Critical Thinking
        Philosophy

DRAFT - 01/04/2007 - Copyright - Chris Storer

Text Discussions

These discussions refer to the Chapters in Critical Thinking, Seventh Edition, Moore and Parker ((McGraw-Hill, 2004), and to my observations on these and related topics. At times I urge you toward a somewhat different understanding of the issues than that of the text's authors. Occasionally this implies a real disagreement between me and those authors, but more frequently, I am simply asking my students to make clearer distinctions where I believe such specificity will avoid future difficulties.

A textbook such as we are using is written for a broad and diverse audience and thus must retain a level of vagueness and generality that allows it to serve as a starting point in many contexts. We are building our own specific context in this class. The specificity of this context allows us a higher degree of rigor in the use of terminology and the construction of a conceptual net for understanding crucial issues in regard to critical thinking. I have confidence that, with a reasonable application of care and focused attention, the level of conceptual detail I have set for this course is attainable by all the students taking this course as part of their lower division general education program. I also have confidence that students who succeed here will find their studies in upper division a great deal richer and upper division success more easily within reach.

One other thing before getting started here. If you have not yet read the course Introduction, I strongly advise that you do. Even if you have read it, you should still take a few minutes to review the 4th Section, that on "Thinking as Problem Solving." (Note that these reddish text fonts are live links to the documents referred to.)

Chapter 2

Critical Thinking and Clear Writing - There is no question that there are very close connections between clear writing, clear speaking, clear reading, clear listening, and clear thinking. While the authors focus here on writing, you should think of what they are saying as relevant to these other contexts as well.

Organization and Focus - Principles - This first section is a very brief overview of important guiding principles of clear writing. I have given a much more detailed discussion of these, and others, in "Writing, Composition and Critical Thinking." I urge you to read over this after you have finished a first reading of this section of the text. You will note that I depart from the authors on one significant point. In their third point, they say, "Make a point before you clarify it." However, there are times, particularly where argument is called for, when this does not make sense.

As we are beginning to discover, an audience has to interpret the words you write and if the full meaning of your thesis grew out of your reasoning, and was based on your research and other experiences, while your audience (those who are in opposition to your thesis) gained their understanding of the issue from different experiences, it would be reasonable to expect your reader to misunderstand your point until they have been given some of your reasons.

None the less, your reader does need to know what you are talking about in general before you get into the details of clarification. Thus, I would modify the text's third point and say, "When presenting an argument, make the issue clear before you begin building the case for your position on it."

Good Writing Practices - I would agree that an outline after you have a rough draft is very important, but I would suggest that a very superficial and broad outline is a very useful general guide at the very beginning. If you can fill out the following in rough terms, it will help a great deal in getting beyond staring at a blank sheet of paper.

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1. Introduction (Objective - your audience should feel comfortable accepting everything written in this section)

1.1. The Subject

1.2. The Problem

1.2.1. Description of the Experiences (Facts)

1.2.2. Description of the Expectations (Values) you share with your opposition.

1.3. A preliminary statement of your Focal Issue

2. The Body

2.1-#. A List of the key reasons you will need to give in support of your thesis in the face of your audience's opposition. Note any of these that will, in turn, need support. These will become Subsidiary Issues.

2.#+1. A preliminary statement of your Thesis (the Conclusion of your argument, your resolution of the focal issue, your main point)

3. The Conclusion of the Essay

3.1 A discussion of the implications and importance of your Thesis as a first step toward solving the original problem.

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The danger a writer faces in getting started is that, if they just begin writing, following a stream of consciousness, they will forget about their audience Writing develops its own inertia. We know what we intended so it seems to have clear meaning and obvious truth, but to our audience, this may not be the case. Once the words are on the page, it is hard to delete them. They are the writer's children. If you begin with brief outline such as above, you will imbed your attention to the audience in the map that guides you writing, There will be less chance of getting sidetracked and losing focus on your purpose.

One other note, to add to those in the text here - After your essay is fairly complete and proofread, look again closely at your Introduction in the light of the Body and Conclusion you have written and ask yourself if there are things that could be added to it or changed so that it is clearer and does a better job of preparing the reader for the argument that follows? Does the Introduction provide a good clear and complete context so the reader can interpret what you are saying in the body? Have you made any unwarranted assumptions about what the audience knows? In particular, remember that the audience does not know your assignment. The Essay needs to be able to stand on its own.

Clarity in Writing

Again, this can be understood as "Clarity in writing and speaking,  reading and listening, and thinking," or, more briefly, "Clarity in Interpretation and Thinking." This is the first and most fundamental of the intellectual standards we need to apply to become critical thinkers.

Clarity begins with attention to language, to its common structure (Syntax) and the common meanings of its words (Semantics). [I use "common" here to refer to what is shared by the speakers of the language, not just what is ordinary or simple.]

