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A friendly warning note to you on this FREE Class. All of the material used for this Extremely Hard Class in Critical Thinking was stolen from old dead guys who can't sue me for using their material. The rest of it was borrowed or plagerized from other college classes, as their material seemed appropriate or useful. This of course, was done to deliver to you the best possible information on this Hardest Of All Subjects. (You do get what you pay for, don't you?)
It is a little known Fact of Life, that the higher you go in Graduate and Doctorate programs, (Piled Higher and Deeper) the less the Professor does. He ceases to teach, and becomes a Facilitator (much less work!) You reach a point where he tells you to write your own Syllabus, get your own Research, and teach yourself all you need to know about the subject. Students who have drifted through their college years without ever having to Process or Reason (This is very easy to do!) have been known to run screaming in terror from these Higher Level Classes! (How FUN!) Why is this the Hardest Course? A. This course requires that you THINK! B. It literally requires that you do not lie to yourself. C. It requires that ultimately you as a student must throw out all that is said here, and rewrite the course correctly, based on your own honest hard work, research and hypothesizing! IOW, You have to Apply Critical Thinking here: Figure it out, Think it through, Reason it out for yourself! This is the only known method which we have discovered to get you to learn and understand Critical Thinking! Final Note: The most basic premise of this class, and BTW, every other class you will ever take, is: "QUESTION EVERYTHING!" BEGIN LESSON ONE (Turn off your brain here and begin to be in your old, comfortable, reflective, memorizing mode. Don't think - just do what you are told, and learn just what you are told. Everything will be all right. Don't question the Professor. He is smarter than you. Why rock the boat? You will look silly if you ask questions here! What are you? Some kind of Troublemaker?) (?) CRITICAL THINKING IS JUST LOGIC (?) (Remember: these question marks at the end of every statement imply that either I, or the people I stole this from, are lying to you: Question everything!) A FEW BASIC DEFINITIONS What kind of person is a Critical Thinker? Here is a tentative definition. (You decide if this is a good one or not.) "A critical thinker is a guy or gal who thinks well and is openminded. They have knowledge, not just about their own opinions, but about other views that differ from theirs. They don't just think about these other views, but they can examine them and can enjoy the reasoning behind them. A Critical Thinker is able to explore alien and threatening views and paradigms. They are not afraid to question again their own most personal beliefs and opinions. The Critical Thinker can also independently develop some well reasoned arguements which oppose their own views. Critical Thinkers are above all else, pragmatic and capable of seperating their reasoning of a viewpoint from their own strong emotions about that subject. (?)(Obviously this is a heavily paraphrased "quote" from a popular author on this subject. Can you find out which one it is? Do find out! It will help you get started on a real Bibliography for this class!) All the above being true, this therefore is a course in Logic. Being a Critical Thinker and being Logical are the same thing (?)
Informal Logic
A person has to know their own attitude, psychological quirks, and upbringing very well. It would not hurt for them to also know what kind of learner they are! They must know how things in their background and makeup influence their ability to reason. Informal logic is the reasoning out the Content of the argument. A person should be able to evaluate those visual and auditory devices which advertisers, politicians and debaters use to manipulate people. (?)
Formal Logic
Language with its structure and grammar influences us with inferences and emotionally charged words. Formal Logic therefore, is about the Form or word structure of an argument. (?)
Perception (Of course, you must understand that my perception is much better than yours.)
Judgment The Mind creatively and surpizingly generates connections between seperate and disjointed Ideas and Icons. This is the real basis for all Language. (?) (Now do not create for yourself a sudden connection here between Logic and Intuition. Intuition is never allowed as a part of Logic. Don't ask why. Shut up and mind your own business!) (?) How the Mind Reasons Inferring Something New (Suppose this were True?) from Two or more Connected Statements or Ideas (Suppositions). This happens in the Mind when two or more Suppositions (Propositons? What's the difference?) suddenly give the Mind enough information to create a Conclusion which was previously unknown or hidden. You do not have to consciously make your Mind do this. The Mind will regularly create these Connections and Conclusions without your asking it to.(?)(Really Great Judges regularly do this on even less than two Suppositions, or even Evidence.) Isaac Watts gave an example about this: "So when we have judged that matter cannot think, and that the mind of man does think, we then infer and conclude, that therefore the mind of man is not matter." (?) (However, now we have the Mac, which is a thinking machine. Therefore, we then infer and conclude, that the mind of man is made of Macintoshes.) (?)The way the Mind goes about Inferring conclusions is called Reasoning. (?) Disposition (Issac Watts again:) "Disposition is that operation of the mind, whereby we put the ideas, propositions, and arguments, which we have formed concerning one subject, into - an order. . . The effect of this operation is called Method." Today, we might call this "Cataloging" information.
(IOW, you will really know this subject when you can glibbly explain it very well to someone else who knows nothing at all about it, or who is a complete idiot!) Informal Logic, Formal Logic, Perception, Judgment, Reasoning, Inference and Dispositon. (Did I get them all? Don't you just hate these obscure terms? Why can't they put these things in plain English? Shut up! You ask too many questions!) Painful ain't it! Sorry about those "Emotional Land Mines!" How did you ever get through school without being damaged by some of the Unthinking Cretins who taught your classes? However, since you survived, and you want to learn to think clearly, you must begin to ignore these emotional Zingers that will be thrown at you from time to time. Giving in to them feels good, but it short circuits your ability to Reason. IOW, don't take it personally! I don't want to have to keep looking under the hood of my car every morning! Can you think of any other approach to Critical Thinking, or the Logical Method besides what is offered here? Now be honest! |