SSH 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Critical Thinking, Descriptive Knowledge, Jelly Bean

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Sciences and Humanities
• Course: SSH 105
• Professor: Klaas Kraay

Document Summary

The steps of argument analysis: figure out if it really is an argument or not, reconstruct the argument, evaluate the argument. Arguments are not always presented/written/stated in the clearest way. We will learn how to identify and clearly display the underlying logical structure of an argument. This is not evaluating, its literary merit or rhetorical power. An argument has rhetorical power when it has a tendency to convince or persuade. We will evaluate the rational strength of arguments. Arguments have rational strength when the premises provide good reasons to think that the conclusion is true. Critical thinking is the systematic analysis (to look at the component pieces) or formulation (reasons to believe something making an argument) of arguments by rational standards . It"s systematic because it involves distinct procedures and technical methods (not just gut feelings) It"s used to analyze existing arguments and to formulate new ones.