Definitions - For our purposes, we need to focus on Analytic Definitions. While synonyms and examples can help by pointing our attention in the right direction, analytic definitions help us actually think more clearly in two ways. First, they create a categorical structure and thereby allow us to use what we know generally in specific cases. Knowing that the defining characteristic of the class, mammal, is that they nurse their young, we can infer from learning that rodents are mammals and rats are rodents that rats probably nurse their young. We can also infer that, since a robin is a bird and not a mammal, they probably don't nurse their young. [I say probably in the cases of these inferences because our categorical schema are seldom perfect, but they are very good so the chances of error are quite low.]

Analytic definition is often called, "definition by genus and differentia," because the form of such definitions is to: 1. give a more general class ( genus) of the word or concept to be defined in order to provide a context within which it can be known and understood, and 2. give the characteristics (differentia) which differentiate the thing being defined from other members (species) of the same genus.

Thus, I might define "mammal" as "a warm-blooded animal that nurses its young." Warm-blooded animal is the genus and nurses its young is the differentia.

Ambiguity and Vagueness - These characteristics of our thinking and language are common, and a natural result of two of a language's most powerful structures.

If ambiguous linguistic elements could not take on different meanings in different contexts, language could not grow to deal with either 1. the changing experiences of individuals as they grow and mature or 2. the changing world as it evolves over time. WIthout ambiguity, the number of individual words would soon outpace the capacity of minds to learn them.

If linguistic structures were not general in their meaning, and thereby open to vague use, we would need a different sign (like a proper name) for every single experience we wanted to talk about.

Multiple meanings and generality are good things when used carefully, but when ambiguity of the sign becomes ambiguity of the thought, catastrophic confusion and fallacious inference can result. For most of the 20th century, red was associated with all things Soviet and communist, what would be called the radical left of the political universe. For the past decade or so, red has become increasingly associated with the Republican party in the U.S. which has become increasingly characterized by reactionary right-wing political positions, including stridently anti-communistic. This new ambiguity opens the door to huge misunderstandings about the facts of history and potential fallacies of inference by those who fail to recognize the differences.

Or again, the pronoun "he" refers to the prior masculine noun, but what when there are two prior nouns?

Generality allows for an opposite type of confusion with the same effect. The pronoun "it" refers to almost anything. It assumes the audience (and the conscious reflection of the author) know what is being referred to. (Do you know what I was referring to with the "it" in the prior sentence?)

Sometimes generality (like ambiguity) is intended. If my roof is old and leaks, I say, "I need new roofing." I don't say, "I need new shingles," because I have not yet made up my mind which specific type of roofing I need or want. This generality is not vague. Our authors have left something important out of their discussion of vagueness (and to some extent, ambiguity). These concepts have a dominant evaluative dimension to their meaning. To say something is vague is to say that it is not only general, but that it is too general. To say something is ambiguous is to say not only that it has multiple meanings, but that it needs to have fewer meanings to be clear.

As our text recognizes, vagueness an ambiguity are sometimes confused with each other. We need to draw a distinction between them. Drawing a distinction between things implies that we need to understand their sameness as well as their difference. That is, they are two species under the same genus.

As evaluative terms, both ambiguity and vagueness are a lack of clarity. Ambiguity is a lack of clarity caused by the presence of two or more reasonable interpretations of meaning when the situation needs fewer meanings. On the other hand, vagueness is a lack of clarity caused by the presence of in interpreted generality when the situation needs greater specificity. Since specificity is a function of information, we may also say the vagueness is a lack of clarity caused by too little information for the needs of the situation.

To use these terms accurately, we must make a judgment of just what is needed in the particular situation our interpretation involves. If our background knowledge or interpretative skills are weak, or if our language skills are weak, it is quite possible that the ambiguity or vagueness we judge to be present is really not in the thing we are judging but rather, is in our own act of interpretation. It is equally possible that these weaknesses. You or I may be a bit surprised by a sudden thunder storm because we found the signs ambiguous or vague, while a meteorologist may have found the signs quite clear and certain.

Relations, Comparisons, and Evaluations

The difficulty in remaining clear about concept that can be categorized under these general notions is that for the most part, they are abstractions which call attention to two or more concrete entities and require an understanding of these entities complex interactions with our attention. While the quality, yellowness, can be found in our experience of a yellow thing, our concept of bigness can only be found in a judgment about one thing as it relates to or corresponds with other things of the same genus or general type of thing. An elephant is big in relation most other animals but might be small in relation to other elephants.

All evaluations imply criteria, and most frequently these are ways to quantify some measurement by which various examples can be ranked. Without the criteria, and without some examples of the ranked members of the class, little is gained beyond an expression of emotion, positive or negative.

Recap

Note one unfortunate error in the Recap. In the second paragraph, page 80 at the top, the authors wrote, "Watch out for ambiguous claims (claims that are insufficiently precise for the purposes at hand)." Precision leads to the removal of vagueness, not ambiguity. Ambiguity, through multiple and disparate reasonable interpretations, creates the possibility of complete misunderstanding, potentially saying something to the audience that has little to do with the intention of the author.

DRAFT - 01/04/2007 - Copyright - Chris Storer