What are arguments?
Let’s have a look at how statements become arguments. What is a statement? Statements are the kind of sentences that can be true or false. When someone is trying to …
Course: Logical and Critical Thinking
What Are Statements? Definition and Examples
To talk about statements, we’ll start with some examples of statements and non-statements. Statements Non-statements The trains are always late. Welcome to the University of Auckland! Tailgating is a top …
Introducing arguments
An argument is simply a way to describe the way in which reasons support beliefs. This is the fundamental notion in critical thinking. This week, we aim to help you …
Summary of Week 1
So what have we done in this first week? Essentially, we saw that logical and critical thinking aims to ensure that we have good reasons for our beliefs. And, we’re …
Availability heuristic
We use strategies to allow us to solve problems quickly. A mental shortcut to simplify decision making is called reasoning heuristic. Most of the time, the reasoning heuristics really are …
Framing problems
If we’re thinking well, we might suppose that if we were to make a particular choice on one occasion, we’d make the same choice if confronted with the same options …
How to Argue Against Common Fallacies
Species of Fallacious Arguments The common fallacies are usefully divided into three categories: Fallacies of Relevance, Fallacies of Unacceptable Premises, and Formal Fallacies. Many of these fallacies have Latin names, …
The Time-Saving Bias
A lot of effort goes into convincing motorists not to speed, especially around holiday periods. Mainly we try to show that speeding can have bad consequences, from the cost and …
Confirmation bias
Francis Bacon describes confirmation bias so: “The human understanding, when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things … to support and agree with it. And though there be …
What is logical and critical thinking?
We are constantly being given reasons to do and believe things: to believe that we should buy a product, support a cause, accept a job, judge someone innocent or guilty, …
Introduction to the course
This course aims to help you develop and improve your logical and critical thinking skills and to identify common obstacles to effective logical and critical thinking. The key concepts are …