of nonargumentative discourse often confused with arguments:
Unsupported Assertions: Simply Stating Beliefs
Unsupported assertions are statements about what a speaker or writer believes, without offering reasons or evidence to support those beliefs. They are statements of opinion presented as fact, but without the backing of an inferential claim.
Example: I believe that it is not dying that people are afraid of. Something else, something more unsettling and more tragic than dying frightens us. We are afraid of never having lived, of coming to the end of our days with the sense that we were never really alive, that we never figured out what life was for.
This passage states beliefs but doesn't provide premises to logically support them as a conclusion.
Conditional Statements: If-Then Relations, Not Arguments
A conditional statement is an if-then statement, or an antecedent-consequent statement. It expresses a relationship between two events or conditions, but it does not claim that any statement follows from another within the statement itself.
Examples:
- If it rains, then the picnic will be canceled.
- Should it rain, the picnic will be canceled.
- Peter will graduate, provided he passes Critical Thinking.
Conditional statements are not arguments because there's no claim that one part proves or supports another part; it only states a dependency.
Reports: Conveying Information Without Argumentation
Reports simply aim to convey information about a subject or event. They present facts or observations without attempting to prove a point or convince the reader of a conclusion.
Example: Sweeping changes occurred in demographics, economics, culture, and society during the last quarter of the 20th century. The nation aged, and more of its people gravitated to the Sunbelt. Sprawling “urban corridors” and “edge cities” challenged older central cities as sites for commercial, as well as residential, development. Rapid technological change fueled the growth of globalized industries, restructuring the labor force to fit a “postindustrial” economy.
This passage offers information without an inferential claim.
Explanations: Showing Why, Not Proving That
An explanation tries to show why something is the case, not to prove that it is the case. While explanations often use words like