SSH 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: False Premise, Critical Thinking, Aristotle
15 Jul 2016
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Wednesday october 2 nd , 2013 (3. 5) evaluating logical strength. Critical thinking demands that we have acceptable and sufficient reasons for our beliefs and decisions. Ideally, (i) our reasons should be true and (ii) they should support our beliefs and decisions. It turns out that these two conditions are totally independent of one another: i. e. , whether an argument"s premises are true has (almost) nothing to do with whether they support its conclusion! An argument is invalid if and only if it is not valid. An argument is valid if and only if it is not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Note: this is a special use of the word valid". In critical thinking, the word only applies to arguments; not to premises or conclusions. Validity test (1) assume, for the sake of the test, that the argument"s premises are true.
