MIDTERM REVISION

Chapter 1: Introduction to Critical Thinking

Definition

- Critical thinking means skilled judgment or observation by clear

intellectual standards (Tư duy phản biện có nghĩa là đánh giá hoặc phán
đoán một cách có kỹ năng dựa trên những tiêu chuẩn tri thức rõ ràng)
- A good critical thinker has cognitive skills and intellectual dispositiona
needed to:
o Effectively indentify, analyse, and evaluate arguments and truth
claims (can refer the IRAC model)
o Discover and overcome personal preconceptions (định kiến) and
biases (unfair)
o Formulate and present convincing reasons in support of conclusions
o Make reasonable, intelligent decisions about what to believe and
what to do
Critical Thinking Standards

 Clarify (rõ ràng)

o Critical thinkers strive for clarify of language and thought
o Ex:
Nếu không nói rõ ràng là tìm
kích thước x, người nghe sẽ đi
tìm vị trí ‘x’
=> ‘thiếu tính rõ ràng’

 Precision (Cụ thể và chính xác)

o Critical thinkers undestand that it is necessary o insight on precise
answers to precise questions by cutting through the confusions and
uncertainties (Ex: “Is abortion wrong?” is vague. “Should abortion
be legal?” and “Is having an abortion ever moral?” are more
specific questions. OR He’s a countryside man. Inviting him to a
party at a five-star hotel is like pulling a fish out of water 
Precision (Cụ thể) -> Nhận xét:  Nội dung không cụ thể có thể dẫn tới
những suy nghĩ ẩn dụ khác nhau khi nghĩ về người đàn ông nông thôn. Thiếu
cụ thể và chính xác trong trường hợp này.)
 Accuracy (tính đúng đắn)
o Critical thinkers have a passion for accurate, timely information
 One can’t reason correctly with false information
 Relevance (Sự liên quan)
 o Irrelevance can distract people from the point but never helps to
truly prove the point
o Ex:
Q. What skills do you think you possess to lead the company in the
right way?
A: Well I do have some good management skills. I can efficiently
control my children and carefully plan our family budget.
o Nhận xét: Nhà tuyển dụng hỏi kỹ năng nào để dẫn dắt Công ty đi đúng
hướng? Ứng cử viên trả lời một nẻo sang việc chăm con cái và kế hoạch tài
chính. Hai nội dung không ăn khớp và không liên quan tới nhau
 Consistency (Tính nhất quán)
o Critical thinking avoids:
 Practical inconsistency: Saying one thing and doing another
(Nhận xét: Trong khi ba người dẫn chương trình đều lan tỏa những
thông tin sai (tiêu cực) về vắc xin, khẩu trang nhưng trong thực tế họ
đều tiêm vác xin và đeo khẩu trang. Trường hợp này thiếu sự nhất quán
trong thực tế)
 Logical inconsistency: Believing two things that can’t be
simultaneously true
 Logical correctness (Tính Logic)
o Sound reasoning or making valid infernces
o Deriving that, and only that, which can be justifiably derived from
statements or premises
o Ex: Nhận xét: Nếu tinh ý sẽ thấy Fit Type là dành cho nam giới nhưng bên
dưới lại cho lựa chọ Men or Women. Trường hợp này cho thấy tính phi logic
và không chính xác.
 Completeness (Sự hoàn chỉnh)
o Thinking is better when it is deep rather than shallow, thorough
rather than superficial
o Ex: Take any vaccine you are offered; it will definitely save your
life Practical consistency & Completeness
Nhận xét: Một câu chưa thực sự hoàn chỉnh về nghĩa và thiếu thực tế. Vacxin
có thể cứu được người nhưng không phải loại nào cũng có tác dụng.
 Fairness (công bằng)
o Critical thinking demands that our thinking be open-minded,
impartial, and free of distorting biases and preconceptions
o One must not dismiss something just because it’s new or it’s
contrary to something one already believes
o Ex: What I hate the most is seeing people waste money on luxury
things while others are starving. Last week I saw Kim in a Louis
Vuitton shop. I was busy with my bags, so I couldn’t come to tell
her to stop burning her money  Fairness Nhận xét: Trong khi chê
 người khác mua sắm hàng sa sỉ (cao cấp) thì bản thân cũng đang bận bịu với
mấy túi xách đắt tiền. Thiếu tính công bằng

Benefits (tham khảo đọc sơ – note nếu còn chỗ)

