Critical Thinking

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Critical Thinking

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Rules
Question your assumptions
Seek counterarguments
Distinguish fact from opinion
Evaluate the source
Avoid emotional reasoning
Define your terms
Identify the core issue
Consider multiple perspectives
Assess relevance
Beware of false dichotomies
Check for logical fallacies
Seek sufficient evidence
Distinguish correlation from causation
Consider alternative explanations
Be open to changing your mind

Summary
The importance of critical thinking: Critical thinking helps in making sound decisions about what to believe and do. It involves playing devil's advocate, identifying and evaluating counterarguments, and examining ideas objectively.
Evaluating arguments: Deductive arguments are evaluated based on the truth of premises and the validity of the structure. Inductive arguments are assessed based on the truth, relevance, and adequacy of supporting statements.
The nature of arguments: An argument consists of a claim and support. Appeals to emotion, intuition, instinct, or faith are not considered arguments.
Identifying implied conclusions and unstated premises: Most people do not articulate their arguments well, often leaving conclusions implied or premises unstated.
Deductive vs. inductive arguments: Deductive arguments have conclusive reasoning, while inductive arguments are evaluated based on the strength of the argument.
Reasoning vs. rationalizing: Reasoning works from evidence to conclusion, while rationalizing works backward from conclusion to evidence.
Fallacies and errors in reasoning: Various fallacies and errors are discussed, including appeal to inappropriate authority, strawman fallacy, red herrings, and errors of truth.
Language: Clarity, neutrality, and definitions are essential in analyzing arguments.
Generalization, analogy, and causal reasoning: The notes cover the importance of sufficient and representative samples, the strength of analogies, and establishing cause-effect relationships.
Explanations: A good explanation accounts for all relevant facts and avoids mistakes in causal thinking.

Common Critical Questions to Ask
What is the main claim or conclusion being made?
What reasons or evidence are provided to support the claim?
Are there any unstated assumptions or premises underlying the argument?
Are the terms and concepts clearly defined and used consistently?
Is the language neutral, or does it contain loaded or emotive terms?
Are there any logical fallacies or errors in reasoning present?
Is the evidence relevant, sufficient, and credible?
Are there any counterexamples or alternative explanations that could challenge the claim?
Are there any implied conclusions that are not explicitly stated?
Is the reasoning deductive (conclusive) or inductive (probabilistic)?
Are there any analogies or generalizations being made, and are they appropriate?
Is the source of the information reliable and unbiased?
What are the potential consequences or implications of accepting the claim?
Are there any missing pieces of information that could affect the validity of the argument?
Can the argument be strengthened or weakened by additional evidence or reasoning?

Quick Questions To Ask
What is the main point.
What is the evidence
What are you assuming
What language needs to be clarified
Incentives To Believe

MEALI

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The importance of Critical Thinking

critical thinking is judicious reasoning about what to believe and, therefore, what to do.

I think it's the latter that's important. What to do

In discussion. It's important to discern "talking" from making a point. It's ok express yourself or describe yourself, but when someone thinks they are making a point that's when critical thinking comes in hand.

Critical Thinking is playing devil's advocate as a matter of routine. If you're really after the best belief, course of action, or explanation and not just a debating victory, you'll present the counterarguments and evaluate them.

Very important to identify the counterarguments and evaluate them. The reason why is because confirmation bias occurs and you become confident in your own ideas and try to defend them instead of looking for the best belief, course of action, or explanation

Critical thinking is important because you can decide life for yourself and not by what you were given from family, society, culture, and media.

Critical thinking is not just formulas to be taught but knowledge and experience to be acquired and tested and re-examined, along with habits and skills that can be demonstrated and practiced. But there is no separating the “process” from the “substance”.

Evaluating Arguments

For deductive arguments, if the supporting statements or premises are true and if the structure follows the rules of reasoning then it's a good argument

For inductive arguments, if the supporting statements are true and relevant and adequate, then it's a good argument. The conclusion should flow from the premises.

The evaluation of another person's argument is hard because 
You must decide whether a person is talking or making a point
We often have to fill in the blanks of another person's thinking, and do it correctly to weigh their points accurately 
We then must evaluate the validity of their points
We need to gather all the relevant data points both pro and con for evaluation
We must fight through another person's attempts to misguide, obscure, discourage examination, and manipulate us into agreement or silence

Template for Critical Analysis of Arguments

What's the point, claim, opinion, conclusion
Look for subconclusions as well
What are the reasons or evidence 
Articulate all unstated premises
Articulate connections
Concrete the abstract
Define terms
Clarify all imprecise language
Eliminate or replace "loaded" language and manipulations
Assess the reasoning/evidence
If deductive check for truth/acceptability and validity 
If inductive check for truth/acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency
How could the argument be strengthened
Provide additional reasons/evidence
Anticipate objections, are they adequate?
How could the argument be weakened
Consider and assess counterexamples, counterevidence, and arguments
Should the argument be modified or rejected because the counter arguments
If you suspend judgement. identify further information required

The Nature of Argument

An argument consists of two parts:
A claim 
Support

Many times the claim comes after the support "He's armed [support] and he's dangerous [claim]"

Claims by themselves without support are not arguments.

