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Critical Thinking

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Critical Thinking and Pedagogy: Rules of Inference. Rules of Inference The goal of logic is to make explicit our intuitions of good reasoning, such that we can distinguish between good reasoning and bad reasoning in terms of an explicit procedure that does not need to rely on intuitions. To do this, logicians formulate the information and the inferences involved in reasoning as propositions.

As we have seen the propositions of the information from which we derive inferences are called premises, while the propositions of the inferences are called conclusions. How do we distinguish between good reasoning and bad reasoning? Intuitively, we recognize example 1 to be an instance of good reasoning and example 2 to be an instance of bad reasoning. Let us denote x is a human as P and x is a mammal as Q: We now see that the sentence All humans are mammals expresses a complex proposition consisting of two propositions P and Q, and is of the form: If P, then Q.

We can now express the logical structure of examples 1and 2 as: Foundation for Critical Thinking: Books, Conferences and Academi. Think For A Change. Creative TCreative Thinking Techniques. . :VirtualSalt Robert Harris Version Date: January 5, 2002 You'll remember the five creative methods we discussed in the Introduction to Creative Thinking: evolution, synthesis, revolution, reapplication, changing direction. Many classic creative thinking techniques make use of one or more of these methods. Brainstorming Alex Osborn, advertising writer of the fifties and sixties, has contributed many very powerful creative thinking techniques. Brainstorming is an idea generating technique. Basic Guidelines for Brainstorming Brainstorming is useful for attacking specific (rather than general) problems and where a collection of good, fresh, new ideas (rather than judgment or decision analysis) are needed. For example, a specific problem like how to mark the content of pipes (water, steam, etc.) would lend itself to brainstorming much better than a general problem like how the educational system can be improved. 1. 2.

We've already talked about gold plating electrical contacts. 3. 4. 1. 2. Critical thinking web.