- Focus in college is less on memorization and more on active, intelligent evaluation of ideas and information
- Students learn to:
o Understand the arguments and beliefs of others
o Critically evaluate arguments and beliefs
o Develop and defend on’s own well-supported arguments and beliefs
- Professors will have you evaluate beliefs/arguments of others and develop your own
o Critical thinking is the skill you need to accomplish this effectively
- Critical thinking will allow people to better perform in their jobs
o Since most job skills can be – and will be – taught “on-site”, employrs are more concerned with hiring
someone who can:
 Solve problems
 Think creatively
 Gather and analyze information
 Draw appropriate conclusions from data
 Communicate his/her ideas clearly and effectively
- In life:
o Avoid making bad personal decisions
o Make informed polotical decisions
o Attain personal enrichment
o Lead self-directed, “examined” lives

Barriers

Egocentrism (chủ nghĩa vị kỷ - Thuyết cho mình là trung tâm/Tư duy cá nhân
làm trung tâm)
The tendency to see reality as centered on oneself
Forms of egocentrism
• Self-interested thinking: Tendency to accept and defend beliefs that
harmonize with one’s self-interest (Ex: Việc giữ quan điểm cá nhân ‘đúng
thì khen còn sai thì chê’ đôi khi cũng hạn chế tư duy phản biện. Cần xem
xét hoàn cảnh để hiểu được nguyên nhân cụ thể vấn đề.)
• Your wants and needs are not objectively more important than
anyone else's; they certainly don’t determine truth
• Critical thinking is objective
• Superiority bias: The tendency to overrate oneself
• Most people think they are above average; most people are
thus wrong
• Critical thinking requires one to be honest about his/her
abilities
Sociocentrism (Thuyết Nhóm làm trung tâm/Tư duy Nhóm làm trung tâm)
Group-centered thinking
Ways in which sociocentrism distorts critical thinking
• Group bias: The tendency to see one’s own group (example, nation) as
being inherently better than all others
• Tribalism: Strong feelings of loyalty to, and identification with, one’s
tribe or social group
• Ex: Ấn Độ là một xã hội phân tầng giai cấp do đó tư duy ‘xã hội’ nơi đây
có thể là một rào cản đối với tư duy phản biện trong thực tế.
Unwarranted Assumptions (Giả định không có cơ sở) and Stereotypes
Assumption: Something one takes for granted or believes to be true without any
proof or conclusive evidence
Unwarranted assumption: Taking something for granted without “good reason”
• Stereotype: Assuming that all people within a group (for example,
sex or race) share all the same qualities (Ex: Việc cho rằng những
người mặc cổ áo chữ V là người đồng tính là mang tính qui chụp.
Đây đôi khi chỉ là phong cách mỗi người lựa chọn. Việc qui chụp
này cũng là rào cản tư duy phản biện trong thực tế.)
• Assuming that a particular individual that belongs to a group
has certain qualities simply because he/she belongs to that
group
• Stereotypes are arrived at through hasty generalization, in which
one draws a conclusion about a large class of things from a small
sample
Being aware of an unwarranted assumption does not justify it; but it is the first
step in eliminating it
Relativistic Thinking (Tư duy tương đối trong mọi vấn đề)
Relativism is the view that there is no objective or factual truth, but that truth
varies from individual to individual, or from culture to culture
Forms of relativism
• Subjectivism: The view that truth is a matter of individual opinion; what
one thinks is true is true for that person
• Moral subjectivism: The view that what is morally right and
good for an individual, A, is what A thinks is morally right
and good
 • Cultural relativism: The view that what is true for person A is what
person A’s culture or society believes to be true (Ex: Ở Iran, trộm cắp bị
bắt sẽ bị chặt tay hoặc phế. Vấn đề này liên quan tới ‘văn hóa, thể chế’.
Thuyết tương đối văn hóa có thể là một rào cản tư duy phản biện)
• Cultural moral relativism: The view that what is morally
right and good for an individual, A, is whatever A’s society
or culture believes is morally right and good
Problems with Cultural Moral Relativism
Makes it impossible for one to:
• Criticize other cultures’ moral beliefs and values, even those that
intuitively seem to be terribly wrong
• Criticize one’s own societies’ prevailing moral beliefs and values
Rules out the idea of moral progress
Can lead to conflicting moral duties
Wishful Thinking (suy nghĩ viển vông)
Believing what you want to be true (without evidence or despite evidence to the
contrary)
For example, people fear the unknown and invent comforting myths to render
the universe less hostile and more predictable
• Belief in tabloid headlines
• Healing crystals and quack cures
• Communication with the dead
• “It won’t happen to me” beliefs
Ex: Donald cho rằng mình thắng bời rất nhiều. Suy nghĩ kiểu viển vông cũng
hạn chế tư duy phản biện
Chapter 2: Recognizing Arguments