So an argument is an appeal to reason; by definition, it requires rational thought. If the person making the argument wants you to agree, he or she wants you to do so because you find the reasoning convincing.

Not arguments
Appeal to emotion
Appeal to intuition
Appeal to instinct
Appeal to faith

Identifying implied conclusions and unstated premises (assumptions)

As a rule, most people do not articulate their arguments very well, typically in two ways
Implied conclusions
unexamined/ unstated premises / assumptions [harder to identify] - often connects the stated premise with the conclusion

For identifying unexamined assumptions ask "What is the person assuming to be true but not saying?" and "What premise is required to make the argument work"

reality assumptions - assumptions about what is, about the way things are in the world

value assumptions - assumptions about what is important or about what's right and wrong.

Missing connection is when support for a conclusion isn't logically connected to the conclusion

Circular arguments is when your conclusion depends on the truth of your premise, which depends on the truth of your conclusion creating a loop in reasoning.

counter arguments is an objection to a given argument that nullifies the given argument as being able to be true.

Identifying the issue of content is about finding the issue that matters. 
	"Ask what would resolve the disagreement"

The appeal to ignorance / The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. The person who has the positive claim has the burden of proof, because it is harder to prove something is not the case that it is to prove that it is the case. THe more extreme the claim, the more extensive the evidence must be. On the other hand "the absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence of absence"

Fact - A reality 
Opinion - a value assumption

Deductive v. inductive arguments

The conclusion of a sound deductive argument directly follows from its premises as long as the premises are true, the conclusion is true; it cannot be false and there is no question about it.

With inductive arguments the concern is the strength of the argument rather than the logical flow. What matters is the degree to which you accept the conclusion based on the strength of the argument.

When evaluating an argument, whether you agree or disagree with the conclusion is irrelevant; If reasoning is logical, you must agree with the conclusion.

When dealing with arguments, direct your attention to the reasoning, premises, and how it flows to a conclusion. When you construct an argument, don't start with the conclusion, start with the evidence, reasons, and go where they lead.

Reasoning v. Rationalizing 
Reasoning - works from evidence to conclusion
Rationalizing - works backwards from conclusion to evidence.

This is a good rule of thumb. Feeling what has come first, the conclusion or the evidence?

deductive argument evaluation
true premises + valid form = sound arguent

inductive argument evaluation
true/pertinent/sufficient/premises = strong argument.

Convergent Arguments is when one or more premises lead to a conclusion

Divergent Arguemtns is when a single premise diverges into two or more conclusions

Relevance

To be relevant, the truth must make a difference to the merit of the clam in question

Considering the source of the argument rather than the argument it's self

Appeal to the person (ad  hominem) - directing comments toward the person making the argument, rather than toward the argument itself
Attacking the persons character 
Attacking the practices of the person, what the person does
Attacking the persons interests

Genetic fallacy - directing arguments from the origins of the argument rather than the argument itself

Appealing to an inappropriate standard

Appeal to inappropriate authority - appealing to someone with credentials that are not qualified and or relevant

Appeal to tradition or past practice - Assuming that the reason for the tradition was or is still a good reason.

Appeal to custom, habit, or common practice - Assuming the reason for a custom, habit, common practice was or is still a good reason.

Appeal to moderation - Assuming that moderation is a good quality in of itself.

Appeal to the extreme - Assuming an extreme is good quality in of itself

Appeal to popularity - Assuming that if something/an act/a belief is/is not popular is a reasonable argument in of itself

"two wrongs" - assuming two wrongs make a right

Going off topic

Strawman fallacy - responding to an argument that is not the argument that was presented. Often a result of the person intentionally misrepresenting the other person's argument because it's easier to dismiss as misrepresented

Red Herrings - a response to the argument that is used to distract rather than evaluate the statement that was said.

Non sequitur - a statement that doesn't follow from whatever it was presumed to have followed from.

Appeal to emotion - Expressing an emotional reaction to a claim that doesn't provide support for the claim, thus irrelevant to the claim.

Language

Clarity - Analyze word choice and clarify. Analyze grammar, sentence construction. Look out for saying the same thing twice, just in different forms. Look out for missing detail

Neutrality - Look out for loaded language, visual language and use / lack of visual context, aural effects

Definiton - watch out for how things are named, defined and assumptions those definitions could cause

Truth and Acceptability

Errors of truth

any false premise is an error of truth.

Either or fallacy - When presenting two options as the only two options

The fallacy of composition - When believing that what is true for the parts is true for the whole

The fallacy of division - What is true of the whole is not necessarily true of the parts

Gambler fallacy - believing previous occurences affect probability of the current occurrence.
 
Generalization, Analogy, causal Reasoning

Sufficiency is the degree of support provided by the premises for the conclusion. The defree of the support must be proportionate to the claim being made.

Generalization is making a general claim about something based on specific evidence about that something.

