Further Discussion on the Concept Personal Experience

One of the concepts that we learned about this semester that caught my eye the most was the idea of how personal experience is used for accepting and rejecting claims.  Epstein explained personal experience as, “our most reliable source of information about that world is our own experience”. Before this class I never really thought about what made me make the decisions I make every day. But now after reading the section about personal experience, now I can truly see how much personal experience effects my decisions.  It’s like that common saying “you learn from your mistakes”.  If you have done something personally in the past that didn’t turn out good for you then if you are put in the same situation you will probably not put yourself in the situation.  It’s same for the opposite idea if something worked out for you then you will probably do it again so you can have the same good results.  So all in all, even though this wasn't a huge concept in the text, I think to me this is a very important one for everyone to know since I see most people use it in every day life.

What I Have Learned This Semester

Over this semester I have learned the many different aspects of an argument and claim.  I have learned about the different fallacies that affect people’s judgment of the validity of claims.  I have also learned about other aspects of critical thinking that also affects people’s judgment other than fallacies such as personal experience and appeal to authority. I have learned how to analyze a claim to see if it is valid, invalid, weak, or strong.

In this semester, I have also learned how to create examples for each of these concepts.   And from these examples I am not able to find and evaluate if a claim or argument is valid, invalid, weak or, strong. Overall, this class has allowed me to see the variety of concepts, if they are extremely simple or more focused and complex, that are used all together to form the idea of critical thinking. Before this class I never knew how many factors were truly involved in the area of critical thinking.

Class Analysis

My favorite thing about this class is the way we learn each chapter’s material. The three blogs are really useful because they really make you learn the material you are covering because you are forced to explain a topic in your own words. You can do this without reading it thoroughly and teaching it to yourself first.

My least favorite thing was the group projects and papers.  I think the thing I hate the most about classes is when we have group projects. I know they are meant to help you learn how to work with others but this can only be achieved if everyone is willing to give effort and 99% of the time there is at least one group member who is not willing to do so. I don’t think it is fair that people who really care about their academics have their grades end up in jeopardy because they are stuck nagging people who don’t care as much as you do.

          A way this segment of the class can be improved is if you make group project optional. So instead giving three group projects you can make it possible for people to do it by themselves. The first day of class you can take a survey of what they would rather do giving them the option to take their own grade in their own hands. Other than that I can’t think of any other improvements.

Mission Critical Website

When I first went on the mission critical website it looked very overwhelming and I didn’t even really get what information the website was trying to supply us with. But then I started reading the different links that was on the main page and then I realized why it was called the mission “critical” website cause it was a brief guide to most of the ideas we have learned so fall in critical thinking.  T has the main sections of: The Basics, Part of an Argument and Basic Relations, Analysis of Arguments, Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion, and Other Common Fallacies. After looking at a few of the different sections I found that they were very helpful. The section that I liked the most was Emotional Appeals section.  It explained all the six differ appeals, fear, loyalty, pity, prejudice, spite, and vanity, it was going to be covering and helped explain them by using the same example but change it to work for each different appeal. The way they used those example and the way they described each appeal before made me have to chance to really understand each appeal. Overall, I really like the Mission Critical Website and I found it very useful.

Criteria for Cause and Effect Claims

Epstein gave us necessary criteria we could use to evaluate if a claim is a cause and effect claim.

Necessary criteria for cause and effect claims.

-The cause happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The effect happened (the claim describing it is true)

-The cause precedes the effect

-It is (nearly) impossible for the cause to happen (be true) and the effect not to happen (be false), given the normal conditions

-The cause makes a difference—if the cause had not happened (been true), the effect would not have happened (been true)

-There is no common cause

I decided to use these criteria to see if my example claim is indeed a cause and effect claim. My example claim was:

“Fear of being late to work causes me to leave early enough every morning to be on time”

Evaluation: The cause: fear of being late to work, the effect: leaving the house on time. In this claim the cause does precede the effect.  The effect of me getting up early enough for work is almost solely because of the cause of the fear of being late.  The cause does make a difference. Fear is a common cause but over all I would still consider this to be a cause and effect claim.

Cause and Effect Website

The Cause and Effect readings were very helpful. It gave a lot of useful information and gave you a many different ways to understand the idea of cause and effect. They gave you examples in which they walked you through step by step so you could see what the cause was and the effect was. The website also showed you how to evaluate how strong a cause and effect claim is:

The strength of a causal argument, then, relies on three factors:

1. how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is (for example, do we think that there is a basic similarlity in most respects between the circumstances of this accident and those of the many other times bicycles and cars have traveled on this street safely;
2. how likely the case for causation seems to be (for example, do we think that a bicycle swerving into an car's lane can cause an accident?);
3. how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is (for example, do we believe that the illegally parked truck is the only significant difference between this case and the many other times bicycles and cars went down that street without an accident?).

The used the example of a bike swerving because of a illegally parked car. I was helpful because it not only showed you how to write a cause and effect agreement but it also showed you how to make it strong.
            I was indifferent about the exercises portion of the website. Even though it was helpful to practice cause and effect problems to see if I understand the material, the website had a very confusing set up of the answers. I think there are many different ways they could have set up the answers to make the website more efficient and useful.

Different Types of Reasoning

This week we are learning about different types of reasoning.  This week we learned about seven different types of reasoning: reasoning by analogy, sign reasoning, causal reasoning, reasoning by criteria, reasoning by example, inductive reasoning, and deductive reasoning. Here is a few examples of each type of reasoning.

àReasoning by Analogy: Reasoning using analogy is a way to appeal to the reader by comparing two similar thoughts and ideas to form a logical statement that the reader can relate to. An example of reasoning by analogy is: “A boss of a company is like the Coach of a football team”. Even though they may not be in the game personally or always in the thick of things at work, without either the coach or boss, the team or company has a very good chance or falling apart.

à Sign Reasoning: This type of reasoning is used when something is stated using implied or obvious statements. An example of sign reasoning is: “Every class, my teacher always comes at least 5 minutes early. Since it is 15 minutes into the class and she is still not here, we conclude that she will not be showing up and that we don’t have class today”.

à Causal Reasoning: The act of casual reasoning is when you argue a claim through cause and effect. An example of casual reasoning is: “I am very low on gas but I am also running very late for work. But if I don’t stop for gas and my car breaks down, I will be extremely late or may not make it to work at all. So I am going to stop for gas before I go to work”.

à Reasoning by Criteria: When reasoning by criteria, you establish criteria that you can use to interpret your claim. An example of reasoning by criteria is: “Mandy’s favorite color is purple, so I got her a purple shirt for her birthday.”

à Reasoning by Example: Reasoning by example is when one uses examples such as story or a comparison that may be of a known person, known situation or something not directly known to the other person. An example of example by reasoning is: “When I took my HTRM class I only took it as a GE requirement, but she grades as if all of us are planning to be HTRM majors which made it very hard for to get a grade higher than a B on any of my papers. So unless you are an HTRM major, I wouldn’t take that class.”  

à Inductive Reasoning: Inductive reasoning is a form of inference producing propositions about unobserved objects or types, either specifically or generally, based on previous observations.  An example of inductive reasoning is: “The sun has risen in the east every morning up until now. The sun will also rise in the east tomorrow.”

à Deductive Reasoning:  In deductive reasoning, if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. An example of deductive reasoning is: “All Biology majors like science. Ashley is a biology major. So Ashley likes science.”