Argument: Group of statements intended to prove or support another statement

• Premises (tiền đề): Statements in an argument offered as evidence or
reasons why one should accept the conclusion
• Conclusion: Statement that the premises support/prove
Statement (khẳng định): Sentence/utterance that can be viewed as either true
or false
How to identify a statement?
Put “it is true that” or “it is false that” in front of a sentence, and ask yourself
“Does it make sense”?
• If so, it is a statement
• If not, it is not a statement
Examples:
• Viet nam is a developing country.
• All IU graduates are good in English
• But if I say that “IU is a best university in Asian”. Is it a statement? If
not correct it
Statements:
More than one statement may be expressed in a sentence
Not all sentences are statements
- Examples of sentences that are not statements
 o What time is it? (question)
o Close the window! (command)
o Oh, my goodness! (exclamation)
Statements can be about subjective matters of personal experience as well as
objectively verifiable matters of fact
What about this?: “All woman are beautiful”
Tricky Statements:
Rhetorical (tu từ) question: Sentence that has the grammatical form of a
question but is meant to be understood as a statement
• Ex: Don’t you know smoking will kill you? (Meaning: Smoking
will kill you)
Ought imperative: Sentence that has the form of a command but is intended to
assert what ought to be done
• Ex: “Do not drive after drinking!” (really means “You should not …….”)

Arguments: How do you know?

• A = P1 + P2+…; C
Indicator words provide clues that premises or conclusions are being put
forward
• Premise (tiền đề) indicators: Since, for, seeing that, in as much as, in
view of the fact that, because, as, and given that
• Conclusion indicators: Therefore, hence, so, it follows that, wherefore,
thus, and consequently
Indicators:
• May be misleading
• May be absent in some cases
Finding Conclusions When Indicators Are Absent
• Find the main issue and determine the position of the writer or speaker on
that issue
• Look at the beginning or the end of the passage; the conclusion is usually
found in one of those places
• A statement is probably the conclusion if the word “therefore” fits well
before it
 • The “because” trick (fill in the blanks): The arguer believes (conclusion)
because (premise(s))
What Is Not an Argument?
- Reports: Convey information about a subject.
- Unsupported assumptions: When someone puts forth what he/she
believes but does not intend for any of his/her statements to support
another
• Ex: “Students like this course because of the professor Ngoc”
- Conditional (“if-then”) statements
Ex: If it rains, the picnic will be canceled
Most common forms: If A then B. B if A.
Sometime, Do not always take the “if-then” form (Ex: In the event of rain,
the picnic will be canceled)
But, some special cases of “if-then”
• Some conditional statements do involve a process of reasoning (Ex: If
Rhode Island were larger than Ohio, and Ohio were larger than Texas,
then Rhode Island would be larger than Texas)
• T + T ---- T
Ex:
• If Bob is taller than Chris, then Bob is taller than Ann
• If Bob is taller than Ann, then Bob is taller than Lori
• Thus, if Bob is taller than Chris, then Bob is taller than Lori
Take the form “If A then B. If B then C. Therefore, if A then C.”
They are Chain arguments:
Arguments can be composed entirely of conditional statements
- Illustrations: Do not prove or support the claim but provide examples of
the claim (Ex: “Many wildflowers are edible. For example, daisies and
day lilies are delicious in salads.”)
- When it is difficult to differentiate between an argument and an
illustration, one must use the principle of charity
o Principle of charity: When interpreting an unclear passage, always
give the speaker or writer the benefit of the doubt
Explanation: Tries to show why something is the case, not to prove that
it is the case
Titanic sank because it struck an iceberg (explanation)
 Parts of an explanation
Explanandum: Statement that is explained
Explanans: Statement that does the explaining
Format (fill in the blanks): Explanandum because Explanans
“I ski because I think it is fun” (explanation)
“You should ski because it is fun” (argument)

Tests to Distinguish Arguments and Explanations (tham khảo – note nếu còn chỗ)
1. Common-knowledge test
• If the statement that a passage is seeking to prove or explain is a matter of common
knowledge, it is probably an explanation
• Most people don’t present arguments for things people already believe
• Example: “TV is very influential in society because most people watch it”
2. Past-event test
• If the statement that a passage is seeking to prove or explain is an event that occurred
in the past, it is probably an explanation
• Usually, people don’t argue that “X occurred”
• Example: “The U.S. entered World War two because of Japan’s attack on
Pearl Harbor”
3. Author’s intent test
• If the person making the statement is trying to “prove” something, then the passage is an
argument
• Example: “You want a college degree because you want a better life”
• If the person making the statement is trying to explain why something is true, then the passage
is an explanation
• Example: “Kevin is majoring in political science because he wants to go to law
school”
4. Principle of charity test
• One must interpret unclear passages generously
• One must never interpret a passage as a bad argument when the evidence reasonably
permits one to interpret it as not an argument at all
• The test: If you have a choice between interpreting a statement as a “bad argument” or
an “unsatisfactory explanation,” do the latter
• A bad argument is a worse mistake