What Are Critical Thinking Skills

Similarly, the third reason[br]also gives you a good reason to believe that[br]Monty won't be at the party.If he's in Beijing, and[br]it's impossible to get here from Beijing in an afternoon,[br]then it's guaranteed that he won't be at the party.

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If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.and *.are unblocked. I teach at Northern Illinois University, and this is an introduction[br]to critical thinking. And third, what's the difference between deductive and ampliative arguments? Well, fundamentally, critical thinking is about making sure that you have good reasons for your beliefs. So suppose that you and your friend are talking about who's[br]gonna be at tonight's party.

So "Monty's really shy" is premise one, "Monty rarely goes to[br]parties" is premise two, and the statement that[br]those premises give you reason to believe, we call[br]the argument's conclusion.

A good argument is one[br]in which the premises give you a good reason for[br]the conclusion, that is, the premises make the[br]conclusion likely to be true.

Rather, here, what it is to[br]say that a reason is good is closely tied to the notion of truth.

So a good reason for a belief is one that makes it probable, that is, it's one that makes the belief likely to be true.In that case, we say that the argument supports the conclusion.Good arguments support their conclusions, and bad arguments don't[br]support their conclusions.So a key part of critical[br]thinking is learning to evaluate arguments to determine whether or not they're good or bad, that is, whether or not their premises support their conclusions.The red argument is the first response that she gave, two premises, "I can't stand Monty" and "I[br]want to have a good time." And the conclusion is "Monty[br]won't be at the party." And the third argument,[br]which we'll put in purple, consisted also of two premises, "Monty's in Beijing" and[br]"He can't get from Beijing to the party in time, so[br]he won't be at the party." Now, as I indicated[br]before, the first argument is not good, while the[br]purple argument is good.So, for example, if you found out that your friend was[br]the person who decided who was going to be invited to the party, then the fact that she can't stand Monty and wants to have a good time would give you a good reason to believe that Monty won't be at the party, because it would give you reason to believe that she didn't invite him. Those two premises[br]considered in themselves give you no reason to believe that Monty won't be at the party.Okay, our last topic is to distinguish two different types of arguments.The second reason,[br]though, is a good reason to believe that Monty[br]won't be at the party.If he's really shy and[br]rarely goes to parties, then it's probable that he[br]won't be at tonight's party.So it's not morally right or morally good to believe something on[br]the basis of good reasons.Similarly, it's not morally[br]wrong, or evil, or wicked to believe something on[br]the basis of a bad reason.