Discussion questions week 9: #3

In chapter 15 of the Epstein text we are exploring the relationship between cause and effect in different scenarios within critical thinking. The most important concept found within this chapter is section A9: Two mistakes in evaluating cause and effect. This section is vital to the understanding of cause and effect relationships because it outlines the two common ways people incorrectly evaluate cause and effect relationships: reversing cause and effect, & looking too hard for a cause. Reversing cause and effect is a common mistake made by those who do not understand the nuances of cause and effect relationships, as they only work in one direction – it is important to remember that correlation does not indicate causation. Secondly looking too hard for a cause can be a problem for those unfamiliar with cause and effect relationships as there are many situations where an action is not a cause for a different concurrent event.

Discussion questions week 9: #2 Mission Critical

The mission critical webpage aided my learning process immensely because of the different ways it presented ideas I had learned earlier in the semester, and it provided in depth analysis of the concepts in a way that I had not seen yet. I think the best section of the mission critical webpage was the section on inference identifiers, these words are used to indicate types of arguments and resulting conclusions which I was unfamiliar with before this exercise. The exercises contained in the mission critical website were possibly the most helpful learning tools I've found during this entire course, the way each answer has a different explanation for why it is correct or incorrect was incredibly helpful. After going through lots of the exercises on this webpage I will definitely be bookmarking it for later use, I think it will be a very helpful studying tool for the final as it covers almost every subject we have learned this semester, and in many of the cases it provides better coverage of concepts than even the textbook did.

Discussion questions week 9: #1 Cause & Effect

I found the cause and effect online reading quite helpful for a multitude of reasons, foremost being its broad coverage of cause and effect followed by an in depth summary of different portions of this topic. From reading the Epstein text I was well aware what cause and effect reasoning was, but the website breaks the subject down in layman's terms which helped me vastly in understanding the specifics of the relationship between cause and effect. Specifically the sections concerning casual arguments were very helpful as I did not understand them very well going into this assignment, and the fact that there were multiple explanations for the different nuances of casual arguments really helped me. In addition to the reading, the exercises provided were very helpful especially if you struggled. The absolute most helpful part of this assignment was definitely the explanations given for incorrect answers in the exercises as the few things I still did not understand completely had complete, easy to understand explanations for why I had made mistakes within the exercise.

Discussion questions week 8: #3

Chapter twelve of the Epstein text revolves around the concept of reasoning by analogy, the most important portion of this chapter is section D, analogies in the law. This section focuses on the application of reasoning by analogy to America's legal system and the idea of common law. Reasoning by analogy is effectively the main idea in the American legal system, as the use of preceding court decisions is almost always routine in this country. This type of circular reasoning prevents conflicting decisions as to how laws are supposed to be interpreted, making the American system of law fair and balanced. This system of using prior court decisions to continually set precedents, in order to interpret new situations which laws must be applied to, is defined as common law. An example of this idea is the way supreme court decisions are used, because the supreme court has ruled school segregation is unconstitutional any court cases concerning school segregation can utilize reasoning by analogy to state that segregation in schools is unconstitutional as it has been ruled on before. These ideas help maintain the order and effectiveness of law in America everyday.

Discussion questions week 8: #2

The type of reasoning which was most difficult for me to understand was reasoning by criteria. The reason this concept was initially difficult for me was twofold: an unfamiliarity with its use in conversation, and I found the resource provided to be somewhat limited in its explanation. After investigating reasoning by criteria I have established a much better understanding of its uses.

Reasoning by criteria is the use of a qualifying statement which sets parameters for a decision or discussion which results in the conclusion being supported. Reasoning by criteria can be identified most often by an A-B format wherein the A is the statement which sets the criteria and B is the conclusion, an example of this format would be:

Your dogs will probably want a big chew toy(A), you should get this one.(B)

This example uses reasoning by criteria because the initial statement, or A, establishes a criteria (a big chew toy), and the conclusion, or B, remains within the criteria.

Discussion questions week 8: #1

Examples of types of Reasoning
Reasoning by Analogy: 
A: I didn't want to drink at the party last night, but I did because everyone else was drinking.
B: Well if everyone was going to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge you wouldn't do that, why do you have to drink when everyone else does?
Sign Reasoning:
The clouds to the west looked dark announcing the arrival of an extreme thunderstorm.
Causal Reasoning:
Four students sitting next to each other in a physics class turned in the same answer for the midterm, by bringing each student into his office individually for interviews the professor found out they cheated, because none of them could reproduce their answer verbally.
Reasoning by Criteria:
My mother hates crowded cities, she would never want to visit San Francisco.
Reasoning by Example:
We shouldn't go out this weekend, we went out last weekend and there were way too many people.
Inductive reasoning:
Matt has gone out to dinner with his girlfriend every Friday for the last two months, I'm sure he will be going out to dinner with her again this Friday.
Deductive reasoning:
Matt has gone out to dinner with his girlfriend every Friday for the last two months, but he stayed in his room alone this Friday. I also think I heard him crying while I was watching a movie, his girlfriend must have broken up with him.

Discussion questions week 7: #3

One of the more important subjects in this chapter is the the appeal to spite. An appeal to spite is a specific type of appeal to emotion which is predicated upon an emotional response of revenge or "getting even". The textbook notes that the guiding principle of an appeal to spite is "two wrongs make a right." An example of an argument containing an appeal to spite would be:

Dave: "We should go help Tom move today."
Steve: "No we shouldn't. Tom would never help us move, he wouldn't even help us with our new TV last week before the football game."

In this conversation Steve uses an appeal to spite to refute Dave's request, Steve's goal being to convince Dave that he doesn't need to help Tom, because Tom would never help him. This is not necessarily a good appeal technique to use often, but if the person is properly justified in being angry it can be effective.

Discussion questions week 7: #1

An appeal to emotion is one of the most common forms of persuasion found in the modern world. Epstein defines an appeal to emotion as something in an argument that says, "you should do or believe something because you feel a certain way." This type of persuasion is often used in advertising or by people in everyday conversation, an example being: "You should feel terrible for hurting that girl's feelings. Her grandfather died this week, and she's been very depressed. You should go apologize to her right now." In this example the appeal to emotion comes from convincing the other person that they should feel bad, causing them to apologize.

One of the more important subjects within the appeal to emotion is appealing to fear. This tactic is employed to scare the audience into doing a certain action, for example: "You shouldn't drive fast because it's snowing. My father died on these roads, they are very dangerous." This example uses the fear of death as reasoning to convince the listener to drive slower.