Invitation to Critical Thinking (with InfoTrac)

Unit I: THE BASICS. 1. Critical Thinking. The Importance of Critical Thinking. What Is Critical Thinking? Obstacles to Critical. Thinking. Looking Ahead: Issues and Disputes. 2. Language. What is Language? Functions of Language. Meaning in Language. Definitions. Unit II: ARGUMENT IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS. 3. Argument. Argument Identification. Argument Analysis. 4. Argument Analysis I: Representing Argument Structure. The Goal Of Argument Analysis. Intermediate Challenges. 5. Argument Analysis II: Paraphrasing Arguments. Paraphrasing. Advanced Applications. Practice, Practice and More Practice. Unit III: DEDUCTIVE REASONING. 6. Deductive Arguments I: Categorical Logic. Deductive And Inductive Reasoning. Argument Form. Categorical Logic. 7. Deductive Arguments II: Truth Functional Logic. Truth Functional Analysis of Logical Operators. Argument Forms. Testing for Validity with Truth Tables. Unit IV: INDUCTIVE REASONING. 8. Inductive Arguments I: Generalization and Analogy. Assessing Inductive Strength. Reasoning by Analogy. 9. Inductive Arguments I: Hypothetical Reasoning and Burden of Proof. Presumption and the "Burden of Proof". Reasoning Hypothetically. Unit V: ARGUMENT EVALUATION. 10. Evaluating Premises: Self-Evidence, Consistency, Indirect Proof. Necessary Truths. Contingent Claims. Beyond "Self-Evidence". 11. Informal Fallacies I: Language, Relevance, Authority. Fallacies of Language. Fallacies of Relevance. 12. Informal Fallacies II: Assumptions and Induction. Fallacious Assumptions. Fallacies of Induction. A Final Word of Caution. 13. Making Your Case: Argumentative Composition. The Issue Statement. Research and the Media. The Thesis Statement. Argument Design. The Presentation. Answers to Exercises. Index.