Undergeneralizing occurs when we conclude more narrowly than we need to (rare)

overgeneralization occurs when we generalize more broadly than the truth. This can occur in  three ways
Scope - Some implies many or all/ few implies none
Frequency - Concluding that somestimes implies often or always/ seldom implies never
Certainty - Concluding that "possibly" implies probable

Insufficient Sample Error - Making an assumption/generalization based on a small sample

Unrepresentative sample - Making an assumption/generalization based on a sample not relevant to the assumption at hand

Analogy - The strength of an analogy depends on whether there are sufficient releveant similarities and no relevant dissimilarities with relation to the claim/conclusion.

Weak analogy - Where few of the relevant features are similar; conclusions follows only eakly from your premises

false analogy - When none of the relevant features are similar or worse dissimilar in the relevant aspects, creating a faulty comparison which should be rejected

Inductive Argument: Causal reasoning

Causal reasoning involves determining which of several possible explanations is the best account for a given phenomenon or occurence.

Establishing cause is good for creating explanations for past phenomenom, for making predictions of future, and determining responsibility.

An effect does not have to happen immediately after a cause. It can take lifetimes (smoking)

Sufficient cause vs necessary cause

A necessary cause is a condition that must be present for the effect in question to occur

A suffcient cause is a condition which alone results in the effect in question

Explanations

A good explanation accounts for all relevant facts which requires
What facts are relevant
obtaining the relevant facts
figuring out which explanation accounts for all of those relevant facts

Mistakes in causal thinking

Mistaking correlation for causation
Post hoc ergo propter hoc - Mistaking something as an effect simply because it came after somethin
Failing to consider common cause - Failing to see that an outside factor caused what is thought of as a cause/effect relationship
Failing to consider additional causes
Reversing cause and effect - assuming that A causes B when it's B that causes A
Failing to consider reciprocal causal relation - Failing to consider if A causes B but also B causes A creating a loop
Slippery Slope - Assuming that since A causes B, then B will inevitable cause C, C-D, D-E etc.

I would change my mind given these pieces of evidence - Adam Grant

Unstarred

Dunk (exclude from study)

Let’s have a conversation about today so that I may start my day on the right foot. Let’s start with a single question and nothing more to help me reflect on the day ahead.

What is the most crucial problem or decision you anticipate facing today, and how can you approach it with rigorous, unbiased analysis?

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In your mind, what is the transformation we all need to go through?

The essential transformation we all must undergo is learning to think critically about every aspect of our lives and the world around us. We need to shed the comfortable but misleading habits of relying on intuition, blindly accepting claims, and reasoning based on emotion. Instead, we must train ourselves to constantly question, analyze, and demand evidence and sound logic.

This transformation requires developing the skills to break down complex issues, examine them systematically from all angles, and reach well-reasoned conclusions. We must learn to identify unstated assumptions, spot logical fallacies, and construct airtight arguments. We need to cultivate the discipline to set aside our biases and preconceptions and follow the facts and logic wherever they lead, even when it's uncomfortable.

Imagine a world where everyone subjected every claim they encountered to rigorous logical scrutiny. Where all actions and decisions had to be justified by irrefutable reasoning and evidence. Where the only way to influence others was through the power of one's arguments. Think how many problems could be solved, how much clearer our understanding of reality would be.

But this transformation won't happen on its own. It takes concerted effort and practice to rewire our natural impulses and retrain our minds. We must consciously embrace critical thinking as the bedrock of our worldview and apply it relentlessly. The transformation starts with each of us—but has the potential to revolutionize society as a whole. Are you willing to undergo the difficult but vital process of basing your life on reason and evidence rather than intuition and assumption? The world needs more critical thinkers—will you become one of them?

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Why is Risk/Reward is Important to Think About When Making Business Decisions

Considering risk and reward is crucial for making sound business decisions because:

1. Every decision has consequences. Have you rigorously analyzed the potential outcomes, both positive and negative, of each option? What assumptions are you making about the risks and rewards? Failing to critically examine the implications of a choice can lead to disastrous results.

2. Risks can sink a business. Have you thoroughly stress-tested your strategy against worst-case scenarios? What evidence do you have that the potential rewards outweigh the risks? Wishful thinking is not a substitute for hard data and logical scrutiny.

3. Opportunities carry costs. Have you dispassionately calculated the true price of pursuing a new venture, including hidden costs and unintended consequences? How confident are you in your reasoning? Excitement about potential rewards can cloud judgment about risks.

4. Imbalanced risk/reward is unsustainable. Does your analysis show a lopsided relationship between risk and reward? What premises might you be taking for granted? An imbalance suggests flawed reasoning that will eventually lead to ruin, no matter how tempting the upside.

5. Objectivity is essential. Are you relying on facts and logic or being swayed by emotions, instincts, or personal biases? Have you sought out dissenting opinions and counter-arguments? Failing to think critically makes accurately weighing risk and reward impossible.

In business, the stakes are high and the margins for error slim. Applying rigorous critical thinking to analyze risk and reward is the only reliable path to consistently making sound decisions. Anything less than unsparing logical scrutiny of one's reasoning is an invitation to disaster.

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