Giving Reasons: An Extremely Short Introduction to Critical Thinking

98 Pages·2017·0.526 MB·English

by  David R. Morrow

GIVING
REASONS
AN EXTREMELY SHORT INTRODUCTION
TO CRITICAL THINKING
DAV I D R . M O R ROW
Giving Reasons
An Extremely Short Introduction
to Critical Thinking

Giving Reasons
An Extremely Short Introduction
to Critical Thinking
By David R. Morrow
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Indianapolis/Cambridge
Copyright © 2017 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
For further information, please address
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
P.O. Box 44937
Indianapolis, Indiana 46244-0937
www.hackettpublishing.com
Cover design by Maura Gaughan
Interior design by Laura Clark
Composition by William Hartman
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Morrow, David R., author.
Title: Giving reasons : an extremely short introduction to critical
thinking / by David R. Morrow.
Description: Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017006933 | ISBN 9781624666223 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Critical thinking. | Reasoning. | Thought and
thinking.
Classification: LCC B105.T54 M67 2017 | DDC 153.4/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017006933
Adobe PDF ebook ISBN: 978-1-62466-623-0
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface for Instructors ix
Introduction xi
1. Facts, Opinions, and Knowledge 1
2. Justification 10
3. Reasoning 19
4. Better and Worse Reasoning 31
5. Reasoning about Better and Worse 44
6. Asking for Reasons 53
7. Conclusion 65
Suggestions for Further Reading 69
Appendix A. Selected Patterns of
Reasoning in Deductive Logic 71
Appendix B. Selected Fallacies 78
v

Acknowledgments
Even a book as short as this one requires the efforts of
many people. I’m grateful for the encouragement, support,
and assistance of my editors at Hackett, Deborah Wilkes
and Maura Gaughan. Thanks also to Jodie Allen for copy-
editing and to Laura Clark and Liz Wilson at Hackett
for their hard work in making this book a reality. Many
people, including Michael Reno, Nicole Aitken, Tyler
Andrews, Maria Mikolchak, Heather Rainey, Susana
Nuccetelli, John Strauch, Hans-Herbert Kögler, Anika
Waltz-Cummings, Laura Novak, and John Mariana pro-
vided helpful comments on drafts of the book. I owe a
great deal to James Freeman, Alan Hausman, Steve Cahn,
and Anthony Weston, among many others, for teaching
me to teach people how to think critically. Finally, I’m for-
ever grateful to my parents, my students, and my children
for teaching me, each in their own way, about giving and
asking for reasons.
vii

Preface for Instructors
You can use this little book in many different ways in
many different courses, depending on your and your stu-
dents’ needs. Maybe you’ll want to work through the book
over several class sessions or several weeks at the begin-
ning of the semester, using the exercises at the end of
each chapter to help your students grasp the material. Or
perhaps you’ll want to use the book as a reference guide
throughout the semester, referring students to particu-
lar parts as necessary. Or maybe your students can speed
through the material in a class session or two as a crash
course in critical thinking before moving on to the main
topic of your course.
The first four chapters of the book introduce students
to the basics of argumentation. Chapters 5 and 6, respec-
tively, extend those lessons to cover normative arguments
and offer advice for interpreting other people’s arguments
charitably. Appendix A provides a brief guide to some
common argument forms in deductive logic, and Appen-
dix B introduces some common fallacies in informal logic.
Your students will benefit most from this book if you
pair the text with opportunities to apply its contents to the
specific topic of your course. In particular, they’ll benefit
from seeing you analyze and evaluate arguments related
to the topic of the course, including arguments straight
out of course readings, and from analyzing and evaluating
ix